Be Still My ACHEing Heart

Be Still My ACHEing Heart
Part of Takes Two to Dango
Date 2087-07-25 GM Asmodeus Location Renraku Arcology, Downtown, Seattle Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Feral Ghouls	"Guardian" Spirit
Dango Samael Augur	Feral Troll	Spirit

Summary

The gang retrieves potentially incriminating pre-Crash documents from a part of the ACHE Renraku lost data for.

Background

Dango's had some grudges to settle with Renraku for the longest time. Now, it seems there's a guardian angel willing to help her out with it!

The Meet

The meet is a dead drop with 20k escrow credsticks, a single use commcode for when the team has the documents and a vague idea that the floors of the ACHE near the 210s are plausibly going to contain the paperback files from before the First Matrix Crash.

The Plan

The plan recognizes that bringing all their top gear is going to be a bit difficult, so they search for smuggling opportunities and find information about the mole people gang in the ACHE, the Machinists. Scavengers and smugglers for the right price, they agree to a Matrix meet and agree to hustle a few pieces of critical gear into the ACHE. Samael knows someone from the Daze, Bubblegum who will forge SINs for them for a week.

The Run

Infiltration begins by walking into the public mall section through security. Scans fail to detect Samael's delta grade augs, he palms his drugs in and everything else is checked to be legal. Once there, the Machinist contact drops off their gear and helps them to get up to the higher floors through vents and backdoor areas in the Support Zones of the ACHE. This costs them a pretty penny.

Once in, they settle into a remote corner, start investigating and get a lead on another group in the area, the 404s. The homeless population has troubling omens as intel, and searching for the 404s gets the team dangerously close to engaging with feral ghouls eating stragglers in the mostly automated parts of the Arcology. Dango spots incoming dangers, Augur silences their approaches and Samael's expert sneaking allows them to skip around the dangerous-looking ferals.

Once inside, Augur and Samael manage to sneak into one of the hacker dens the 404s have with signs that this particular place is warded by someone with knowledge of the Order of St. Sylvester. Augur recognizes this and demands that Samael disrupt the wards while he's in there, looking for a deck to connect Dango to. Once he does, Dango finds files about the old offices they're looking for and an unknown figure apparates in the den, shocking the hackers. While the hackers mount a desperate defense, Samael slinks out before bullets start flying and the team rushes to scour the offices clean before whatever the spirit was returns to guard it.

Extraction occurs with the mysterious Johnson's help in Floor 152's emergency medevac platforms, a high end DocWagon chopper lowering and 'extracting' terminally ill runners with a prepaid contract after taking the folders from them. They're dropped unceremoniously on a Snohomish rooftop with credsticks.

Aftermath

The files are found and Dango's scans reveal this is about Keruba International, patents, AIs and possibly theft of trade secrets from a corpo mole that Renraku's founder may have used to establish their early dominance with knowbots. While corporate theft is a common occurrence, it could be used by Renraku's rivals to nail the megacorporation to the wall if further proof is acquired. This is clearly evidence someone else was also trying to find as the runners kept walking into dead bodies with maker mag ammo in their skulls, so it appears Dango will have to race an agent of the Blue Samurai to the truth -- and to really slide a dagger between Renraku's ribs.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Samael - For my first time inside the ACHE, I have to admit, I somehow expected worse. Granted, worse than troll ghouls that could have ripped the team in half seems like a poor thing to wish for. All the same, I have that sinking feeling this run will come back to bite me somehow.

Dango - Well well, Looks like I got what I needed from this. Perfect, Now how to use it....