Into the Void

Into the Void
Date 2085-07-25 GM Sarcarian Location Las Vegas, PCC / Area 51 Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Horizon
Bunny Hop Fennec Pulse Shy	Horizon Spiders Horizon Guards
Casualties and losses
	So, SO Much InfoSec, and one of their spiders is definitely getting biodroned for this

Summary

If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss compels you to hire shadowrunners.

Background

Bunny Hop, with research AROs scattered to the wind, quietly dissociates in her futon when her commlink rings a familiar tune. Her clouded eyes become clear, and she forces chipper small talk with her fixer, Anhe, who is calling about a big job. Mister Johnson would like a group of shadowrunners to meet him at Club Penumbra in Downtown - conveniently for the rabbit, a mixed reality bar. She rises, washes her face to wake up, and slips into Virtual Reality where her better half makes her way to the meet.

Independent journalist Fennec diligently streams an exclusive report about an extensive Seattle Stuffer Shack smuggling network trafficking, of all things, moon rocks. She's on the verge of blowing this whole thing wide open when she's interrupted by a call, on stream, from her fixer. In classic Fennec fashion, she doesn't even stop. Club Penumbra is the place, and after a quick wrap-up, wink, and promise to tell all next time, she flits away to prepare for an unplanned night out.

Pulse, exploring crumbling infrastructure with his curious companion Alexandria, discusses with her the finer points of human society and urban decay when they too are interrupted by a call to action. A gentleman would very much like to recruit some shadowrunners, the best of the best, for a job that will require a not insubstantial amount of Matrix expertise. Pulse, filled with Matrix expertise, agrees to meet at the designated location, and Alexandria, excited for the opportunity to learn more about the world and its various secrets, is happily included by Pulse in that invitation.

Shy surfaces from a diving expedition only to be faced with Lt.Cmdr Yennefer Kerrigan. Through her connections, she has heard of an operation meant to infiltrate a secure Horizon facility located in Area 51, and under cover of this operation, would like Shy to liberate from that facility some sensitive information for their organization. Although Shy is skeptical about infiltrating a place as heavily guarded as Area 51, she is dutiful to a fault, and agrees to retrieve a hard drive from their on-site server farm.

The Meet

Club Penumbra in Downtown is bustling with the rich, famous, and ambitious. Shy and Fennec both aim to dazzle, the former in a beautiful, silken formal kimono, and the latter in her party girl best, cheating as the Matrix Fox loves to do by threading resonant AROs all around her as a digital glamour. Both easily pass the gut check at the front of the bar and are able to make their way into the location, subtly directed upstairs toward their VIP section as well by AROs that light along the floor - they are known quantities here, it would seem. Shy, though, true to her name, palms a pistol, and keeps it well to herself. She is well aware of threats to her person, especially with the reminder that is Fennec right at her heels.

Pulse, punkish and ever prudent, before entering makes note of three drones sporting quality cameras pointed at the club entrance. They are, his keen coder's eyes notice, unslaved to the host, unlike many of the drones in the area. He quietly asks the team if they would like those to be bricked, who each seem to quietly agree in turn, once the situation has been made known.

The meet is with an average, professionally dressed, and overall pleasant man who greets each of the runners with a smile and a firm handshake - the lounge he's invited them to sports comfortable seats, appealing decor, and complementary food and simsense, should the runners so choose. While Bunny Hop apparates into the host to take a seat in mid-air and the others in get comfortable in real life, he begins to explain the premise of his request, and why he's asked them there. They are quality assets, he assures them; each and every one of them an ace in their field, and he needs aces for his interests.

Area 51 has had a tumultuous past since the formation of the Pueblo Corporate Council stripped away its place as a US Military Black Site. The location languished in legal purgatory for years - though many attempted to make inroads to the location, CalFree, corpos, and the PCC itself, ultimately the location was purchased and refitted by Horizon into a near-earth orbital launch site, under which it still operates today. As a matter of fact, Horizon's best have been busy lately in anxious anticipation of the launch of an orbital telescope scheduled scant weeks from the day of their meet, and Mister Johnson has gone to great pains to prepare a delicate payload to be sent along with it.

He presents the runners with a large case, roughly 3x4 ft., and hermetically sealed shut with red tape. He emphasizes that breaking the seal will void both the object inside, delicate equipment that it is, and also their contract. Though the runners press on its contents, wary of such blind espionage, he ensures them it's non-destructive, that no lives will be lost, that the world will even benefit from its use. He instructs the runners on the exact piece of cargo that need be replaced - any other, and serial numbers will not align, weights will not match, and the launch itself may even be postponed pending investigation.

Fennec, ecstatic, jokingly (maybe) asks about the presence of aliens - and the Johnson can neither confirm nor deny. Dissatisfied, she leans into her actual role. While the Johnson reveals that he and his organization have budgeted a crisp 150,000 nuyen for this operation, he would like to keep a little off the top for his own troubles arranging it and forging this replacement part. Nonetheless, the fox drives a hard bargain - who can resist those ears? Thirty-thousand nuyen per head becomes thirty-four, and the runners are satisfied.

Once more before setting out, do-gooder Pulse candidly double-checks with the Johnson that the contents of the package aren't explosive, radioactive, or otherwise dangerous to either the runners themselves or the crew onboard, and the Johnson insists he would want them to know it's a bomb if it were. Though the team all have their doubts, the contract is nonetheless signed, verbally anyway.

Those knowledgeable about such things dig just a touch into the Johnson's nature before they go. Shy, opening her third eye, discovers that their benefactor is masking - he appears mundane, though is in actuality Aware, his aura a bright, white-yellow light. On the astral, he seems to regard her as well - and he smiles to her face. Fennec's expert knowledge on human nature and reading people can only settle on the realization that he's not entirely present upstairs.

Mister Johnson rises, thanks the team, offers handshakes, and leaves them to their devices, and the runners, opting for a more secure location to discuss matters than a bustling night club, gladly take Pulse's kind offer to host in his safe house.

The Plan

Through the cracks of the Matrix floor and in the darkness underneath, NeoNET still lives. Its grid, accessible with a well-kept-secret of a backdoor, appears as a raining, miserable city, broken and ill-maintained, bright and fuzzy with neon and flickering ads. It is empty, as all dead places on the Matrix are. Pulse's custom host is within one of this city's many little nooks, a little basement room with everything a proper decker needs: bean bag chairs, a work desk plastered in research and files and code, and a star-shaped bed on which to sleep. It mirrors his real world haven, a similarly cozy room somewhere in the obsidian wasteland of Hell's Kitchen in Puyallup.

The team banter for a bit, and Pulse, being friendly with two up-and-coming hackers, talks briefly about his experience as a runner, and how he came to be in the shadows. Though neither technomancer can relate with such a specialized story as being a dedicated NeoNet superhacker, both nonetheless silently commiserate with their mutual experience of being pressed tightly beneath an oppressive thumb.

Pulse, nonetheless, says that they should be safe here, and though he makes a small request to avoid fighting and spilling blood he'll have to clean, otherwise notes that they're welcome to stay as long as they like. Fennec, of course, wouldn't dream of it. She holds a deep respect for safe houses, she says, out loud, with Shy present and listening. The woman, rather restrained all things considered, pumps boiling blood, loses her shit, and punches Fennec unconscious. Though Pulse is able to swiftly revive her, he nonetheless tells Shy to take a long and chilly walk to cool her head. The remaining hackers question Fennec on whether she's okay, and she insists she is, much to the doctor's chagrin and protest. Didn't even hurt! Perfect record. Nonetheless, after being urged repeatedly by the both of them to avoid Shy for the duration of the run, she only agrees after being assured that it's for them to feel better about things, not her. Because she's fine.

After the excitement, the legwork actually begins. Some coordinated Matrix Searching points the trio toward a couple of hosts both largely responsible for the Horizon launch site's continued operation. A Data Host, corporate and large at a potent rating 10, holds all of its information, while an Industrial Host sporting similar numbers commands all of its delicate machinery. The three of them agree that the most prudent piece of information they'll need to grab is a cargo manifest for the upcoming launch, as well as a map of the facility, to pinpoint the exact location of their target and give their physical infiltration the best chance at making it in and out intact.

To that end, Bunny Hop cracks her knuckles, Fennec compiles a sprite, and Shy, back and fresh from her brisk walk, weaves the world's mana to fully trace and optimize Pulse's deck. Bunny Hop, preparing her completely-mundane-definitely-not-resonant-proprietary-Overclocking-method, is awestruck the moment she actually analyzes its device icon. Pulse wields an honest to GOD Fairlight Paladin, and she is beyond belief at the scale of runner he must be to have that. The rumors are all true.

Nonetheless, she gets to work, and Pulse's punkish, graffiti-laden persona gleams with patented Rabbit-themed power armor, with some help from Fennec along the way. Spy Fox, Fennec's mischievous and foxy sprite, climbs aboard as well, ready to assist. Pulse is, for a moment, the most frightening decker alive.

He sneaks his way into the host and finds that its interior sculpting is an atompunk rocket launch facility. Utterly invisible to the various astronaut spiders roaming the premises, and immune from even the watchful eyes of GOD's omniscient overwatch thanks to the again-definitely-not-technomantic cleaning efforts of Bunny Hop and Fennec, Pulse, freedom of information punk that he is, does not let the opportunity go to waste. In addition to everything they need - the Cargo Manifest, the map of the facility, and any other onsite security measures - he also takes everything else, occasionally popping outside the host for an Overwatch reset whenever the Baby Monitor starts crying. Horizon's Vtubing platform and its metrics (by Fennec's special request), their employee databases, their meeting memos and minutes and vacation calendars and prototypes and drafted scripts and plans for the fiscal quarter. He tags the deepest recesses of the host with a brazen "YOU JUST GOT PULSE'D", and then, for good measure, walks right up to the spider's desk, out in the open, rattles his spray can, and paints it there as well. He is well gone before they ever notice the code he's left running.

The meat of the matter, of course, is that they've discovered their target is located in Section 48J of the preparatory warehouse holding components before they're ready for launch and assembly. The onsite security is tight, as expected - an enormous salt flat makes any kind of ground approach easy to spot from a mile out, satellite disks and footage survey the area from above, and various security checkpoints ensure only those who are meant to be there actually arrive. For good measure, their Matrix presence runs on Rogue Hosts and Old Hardware, inaccessible from the broader Matrix, and requiring on-site access to read and maintain. An enormous pain for their IT team and would-be saboteurs alike.

They'll need to be in onsite, even the deckers, who still need to access and edit the logs and expected values for their subtle replacement. Each of them will need foolproof Horizon SINs, and after Alias tells the crew that her schedule is busy and to call back later, they decide that they've earned a small break, and will reconvene in two days' time, to rest, and to plan.

The Run

After a couple well-needed days of rest, Alias finally calls Bunny Hop back with an opening in her schedule, and the three hackers arrange for their crisp, clean, flawless little Horizon burner SINs to be made and ready before their trip. Shy, by this point, has resolved herself to a physical infiltration, and will be taking the route of a traditional B&E after considering the location.

As for the matter of actually getting there, Pulse happens to know a man with a van who can drive them out to Vegas - a friendly sasquatch fellow who doesn't talk with words so much. The team load up and prepare for the most awkward road trip of their lives. On the drive, Bunny Hop and Fennec communicate in the way technomancers do - by holding hands with skinlink. While Bhop contemplates the distant manastorms of the Mojave and her odds of walking out of it with a SURGE as perfect as Fennec's, the fox girl brings her out of fantasy and back to reality. Get out of the gumi. Get biosculpting. Live her life without stupid risks like the ones Fennec takes.

Shy eyes Fennec suspiciously the entire time. Fennec only smiles back.

Once they get to Vegas, Jerry, a simple man, leaves to go play slots, and tells them to let him know when they're ready to leave. It is not unlikely that he is the one that makes it out of this place with the most nuyen to show for it. The rest of the gang, geared up with synthskin masks, burner SINs, and beefy, Dawkins Group disguises based on Fennec's eclectic experience with them. On their way to the restricted area, Shy has the team drop her off many miles out in the desert, disguises herself, and begins the long and merciless trek through the Mojave. One might imagine it almost makes her wish for a nuclear winter.

On the way, the rabbit can't contain her curiosity. While Pulse is per-occupied with other matters on the meat, she slips her persona just behind his own and whispers a brief norito, one hand held in front of her mouth as though curling prayer beads, and the other palm flat over the back of his persona's neck. She drags motes of light out from his device, which coalesce into a small rabbit she cups in the palm of her hand and brings to her ear to whisper its secrets.

What she discovers is legendary, and beyond even what Pulse had shared before. FastJack himself gave Pulse this Paladin, not so long after helping him out of the Renraku SCIRE in downtown Seattle during its lockdown era, currently known as the Arcology Commercial and Housing Enclave (ACHE).

She blabbers stupidly in realization, and when Pulse turns around and innocently asks if she's okay, she nervously turns around and tries to stick some kind of landing - she's just nervous, y'know! A little star struck! It's a high profile infil, after all, she's not so used to these just yet! Pulse smiles with encouragement, puts a hand on her shoulder, and tells her everyone's nervous the first time. She's gotten away with a big breach in privacy - so obviously she has to let the fox in on it too. She brushes against Fennec's hand and shares, in an instant, everything she knows - Fennec, well versed in conspiracy theories, is delighted to finally confirm one surrounding FastJack surviving the Renraku SCIRE incident.

Fennec, or rather Scarlett Clover, talks the three Dawkins wannabes through several security checkpoints, leaning on robust documentation and the sheer power of an unexpected visit from some very high profile individuals. They're here to ensure the launch goes as planned, and in doing so are scanning for compliance, consistency, and most importantly, any potential sabotage. The irony is not lost on the three of them. Nonetheless, their story checks out well enough to be allowed onto the premises, even if the two suddenly-registered technomancers must submit to some time in a Faraday cage'd room pending approval of their story.

All the while, Shy, well hidden on her trek, makes her way through chainlink fences and around the watchful eyes of cameras. Though she notes the position of the warehouse where their main objective lies, she herself finds surreptitious entry into the facility's sub-basement. Her fixer, after all, has an agenda of her own, data to steal, and plausible deniability to maintain.

After some time, enough for Shy to position herself as she likes, the two technomancers are released from their custody - their documents look right, at least, and any attempt to look much further than that would delay their duties far too long. As they emerge into the broader facility, an ocean of prototype and experimental Horizon technology greets them, not least of which is Ace Powers himself, descending in a small, man-sized flying saucer. He looks over the "Dawkins Group" agents, and after some sweet talk from Scarlett Clover, decides he likes the cut of their jib. Fennec and Bunny Hop both swiftly craft business card AROs tied to burner SINs, receive Ace Powers' in turn, and watch him turn away, satisfied at the apparently new talent. With a blessing and a wave, the trio of hackers move into the access room for the facility's private intranet, and with some surreptitious and resonant code, Pulse once again dons his power armor and descends into the depths of a Horizon host. Shy, meanwhile, is ostensibly on hand to make a scheduled delivery for a spare part, once the manifest has been fully manipulated.

In reality, however, Shy has found her way into the facility's sub-basement, bypassing several security pads. Pulse's earlier diligence pays off, and Shy is able to recall several secure and decrypted passcodes of a considerable length to grease the wheels of her infiltration. All is as expected until she arrives in the sub-basement server racks, where her expert senses tell her that she is not alone. Faint, disgusting squelching sounds around the corners, sniffs at the air, and hums low and threatening threats. Shy, professional, avoids detection however, and the creature must admit its mistake. Its flesh slaps wetly against the hard floor as it goes. Shy, with relief, is able to identify the location of the physical hard drive with the data needed, and safely extract it from the rack before beating a retreat back to the warehouse.

Just in time as well, as Pulse finalizes his changes and falsifies diagnostic errors on their target part. With some informal warning and an alert that a replacement has been scheduled, he hacks some cameras to facilitate Shy's infiltration into the warehouse to actually replace the thing and avoid a social infiltration, and finally closes up shop- No, obviously he doesn't, were you even paying attention before? He rattles his spray paint cans and graffitis "You Just Got Pulse'd!" directly onto the spider's work desk. With a MARK on the command console, he also leaves a brief reprimand for the spider, urging him to choose to use his hacking abilities for good, instead of for the benefit of a global megacorporation.

With loose ends and punk manifestos tied up, the team pack and make to quietly leave, their Dawkins jobs apparently done. Shy, separately, sneaks out the way she came, out into the open Mojave, with eyes on the distant road as her companions make their escape.

Aftermath

However, as Shy watches them through her scope, she cannot help but train the center of her crosshairs directly on a certain fox's head. Her finger twitches. Flashbacks of the traitor's guiltless grin and her companion's innocent blood play at the corners of her sight. This may be the best chance she has, she reasons, in the middle of the Mojave, though she knows that in doing so, she also sacrifices Pulse and Bunny Hop to intense Horizon investigation. Even still, it is not until their car is long, long past the horizon that her finger on the trigger finally comes loose.

Their Johnson is utterly pleased. It's a job well done all around - and just like Pulse said, a job done objectively on the side of good. Surely. Probably.

Jerry, unfortunately, did not hit a jackpot on his impromptu trip to Las Vegas.

Rewards

REWARDS for "Into the Void":

• 34000 nuyen (17 RVP)
• 3 karma (3 RVP)
• 2 CDP
• +2 Church of Starry Wisdom reputation (this is not a good thing)
• Optional Contact: Ace Powers (C6/L1 Horizon Talent Agent) for 6 RVP or 12 CDP
• Optional Contact: Jerry (C3/L1 Road Tripper) for 3 RVP or 12 CDP

• For Pulse:
  • Optional Quality: Overclocker @ chargen price
  • Mandatory Quality: Wanted: Dawkins Group (100,000 nuyen)
  • +1 Street Cred (for publicly releasing the MAJESTIC designs)

• For Shy:
  • +1 loyalty with Lt.Cmdr Yennefer Kerrigan (for retrieving the classified files)
  • Selfie with a SR-71 Blackbird

• Narrative Consequences:
  • The Church of Starry Wisdom replaces one of the Eagle Eye II camera modules with a modified one of their own design. This will have consequences later.
  • Fennec gaslights Ace Powers into thinking that she's a Dawkins Group agent. This will have consequences later.
  • The UCAS government recovers a hard drive full of top secret encrypted files from Area 51; N-51 retains copies.
  • Documents containing blueprints of advanced spacecraft designs reminiscent of the MAJESTIC-12 files are posted free and unredacted on major data havens; Horizon Transglobal denies all knowledge.

Game Quotes

"I'm going to make a Rick and Morty reference, I'm sorry in advance." -Sarcarian

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Fennec: Wow! I love sneaking into super secret facilities! What a great time, playing at being a Dawkins Agent so I can get two power-nerds (and they are powerful, powerful nerds!) into a facility. I'm the best, y'know that? Now, if only I couldn't feel the sensation of a sniper rifle aimed directly at my head. Also, the feeling of my nose being broken into my skull - that - didn't hurt at all! It didn't hurt at all. Not even a little.

Shy : A simple mission, if you put Fennec aside. Didn't thought that i could take a stroll into Area-51 that easily, that's where i realized how good i am now...Yet i should have pulled the damned trigger. Soon enough though.