Higher Education

Higher Education
Date 2081-03-21 GM tkul Location University of Washington Seattle campus / Administration Host foundation
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Cyber Knight Sparrow Night Claws Twitch Rabbit	University of Washington Seattle
Commanders and leaders
Val Steele
Units involved
The dreaded Sharktopus!

Summary

Cyber Knight along with Dr. Sparrow took the help of runners Twitch, Night Claws and Rabbit to help Cyber Knight's sister get back her college degree. Twitch, Night Claws and Sparrow entered the University of Washington Seattle's main host foundation to alter the graduation records changing Val's graduation status from denied to graduated. Meanwhile, CK and Rabbit used the cover of night to physically infiltrate the campus and render the physical data archives unusable so any records of Val not graduating are forever eliminated.

Background

Cyber Knight's sister Val Steele spend 4 years of her life studying mechanical engineering at University of Washington Seattle in hopes for a better future. Val was born SINless so she used a fake SIN to enroll. Unfortunately just before graduation, the dean of Engineering discovered Val's SIN was fake and so her graduation was permanently denied on grounds of identity forgery. Disheartened she put all her dreams and aspirations in the garbage bin. CK could not see her 4 years of effort go to waste like that so he wanted to get her diploma back. Sadly CK sucks at the matrix. Another runner, Dr. Sparrow promised to help out CK and so they put up a sponsored run to help get Val's diploma.

The Meet

The meet took place in Redmond at the School of Clashing Blades Smashing Fist. Nothing significant happened on the meet except for planning.

The Plan

The intent was that any and all records of Val's degree being withheld or her SIN being fake need to be purged while editing in the information that she had graduated under a new high rating fake SIN. The records need to be altered from the UWaS host. Thus the 3 technomancers: Sparrow, NC and Twitch need to do a deep dive into the host, skirt along the paradigm and alter the records. The university also maintains a set of offline records in physical data storage. CK and Rabbit would sneak into the university after locating the archives and either steal or destroy the archives along with all the data in it.

The Run

Twitch and Rabbit decided to go scout the university out during working hours. They found out the university is filled with high rating SIN scanners, especially in the admin building. Their SINs being pinged constantly, they did not want to stay too long and risk any of their SINs getting burned. Instead Twitch used some techno powers and Rabbit using some slick palming managed to get a hold of an employee's commlink giving them direct access to the host, thus bypassing its defenses. Knowing the employee would find in a matter of hours that his commlink has gone missing and the host de-slaving it, they had to rush the host dive. The team also uncovered the floor plans locating the archives.

Rabbit and CK using the cover of night snuck into the campus and used grapple guns to climb up to the roof of the admin building from which the archives would be a shorter distance. CK hired a vory decker to bypass the alarms on the roof door (since both he and rabbit lacked hacking skills) and the teachnos were recovering from host dives. CK and Rabbit managed to unlock all the necessary doors and bypass the cameras with maximum stealth, not needing to damage property or knock out/kill any one. They eventually entered the spider rooms, stealth past the unconscious deckers in VR and made their way into the small archives room where they proceeded to destroy everything. Purposefully making it look messy with lots of collateral damage and neo-anarchist symbols to mask their true purpose. They then smashed through a wall and escaped.

Meanwhile the recent past, the technos had infiltrated the host and entered the foundation where they encountered its paradigm. An undersea network of laboratories where people with color coded uniforms (jump suits). While the haven's two most loud and mohawkiest characters managed to pull off a smooth infiltration op. The smooth techno team did the was... not so smooth.

Because entrances into the foundation are random, Sparrow ended up separated from NC and Twitch, who had, somehow, luckily ended up together. However, in an attempt to fit in with the paradigm, the two quickly separated, doing what they believed their respective duties were within the paradigm, so as to reduce variance.

Twitch ended up finding the Portal node, but tipped off a spider who was in there doing maintenance. The man attacked Twitch, but Twitch and NK quickly finished him off.

The team continued searching, eventually reuniting, although almost not recognizing each other, and identified 5 nodes, but still not the archive or master control nodes. This was when things changed. The spiders, unbeknownst to the technos, had united at the master control node and were determined to oust them by changing the paradigm to become murderous against them. The sea turned red and monsters became present in the ocean.

The paradigm was going against them with an ever increasing intent to murder the PCs. The PCs took diving hardsuits and used cyber assault rifles to blast through into the dark ocean which had started to turn blood red. Out of the blood red ocean came...the sharktopus. A horrifying giant abomination, half shark, half octopus latched onto Sparrow. It was quickly dispatched, but not before it had left some damage on the techno.

The team knew they had to go down again, so they pushed forward. The blood water made it difficult to see. But they followed the cables that led between modules... until they disappeared. Somehow, the team managed to navigate to the next unknown node. When they came out of the half moon pool, they saw 5 diving suits, wet, but not with the blood-red ocean. They surmised this must be the master control node. The enemy spiders were changing the paradigm to kill the team.

The team decided a full on blitz was the best solution, not wanting to leave them in charge of the master control node where they could alter the paradigm to hurt them further. They busted into the room. It was a bloody battle, during the worst of which, Sparrow was gunned down.

Hurt, bleeding, and one man down, Twitch, Night Claws and Night King hacked the master control node to change the ocean waters to normal, then created a submersible that could take them in between nodes more easily. They rode this to the final node, the archive node, where they altered the file that was their objective. They then doubled back, retrieving Sparrow's body from the paradigm, and went to the portal node, escaping from the foundation.

Aftermath

Val finally got to graduate with a mechanical engineering diploma. She and CK were extremely grateful to Sparrow, Rabbit, Twitch and NC. Sparrow nearly avoided death and was recovering from their wounds. CK and Val would visit them and check on their recovery.

Rewards

• 12 Karma (CK took Catlike quality at chargen price and 5 karma instead)
• Contact Val Steele connection raised to 4
• Gained contact Val Steele
• 2 CDP

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Cyber Knight: My parents were born SINless. Me and my siblings were also SINless. We were basically one big family with no future just like hundreds and thousands of others living in the barrens and the underground. A drek life with a drek future. Rain got killed at a young age and everyone thought I was next for all the drek I used to fight on a daily basis, masquerading as a knight and what not. Jax was a troublemaker too but the army set him straight and now he's a SINner, just a jarhead grunt but whatever. Val though, she was the brightest among us four. She wanted to go to college. Heh, most of us haven't even been to school. And she damn well did go to college, on her own merit. Dad didn't have to pay a nuyen, she sponsored herself. But after 4 years of hard work the college did her dirty. Kicked straight down to the SINless shithole again. The worst part was she accepted her fate. But I couldn't. Can't just stand back and watch her future die. I could never have pulled this off by myself but with the Haven's aid I did and Val is the pride of our family name. A college graduate within the Steele family. Damn right. Its a shame Sparrow almost died on this just mission. Note to self: bring flowers and cake for Sparrow when they wake up, Val's coming with me too to personally thank each one of the runners that helped. Then I should call Mom, Dad and Jax to give them the good news.

Twitch: That was my first time in the Foundation. I learned some things that will help me get better, but... well, let's just say one of the things I learned is I need to get stronger first. What happened to Sparrow sucks. I hope they get better soon. Sending Jenny, one of my Fly Spys to keep an eye.