Out of Retirement

Out of Retirement
Date 2082-03-28 GM Aurora Location Renton, Seattle Metroplex Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Sunny Meadows Retirement Home Staff
Babylon Milliam Pulse Shy Swerve	KE Security Contractor Nurse Water Spirit

Summary

In which the runners are hired to execute a fake kidnapping to help Mr. J avoid a visit from his family.

Background

Mr. Johnson is a moderately wealthy individual currently living in the Sunny Meadows Retirement Home in Renton - he is not enjoying his retirement however, having been forced into the home by his grandchildren (who, since the death of his son, have been grasping for their inheritance and bribing the staff to mistreat him in order to force him to put them in the will). Since he is physically handicapped and denied freedom of movement, he has decided to hire runners to extract him and send him to live with a friend of his in Vancouver.

The Meet

The runners are all engaged in various Shenanigans(TM): Swerve and Shy are prowling the barrens and have some (non-violent) interactions with gangers and KE respectively, while Milliam hangs out with her panther companion Dumas, Babylon deals with her parole officer (who comes to her home for a surprise visit and ends up assaulted by the Ancients), and Pulse hacks his rental agreement to allow his new dogs to reside in his apartment. Each of them are contacted in turn by their fixers and told to meet with Mr. Johnson on the Matrix.

Mr. J tells the team that he has a problem - his grandchildren are coming to visit him at his assisted living facility the next day, and he has no wish to see them, so he wants the runners to help. After asking a few questions about the place's security, Babylon proceeds to play face and negotiate for a bit of an increase to their payment due to the many complications involved (since the time-frame for the job is short and he doesn't want his death faked, as it would allow his grandchildren to access his financial assets), and the team gets Mr. J's contact information and room number.

The Plan

The runners are given the address of the Sunny Meadows Retirement Home in Renton, and Pulse spots out it's destination host on the matrix, hopping in to take a look around; with the aid of his trusty assistant Neo, he is able to spot out the hidden nested host (noting with some trepidation that it has Black IC in it's tray) and place his mark on it before slipping inside to find a derelict-looking virtual hospital. Searching around for Mr. J's room number, he finds the associated residential information and learns that their target's name is actually "Mr. John Johnson" (to the team's collective disbelief and consternation); he de-data-bombs and decrypting the attached file, attracting the attention of the spider in the process, who pre-edges his roll to bootstrap a command and forces Pulse's deck to format itself upon reboot.

While Pulse is fixing his deck, Shy heads to Sunny Meadows and start on the physical reconnaissance, sneaking around the rooftops and taking measure of the facility's security measures; meanwhile, Swerve (their body under the watchful eye of Milliam) scopes out the place on the astral, finding a ward around the building where Mr. J is living as well as some spirit patrols lurking about. With everyone else having converged and gotten into position, the team assess their options and put their plan into place; deciding that the security is less-than-steller and not having a lot of time on their hands, they settle on a physical infiltration at night.

The Run

Shy sneaks into the building and makes it to Mr. J's room, making contact with him and staying hidden when the nurse arrives; having learned from Shy that Mr. J has an RFID tracking device in his skull, Pulse slips back into the host in order to subvert it; while inside, he is spotted by the spider (who recalls him from earlier) and engages in cybercombat with them and the IC in order to test out the capabilities of his new deck before dumpshocking himself. Being unable to mess with the signals to the host, they instead debate their options for dealing with it, and Pulse deduces that while he could data spike it that it's potentially hooked up to some sort of kink bomb. Since the bomb is set to go off if it stops receiving a signal, they decide that their best option is to sneak Pulse (who has a good amount of medical training) inside and remove the tracker/bomb, with Shy breaking the news to Mr. J as gently as possible.

While Babylon places invisibility and concealment on Pulse, Milliam and Swerve create a scene out front by brazenly approaching the metaracist Renton guards and demanding entrance while recording them with metalinks; the guards are obviously suspicious, especially when Swerve Influences one of them to call for backup, and they end up calling the spirit patrols to scare them off. Using the distraction, Pulse sneaks inside (with Babylon sleazing through the ward and taking out the watcher spirits en-route and Shy covering his back after narco-jetting a nurse) and prepares Mr. J for impromptu surgery. While Pulse attempts to do doctor things, Shy ends up attracting the attention of the staff and getting into an altercation with the spirits guardians, being feared into fleeing while the guards give chase.

Shy flees outside with the guards and staff pursuing - she makes it out of line-of-sight of the spirits, then hides in a bush, only to be found and shot at before forced to flee to her bike as KE gives chase. Combined with the distraction from Milliam and Swerve, this creates enough time for Pulse to finish pulling the bomb out of the base of Mr. J's skull and, under cover of concealment and with assistance from Babylon's spirit, sneak him out on a gurney to his cocotaxi and make their escape.

Aftermath

While Shy flees towards Redmond with KE in hot pursuit, Swerve and Milliam slink off into the night and meet back up with Babylon and Pulse, who ensure that Mr. J is healthy and whole before bringing him to Corf, who transports him to Vancouver (after the team get a bit of hazard pay out of him for their trouble).

Shy, injured and being pursued by the police, seeks shelter with Pump King Jack, who she is acquainted with from a previous job. This can only go well for her.

Rewards

• 12k nuyen (6 RVP)
• 2k nuyen (negotiation bonus)
• 6 karma (6 RVP)
• 2 CDP

• KE knows Swerve's astral Signature
• KE knows Shy did crime, will need to discuss with thematics

Game Quotes

Pulse: "I'm a decker, not a brain surgeon... well I guess I am technically a doctor in most of the UCAS, but still."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Babylon

Good lord, I don't think I've ever had a job come so close to falling apart at the seems. Short notice, target can't walk, oh and the fragger has a bomb in his head without even knowing it! This all could have gone a lot worse I suppose, but it still feels like 3/5ths of the team getting chased away by KE isn't the most optimal outcome. At least Pulse knew what he was doing - omae apparently knows enough medicine to do impromptu surgery, which was impressive - and we managed to get them out without getting caught. Oh and Milliam had a really sick panther and let me pet it, which was cool I guess.