Bazaar Blitz

Bazaar Blitz
Date 2081-06-18 GM Zombono Location Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Flower Power Blue Streak Doris Santesso Wildman	Muhammad Ahmad Shebar New Islamic Jihad Mitsuhama Computer Technologies Bodyguards
Casualties and losses
None.	None.

Summary

LOCAL MAN TAKEN BY UNKNOWN ASSAILANTS

(Thursday, June 18, 2081) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: A sunny afternoon in the crowded Pasar Raya Jasa Jaya bazaar was darkened today when a group of unknown assailants assaulted a local man and his two bodyguards. On-site astral and physical security teams were dispatched to deal with the threat, but were overwhelmed by a well-prepared and capable extraction team. The bodyguards were quickly neutralized and the man shoved and driven away in a nondescript sedan. The whereabouts and identity of the abducted man are currently unknown. Paramedics called to the scene treated the two stunned bodyguards, as well as numerous minor injuries sustained by bystanders in the panic.

Background

A post appeared on the Shadowhaven BBS from an eco-friendly organization hiring runners for an extraction job with travel benefits.

The Meet

Once comfortably aboard Surf Duct’s scientific vessel and its satellite enhanced connection to the matrix, the team made its way to the designated virtual address provided by the Johnson. The door opened into a sim-sense enabled virtual cafe—the kind of food-court, street cafe locale common to malls and amusement parks worldwide. Directed to the Johnson’s table, the team slid into matrix representations of injection-molded plastic chairs and faced their potential employer. She (or, her avatar, at least) was a stern elven Japanese woman in her 40s. Her hair was pulled into a bun, the tight hair accentuating the elongated points of her aural helix. She wore a crisp business suit. She introduced herself as Ms. Johnson, then gave a vague description of the job and offered pay as appropriate to the pre-negotiation part of the meet. It was an extraction mission in Malaysia, and the pay was 10k nuyen apiece. Transportation costs and lodging would be covered, but gear space on the flight was limited. Anything illegal would have to be smuggled separately, at a cost of roughly 10% of the item’s value. Santesso settled in to negotiate, but had a rough hand: the organization the Johnson represented simply didn’t have the funding for much more. He did manage to negotiate a discount on smuggling, but that’s it. Still, a job’s a job, and the chance to see a foreign country had its own appeal. The team accepted the terms.

That settled, the Johnson laid out the job: Muhammad Ahmad Shebar, a member of the terrorist anti-magic group New Islamic Jihad, needed to be forcibly extracted and delivered to the Johnson’s on-the-ground agent. Ms. Johnson represented an undisclosed environmental group, and Shebar was wanted for questioning related to numerous acts of terrorism. He was far too connected for the authorities to do anything about, with deep governmental ties, and was very careful to keep himself off camera and squeaky clean. Ms. Johnson’s organization had come into information re: an upcoming visit to a large public market in Kuala Lumpur, and was hiring the runners to extract him there. "Discretion," she said, "is mandatory."

The Run

On arriving in Kuala Lumpur, the runners were driven to the motel where they'd be staying. It was a seedy motel with lax security and even laxer housekeeping. The team had a few days to prepare before the target was scheduled to visit the bazaar, so they filled it with matrix searches, on site examination, and planning. The bazaar was a fairly permanent open air marketplace, with well-established shops occupying sturdy stalls in a gigantic site carving out an area of a few city blocks approximately the size of two football fields. The market had physical, matrix (it was a destination host that assigned each persona a friendly assistant IC to help their shopping--well, friendly until that persona tried to do anything illegal), and magical security. There were watcher spirits who would bring other spirits in case of a security breach, there were alarms that would summon physical security...all in all, it was a fairly secure location.

The team considered other options, including jumping the target before he and his personal bodyguards could make it into the bazaar, but there were just too many variables. Santesso set his fly-spies to watch the parking structure, but there were so many directions the target could approach from that it was easy to miss them. The target and his bodyguards made it through to the bazaar, so there was no choice but to get close, deal with his bodyguards (a cybered up mundane and a mage) and any security that showed up as quickly as possible, and extract the target.

Doris and Wildman both summoned spirits to deal with the watcher spirit, while Blue Streak did a called shot into the mage's head with his stick'n'shock loaded assault rifle. The mage went down in a twitching mass. The other bodyguard threw the target over his shoulder and began to high-tail his way out of the market. Wildman cast multiple chill spells on the bodyguard in an effort to slow him down while the rest of the team attempted to deal with arriving physical security and catch the fleeing bodyguard. Eventually, the Blue Streak caught up with the bodyguard, who dropped the target and prepared for combat. Blue Streak took him out, then grabbed the target and muscled him into the extraction car while Santesso's AZT Crawler, perched atop the runners' getaway vehicle, laid down suppressive fire with SnS ammo. The rest of the team then piled into the car and they all sped away.

Aftermath

Once the target was in the agent’s car, the runners dispersed. A few of them took the opportunity to travel for a bit, blending into the random mass of tourists by joining them. No information about the target’s status and/or whereabouts is currently available.

Rewards

• 10,000 Nuyen
• 11 Karma
• 2 CDP

Player After Action Reports (pAARs)

Doris

Rough job. I'm used to travelling on a research budget, but this J really skimped... More than 20 hours of transit and four stops. Oof. And the hotel! I would have rather been lodged out at sea where you can get a nice breeze and jump in the water. Instead I got bed bugs and no air con. It was nice getting to go out to the market without completely covering up, at least! I didn't want to stay in the country long after that because of how loudly things went, unfortunately, so I wound up changing the plane tickets to stop by Sulawesi on the way back. It was fun having Santesso and Blue Streak join me for the leisure trip, too!

Santesso

Well, I spent most of the run trying to play catch-up with my much faster teammates, but I was an effective getaway driver. Wish I could've taken more drones with me...but you learn to adapt. Good crew!