Ronin in the Shadows
| Ronin in the Shadows | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||
|
ShadowHaven Jacqueline Grant Informer The Kid (Aki) | |||||||
| Black Samurai | |||||||
Summary
As the Light the Shadows campaign is starting to change the shadows, Sam finds himself on and odd job that puts him in the uncomfortable position of looking after the daughter of another runner.
Background
Light the Shadows is a concerted effort by the District Attorney Mark Donaghy and others in law enforcement to hit runners at their bottom line. Arrests are made when possible, but bank accounts, safe houses, the power to areas that harbor runners and all manner of tactics are on the table to make the lives of runners very difficult. The runner Pepe and his crew have been swallowed up by the tumult, leaving his daughter at home and unprotected.
The Call
Jacqueline Grant calls Sam out of the blue on a Thursday evening as he sits in his local sake bar enjoying a sweet potato roll. She's obviously a bit out of her element calling him like this, but she has a favor to ask. Relaying information from Pepe, she asks Sam to head to an apartment complex just a bit north of SEA-TAC. The job is to hang out and let her know if things are ok and she offers 5k ¥ for what seems like a pretty simple job.
Of course she's keeping some information back, mostly because Sam doesn't ask. But in that apartment complex Aki, otherwise known as the kid. Her father, the runner Pepe, called Jacqueline to ask if she could send someone to keep an eye on the place as his group is surrounded by police.
The Apartment
Sam quickly finishes his roll and heads out. Disguise as Katashi Jin he gathers his gear and rides his Nodachi north from Loveland. When he arrives, he finds a four building complex. The buildings are decently maintained and perhaps most importantly, in a good school district. A few gangers peddle drugs, but for the most part it seems like a decent place to live. Over the next couple of hours he keeps an eye on the place, moving from the second level of a motel, to a street corner and then toward a clothing store.
As he crosses the street, he sees a black americar pull up. Two orks and a troll get out, leaving a human driver inside. Sam easily makes the group as disassemblers. He briefly contacts Jacqueline about the gang, but she tells him they aren't heading into the building she's concerned about. That doesn't sit quite right with him, but he's also not getting paid to deal with these gangers. So he asks the clerk at the convenience store to call the cops, getting a reassuring 'yeah right,' in response.
Satisfied with doing the right thing, he continues toward the clothing store. From there, he's lucky enough to have the perfect position to get an early glimpse of KE beat officers pulling up to start clearing people from the street. The disassemblers aren't harassed as they leave, so it's easy to see that this probably has nothing to do with them.
Sam again contacts Jacqueline and gets the room number. Learning that the cops are there she asks him to go to room 303 and take the person there somewhere safe. He moves quickly across the street by passing the cops who are about a block away asking people to get off the street. Moving behind the building he guesses at where room 303 is and parkours up the balconies. As he does so a SWAT vehicle pulls up to the south.
The Kid
Aki is inside holding a gun her father taught her to use. As Sam knocks on the sliding door, he can see her shadow move, but she's against the wall out of view. When the lights to all the buildings go out, he decides it's time to go. Breaking the glass he steps inside to find the gun pointed at his chest. After some tense back and forth, he carries her down the way he came up, and asks his bike to meet them out of sight of her building. As he sneaks away, he sees several SWAT operators on the south side of the building preparing to wrap around and enter.
The pair mount his bike and he drives away casual, evading suspicion from the beat cops. As they drive away, the verbally spar some more. He gets a few points by allowing her to pick some clothing since it now seems they are temporarily stuck with one another. Sam also asks Masuyama Kijuro to put Frank in his car. He then has the car meet at the delivery locker where the purchased clothes are waiting.