Bad Blood
| Bad Blood | |||||||
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ShadowHaven Glamor Night Claws - John Holis Stygian Captain Boomerang |
Saeder-Krupp Amelie Flurette Jean-Baptiste Flurette | ||||||
Summary
Runners are hired to "clean" remaining "assets" in a subsidiary research project and destroy all data. The assets turn out to be brother and sister, children of the Johnson, who have been purposefully turned into a loup-garou and vampire respectively, then tested on. The vampire sister asks the runners to help them eliminate their mother and escape. The runners do so, faking the siblings' deaths to gain payment before arranging for them to be located in the same room as the Johnson (their mother). Runners return safely to Seattle where the siblings are now free.
Background
A Saeder Krupp subsidiary infects two siblings to commit several painful tests on them. The manager of the project uses her young adult children, infecting them and then performing numerous painful tests on them. After funding is cut, the mother decides that the sins need to be eliminated. She heads to Seattle to find deniable assets, under the nose of her employer and husband.
The Meet
The runners gather together in the backroom of a Parisian cafe. Glamour's taxi faced some trouble on the way, but she uses a physical mask to hide it and maintain appearances. Shortly after all runners are gathered, Mrs. Johnson arrives. She explains that she wants some cleaners to eliminate any of the remaining assets in a building. Sub-orbital flights have been arranged for the runners the following morning. The Johnson offers 10,000 ny per head, but Glamour negotiates up, pointing out the difficulty that the Johnson went through travelling to Seattle and how she obviously needs a group like this quickly. The Johnson relents at a total of 14,000 per head.
The Plan
Night Claws does a matrix search about the location and finds a basic blueprint, giving a layout of the building. They know information will probably be on the second floor, but there is no indication of where the experimental assets might be held.
Stygian spends time wandering the streets to pick up the French language while Night Claws secures rooms. Glamour and Captain Boomerang scout out the building where the assets are being held. Glamour sends a spirit ahead, who reports that being there is painful and feels violent and painful impulses. While not a lot of information is gained from the spirit due to the pain inflicted on it, it does confirm there is a basement not noted on the blueprints. Glamour thanks the spirit and dismisses it. The pair decide to enter the building themselves. Upon entry, they see a scene covered in blood. Glamour immediately pings Night Claws and Stygian to join them, who do so promptly.
The Run
The receptionist is dead and has no aura remaining, indicating she has probably been dead several hours. Figuring that one of the experiments has gotten loose, the runners decide to prioritize the elimination of the experimental assets. They locate the basement entrance and head down. Downstairs, they see a number of bodies in various states of being ripped apart. While mostly unrecognizable, evidence indicates these are probably the scientists that were conducting the experiments. There are also large chunks of flesh with black fur. The runners discover a paper indicating that there are two experiments, and their names: Amelie and Jean-Baptiste Flurette. Captain Boomerang hears something running up the stairs and relays this to the team. They follow the footsteps to the second floor.
On the second floor, they see a large server holding a seriously powerful offline host and several more dead bodies, the most prominent of which sits next to an active terminal with two small bitemarks in his neck. Before getting into the terminal, the commlink on the dead body starts to ring. Glamor answers it, but when the voice comes out French, she passes it to Stygian, who answers in his new language. The voice then promptly switches to fluent English. On the other side of the comm, Amelie asks the runners to watch a file before they delete any of the information. The runners use the dead body's biometrics to access the files and watch a video. Before starting the file, the runners search the manager's office for popcorn (there was none, but they found several Twix bars). Captain Boomerang notices a picture and enough information to indicate that the Johnson is indeed Mrs. Flurette, and that her two children are those used in the experiments.
With newfound, burning hatred, the runners watch the video which confirms their findings. The siblings are dragged against their will, forcibly turned into a vampire (Amelie) and loup-garou (Jean-Baptiste). They are then subjected to several tests. The tests the runners witness is primarily a test of regenerative abilities, carving flesh out of a sleeping Jean-Baptiste, and a quite awake and Amelie.
After watching, the group discuss what they witnessed. The majority want to kill Mrs. Flurette for her crimes against her children. Captain Boomerang cautions against this action, since releasing two infected, including a loup-garou who will periodically lose control, into the public. Ultimately, the group decides that the siblings are not at fault and that their mother is and decide to kill her. Amelie calls the runners and after they express a desire to help her, she lets down her invisibility spell. After asking, they find that she has removed a tracking device, but Jean-Baptiste's is still active. Jean-Baptiste has fled to Notre-Dame, across the river. They retrieve surgical tools to put him to help remove it from him, then head across to Notre-Dame.
The 3 magical runners are immediately hit by the 10 (Christian Theurgical aspected) background count. Jean-Baptiste is inside, praying. His sister joins him. After a prayer, they begin the removal of the tracking device. Night Claws notices 4 devices moving towards them. He identifies them as S-K. The runners prepare for a fight. Amelie hits them with a powerful spell to start, then the runners fight the squad of 4. Night Claws takes heavy damage and Captain Boomerang is not unscathed. Amelie finishes removing the device, then crushes it under her heel. As the team tries to withdraw, a sniper, using several drones to spot for him, begins shooting through the walls of the cathedral, scoring hits against Night Claws and Captain Boomerang (who tried to get at least one drone but missed and broke one of the windows), knocking the latter out. Jean-Baptiste carries them out where they take a boat downriver.
They take refuge in a security Z zone, finding a building inhabited by ghouls. The ghouls, terrified of the vampire and loup-garou with them, do not bother the runners. The runners discuss how to go about getting their payday and dispatching of the Johnson in a deniable manner. After discovering some doses of Slab in the surgical equipment, they decide to fake the deaths of the siblings, collect their payment, and then let the siblings do the rest. The Johnson calls them, and Stygian lays into her for betraying them. She replies that it wasn't her, and identifies her husband as the most likely culprit who sent the S-K team after them. Her sincerity and surprise convinces the runners she is probably telling the truth, but does not change their plans: she is going to die at the hands of her children. They tell her where they are, and she arranges a time to meet them: as quickly as she can which is in just a few hours. Stygian tries to negotiate with the ghouls to help them should a strike team arrive, but the ghouls are not interested.
With some medical know-how from some unlucky surgeons-turned-ghoul, they identify the amount of time that the pair would remain under the effects of Slab and time it so that they should wake up shortly after the Johnson would arrive. She arrives to a building with only the two "dead" bodies and a metalink between them. Captain Boomerang calls her on the 'link. She is so frantic, she hardly glances at the bodies before pulling out the credsticks for payment. After confirming the amount, the runners help her load the bodies in the car and start driving. 3 S-K vehicles show up behind them. Spirits are dispatched, but are fought off by spirits summoned by mages in the cars. Mrs. Flurette drives quickly, trying to get them into the nearby AA zone and to her private plane which will take them out of there. The S-K vehicles follow, but clever use of magic sends 2 of the 3 cars into a crash, and slows the 3rd enough that they are able to escape.
Aftermath
Mrs. Flurette has the bodies loaded in the cargo hold. Glamor attempts to convince her that loading them in the passenger area would be better to ensure there are no mishaps, but she waves Glamor off. Inside the plane, she starts chugging a bottle of champagne, probably trying to figure out how to escape the fallout from this, though she does not seem to blame the runners. A couple hours into the flight, the runners spot a loup-garou and vampire entering from the back of the plane; evidently, the cargo hold and passenger areas are in some way connected. The runners remain silent and allow the siblings to finish the rest of the job, killing their mother in a rather bloody fashion. After wiping the blood off, the runners toast one less evil in the world.
When the plane touches down, Amelie gives each runner an additional credstick, a kiss on the cheek, and expresses her desire to make it well in Seattle.
Seattle now has 2 more infected who may possibly become underground contacts, and one less S-K manager.
Rewards
20,000 nuyen
5 karma
2 CDP
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Captain Boomerang
I thought this would be a simple get-in, throw a weapon, get-out. No. Fragging family problems. I'm still not sure we made the right call letting two infected out, but I can't deny that it wasn't their choice, and, so far, they haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it, as far as I know. Still, I worry about that boy. <sigh.sim> Still, the team decided, and it's a gray area. I like to think more good will come than bad. That said, I'm glad that woman is dead. Anyone who would do that to family doesn't deserve to be breath the same air as the rest of us.