Performance Enhancement

Performance Enhancement
Date 2085-07-19 GM Niven Location Seattle Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Parashield Security
Geodesic Joule Samael Stacy	Parashield Security guards, Barghests, Gomatias,
Casualties and losses
none	none

Summary

Runners are hired to steal a new prescription formula, all to further The Grindset. A minor hiccup during legwork is smoothed over by heavy improvisation.

Background

Zeta-ImpChem subsidiary Eco-Solutions was working on a new stimulant when one of their employees said too much to the wrong person and leaked some information about the project. A Horizon executive decided to appropriate the drug to keep up in his competitive workplace.

The Meet

The runners were summoned to a cafe for the meet, where Samael, Joule, and Geodesic convened at the preplanned meeting place while Stacy blended in with the crowd. The J's pitch was straightforward: the runners would acquire the formula and sample for Eco-Solutions' new stimulant being worked on in their Tacoma lab within the next five days. In return, the Mr. Johnson would pay them 20k (or 19991 nuyen for Geodesic, who insisted on a numerically significant paycheck) and some recreational substances. While the lab's address was offered, the J gave the team no info on the lab's security, corporate structure, or even the name of the substance they were supposed to be acquiring (though he agreed to pay them anyway if they could prove that the lab didn't have a stimulant project on file, since he was that confident in his source).

The Plan

After making their proper introductions, the runners split up to search for clues. Geodesic ran some searches on the lab, finding out that it was a Zeta-ImpChem owned company that licensed its security out to Parashield.

Joule mentioned that she would be able to do astral recon soon but would need to go back to work for now, prompting Stacy to call Joule's boss (who is also her fixer) and convince him to alter her schedule--at the cost of making up the missed hours later. With that problem resolved Joule projected her mind to the location and investigated the facility. She assessed and assensed the astral security and found no significant obstacles to the plan the runners were already putting together.

The runners reconvened and pooled their info. Joule's familiarity with MCT gave her info on Parashield to share with the others. Given what they had seen, the runners decided to take a subtle approach and go in as hires sent by the parent corporation, grabbing the sample and formula while inside. They just needed to figure out what exactly they were looking for.

But that was a problem for tomorrow. First, IDs had to be procured. Stacy took the team on a field trip down to the Crime Mall, where she negotiated with local forgers for assistance in putting documents together for the team's cover story. Convincing IDs and transfer papers were created in this way.

Next, Geodesic was tasked with infiltrating the lab's host to gather information on the formula, such as its name and identifying features. However, as soon as she entered the host her Decaying Dissonance clouded her vision, showing her a place that was **wrong**. The math was wrong, the code was wrong, it needed to be reordered. She began frantically overwriting random files, the Dissonance blinding her to the IC hammering her persona until the host's Blaster IC finally derezzed her persona and knocked the technomancer out in meatspace. When the others revived her Geodesic had trouble articulating what exactly happened, but communicated that she had failed to acquire any actionable data while trashing the host in the process. It was decided that there would be no second attempt to crack the host and that info on the facility would be acquired in a different way.

During her matrix searches on the previous day, Geodesic had found the name of a researcher associated with the Tacoma lab who had recently published a paper on stimulants: Jannsen Moore. Guessing that Moore was involved in the project they were targeting, the runners decided to pull the project name off his commlink. To minimize risk of a failed hack, the runners decided to do this by kidnapping the researcher from his apartment and cracking the commlink through a direct connection. The kidnapping went off without any issues, and the narcojet-drugged researcher was stashed in a hotel while Geodesic cracked his commlink. She found the project name, ZXF-3. Meanwhile, Stacy used a synthskin mask to imitate Moore and call in sick.

Now, with a target, disguises, and forged papers, the run could begin.

The Run

The next day, the team put their plan into action. Samael, Stacy, and Joule donned disguises while Geodesic waited offsite to do her part. The trio headed in, using a cover story of host disruptions similar to what the lab had experienced when Geodesic trashed it happening to the parent corp as the reason no one was warned of their arrival and transfer. Their documents held up and they weren't obviously lying, so no one pried any further into the issue. The "interns" were given a tour of the facility and then left to set up their cubicles. Instead, they headed up to the lab to get a safety orientation, using the time to explore the lab and find the compound. Stacy distracted the scientists in the room with small talk while Joule stood between the cameras and the sample and Samael used his now-empty narcojet pen to slurp up a tiny sample of ZFX-3. He also data-tapped a terminal for Geo to copy the formula off of.

With no issues getting the sample and formula, the trio just needed a way to leave without attracting suspicion. They returned to their cubicles and tried to blend in until lunch. Samael, who at this point had been in drug withdrawal for days, fell asleep at his desk and was almost written up for it until Stacy intervened on his behalf. Once lunch break arrived the runners used the excuse of heading out to a local food place to make their exit.

Aftermath

The handoff with Mr. Johnson was uneventful.

After the run was over, Stacy called up the Spikes gang and told them that a humanis sympathizer was tied up in the room where the runners had left Jannsen Moore. She gave the gangers the location of a room card she stashed and let them take over. After this "tragic misunderstanding" the researcher was never seen again.

Eco-Solutions pretty quickly figured out that they'd been infiltrated once they made contact with Zeta-Impchem, but had no real clues as to who the infiltrators really were. The corp decided to bide their time until a competitor started selling something made with the stolen drug formula and use that as a direction for investigation. The death of one of their researchers at the hands of a gang complicated their investigation further, presenting them with a red herring.

Rewards

• 2 CDP
• 20k nuyen
• Either 6000 nuyen worth of Long Haul, Novacoke, Psyche, Pinpoint, Aisa, Betel, Betameth, Ex, Push, and/or Red Mescaline or 3 CDP or any combination of the two
• 1 more CDP

Game Quotes

Geo: "Fuck it, we'll do it live." Sam: "Absolutely not.".

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Samael - In retrospect, accepting a run when my veins were screaming for me to give in was perhaps not the best of ideas. I am uncertain where the balancing line in this life is between rigid discipline and the use of, as our Mr. Johnson called them, performance enhancers, exist; I do not regret the choices I made during the surveying run, but I am finding the length of their after effects a bitter taste in my mouth. Still, despite being at... shall we say less than my best, we were able to accomplish the job as a clean run. Not a single bullet fired, not a single innocent harmed, outside of one gentleman who is going to have to explain to his wife why he was suddenly in a hotel across town. Despite the... surface level frustrations... with Stacey, she seems remarkably competent, Joule's support magic was vital for the run to succeed, and despite Geodesic's love of chaos, when it counted, she came through with the formula needed for us to complete the run.

Geodesic: "It happened again. It. Happened again. It happened again. It's flooding back. Those pathways. Those formulae. Those visions. In the nodules. The eyes. Within the host. I've been controlling myself. And yet. I couldn't. I can't tell Oliver. I can't tell Oliver, he'll. He'll worry. He'll get scared. He'll think I can't. Protect him. I NEED to protect him. I have to thank Samael. And Joule. I owe them. Frag. But we did the job. We survive. For now. I. Can't let it happen again."