I Had Strings But Now I'm Free

I Had Strings But Now I'm Free
Date 2085-01-13 GM Sarcarian Location The Middle of Nowhere, Russian Federation Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Irena Tachikov	Ex Pacis Remnants	Erika
C-Unit 537 - Hunter Insight La Rapide Shy	Subject P-2273 Mk.2	Kill Team Members
Casualties and losses
	Subject P-2273 Mk.2

Summary

In which the runners are hired to recover a missing Evo asset which has been repurposed by a third party.

Background

See: There Are No Strings On Me.

After the events of the above run, Subject P-2273 managed to escape into the Russian wilderness, where they were subsequently found in a near-inoperable state by a runner team and sold to Erika operatives for parts. Erika subsequently repurposed their new asset from a broken-down FBR into a proper cyborg, using them to track enemy operatives in Eastern Europe. At some point within the last three months, the subject encountered remnants of Ex Pacis (see: Mainilan Fire and Anomalous Spy Games for more), who managed to subvert them and use them as their latest Trojan Horse to attempt to kick-start a war in Europe. Currently the subject is making their way towards a Russian nuclear silo, and Evo - having picked up signal traffic confirming their continued existence - would very much like to recover them before that happens, or before Erika's kill team catches up to neutralize them.

The Meet

Irena Tachikov contacts the runners through their fixers (or directly, in the case of Shy), passing along a business card which serves as an access key to a rented host on the Emerald City Grid - inside the blank unsculpted host, Tachikov waits to greet the runners and explain the situation (see above), telling them that she can offer them 10k nuyen base, 20k if the subject's brain is recovered, and 30 if they are recovered relatively whole and intact (so as to study Erika's tech). La Rapide attempts to negotiate for travel expenses, but Tachikov shuts her down quick, telling her that she's quite sure they can handle their own end of things and that she only pays for services rendered. Agreeing to the job, the team are left with contact info for their employer and told to dress for the cold.

The Plan

Hunter contacts Alexey Dorosov to network with a smuggler (Cascade) who can get them into the country, while Shy calls Commander to have an extraction team on standby. The plan is to head to the last known location of the target and work on picking up their trail from there. La Rapide goes out into the barrens to top off on essence from some poor schmuck and acquire an appropriate amount of blood for traveling snacks, while Insight sets up her ritual circles to overclock her brain and starts on the Matrix legwork.

After acquiring their cold weather survival gear, the team (minus Insight, who stays in Seattle to provide remote support) meets up with Cascade and her VTOL, who flies them across the Pacific ocean towards Russia - thankfully she doesn't try to push her luck by flying through a storm, and the team are able to make their way across the boarder thanks to the smuggler's piloting skills helping them evade the Russian radar stations. During the flight, Raps and Insight tag-team some Matrix searches to identify important corporate and government infrastructure in the area - a detailed search uncovers evidence of an Evo bio-dome staffed by scientists as well as an old NeoNET facility (now occupied by Erika) likely being used as a staging area by their opfor, plus a number of classified government sites. Further digging identifies them as a bunker for high-level VIPs, as well as a partially-decommissioned nuclear silo which potentially still contains an active warhead.

The Run

The team decide to investigate the silo, deducing that it is a likely hideout for their target - once they're over the drop zone, Cascade opens the doors and the trio of runners parachute out, with their decker very glad she's working remote. Safely making their landing, they dispose of their parachutes by burying them in the snow and start making their way through the woods (with only Hunter leaving tracks to be followed). Remaining as stealthy as possible, the team proceed with caution, with La Rapide picking up an odd smell which she thinks might be that of a piasma, but with a certain greasy, oily quality to it; she marks out its trail, and the team are lucky enough to avoid crossing paths with it.

En-route to the silo, Insight chances to spot a silent-running icon for a recon drone hovering about half a kilometer above scanning the area - she identifies it as an old NeoNET (re: Erika) model, managing to get a mark on it and determine that it's part of a PAN with 4 other icons on it as well as (evidently) a dedicated e-war specialist equipped with a pi-tac; taking control of the feed, she edits out signs of the team's passage and uses it to provide a bird's eye view of the situation. La Rapide uses her detect life spell to extend her senses out to about 500m, noticing a lot of wildlife in their path; her sensitive ears detect the sounds of trees falling, and the spell picks up the passage of a large creature at the edge of its radius. Through the sensors, Insight notices the passage of a large bear-like paracritter, as well as the attempts of the trailing Erika team to lure it out of their path. Now aware that the opfor is hot on their trail, the runners redouble the pace towards their destination.

Approaching the abandoned silo, Raps attempts to send a fly-spy to check out the apature, but Insight detects that there's an area jammer set up to preclude such a thing - thus, the banshee sets up some microwire and starts to lower herself inside to try to find and disable it. While doing so, she cuts herself on a jagged piece of metal, accidentally injecting herself with cutter nanites; shortly after disabling the jammer, the nanites start to, well, cut their way out - thankfully her silence ability helps to muffle the resulting screams a bit, and a quick dose of numb helps with the pain, but it's not a great start to things.

With the jammer taken care of, Shy pilots the fly-spy inside while Insight hides its data trails; inside, they find a bunker door leading to a tunnel network, confirming that there's more than one exit. Insight also manages to detect the presence of a persona inside, though La Rapide's spell does not detect the presence of life (the subject has managed to resist it, thanks grey mana!) The group debate their options, considering waiting in ambush for the Erika team and picking off whoever comes out on top of the resulting engagement between them and the cyborg, but decide to engage before Erika can arrive and attempt to exfiltrate through the tunnels with their target.

Thanks to Raps' silence ability and Shy's supernatural proficiency with stealth, the team are able to make their way inside the bunker unnoticed (due to the toxic background count, Insight declines to send along a spirit, instead focusing on Matrix concerns). Raps' thermal sensitivity is just enough to detect a slightly warmer patch of water where the subject his concealed itself, so Shy takes aim while still hanging from the rope. That's when the Erika team enter the fray, triggering an intense close-quarters battle - Shy's first shot manages to punch a huge hole in the subject's armor, though her second one ends up as a glancing blow. The subject returns fire with it's implanted gauss cannon, though a timely IATF from Insight saves Shy from becoming a cloud of red mist, then Raps closes the distance with her monowhip and ends up counter-struck with her arm cut off (she got better, thanks regen). Hunter unloads his SnS shotgun into the water, frying the cyborg's components and triggering it's failsafe protocol, but Insight manages to squelch the signal to the bomb before it goes off.

What follows is a pitched running battle, with the Erika team throwing grenades into the hole while suppressive firing anything that moves - Shy fires back, getting the group some breathing room, while Insight slips back into AR just in time to avoid being hit by biofeedback from a nasty data spike as the enemy decker notices her. Hunter and Shy work to haul the now-inert cyborg shell behind the blast door, while La Rapide deploys a suicide drone to target the Erika team, who just barely manage to run for their lives from the resulting explosion. The blast door is closed just as the grenades hit the ground and go off, narrowly saving the team (and the subject) from being chunky salsa'd.

Aftermath

Having escaped almost certain death by explosion, the trio of runners make their way through the network service and maintenance tunnels - Insight sends a spirit to help guide them along while working on fixing her deck and staying out of the Matrix crosshairs of the opfor. Thanks to deft navigational skills, and the fact that Erika's team assumes that no one could have survived what was thrown at them and elects not to pursue, the crew is able to make it out of the tunnels and to their rendezvous with their extraction in time to keep the brain inside the CCU from dying.

Returning to Seattle, the runners meet with Tachikov at a Vory bar near the Tacoma docks to present their prize - the Evo corpo actually looks impressed for a brief moment, complementing their work and briefly expressing curiosity at the odd modifications made to Erika's cyborg shell before delivering their promised full payment for a job well done. After analyzing the code inside the kitbashed rig which was being used to pilot the shell, she makes the parts available to Insight following some additional negotiation.

Rewards

REWARDS for "I Had Strings But Now I'm Free": 30k nuyen 5 karma 12 CDP +3 EVO reputation Optional Contact: Irena Tachikov (C6/L1 Evo Acquisitions Specialist) for 6 RVP or 12 CDP (can raise loyalty up to 4 if you already have her) Optional Gear Rewards: Weapons, armor, and electronic parts

For Insight: Deck Builder @ chargen price + New Plot Hook (if electronic parts rewards are taken, her cyberdeck contains parts of a dissonant-made kitbashed rig - it's probably fine)

Game Quotes

Hunter: "As it happens, I *am* Awakened..." La Rapide: "I mean, arguably."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Hunter

"This piece again. I thought we had it the first time i was send out to get it. Well now i was able to deliver it. I saw Shy again which was nice and i also saw her get almost killed again which wasnt nice, was fully prepared to drag her away from the shitshow again. We did manage to avoid dying in a Nuclear Missile Silo to explosions. I really should look into Combat tactics against Cyborgs, now that i´ve been almost killed twice by some. "