Little Glass Vial

Little Glass Vial
Part of Chromaggia
Zydrate: This highly-addictive drug comes in a little glass vial and produces a feeling of euphoria.
Date 2081-08-07 GM SedatedAlice Location Seattle Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Yakuza
Vip3r Moth Relay Iceland

Summary

The runners are sent to locate a rich man's daughter, and end up busting a Yakuza trafficking ring in the process.

Background

Pierce McIntire, a toy company CEO with a passion for collecting 5th World NERPs, calls in ShadowHaven's assistance to locate and hopefully bring home his missing daughter, Courtney. He hopes to have her home and hopefully recovered from her ordeal in time for a dinner he's hosting 10 days from the meet.

The Meet

A party girl with a bad drug habit, Courtney has been missing for about two weeks, and took neither the car nor her commlink when she left. Pierce offers the team ¥18,000 each to figure out where she is, . and another ¥2,000 to bring her back dead or alive. Bizarrely, Pierce doesn't seem to care whether she's alive or not, and seems to actually expect the team to find her dead. He excuses himself after the initial brief, and hands the team off to his secretary, Lucinda, to have her answer any additional questions of theirs.

Lucinda gives Courtney's commlink to Vip3r so that she can search it for evidence later. She says that Courtney frequently leaves without her commlink as a form of rebellion against her father, and has a habit of sneaking out and evading her bodyguards. When Courtney does this, Lucinda says, she typically travels with credsticks, and most likely buys burner comms which she tosses before she gets home. In most cases, she either calls the family's car service or takes the Phaeton; in this instance, she did nether. Lucinda also explains that things got worse after The Incident, in which Courtney brought three new friends home from partying with her. "One of them was a jackalope," Lucinda says, and Vip3r immediately realizes she's talking about Harebuck. Following that, she went to rehab, and has never been quite the same since.

Vip3r asks about which places Courtney frequently partied at, and Lucinda told her that one of her main haunts was Bellevue's infamous Powerline Sex Club, a Yakuza-owned den of debauchery with a thriving sex and drug trade that made it a popular destination for rich party kids. Satisfied with the number of leads they'd obtained from the meet, Moth leads the team out to begin the planning phase at a hotel.

The Plan

Before making any other plans, the group agrees to let Vip3r dig through Courtney's commlink for any clues. Searching for contacts who Courtney added after leaving rehab, she discovers a Dr. Anton Orlov, and a "Billy <3." Moth recognizes Dr. Orlov's name; he's a doctor for the corrupt Red Star Clinics, which repossess 'ware that their clients are unable to pay for. Orlov specializes in "geneware and magical drek," and keeps young socialites attractive and drug-tolerant. When Moth recalls that Courtney had mentioned a desire for upgrades to Lucinda, the team resolves to scout out the clinic that night.

Vip3r finds a suspicious event in Courtney's schedule pertaining to "Billy <3," simply titled "Get the Z" and with no time or location attached. Turns out, Moth has heard of this "Z" before; it's a drug that offers the best high you've ever had, and makes the person who takes it very pliable. The team concludes that Billy was probably a rich kid who was in and out of rehab, and was either the dealer or simply knew where to acquire the drug.

The Run

Relay sends in a FlySpy drone to scout out the Red Star Clinic, and determine the best way for Iceland to get in and out of the building. Iceland cracks the maglock on the clinic's door without breaking a sweat, while Vip3r enters the host, looping its camera feeds and disabling its tripwires. There are datachips strewn carelessly across Orlov's desk; Iceland gathers them up, along with a little glass vial she believes contains the "Z," and sneaks out as silently as she entered. The team makes their getaway. Meanwhile, still in the clinic's host, Vip3r finds Courtney's file and copies it, immediately getting out of the host once the data is saved.

After a night's rest, Vip3r analyzes the data on the chips. It seems that Orlov took only a very cursory interest in all of his patients, including Courtney; the notes he kept on them were very brief, and his file on Courtney contains little information other than that she was given dietware treatments and narco treatments, turned down nephritic screens because they would prevent her from getting high, and was in fact dosed with "Z"--which turns out to be an experimental drug called zydrate. There are records of a Zydrate shipment to the clinic, which exist as files, but they're suspiciously blank. Oddly enough, so is Courtney's file that Vip3r found in the Matrix host.

Moth calls her contact, Nathan Wallace, who was a former Red Star doctor who she extracted on a previous run. Wallace lets her know that the Yakuza likely got their hands on Zydrate, and that it was almost definitely sold to them by Orlov. Zydrate is being used in the clinic in lieu of a total anaesthetic; it produces a euphoric feeling in patients, inhibits pain, and is very, VERY addictive. The runners conjecture that the Yakuza are likely using it on trafficking victims to set them up with personafixes, and know that they have to find Courtney FAST.

The group ventures out to find Billy, suspecting that he will either be with Courtney or will know where to find her. After two hours of searching the Matrix, Vip3r finally locates Billy's comm inside of a Yakuza safe warehouse. Relay sends his FlySpy in, and sees cages full of women along the back wall, as well as someone who appears to be Billy frantically conversing with a Yakuza boss in Japanese. Watching the drone feed, Moth is able to understand that they took Courtney despite her "not being part of the deal," and that the Yakuza planned to ship her off to Japan. Knowing they had to interfere immediately, the team hatched a quick plan of attack; Vip3r would data spike the Yakuza's weapons and cyberware, Relay would send in his rotodrones, and Iceland would lead the girls out while Moth offered direction to the rest of the group.

Aftermath

The runners get the drop on the Yaks, who barely stand a chance against them. Vip3r bricks one man's cybereyes, and, deciding he's not a threat, they leave him alive for questioning. When he refuses to comply, Vip3r suggests they dose him with Zydrate to get him to comply. He says they're not holding any other women long term; they take them to a second location near the docks for auction.

The runners rescue Courtney and three other women from the warehouse. They've had cyberware implanted, and been treated with personafixes. Moth calls Dr. Isabel Wirth, a doctor in a Tarislar hospital to whom she's previously brought women who were rescued from a bunraku parlor, and has them brought to her hospital for treatment. Courtney, however, they bring directly back to her father so that she can be treated privately in order to keep their reputations clear.

Courtney misses the dinner, but is able to get effective treatment and recover from the personafix she was fitted with.

Left with have the only existing, non-Yakuza- or Red Star-controlled sample of zydrate, the runners make the decision to send it to Nathan so that he can find a way to counteract it and redeem himself.

Rewards

20,000 Nuyen 6 Karma 2 CDP

Game Quotes

"Hydrate or diedrate." -Makiiato

"Hydrate or zydrate." -Moth

"Is Moth short for Moth-er?" -Silas

"His gun went click click click because it was bricked bricked bricked" --Moth

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Vip3r

I think we made some real, good changes on this run. I'm glad we got those girls out of Yak control safely. We did it for more money than I've ever seen in my life, AND I got to brick some poor slot's cybereyes! I've always wanted to do that.
Now, I just... have to figure out if I want to tell Harebuck what his actions led to.

Moth

Moth here! This was my 42nd run. A terrific team. I'd gladly run with any of these folks again - top notch professionals - great at what they do, and all glad to do clean, subtle work, and the research needed. I am so happy we rescued those girls, and gave Courtney the best chance we could at getting her life back together. And I'm glad we got the Zydrate sample to Nathan to try to find a cure for the addiction and redeem himself. But also, I am just thinking a lot about Courtney and her papa. She sounded so much like me in many ways. Sneaking away from bodyguards to dance at clubs. A total party girl. Doing drugs. A little spoiled. A little too trusting. That was me before I got into the runner's life! So much like me. It just really gives me pause. I've learned so much since I started. I've grown up, in some ways. But also, I am so very lucky to have a papa who truly loves me. It makes all the difference. (And, I can't believe I actually used my food truck on a run! I was sort of thinking I'd never risk it. But we needed a 2nd vehicle to help transport those girls to the hospital from the Yakuza warehouse, and some things are even more important than worrying that my precious truck will get damaged in crossfire.)

Relay

This was my third run through the Haven, and I keep finding myself surrounded by drugs, gangs, and violence. Imma be real, it's almost like we're somehow tethered to the dark underbelly of this city. Twice now I've managed to help some people at the end of the day, but this time it wasn't simply undoing my own actions. I'll be honest, it felt...almost good? Like I made a difference that I'm proud of this time? And--I mean--getting paid wasn't bad, either. This guy cared a hell of a lot more about how he was looked at than how his daughter was doing. That's the kind of parent that ends up with a kid in the hands of the Yakuza after trying to make their own way. He should've known. No--I think he did know. He should have cared. But, I'll make rent, and maybe she'll be okay. Maybe we'll be scraping her off a street two weeks from now.

Moth seemed to genuinely care about the girl and her safety. At first I figured that was a ploy to put the toymaker at ease, but maybe she really does care. She seemed genuinely upset about the girls in cages. I mean--she should--it's upsetting. But--like--she wanted to make sure they got into rehab and started making calls. She actually wanted to follow up on that feeling and DO something about it. And the crazy part was that she actually COULD do something about it. I've never worked with someone who had so many connections before. Anytime anything came up, she knew a person. Like--she didn't even know a person who knew a person--she knew THE person. It was crazy. Iceland is Iceland. She just waltzed into a wholly owned subsidiary of a AA corp without so much as a sweat. It's always pretty mind-boggling. And Vip3r--well, she does to their grid what I do to a drone. Grab snacks and wait--it's gonna get done. Man, I could go for snacks. There was talk about a chewing gum from like--YEARS ago. Never mind--I get sidetracked. The point is, I liked the team. We can get in and out when we need to, and hopefully not make enough of a buzz so that we can do it again if we need to. I'm going to feel a hell of a lot safer when I show up to a meeting with Mr. or Ms. Johnson and see members of this crew at the table.