It's A Gas
| It's A Gas | |||||||
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| Part of Shadow Heroes | |||||||
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ShadowHaven Yata Moth Itztli La Rapide | Neo Assembly | ||||||
Summary
The runners found out at the meet that the Johnson was was Bold, Screamer, and Jammer of the City Watch. The vigilante super hero was trying to take down Agent Orange, a toxin producing supervillain, who had recently caused a dangerous explosion at Tacoma mall.
He needed runners to infiltrate Agent Orange's secret lair. A heavily locked down toxin production faculty in the Barrens. Word was that Agent Orange was using a recruiter, Jimmy 8 Fingers to bring on some more villain henchmen. And that meant the proud hero needed some criminals to do the infiltration who could get hired on. The mission was to get to the security terminal and apply a data chip that would introduce a virus. And to get video footage of the whole thing. For a cash bonus.
The runners tracked down Jimmy 8 Fingers at a seedy drive-in in Puyallup. He said he'd take them to the property the next day.
This presented a challenge - with Jimmy driving them through the terrible environmental hazards, they could see it was very dangerous and challenging to navigate. And, they didn't have a vehicle of their own, since they were riding in Jimmy's jeep. A problem to solve...
And the ride in was dangerous! They were attacked by fire spirits.
The runners did minion jobs - loading boxes, preparing weapons, lots of scut work. But it helped them learn, and put together a plan.
It took a lot of distraction, stealth, and clever fast talk, but they got the data chip in place.
And Moth convinced a smuggler delivering a shipment to be their ride out of the area, earning a new contact in D'Auriel Peirson.
They got out clean, and got paid.
Background
The City Watch wanted to take down Agent Orange. He was a threat to the city. The City Watch believed Agent Orange to be responsible for A recent attack and robbery at Tacoma Mall. He was a terrible danger.
And Horizon underwrites them. The idea of using runners to infiltrate a super-villain's lair was also a chance to get camera footage for Horizon's live superhero feed store.
Agent Orange had created a lair with tremendous physical security. Many rooms. Air locks. A powerful custom neurotoxin flooding some rooms as a trap.
The Meet
Bold had the runners meet him at an abandoned warehouse in Puyallup. His disdain for criminals was apparent.
With some negotiation, it was agreed the runners would get ¥20,000 each. The last ¥2,000 of that was for each person to have a person video feed of all of the action.
The runners realized they had an option: get recruited as themselves, or disguise themselves.
Yata was comfortable being herself, and lending her street cred to the operation.
Everyone else decided to take advantage of Itztli and Moth's amazing disguise skills and equipment.
The mission was clear: Get recruited; infiltrate the based; find the security terminal; put the datachip in the terminal; turn in the proof (video feed) to the Johnson.
The Plan
Get recruited! - The runners went to likely seedy bars where Jimmy 8 Fingers might be at. They asked around. - They found Jimmy and leaned on Yata's reputation to get the job, while the others made the best impression they could as their disguised personalities. - Itztli had a summoned spirit follow Jimmy just in case he wasn't going to keep the appointment. Happily he did.
Infiltrate! - They showed up to meet Jimmy as instructed, and followed his directions. - The plan was to be good minions until they had enough information to get the chip on the security terminal. - They took inventory of their skillsets. They had good social skills and one sneaky person. They would watch, and take advantage of the opportunities presented. - Yata hid the data chip in her leg.
The Run
The trip with Jimmy 8 Fingers to the secret lair was more dangerous than they expected. They were attacked by fire spirits. Yata could take the hits, and helped protect Moth. La Rapide attacked the fire spirits with a deadly whip. Itztli summoned a water spirit. Moth rallied them to do their best.
Once inside, they had to do a number of minion tasks, to learn the map, the hazards, the security processes, and the way to the security terminal.
Moth identified a smuggler making a delivery as their best chance to escape, and recruited his help. He had access to multiple vehicles. D'Auriel Peirson gave her his contact information, and a promimse to return when called.
Yata and Itztli found the security room. But it was quite secure. Luckily, they discovered that Agent Orange had ordered an over-ride key that would get through all of the air lock doors. They were assigned to deliver it, and some other supplies, and managed to swipe it, with Itztli providing a great distraction, and Yata showing off her palming skills.
The runners re-assembled and made the plan. How could they use Agent Orange's key and make it plausible? Moth came up with the con that the newly delivered key card hadn't worked with Agent Orange tried it, and the angry boss had sent them to test it and figure out what was wrong. They came sweeping in, testing the key (which of course worked), and she made a distracting show of trying it on other doors in the room. Yata got the datachip in place.
The team had done it. They got away clean, and met up with D'Auriel Peirson at the planned evac point.
Aftermath
They gave Bold the video footage and the stolen override key. They got paid.
But, weeks later, Yata realized that she was on a Horizon trid, as the run was incorporated into the shows about taking down Agent Orange. The rest of them could not be recognized, but she could be.
Meanwhile, there may be interest in mysterious runners The Cat (Moth), Obsidian (Itztli), and La Fast (La Rapide).
Rewards
- ¥20,000
- 2 Karma
- 2 CDP
- Option to buy D'Auriel Peirson as a Loyalty 1 contact.
- Yata gained +1 Public Awareness, as the footage the team recorded will be aired on the trids after City Watch takes down Agent Orange.
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Itztli
This was a difficult job but it was for a good cause. As beign hired by a Vigilante as a criminal isn't weird enough but it to be tp infiltratinga "villians organization" crowns the whole thing. But I took the job and wont complain. It was quite difficult to put that damned chip in the security console but I guess being on the run for several years and always hiding you get used to be disguised and to be another person. It sure helped to rely on Yatas reputation but in retrospekt I feel bad for her being in that vigilanteshow this would have been my death. but getting into the Agent Orange "fortress" was the easiest part on our way there fighting those spirits was a tough deal and once in that damned building it was even tougher to get to the room where the security console was because they filled that frick'n room with KO gas. And I probably can't ever forgive myself for Fangirling Agent Orange even tho it helped us reach our goal.
La Rapide
It feels good to be the good guy, for once. OK, maybe I wasn't that nice to that one guy, let's just don't talk about that. But those cheeky bastards from Horizon, with their stupid show. Luckily we were disguised, well most of us. So, this is how it went. The meeting was quite uneventful, but this one would like superhero was really annoying. After we disguest our self, we did some preperations, over wich I will not talk. We found this 8-Finger-Guy in this bar. I gues it was quite literally a drive in. Moth and Yata conviced him to take us as rookies, into the organisation. The fast forward to next day, by the way, nice home Moth. Anyway, whe drove us to the base in Kitchen's Hell. On the way there we were attacked by a bunch of fire spirits, because of that stupid diesel-car. But Yata, Itztli and I defeted them quite fast. Moth patched me up after we arived at the base, thanks again. In the base, we had to do some low level tasks, and during that Itztli and Yata somehow got the masterkey from Agent Orange. After we reunited the group again, we pulled a con to get the chip into the securety terminal. After that we escaped unnoticed, and a new made friend of Moth flew us out of there.
Moth
Moth here. This was an interesting run. Run #11 for me!
It was an all girl team. Me, Yata - a bad ass snow leopard surgeling, Itztli – a human summoner, and La Rapide – an elf with a whip.
We could tell from the meet this one was going to be different. Bold – our johnson – had a darn spotlight on himself during our conversation. I have to admire the attention to appearance. He obviously hated having to work with runners. He’s not good at hiding his emotions, that’s for sure. His cause was a good one – stop a super-villain who has already blown up a mall, and is making terrible toxins. We were going to do it for sure.
I still paused to run up the price, just because that’s what papa would want and I cannot convey enough how much this prick was looking down his nose at us. Sometimes you have to play to expectation. He thinks we’re mercenaries? Fine, then pay us like we are. Meanwhile, I’m thinking how many people have you saved in the last two weeks Bold? Because I’ve saved a bunraku parlor full of victims, a kid facing an awful abomination of a surgery, a guy whose cyberware was stolen… Most of what I do is save people.
The good news is that the negotiating brought up the interesting bonus opportunity with the video feed.
And that told us two things. 1) We had a chance to get some more nuyen – which is lovely. 2) We needed to think very carefully about disguises. No one asks for video footage without a plan to use it.
We knew our goal was to get recruited as minions by the recruiter. And that was a trade-off of using existing reputation, and protecting our identities. After a quick team huddle, we agreed that Yata would be visibly herself. She could be the leader of our gang, and the rest of us we would disguise.
Happily Itztli is very good with disguises. She didn’t have any of the high end equipment, but she had the skill. Together, we were a very strong team. We made three disguises for the rest of us that were pretty flawless.
We knew the recruiter would be at a seedy spot in Puyallup. Given that I have lived my entire life in Puyallup (except this last month), I had a good feeling for options. Of course, we decided to hit Chicken first. It’s such a trashy spot, they don’t even have a sign anymore. Just the neon lady chicken, with the cartoonish enormous eyelashes so you know it’s a lady chicken. That’s probably a breasts joke or something? I’m not sure.
Alas, Jimmy 8 Fingers (our recruitment contact) was not there. We asked around and were able to blend in enough that we didn’t cause any trouble for ourselves, and got confirmation that Jimmy was at the drive-in.
But! This is where things take a turn! We got back out to the car, and my car, my beautiful sport sedan had been broken into! The window was smashed. They’d grabbed my good medkit and all my drugs. Can you imagine some asshole thinking it was okay to steal from me? Papa’s little girl? In Puyallup? And then I remembered I was in a super good disguise. Shoot. But that did not take away much of the sting. Clearly I need better car security.
But we piled in, broken glass and all, and headed to the drive-in. Of note, someone in the car - not me! - gets carsick if you drive too fast. Luckily, crises averted by me slowing down, and my car did not suffer a further injury.
And Jimmy was there. Sitting at the walk-up bar. So we walked up.
It took a little persuading with Yata standing there looking tough and well known, and me selling it. He wasn’t overly excited that my minion skills were looking pretty and talking sweet. He needed people to haul boxes and do total grunt work. But we eventually convinced him we were the right gals for the job.
He promised to call us the next day and bring us in.
That left a little worry that he might not, so Itztli had a spirit follow him. Just to be sure. But he just hit more recruitment spots and then his bolthole. And called us as promised.
That gave us time to re-supply. I got another medkit. And an anti-theft thing for my car. I invited everyone to my house so they could actually be rested. When you are the only person with a car at the meet, pretty good chance at least one of the others lives in a cardboard box. I don’t want my teammates suffering like that when they could lavishing it up with me.
Now this is where it got tricky.
Jimmy wanted us to pile into his jeep for a drive out to the secret lair in the Warrens. I mean what were we going to say? We had signed up to work there. So we piled in. But as he’s trick driving through a crazy set of environmental hazards – steam geysers and stuff – and the air is decidedly gross – and our folks are seeing a bunch of angry fire spirits? – my big thought is ‘how the hell are we going to evac this job when we are done?’ Because that is no small deal. Food for thought.
Then there’s a big distraction while we fight fire spirits. I froze. Yata protected me. Everyone else seemed super capable. We won. But we had injured. I pulled out the medkit, but Jimmy said there was a good med room at the base. Better to wait.
But it did give me a chance once we got there to do a bit of first aid work. Look like I was useful.
The base was in an old Tesla Power plant. It was crazy. We had to wear respirators, and eventually haz-mat suits. There were rooms filled with neurotoxin. Just trap rooms. Tons of airlocks. Tons of security measures. No obvious security terminal to hit with the virused data chip.
So we had to play minion for awhile to figure it all out.
La Rapide and I had an assignment to bring in a supplies shipment from the helicopter pad. Now this worked out great because – professional smuggler that I am – I realized the elf guy doing the delivery was just a contract smuggler. A merc. And pretty nice. And pretty easy to sway with money. So I chatted him up and got him convinced to be our ride out of there. He gave me his number. D'Auriel Peirson. I’d just have to call it. One problem solved.
We got covered in volcanic ash bringing in the supplies off the roof, and had to go to the shower area. Did La Rapide remember to turn off her video footage for the shower scene? I seriously need to ask that. (Good news! She did not record it.)
Meanwhile, Itztli and Yata were getting stuff done. They figured out that Agent Orange (the supervillain) was getting tired of all the airlock door security too and had ordered an over-ride key. They managed to swipe this master key, and learn where the security terminal was. It was in a room with active guards in it. Of course.
But all we had to do was tag that terminal with the datachip.
Yata is all kinds of stealthy, so we just needed an excuse to walk in and walk out clean.
Particularly because Bold was planning to eventually attack the base, once the security was sufficiently scrambled by the virus. It wouldn’t exactly be great if we left a trail of dead bodies and put them on high alert.
So, I came up with the con that we head on in and claim that we legit had Agent Orange’s override key because he couldn’t get it to work, and wanted it fixed. This seemed totally plausible to me. You ever work with an ego-centric genius whose really really good at his job stuff, but can’t get basic tech to work sometimes? Yeah, right? Happens all the time. And that guy never takes care of it, and just humbly asks for help. He’d send henchpeople, bitching up a storm about how he was surrounded by incompetent boobs, right?
So, I just walked right in to the security room. ‘Testing’ the key. A ran a fine bit of small talk to distract. “Damn it – it works perfectly! What is he doing? Holding it upside down?” More testing on doors. Yata got the chip in place unseen! The security guys wanted to look at the over-ride key to test it, but that was what they would do, so we let them, and they just verified it was working and handed it back.
And we were free to walk out the door, mission accomplished.
Naturally I called D'Auriel Peirson for the evac. He had the good idea to meet at a place out of sight, a bit of walk away, and had a very fine road vehicle to the purpose.
Itztli had enough knowledge of the environment to guide us safely there.
We got away clean. We turned in our footage. We got paid, including the bonus! And I have a new contact who is a hell of a good rigger.
A good run!
I’d gladly work with any of these girls again.
Naturally, there was an excellent party at my house after, to celebrate!
===Yata:=== So, I got the feeling that Bull wasn't too happy about having to contract people with our expertise, but sometimes you have to get dirty to keep the city clean. We infiltrated the organization rather easily, particularly when I leaned on my rep. Seemed word on the street got around as far as the bounty hunt I went on with Boom Poom and Esper, and I managed to talk the whole group into being able to join. Once inside, it was just a matter of playing along until an opportunity presented itself, and Agent Orange couldn't have possibly made things easier for us. We swiped the master keycard while dropping some things off at his desk, used it to sneak in, put the program in the security terminal, and then got out. Unexpected and undetected, best way to do a job like this.