Giving the Rougaround

Giving the Rougaround
Part of When You Reach Me
Date 2081-10-03 GM Si1as Location Huntington, WV Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Uncle William	LoneStar
Gh0st Rougarou Santesso Zephyr	Prison Guards Security Spider
Casualties and losses
	Security Spider

Summary

Rougarou gets a special gift in the mail: a bear with her mother's voice. She and a small team from Shadowhaven use this bear to track down her "Uncle William", who has managed to get himself locked in a small town jail for sabotaging digital signs at a Humanis Rally and causing some light riots. The team, aided by creative thinking and smart utilization of each member's strengths, broke out this "Uncle William" and find themselves one step closer to Rougarou's parents.

Background

Rougarou's a child of the shadows; her mother was a runner, and her father was a wage slave. When Rougarou was young, her mother left to go "visit her Uncle William." That night, her mother never returned. She waited up all night to tell her father when he got home from work, but he never came home, either.

Then, Rougarou received a mysterious package from Uncle Bill. It was a bear--an exact replica of her childhood teddy bear. In its voice box, the bear had a coded message spoken by her mother. Realizing she was ill-equipped to decode the message and even less able to track them down alone, she asked the Haven for help.

The Discovery

Unlike a traditional meet, there was no Johnson unless you count the package and instructions. Instead, Rougarou met Gh0st, Santesso, and Zephyr at a diner and filled them in on what she knew. They borrowed a back room at a friend's clinic and began investigating this teddy bear's audio file.

"Sweetie, it's momma. I'm taking a trip to the other side of the mountain. I'll be back later, so wait for me at home. It's going to take some time for me to get back so don't forget to take out the trash. OH YEAH! And remember the 3rd."

Through some careful analysis of the audio, Santessso and Gh0st discovered that the small audio blips were intentionally added to the bear's message, and they used that key to decode the voice message.

momma mountain home me take...but that was backwards. "Take me home, mountain momma." Santesso's love of older movies and Gh0st's bizarre music taste led them to the realization that they were headed for West Virginia.

The Trip

The team packed their most illegal goods in a shielded compartment and road-tripped from the city Seattle to the foothills of West Virginia, where they got a hotel room and went to eat at the Calamity Café, where the audio was recorded. While there, it became quickly apparent that--either through their diverse metahumanity or because of some obvious cyberware, they weren't exactly welcome. Santesso--thinking quickly--decided to look for local news stories so that they could act under the guise of being reporters here for a scoop.

They discovered that a local Humanis rally devolved into a riot after some hactivist managed to rewrite their billboards, mini-zeps, and even the local street decorations to mock the Humanis group. The arrested hacker was none other than Rougarou's Uncle William, and the group made plans to break him out of jail.

Jail Break

Zephyr called a wind spirit, who was sent to a local power station and summoned a storm to knock out part of the power grid. As officers responded to help keep the peace, Santesso and Gh0st were relieved to see that this Appalachian city still utilized older infrastructure. They accessed the jail's data host and--through subvert infrastructure--began unlocking every cell door and external door they could find.

Rougarou sliced a hole in the yard's fencing, and--as prisoners started running from the jail's guards, provided suppressing fire. Santesso commanded his drones to support Rougarou in giving cover to the escaping prisoners. After ensuring that Uncle William had made it into the yard safely, Gh0st began hunting the security spider that was--in turn--hunting him. Through an intense data spike, Gh0st shut down their counterpart, providing matrix cover. Zephyr summoned a fire spirit between the prisoners and the guards and--in an act of mercy--utilized the accident power instead of setting fire to the entire facility. The spirit provided enough cover for the team to speed away with Uncle William and two other prisoners--a random tweaker, and a tattoo-covered Humanis member.

Aftermath

Rougarou discovered that her mother had been part of an attack on Ares, where her father worked. He had given away their mission on accident, and--in response--had his personality fragged and was used as bait for his mother's team. Narrowly escaping, her mother has been making runs against Ares facilities, trying to find Kezmyr's original personality, rumored to be stored on a datachip. Uncle William ran with them, providing matrix support.

The team is one step closer to finding Rougarou's parents.

Uncle William, impressed with Santesso's ability to navigate the matrix on his jury-rigged RCC, has agreed to become his hacking sensei.

Rewards

12k Nuyen 7 Karma 2 CDP

Game Quotes

[After realizing the puzzle was the song Country Roads] Gh0st: I HATE YOU GM "Just so you know, everything about me is illegal. My very existence is spitting on the regulations of cyberware."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Zephyr

A quick meetup to assist Rougarou that turned into Cross-Country jailbreak in west Virginia. We were met with minimal forces due to a sudden storm that broke out above a power substation near the jailhouse.