Sabotage on the Rainbow Seas
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ShadowHaven Template:Contact Template:Player Character Haven PC |
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Summary
Background
Razz and Friends has been a popular trideo for years with children - but a sudden resurgence in interest by young and old alike has put the trid on a whole new level in the entertainment space. It features a unicorn protagonist and a gang of unbearable cute creatures that teach lessons like friendship, loyalty, and have the undeniable undertone of accepting the life of a good corporate wageslave. Until now, there has been no physical merchandising related to Razz and Friends - a hole that several large toy manufacturers have been angling to fill (to bring the children joy of course, not for the untold amounts of nuyen it will bring in).
Rumors have been circulating that Unicornergy Toy Company (recently renamed from Simon’s Toy Extravaganza, Ltd.) has been awarded intellectual rights to make toys based on the show, contingent upon securing merchandising contracts from major retailers. To accomplish this, Unicornergy is set to debut the crowning jewel of their design efforts at the annual Toy Fair in New York City: A semi-plush toy based on Razz the Unicorn, with AR features to allow the user to interact with the toy in a more realistic way based on the show. You could feed Razz (they really liked strawberries and licorice!), interact with Razz like you were part of the show’s universe, and take care of Razz like a pet! The marketing had a multi-pronged approach: teach children responsibility, help them build social skills, and provide them with a toy of their favorite unicorn!
There was a lot of grumbling in the toy industry about who got the rights to the product. Sven Industries (a much larger manufacturer) had put in a more attractive bid for the rights, but inexplicably the contract had gone to Unicornegy Toys - an almost unknown toy maker.
The Meet
Karen McCormick, mother of three, grandmother to one, came to the fixers with the following:
Is this thing working? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Wait what, this is. . . Oh crud.
Look I don't normally do this kind of thing! I'm a nice person but this time, this time they've gone too far. I'm a grandmother and I just won't stand for this! They won't hurt my granddaughter with their rushed to market baloney! Yes, I've asked to speak to their manager! Yes I've written strongly worded letters! I've done everything but threaten them with bodily harm - you are my last chance to make this right!
I'm talking about the rumors circulating around that Unicornergy Toys got the contract to produce the toy accompaniments to the show "Razz and Friends" - come on, you know the show, with the unicorns and other insanely cute creatures that teach kids about working together for the good of all? I know it's a load of corporate sponsored drek but my granddaughter and all her friends love it and - what do you mean I'm off track!
So the rumors are that Unicornergy is going to unveil their new toy line at the annual Toy Fair in New York this week - there's just one problem! Unicornergy has knowingly made an unsafe toy! I'm not talking choking hazard here, people, I'm talking exploding electronics, dead kids, fire, blood, and destruction! You have to help me stop them!
Fixers reached out to two runners on the Haven known to be exceptional with Matrix operations - Twitch and Crypt3ch. The pair met with Karen at a cafe downtown, where she explained her situation. She had tried going about this through proper channels and nothing was happening! So she was willing to empty her bank account and hire runners to do the job - but it had to be now. The Toy Fair was tomorrow, so the team had less than 24 hours to get in and make sure Unicornergy was so publicly embarrassed that the toys would never make it to shelves (and the contract would be pulled and awarded to someone else, of course).
She offered the pair the edits required for the manufacturing files to spit out toys that were obviously defective - it was normal practice for prototypes to be distributed to potential retailers at the Toy Fair to secure retail contracts - and if they could replace all the marketing information with her files, further adding to the public embarrassment, she'd pay extra. She offered partial payment for doing the job, the rest would be available upon verification of completion (how everything went at the Toy Fair presentation the next day).
Crypt3ch and Twitch agreed - though suffice to say, Twitch was rather unsettled by the woman.
The Plan
The plan was simple: find the host, get in, change the stuff, and get out. The pair decided that going into VR would be preferrable in Baby (Twitch's prized automobile) so that in the case of convergence, they were already on the move. Twitch conducted a matrix search on Unicornergy before they started, learning about the