Heartache by the number

Heartache by the number
Part of When You Reach Me
Date 2082-10-29 GM Draknic Location Seattle Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Barrens Gang
Donnager Energizer Lucky Ace	Character1 Character2
Casualties and losses
	All

Summary

Ms Johnson Soucouyant on the hideout from Ares puts out a hit on a local gang leader for crimes against chipheads

Background

Ace, Lucky, Energizer, and Donnager are hailed to a diner in Cara'sir, and via their varied means arrive to the meet

The Meet

Ace approaches the bar, leading the cats into the bar and wrongfully calling the Johnson Mr. With that the meet continued and they were tasked to take out a new gang operation causing chipheads to have minds erased, resulting in them losing their minds, wandering off or worse. when Ms. Johnson stated she wanted his head Lucky asked if she wanted a clean cut, which triggered Energizer's phobia and scared her half to death. Effort was made going forward not to trigger her

The Plan

The runners collectively put their brains together, Donnager put her extensive black market knowledge to the work and pulled together areas. Energizer next narrowed down the areas through matrix search and finding out about the Cutters, Ancients and active locations. The group was going to go from area to area until they found the source and pop the source

The Run

Cutters: Following the Cutter lead, the party ended up in a 20 storey B zone apartment complex. Energizer followed icons before bumping into a high-level courier sprite which in short order was chased off, which Energizer followed into the ensuing matrix brawl, before finding a commlink and yoinking most of the data on it. Mulling on the data present and dwelling on it for a moment led the group to a different area where a chiphead ended up walking into a van. Ace let the ever-hungry Donnager and Lucky out of the car, where the party proceeded to absolutely light up the to immobilise it, Lucky grabbed the vacant chiphead and pulled him over to the car, along with his commlink and the chip.

Docks: Putting their heads together after Energizer hacked the chip the party only slightly were better off knowing corps did this evil stuff all the time to the surprise of no one. The car which could no longer perform its main directive of fleeing the scene instead decided to explode but not before Energizer hacked it, suppressed the explosion commands and stole its GPS data, leading to the Docs in Tacoma which the party sped off to. Next Energizer attempted to get into the host to find where the source was. It was a painful exercise in futility trying to get through the industrial whose who kept rebuffing the new technomancer, security was alerted, an areas black knight decker popped out and did their wageslave best, but ultimately Energizer got out alive. HTR was called, but without convergence or even a location the party elected to drive casual and they did to the second major hotspot for trafficking.

Downtown: There the party found a drone delivering a bunch of chips. Energizer hacked it and put a mark on it tracking the mark to a location in the Barrens. Lucky bounced from the car and grabbed the delivery in case the tracking didn't pan out in hope that worst came to worst a second call would be made and the party could ascend the enemy chain of commmand that way. Luckily an exact location was found before the drone went dark and the party went out into the heart of the barrens.

Barrens: The party evaluated the defenses, a partially dug in building, several HVAC units alternating to avoid gas attack, no cracks in the building, so that the scouting flyspy did not get in only a hatch with drones coming and going. With no better option especially with Energizer unable to perceive within using the matrix Lucky and Donnager got their wish and fired an anti-vehicle missile and tore a hole into the hideout revealing a long hallway with a door at the end. Ace called this out as the perfect spot for a machine gun nest. A mage with a bomb collar appeared in time to hear Ace saying "whoever turns in your leader gets to live," and as combat started Ace launched a grenade to the most optima spot to keep an MG to ensure such an option would not be used against the party, Energizer in the same instant with equally honed reflexes took control of the bomb collar and released the mage who run screaming. Donnager next bolted in at top speed and lit up the gang who were already in cover, the troll leader bobbed and weaved more luck than speed, and in came Lucky with a shot to the nuts, and the troll leader looked shocked and in pain before a last nanosecond twist to cushion the blow entirely. Their cyberadept threw a dataspike and the combat rigger did little in those moments, the grunts crawled out of Donnager's heavy fire. Ace next flew in on skimmers and aimed around a corner to fire on the troll who again almost took a fatal headshot before taking it on the strong of his armor, but still getting a sting in the face. In a moment of panic their rigger pulled a grenade, Lucky grabbed Donnager as Ace already had cover. Due to Donnager's lethal fire distracting rigger the grenade went off and to the left, into a wall. Those who did not run were vaporised and Lucky took the troll's horn as proof, to add to the group's feed and Ace's picture from his Alpha.

Escape & remeet: The party rocketed back to car, destroyed every tag with reckless abandon and Ace fonud the most obscure route he could back to Cara'sir, where Ms. Johnson handed out credsticks and her contact to those willing.

Aftermath

One less gang in the Barrens as the party facilitated the deaths of most of their command structure before fleeing

Rewards

20k (10 RVP) 4 Karma (4 RVP) CDP 2 (Normal run stuff)

Paydata 2k

Team Aleph rep +2

Optional

4/2 (5 RVP) for https://www.shadowhaven.info/wiki/Soucouyant

Game Quotes

"You hear woman panicking noises,"~ Draknic

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Ace

Standard operate and investigate affair. Even walking walls of steel and muscle can't take my Alpha when I get a good shot in. Thank goodness Rick isn't sending me on bug runs, if this were a hive with 16 differnt HVACs I'd have to have called it. Lucky, Donnager and Energizer are a good team if over-eager and over-sharey on the OSC. But one fewer gang and one survival of a brush with HTR can't be beat. This is the second idiot to toss a grenade and achieve nothing, first one scratched me with a frag but this guy deleted his whole gang, gangers are unique and daring sort.

Donnager

Damn, that was fun. It was nice to have some investigating to do, and a great team, even if Lucky was a bit... hyper. There was a bit of a panic with HTR incoming when Energizer got knocked out, but the fight with the gang went great. I blew my way in with Big Bertha, the mage and their spirit ran away thanks to our matrix help, Ace cleared the way with a grenade and then I ran in, laying down suppressive fire and evading what they sent back at me. That troll was fucking tough, but then some idiot threw a grenade and managed to blast everyone to chunky salsa, we ran like frak, then got paid! Rocket launcher and big nuyen in one day? The best.

Energizer

It would seem that I've fallen a bit out of practice, living the cushy life as a Spider for a volunteer organization. But, it could have been worse, and some of my reflexes are still with me. I was able to continually narrow down the areas to search with each new thread we pulled, and though I failed to do anything but run away at the docks, it wasn't for nothing. The last building was faraday caged, but the rocket took care of that, and once I had access I was able to free a mage that was being forced to work with the target. I hope she got away clean, but I couldn't bring myself to set off her collar. And I'm just noooot gonna think about what happened inside to the other opfor. Still, Ms. Johnson seemed satisfied, and I got a decent payday out of it.