Empire Ants Part One
| Empire Ants Part One | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Hard Corps | ||||||||
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Athena Shark Turul | |||||||||
Summary
Underground interests hireshadowrunners to investigate the actions of some Hard Corps employees. Uncovering the cover-up that's been put into place, the team is attacked by an officer under suspicious circumstances, and eventually captures him before retreating to a safehouse.
Background
Concerned citizens of all stripes in the Ork Underground note that Hard Corps has been 'disappearing' people, and legal action is getting bogged down by Ares' best lawyers. Desperate for answers, they pool their resources together, and hire three shadowrunners to investigate the leads that they have.
The Meet
The Johnson gets the team together over VR in the Haven host, convincing them that the job is for a good cause and offering ¥5,000 on completion. Having agreed, the team is directed to follow an underground path to a secret 'clubhouse' on the outskirts of the inhabitable Underground. Once the team arrives, they encounter a diverse group of Underground denizens who share their anecdotes of close individuals who have disappeared after being apprehended by the Corps, and a Skraacha underboss tells them to look out for the magical capabilities of Hard Corps, which seem to have been greater of late.
The Plan
The team retreats to a safehouse to do their legwork, Turul and Shark planning while Athena gets to work enhancing video footage of Hard Corps evicting a small family, who disappeared following this. After about two hours of work, it becomes clear that the employees in question had covered their identification while doing so. Without much ability to track them from there, the team decides to investigate a Hard Corps-protected restaurant from which someone's wife was disappeared after starting a drunken fight.
The Run
While Shark faces difficulty getting the restaurant's owner on the line, his fake lawyer's license gets him access to the security officer on duty on the night that the disappearance occurred. The guard's story is that, following the breakout of a drunken brawl, given the greater physical strength of the many dwarfs involved, further Hard Corps backup was called, who subdued and arrested them. However, the footage, for which Shark manages to wheedle, shows only two dwarfs fighting, which further contradicts the testimony of the dwarf who provided the location of the restaurant to the team. Shark also secures the name of one of the responding officers, one Chad Vega.
Turul, using his astral sight to investigate the auras of the manager and the guard, catches glimpse of a strange spirit, and as the team leaves sees it again. Able to determine that it is strange, but unsure of what exactly it could be, he warns the team but continues on. Athena, investigating further, notes a change in Vega's online behaviour that occurred about a month ago, but that prior to this his P2.1 often featured a certain underground bar. Turul decides to attempt to infiltrate it, Shark and Athena waiting nearby. Turul, although blending in quite well at the bar, finds himself accosted by a fully-dressed uniformed Hard Corps officer, who seems to be probing him. Turul, attempting to deflect the officer's questions, accidentally insults him in a somewhat ethnically-charged fashion, and finds himself asked to take it outside by the Hard Corps officer. Shark bursts in in an attempt to impress upon the officer the seriousness of the situation. The officer, oddly unfazed by this, follows the two outside and immediately begins attacking the trio. Although a few off-duty Hard Corps employees follow to support him after gunshots from Athena's machine pistol are heard, the team successfully subdues their opposition, though Shark is incapacitated by a heavy kick from the armoured officer and Turul is knocked out by drain.
Athena quickly calls Angela, who in exchange for a favour and ¥1000 has some hackers she knows in the underground delay the inevitable Hard Corps response to this fracas. Athena then uses Turul's medkit to revive him and Shark, before grabbing the unconscious officer under a jammer and stealthily fleeing the underground to their safehouse.
Aftermath
With the officer secured, further action and interrogation is now possible, but the situation remains uncertain. How long will they be able to hold this man?
Rewards
11 Karma, 2 CDP