Six Things I Hate About You

Six Things I Hate About You
Date 2084-01-24 GM Sarcarian Location The Middle of Nowhere, Republic of Quebec Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Cecelia Cross	Lone Star Security Services	Ex-Seraphim
Gigabite Six of Hearts	Security Officers Security Spirits	Sleeper Agent Super Spy
Casualties and losses
		Super Spy (with extreme prejudice)
This was an ascension run.

Summary

In which Six of Hearts is tasked with retrieving some old but sensitive information and faces off against a rival agent. Also Gigabite tags along.

Background

Cecelia Cross, in her ongoing efforts to revitalize the CatCo brand, is seeking information on the company's old spy service, the Seraphim. After the dissolution of the company's holdings following the events of Crash 2.0 (and Lucian Cross' subsequent "death in a plane crash"), most of the Seraphim agents went underground or turned mercenary. However she has found indications that some of them are still active, and are using an old data terminal in a hydroelectric dam in northern Quebec as a dead drop for sensitive information. Seeking to eavesdrop and collect as much intelligence about their activities as she can, Cecelia devises a plan to plant a spy of her own using a shadow asset.

The Meet

Six of Hearts is to her herb garden in her home in Bellevue when she receives a call from Alexander-James Brodrick Johnson III, who she became acquainted with at one of his many parties. Surprisingly he is not only sober but clad in a lab coat. He tells her that he is calling on behalf of Cecelia Cross (who he is in a relationship with), and that she has evidently heard of her based on her reputation in the shadow community (and her relationship with another runner with whom she works closely). Cecelia apparently has work to offer Six if she is interested, and Six expresses that she is very interested in such a prospect. Brody J tells her to head to E-Vue in Renton, the club he owns jointly with Cecelia, before an explosion in the background forces him to end the call (he is, of course, completely unharmed by this, charmed oaf that he is).

As night time rolls around, Six makes her way to E-Vue dressed in her finest club ware; strutting her way to the front of the line (naturally, since she has an appointment and her time is more valuable than the plebeians), she encounters an irate and disappointed Vee-Jay, who patiently explains the merits of conforming to societal expectations on the subject before resigning himself to the inevitable tap on the shoulder from someone to let the shadowrunner inside without a fuss. As expected, it arrives shortly from Cecelia's bodyguard, who escorts Six inside (she does at least give the long-suffering bouncer a generous tip/bribe). Inside the club, a rather incongruous sight can be found - a troll death metal band playing on stage, with Brody J on synthesizer and Gigabite on mic; her sound isn't the typical one for the club, but there's something about a Big Goth Lady that the crowd seems to appreciate nontheless.

Lead upstairs by the bodyguard, Six is brought to a private room where Cecelia waits for her - accompanied by a lion shifter liberated by Brody J to become part of his entourage/crew of lads whom she has taken something of a shine to. With his ascent, Six gives the majestic beast a few headscritches before he makes his way out of the room (after changing back into metahuman form) to enjoy the music and leave the two to speak in private. Cecelia introduces herself properly to Six, whom she has only encountered in passing, and invites her to share a drink with her - naturally this turns out to be an opportunity for the rich person to flex with a bottle of wine that costs six thousand nuyen. Six accepts the drink with grace and the two get down to business - meanwhile, Gigabite's augmented booze sense detects the aroma of expensive alcohol, and she begins making her way towards the source.

Cecelia explains to Six that she requires someone skilled at infiltration to break into a remote facility and plant a device on a data terminal - the device, she claims, is in essence a very powerful data tap which will allow her to remotely access it even through reinforced concrete (in actuality it contains a powerful sprite which will do the hacking itself before sending the data through the Resonance). A small hive of pre-programmed nanites will then consume the device and themselves, destroying it. The exercise, she explains (deliberately downplaying both the importance and nature of the task), is more of a test of Six's abilities to complete the task, however she does offer a generous 20% above market rate for her services. Six proceeds to ask a few questions about operational perimeters before negotiating for a lower payment in exchange for a bottle of the expensive wine.

Outside, Gigabite flirts with Cecelia's bodyguard (with some success, remarkably) and asks where the expensive booze is at; the bodyguard's somewhat flustered attempts to get her to leave and spend her money down at the bar result in Six interceding on her behalf, who covertly explains to Gigabite via DNI that she knows her from the Haven's chat room and that she is here on a job. Showing professional discretion, Gigabite proceeds to head down to the bar and chug sangria pitchers like shots while she waits for her fellow runner to finish her meet. Cecelia, recognizing Gigabite over the cameras, recalls a previous incident at a yacht party where her boyfriend was made a fool of (not a difficult task) by someone matching her description, and pegs her as a good apron to act as a distraction for Six's work; when the street samurai asks about potential sub-contractors, she is able to convince Cecelia of Gigabite's debatable professionalism and that she would be useful for the job, securing payment and travel expenses for them both.

The Plan

Cecelia provides the pair with a flight to Quebec, intending to put them down at a remote airstrip within about 20km of the hydroelectric dam, from which they will proceed the rest of the way via ground vehicle. En-route the pair discuss strategy, such as it is, with both agreeing that Gigabite should stay with the getaway vehicle and make sure that nothing happens to it while Six infiltrates the dam, which will also let her be on standby in the event that a distraction is needed. Looking through the information she's been provided on the target site, Six finds that it is among the many hydroelectric dams that Shiawase operates in the country, and that it is protected by a gold-level contract from Lone Star Security Services, with a 10 minute response time via helicopter for a high-threat response team from another nearby facility. With this in mind, she intends to keep things as quiet as possible.

Landing at the airstrip, the two runners unload their gear from the plane into a waiting Jeep; while doing so, Six manages to spot the distinctive shimmer of an RPC cloak on a ridge about a mile away, thanks to the vision enhancements in her cybereyes. She decides to call Cecelia and alert her that she believes someone is watching the airstrip. A drone is soon deployed from the plane to provide a birds-eye view of the ridge, and the street samurai's sharp eyes manage to pick out the RPC shimmer hidden among a blind, confirming that there is indeed someone observing them. Cecelia tells her to be on high alert, and that she will continue to monitor the situation.

Six and Gigabite hop in the vehicle and drive towards the dam, avoiding the notice of any dangerous paracritters en-route and managing not to crash the vehicle while off-roading. From her security procedures knowledge, Six is aware of the fact that Lone Star is likely to maintain about a half-kilometer security perimeter around a site like this to keep an eye out for eco-terrorists saboteurs and the like, so she parks the Jeep just outside this range using the forest and brush as cover. Gigabite, tasked with watching the vehicle, wishes her luck and begins tuning her guitar, staying in contact with Six via microtransciever.

The Run

The approach is a difficult one - Lone Star has security sensors and drones covering the perimeter, as well as two man guard patrols with spirits on astral overwatch. Six uses her chameleon suit and RPC, taking advantage of the natural terrain in order to stay under the radar; she manages to approach the dam undetected, making her way past the security officers on duty and bypassing a maglocked door to enter the power generation facilities. The workers also fail to notice the sound of her footsteps over the noise of the turbines, and even the guards with their thermal imaging equipment do not detect her thanks to the heat signature dampening in her suit.

Meanwhile Gigabite looks around for signs of trouble and manages to spot a second set of footprints in the snow, leading off in the same direction Six went - she contacts her via microtransciever to let her know just before the signal cuts out due to interference.

Managing to slip through a keycard-locked door observed by a camera behind an employee, Six makes her way down into the bowels of the dam towards a disused area where she finds a rather elaborate ultrasound sensor grid and a hard-to-spot fibreoptic lens camera. Deftly bypassing these obstacles, she slips past the nose of security and through a door marked 'No Access' down to the oldest parts of the facility. There she uses her radar sensor to discover a booby-trapped door with a hastily-rigged bomb set to explode if she opens it; using her cybernetically-enhanced reflexes, she is able to slip her climbing claws through a crack in the door with enough speed and precision to snip a wire before the signal to the detonator can go off. Having bypassed the trap, she makes her way inside to look for whoever set it.

Back outside, Gigabite encounters a wild-man shaman wearing a headdress made of shed deer antlers and an outfit of furs and pelts. He speaks only a rough mountain French, and Gigabite does not understand a word, however they proceed to bond over the universal language of rock music.

Inside the underbelly of the dam, Six searches for signs of another intruder. Her ultrasound sensor, radar, and MAD scanner all working together allow her to locate a human-shaped mass of metal, similar to the composition of her own cyberlimbs. Launching a preemptive ambush, she turns the corner and puts a complex full auto burst directly into the figure's center of mass. However the FLR manages to shrug off the impact, and responds with a shot from a pistol produced from a hidden arm slide that knocks the wind out of Six. A bullet-time battle ensues as the two heavily-augmented combatants face off - Six pulls an anime move by using her leg jacks to leap over her target and shoot downward at them, and they respond by ricocheting a bullet off of a pipe to hit her from behind. The trick shot contest continues, each managing to dodge the other's worst attacks until Six's opponent makes a tactical retreat - however her superior situational awareness keeps her from walking into a monowire trap.

A cat and mouse game commences, with Six stalking her opponent - an ex-Seraphim agent - through a maze of tight corridors and stem-filed pipes. She is nearly thrown off balance by the sudden use of ex-ex rounds, the noise of which is almost sure to alert the guards, so she decides to throw caution to the wind and fire off a high-explosive grenade at her target; they attempt to catch it to throw it back, but the motion trigger detonates, and in the tight quarters the chunky salsa effect takes care of the spy permanently. Six investigates the body, discovering a datajack behind the ear with the old CatCo logo on it and that the limbs are likely deltaware grade; she removes the outer casing before taking the blown-up remains of their commlink and making her way back to the data terminal to plant Cecelia's device. Covering it with her cloak, she remains stealthy and silent enough that the security response moves right past her in order to assess the damage from the explosions.

Using the signal created by Cecelia's "data tap" (actually a registered courier sprite lending its services to her), Six sends a message to Gigabite that she's going to need a distraction to keep security busy while she exfiltrates after the device is finished its work. After a few minutes, once the sprite has performed its task and conveyed the data to Cecelia through their Resonance link, it returns to whence it came and the machine dissolves thanks to the nanites inside of it, which destroy one-another without a trace. With her job done, Six retraces her steps and make her way out of the dam.

Outside, Gigabite approaches the perimeter with her guitar in hand and proceeds to set up her amp, putting on an impromptu concert for the security guards who are not already investigating the disturbance. Bemused, they watch the giant woman shred sick riffs while Six sneaks around behind them and makes her way towards the waiting Jeep. Unwilling to simply leave Gigabite behind however, she waits with her sniper rifle to give her cover just in case; it proves unneeded however, as Gigabite manages to sell an utterly outrageous lie about her purpose there and how it's totally unrelated to the explosions thanks to the power of edge and troll charisma.

With the sound of a helicopter in the distance heralding the arrival of an HTR team to investigate the explosions and the dead FLR spy, the two drive quick as they can back to the airstrip and leave the country, having accomplished their task with aplomb.

Aftermath

Returning to E-Vue, Gigabite waits in line like a good citizen while Six brazenly walks past the sighing bouncer, slipping a bribe into his hand as she goes. Cecelia is pleased with Six's work, especially when she is presented with evidence of the ex-Seraphim agent's death and the remains of his commlink, promising the street samurai the promise of more work in the future. Also Gigabite drinks a whole bottle of six thousand nuyen wine in three gulps before letting out a perfectly timed belch.

Rewards

10k nuyen + one bottle of 6k nuyen wine

5 karma

20 CDP

+2 CatCo rep

Optional Contact: Cecelia Cross (C5/L2 Corpo Princess) for 6 RVP or 12 CDP

Ascension rewards

For Six:

Optional Quality: Tough-as-Nails @ chargen price

Can take Cecelia at loyalty 3 for 7 RVP or 14 CDP

For Gigs:

Optional Quality: Honest Face @ chargen price

Optional Contact: Vee-Jay (C2/L2 Club Bouncer) for 3 RVP or 6 CDP

Optional Contact: Brody J (C4/L2 Everybody's Friend) for 5 RVP or 10 CDP

Game Quotes

Gigabite: "Hey pretty lady." Six of Hearts: "You may call me 'Six' if you like." Gigabite: "Well, that's one letter off anyway."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Six_of_Hearts

Most of this was pretty normal... sneak in, plant the thing, sneak out. Didn't expect much, honestly... but then that operative showed up... oh my God, what a rush... someone who could legitimately compete with me! It was amazing! It's been so long since I've felt that kind of rush... it was... intoxicating.