Medical Debt

Medical Debt
Date 2085-09-17 GM Dawnfire Location Seattle Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Halloweeners
Datastream Pinnacle W Runner4	Character1 Character2

Summary

Edrahil Starflower hires runners to recover cyberware he sold to a pair of runners on credit, who stopped paying the bill. The team tracks them down, but is divided on how to resolve the situation and Datastream leaves the team while W and Pinnacle decide to sell the targets' other equipment to pay the debt instead of bringing them in to have their ware repossessed.

Background

Having become aware of some cyberware that failed DocWagon's quality assurance inspections and was due to be disposed of, Edrahil instead arranged for the defective product to "fall off the back of a truck" and sells it to some low-tier shadowrunners on credit. Those runners, a muscle named Wardog and a decker named Deadbolt, stopped making payments after botching a job, getting their face Scarecrow killed, and going into hiding. Edrahil wants either his money or his cyberware, obviously, so hires ShadowHaven runners to solve his problem.

The Meet

The team is instructed to meet their Johnson at Matchstick's, and the two buggy runners manage to avoid attracting too much attention on the way over. They meet Edrahil in a private room, and W attempts, poorly, to distract their J with shadowpuppets (for some reason) to give Datastream time to hack Edrahil's commlink. This doesn't work, obviously, and the J turns his commlink off and switches to a prepaid burner. After explaining the situation and making sure the runners wouldn't get squeamish about repossessing some cyberware, the team agrees to the job and are handed over what information Edrahil knows.

The Plan

Having gotten Wardog and Deadbolt's last known fake SINs and addresses from Edrahil, the runners initially plan to head to their apartment to look for clues but first Datastream hits the Matrix to see what he can find. His search lead him to the host for a group of Stuffer Shacks downtown that might have more clues. He hits the host to scrape the camera footage, until he finds what he's looking for: an exterior security camera showing them entering a dive car called the Hung Hooligan but never leaving. Datastream gets greedy and tries to look for paydata to steal, but is linklocked by Stuffer Shack's luckiest spider and is forced to abandon the host after realizing there's a genuine risk of him being taken out or tracked down.

While the dumpshocked Datastream repairs his deck, the rest of the team puts their heads together and reconsiders their plans. After giving it some thought, they recognize the name Scarecrow (Deadbolt and Wardog's recently deceased teammate) as belonging to someone who hung around the Halloweeners, and realize that the Hung Hooligan is a Halloweener hangout rumored to have a safehouse in the basement.

The Run

Having determined where they targets are likely to be, W leads the team through the OU to a tunnel that connects to the safehouse underneath the Hung Hooligan. The runners avoid a juryrigged alarm/firebomb trap set by the Halloweeners and find a pair of gangers and a hellhound guarding a door. After failing to talk the 'Weeners into just letting them in, a fight breaks out and is quickly ended by judicious application of flashbangs and SnS blasts. The one conscious ganger is intimidated into unlocking and opening the door for them, but as they're about to enter the safehouse Pinnacle and Datastream notice Wardog getting ready to jump whoever walks through first, having been alerted by the sound of combat.

W launches another flashbang into the center of the room, Datastream attempts to find Deadbolt's icon and knock her off the Matrix, and Pinnacle offers leadership to rest of the team. Wardog's attempts to take down W fail and he's knocked out by SnS. Deadbolt, who was in the middle of packing her bag in an attempt to flee, is more or less frozen by fear and at the mercy of the runners. They question her, asking how much money she has, but her and Wardog's savings of 10,000¥ aren't nearly enough to get Edrahil off their back. Datastream has a crisis of conscience, realizing that he doesn't have it in him to hand over a woman and her partner to have their 'ware ripped out of them.

Deadbolt tries to grab her Ares Predator to shoot herself, not wanting to go through the experience of having her 'ware repossessed, so W blasts her with SnS and knocks her out. The idea of selling her cyberdeck to pay the debt crosses the runners minds, but Datastream doesn't see putting her out of work more-or-less permanently as much better and wants to just double cross the J and try to kill him. The rest of the team can't agree with that, so he leaves, not wanting to take the J's blood money anymore.

Still, W and Pinnacle decide to sell of Deadbolt's gear to pay off the debt instead of turning the two street-tier runners in to their J and have their fixers find a buyer. No one dies, but a decker without a deck is going to struggle.

Aftermath

Not caring too much about how he was repaid, Edrahil is perfectly happy to take the money instead of having the cyberware ripped out of Wardog and Deadbolt. Deadbolt is put of work for the foreseeable future, but for the time being Wardog can at least kept the pair fed by selling his services as a muscle.

Rewards

For W and Pinnacle:

• 18,000¥ (9 RVP)
• 3 Karma (3 RVP)
• 2 CDP (1 RVP)
• 2 Base CDP

For Datastream:

• 10 Karma (10 RVP)
• 6 CDP (3 RVP)
• 2 Base CDP

For Everyone:

• -4 Halloweeners Faction Reputation

Optional for W and Pinnacle:

• Edrahil Starflower (C3/L1 Docwagon Fixer) (3 RVP)
• Up to 36,000¥ in Cyberware, Bioware, Pre-Paid DocWagon Subscriptions, and Medical Gear at Gear Reward rates (up to 9 RVP, taken from nuyen reward)

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Pinnacle: "I don't really understand the hesitancy from Datastream at the very end... it isn't as though I feel good about what we did, but we're career criminals and knew what we were getting into... getting cold feet so late is a sign of unprofessionalism."

Datastream - "It's not until you look them in the eyes that you realise you're dealing with people - and the other runner's immediate response makes me sick. They're people, with lives, we shouldn't rip them apart and rip them to pieces just for this job, like they're monsters."