A Shadowrun Based on Poison by Stick and Poke

A Shadowrun Based on Poison by Stick and Poke
Date 2080-07-9 GM DrBurst Location Pittsburgh, PA Result Shadow Haven completed all objectives, Ares security soundly thwarted.
Factions Involved
Danny Boy Kay-O Purkinje Tanuki	Ares Macrotechnology
Casualties and losses
None	Massive property damage, loss of irreplaceable research data

Summary

The runners were hired by the Ares internal resistance opposed to Project Pyro with the objective of destroying ritual samples and noting any that were missing. The samples were held in a highly secure facility in Pittsburgh.

Background

Wolf contacted one of her followers to give Wolf's Gaze a hand dealing with some bugs in a secret Ares compound in West Virginia (which I don't remember the name of).

The Meet

The team met the Johnson in a host made out to look like an American backyard barbecue. The offer was originally 10,000¥ apiece, but Danny Boy talked them up to 11,000¥ and half upfront. As an Ares employee, the Johnson had intimate knowledge of the facility and was able to provide information on both the physical and matrix security.

The Plan

The team decided to finesse the job, relying on legwork to support a series of bluffs to get them into the vault where the ritual samples were stored long enough to dispose of them and get out before anyone could stop them.

The Run

The runners flew to Pittsburgh from the Ancients' airfield in Seattle along with an odd-looking team of runners who seemed very knowledgeable about explosives. They bought some Ares corporate-approved clothes to blend in and received a rack of TNT to use on the safe if it came down to it. Purkinje did matrix legwork upfront by searching for online dossiers so Danny Boy could brush up on his con artistry. She also hacked into Ares' Pittsburgh regional host, bricked an important computer attached to facility, and then edited the security database's personnel files to register the team's SINs as authorized to be on site. In addition, she downloaded a strange file labeled, "PROJECT PYRO: MARKET INTEGRATION PLAN FOR SEATTLE." Delphi was unhappy with her for taking it, but she explained her concern for the world's welfare in the face of insect spirit invasion.

With the legwork out of the way, the team pulled up to the facility in meatspace. Knight Errant patrol officers almost caught them casing the perimeter, but they managed to play it off with Danny Boy's considerable face skills. Once at the gate, Danny Boy took on the persona of a highly displeased Ares Lieutenant General, and his bark was so fierce, no one questioned him for more than a moment. With the documentation seeming to back up his story, there was no room for doubt in the poor Ares security peons' minds.

Posing as a hardware specialist on the way in, Kay-O got to work on the vault door and had it open within seconds despite it having a high-tech anti-tampering mechanism. Purkinje kept the cameras occupied while Kay-O picked a mechanical safe inside that turned out not to have been changed from the default combination. Once inside, she browsed the documents and noted which ones appeared to be missing from the filing system per the contract. She rewired the temperature regulator that was keeping the ritual samples stable so that it wouldn't detect the fire she started, nor the bottles of bleach and turpentine she used to clean up. While it burned, Purkinje looked up the missing samples in the Ares database she had a direct connection to. She managed to snag a file labeled, "PLAN TO TARGET PROTOTYPE TRANSHUMAN EX-FIREWATCH LEADER IN SEATTLE."

Since they managed to avoid setting off any alarms, their way out was relatively unhindered. Tanuki leapt into action, driving the runners through a series of tight alleys like something out of a trid until they were safely out of Pittsburgh and able to rendezvous with the Ancients at the airfield. Unfortunately, they weren't out of the woods yet. Ares VTOL craft pursued them once they were aloft. The craft were dispatched, but the pilots who ejected seemed to disappear mysteriously into thin air.

Aftermath

Ultimately, Ares was thoroughly embarrassed and lost millions of nuyen in property damage. The client was pleased, and the runners were paid as per the contract.

Rewards

• 11,000¥ each, 5 karma each, +3 Rep with ex-Firewatch, +3 rep Ares: Anti-Project Pyro