Guess We're Doing Deadshots Now
| Guess We're Doing Deadshots Now | |||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Knight Errant | Unknown | West Coast Monolith | ||||||||
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Backseat Elaine Invictus Limitless |
KE Bodyguard Random Officers | Assumed Technomancer | None encountered directly | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||||
| Invictus took A LOT of drain, and some commlinks were harmed in the completion of this job | 2 officers were killed, and the personal guard was forced to leave the premises | None | None | ||||||||
Summary
An exceptionally fishy situation arising from a seemingly simple hit job to kill a supposed rat from the 405 Hellhounds leads to an assortment of hard conversations, worrying discoveries, and terrified rapid responses as the team try to do right by themselves and their feelings
Background
A man called Olzhenski was once a member of the WCM, until he had been personafixed by someone in...assumedly the Vory and suddenly left to work for them, adopting a brand new personality that was...compliant with that notion. Then the schism happened and he had left for the 405s. Now, he had been alright with the Vory and their degree of self restraint, but the 405s? He had no respect for them, or their operations. And as he worked, he was offered a chance to sell them out for a position in the Knight Errants, and frankly that was a far better deal than working with those drekheads. But the 405s ain't stupid. They know that the leaks were only surrounding this Olzhenski's operations and those working directly under him. He was a rat, and the J - a guy known on the street as Churchill for his chain smoking - wanted him gone before he could sell that info out to the Knights. All the while,
Olzhenski was hidden in Vegas Park in Bellvue until his full escort could arrive, and Churchill knew some of his possible routes and got to hiring runners to prepare to end this "scum". All the while, the WCM had taken noticed of their missing member acting so strangely and moving around the place, and they saw the moves KE was making. They figured if they had the chance, they could save their own by intercepting the escort themselves, and maybe seeing about dealing with this personafix issue.
The Meet
Churchill called the 4 runners to his place in Bellvue, one of the places up the 405 highway on the border of Bellvue and Kingsgate, for the meet. The runners were connected through DNI by their fixers, and were already trying to dig more into the situation for info since this all seemed fishy. Churchil's place was exceptionally smoky and only magically made a lil more pleasant (and warded for his safety), and he laid out the job simply: Here's the place the rat is at, here's where he's going to be, 10k to ice him, dont ask stupid fucking questions. It wasn't a lot of info. Invictus and Backseat had tried to negotiate for more pay, but Churchill was absolutely not having it that day. So, miffed by their employer's sketchiness and attitude, left to go plan things out and decide on their course of action.
Also, those assholes in the 405 keyed Elaine's bike - with fucking slurs. Assholes!
The Plan
The first hurdle was getting everyone on board - Limitless was exceptionally skittish working with the 405s and without much info. Hearing some vigilante group wanted this guy made her feel like something was up. Backseat and Elaine didn't see an easy way to get this guy to where he had to be and also get paid (and not take a massive rep hit for betraying a J). And Invictus...well he was down to screw over Churchill, but that was more personal reasons. After some back and forth, some attempts at getting info from contacts, and some honest boundary setting, the team settled on the following: They needed info. Olzhenski HAD info. They had found his route from a corrupt kop Backseat had known, and they knew where exactly this guy was at. So they were going to intercept him and his escort, interrogate him for what he knew, and then decide on if and how they were gonna punk the J then.
So, they had decided on this plan of action
- Case the hideout in Vegas Park for guards, defenses, etc. - Get in position to infiltrate and eliminate any defenses. - According to intel and what Invictus's spirit found, there was only one guard there. With the influence of a Spirit of Man or a Mob Mind, whoever was on the inside could be made to leave, turn off the defenses, and just go home, leaving Olzhenski defensless. - Move in and interrogate. if he's just some selfish rat, kill his ass. If he's not and he's got a good reason, something fucked happenin' with the 405s, then they'd work WITH Olzhenski to fabricate evidence of his death and have him run the fuck away from Seattle and never return. - Report back to Churchill (with a good story in case they spared the guy).
Easy money, right?
The Run
It, almost was!
Limitless, Elaine, and Backseat snuck in through various means and cased the place in the physical as Invictus stayed back and did so on the Astral Plane. An RPC cloaked turret on the roof, a Cham-coated APC that would be the escort vehicle, and a lone guard inside the locked building. Oh, and a toxic spirit in the lake nearby. That was just...gonna be avoided hopefully. In the meanwhile, Elaine got in position to destroy the turret in case things went wrong and Invictus sent in the spirit. Thankfully KE hadn't warded this place. Probably to stay discreet. The spirit came in, was noticed, but barely managed to get the Influence to work in time to get the woman guarding this poor guy to happily leave, unlocking the door and turning off the turret before packing up her things and leaving on the Chameleon Coated Death Truck. That was the hard part over.
invictus, Limitless, and Backseat moved in now to interrogate the guy. He was mostly cooperative given he was helpless to do much to them. Limitless patted him down and disarmed him of everything just in case and Invictus and Backseat grilled and assenssed him, in the opposite order. First things first: The guy had a deltaware kinkbomb in his head. Invictus and Backseat backed the FUCK away at that. Second, this guy was willing enough to cooperate with the team. Gave them what he knew, told him the kind of fucked up business he had been a part of and why he had no qualms ratting out these assholes. This was enough for Limitless, and with a wedding ring the team could hand over as proof the guy was dead that was enough for the others too. That was the easy part done.
And then there was a guy in the room with them. Out of thin air. N...not one guy, three guys. And, and more coming outside, and 3 on Elaine. Everyone (not Invictus or the Spirit) saw this guy just...materialize and start swinging on them as Olzhenski went catatonic. Panic time. Limitless acted fast, realizing that if the spirit wasn't seeing anything and Elaine wasn't assenssing anything that something was up on the matrix. She tried to turn off her AR Display and got the message "Not Today". Rebooting her commlink led to the same thing. So then, being rash, she destroyed her Hermes Ikon, and the guy(s?) disappeared. Elaine and Backseat got utterly swarmed, sadly, and were knocked unconscious. Invictus tried to counteract whatever was going on with Olzhenski by taking over his mind, and Ollie didn't put up much of a fight. Limitless realized he was being lifted up slowly by the damn Wireless coat he was wearing, and she ripped it off him before going off to grab Backseat and the shattered remains of her hermes ikon. They got outside-
oh there's an APC coming at them honking. Damn how did KE get here so...
It-it isn't slowing down.
Realizing they were ABOUT TO GET RAMMED, the group ducked behind the cover of the building as the van slammed into the cliffside nearby. Limitless couldn't smash the implanted commlink on Backseat, so they were always gonna have eyes on them. She managed to break Elaine's though, and the girl woke up immediately without any harm done to her. The three members who were awake put their heads together - if they were gonna get past this bastard on the matrix, they needed to kill the connection. That meant either water, or underground. And they realized there was an entrance to the OU nearby from an old Water Treatment Pipe they could crawl through. So, running fast to evade this asshole's toys and whatever else he'd send at them, they dove in and got to the 2nd level
Once they were deep enough inside, the connection was cut and Backseat was awake. Invictus called in a smuggler friend to get this guy moving, and the team got a headjammer for Olzhenski to use so he wouldn't get hacked on the way out. With that settled and paid for, the team was able to come back out of the OU without any crazy hackers interfering with them again. The hardest part was over.
Aftermath
The team got their story straight. Limitless bloodied the wedding ring before Ollie left, and the massive kerfuffle back at the lil gas station they were keeping him at made this all the more believable, if a bit crazy for Churchill. They managed to find out the personafixed version of what was going on, even if they didn't find out about the personafix itself, and they did what they thought was the right thing. For bonus points, they actually got paid. Score!
They didn't see Olzhenski again. Hopefully he's in New York by now, and maybe he's even getting help removing the fix and the kinkbomb in him.
Rewards
10,000 Nuyen (5 RVP)
4 Karma (4 RVP)
8 CDP (3 RVP)
Optional Quality for Invictus and Backseat: Alibi, can use any RVP for the chargen rates
Optional Gear: Motorcycles except for Suzuki Mirage and modifications at gear rates
Optional Quality for Backseat: Frank Grover, 3/1 KE Officer (3 RVP or 6 CDP)
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Limitless
"...Damn go-gangers. Never can trust 'em. Those 405s are on the damn list. I'm just glad the team wasn't too cutthroat about it all..."
Invictus
"Who knew not giving the first flying frag about the Matrix could be a benefit? And yea, that asshole got everything that was coming to him...."