Part of the whole

Part of the whole
Date 2082-02-24 GM Onebi Location Paris Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Universal Omnitech's "GenePets"	Neo-PD
Tahki Babylon Fidem Oathbane Triple Trouble	Cybertooth Tiger On-Site Spider	Police units Watcher Spirits

Summary

In which shadowy group from the NEEC (New European Economic Community) employs runners to retrieve a rare and extremely advanced gene-splicing machine from a small shop who's security was compromised.

Background

The Specialty shop "GenePets" has had an administrative decision forcing them to slash costs, this manifested in the lowering of their security until a solution could be found. This in fact was provoked by market manipulation aiming to tank the stock price of the franchise and create such issues in their security processes, as the J needs to get the cutting edge machine "GenePets" posses and use to create high end animal hybrids for the high spheres of the French population

The Meet

Each runner is given a tip by their respective Fixers about a job abroad with a new J, and details about a flight awaiting them at the Sea-Tac Airport the very next day. Triple Trouble took the opportunity to force the hand of her fixer, Ace Powers, and make him look at her demo reel, by which he was really impressed and took an interest in her skills further than just running the shadows. Babylon in the meantime managed to fake a sickness to get out of her appointment with her parole officer, that she later needed to justify using forged medicine papers. She also used her rank among the ancients to smuggle their forbidden gear into France via the help of Jawad "Didn't know about it", an efficient if a little bit oblivious Ancients smuggler managing part of the local network.

At the airport, Oathbane needed a level of distraction to hack the SIN scanners, that the rest of the team dutifully provided... by casting magic on Fidem and improvising a spontaneous scene about evil magic being casted. Not loosing any time springing to action, the guards started clearing citizens from illegal casting scene and two of them felt the origin of the magic being Tahki with their numinous perception. Pointing Tahki with their weapons, they ordered to all involved to stand down and cooperate, which they did. Or at least, they seemed to, as a combination of social maneuvers gave the time Oathbane needed to actually pull off the hack at the terminal and confuse the guards enough for them to let them free until they could confirm that this was indeed not a planned scene with the administration. By the time a supervisor arrived, the group enjoyed an easy stroll through the terminal scanners thanks to Oathbane's hack.

Upon arrival in the Paris Charles-de-Gaulles airport, they are let into a wide room with straight lines drawn on the ground, large screens are all around giving instructions in the user's language about the registering process. The lines progressively fills with passengers and the runners follow suit, they pass through multiple imposing archs registering an uncomfortable amount of personal information such as height, weight, photos, X-Ray, Nanoware, MAD-sensible cyberware and most importantly, Irises imprints. This is followed up by a personal meeting with an agent at a line of booths asking the visitor to manifest their persona on a special host for registering purposes. The final step is an assessing by one of the Mages on duty the results of which are added to the registering folder, it turns up nothing out of place for our runners outside of Fidem's narco, which thankfully the mage does not recognize.

Once in the country, they are now free to roam as they wish, and they decide to get to the meeting place using the public transport services. It is a lavishly decorated underground concert room, in the middle is an elevated scene with instruments strewn around on which a woman, presumably the Johnson, is finishing a piece played on a violin. The group exchanges details about the run, the Johnson will provide a vehicle upon which the target device can be loaded, and offers them 12K for the trouble in addition to access to her network in the business of art.

The Plan

When casing the joint, the team learnt of it's general disposition. GenePets is a shop set up above of the "les halles" metro stop, where a terrorist attack was carried out during the euro wars. Since then, les halles were transformed in a real mall of augmentations among an environment largely inspired by the oninic gardens, many trans-humanists groups gather here and enthusiasts often parade themselves not unlike a cosplayer might do at a con.

The general disposition of les halles is a large and long alley, with catwalks stylized after vines reaching for multiple levels where many different shops are featured. GenePets is one of those. Additionally, a permanent Neo-PD presence is on site as a show of strength following the terrorist attack that happened in this very place.

The team identifies that there is a back entrance, from the much less public (and secured) streets of Paris. They decide to go inside and gain more info that way.

The Run

Triple Trouble and Tahki go in and start talking to the vendors, which presents to them their different offerings for standard animals. They manage to ask for an actual scientist to come meet them by pretending they are interested in their high end services of species hybridization, but are worried about the process that will get used. Thanks to that ruse, they manage to get a good idea of the floor plans and also get a direct view on the target machine. With all of that information, it was decided that they would come back at night by the back door and infiltrate from there.

When the time came, Triple Trouble was made invisible and she sneaked her way in, fooling the security spider but attracting the attention of the Cybertooth Tiger due to her scent. She however have no idea such a creature is in the facility as she approached the target machine and was met with a unanticipated complication. In a tank next to the machine actually was a creature in gestation and taking the machine without medical care for the creature would inevitably lead to it's death. Thankfully Fidem managed to sneak into the building and bring medical attention to what actually was a Cat-Based hybrid while TT levitated the machine out and into the dropoff van. On their way, TT and Fidem met nose to nose with the cloaked Cybertooth tiger, but a successfull roll of animal training helped TT to aprehend it and make it non aggressive.

Aftermath

GenePets had to close their doors to the public temporarily following the event, they claim a sudden change of the decor needing deep changes made to the shop, when actually they are trying to get a new edition of this bleeding edge tech before anyone learns of their newfound inability to provide their main product.

Somewhere else, a man smiles as his project is starting to take physical form.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.