Snitches Get... Well, You Know the Rest
Summary
In which a team of runners are lured into a trap by a joint strike force of KE and Lone Star, and manage to barely escape by the skin of their teeth.
Background
After a recent announcement from the District Attorney’s Office, the Light the Shadows campaign has stepped up its attacks on ShadowHaven and its affiliates. As part of this effort, they have managed to present the image of a leak in the Haven, and turned this anonymous runner into a target; one Mr. Johnson has realized the opportunity this presents, and has collaborated with the DA’s office to present an opportunity to a group of runners to kill this person so that they can be lured into an ambush by law enforcement.
The Meet
The runners are contacted directly by Mr. Johnson, who sends them a message to meet at a warehouse in Puyallup; everyone is suspicious of the breach of protocol, however all show up after taking appropriate precautions. Inside, Mr. J and his pair of goons (clad in synthskin masks and generic outfits to disguise their identities) explain to the team that they have information on the source of the leak - a runner called Spartan, who has a safehouse in the Bellevue-Redmond area. The team naturally have questions (such as “how do you know all this?” and “why didn’t you go through our fixers?”), and Mr. J has vague answers for them (“I did my research.” and “how much do you really trust your fixers?”), telling them that time is short and offering them 10 grand apeace to go geek the slitch who sold them out to the DA. The runners accept the job.
The Plan
Paranoid and on edge, the runners hop in Black Samurai’s Shin-Hyung and drive over to the address they were given to scope the place out; en-route, Cricket does a search on their target and finds that they seem to be a mostly-unremarkable runner who went dark a few weeks ago after a job went bad. Lacking time to perform a more thorough search (as they were told that Spartan will almost certainly slip through their fingers if they drag their feet), they start to put together a plan of action.
Scoping out the building, they find an apartment block with an automated convenience store on the ground level next to the lobby; Cricket checks the cameras and finds that things look mostly normal, though there’s a gap in the footage from a few hours ago. briefly considering tossing neurostun into the HVAC system, they veto that option and instead have Barracuda and Black Samurai sneak around back through the ally and infiltrate while Cricket and Rewired (out in the car with Ace, who’s ready to provide backup as needed) and deals with the cameras.
The Run
Infiltrating the building is trivial for the two runners - however they find a nasty surprise when they get to Spartan’s apartment. Black Samurai knocks, hearing a trideo set playing inside, however after getting no response he resorts to using his sword as a lockpick. This sets off the 5 flashbang grenades on the other side, setting off both adept’s combat sense and triggering their “get the frag out of here” reflex as the Firewatch and Shadowrider teams spring their respective traps. Barracuda’s adrenaline surge kicks into gear, and he grabs Black Samurai to drag him out of the building as Shadowrider goons emerge from the surrounding apartments. As they get outside and make a break for the car, one of the walls of the building turns transparent and a pair of Firewatch goons fire their lasers at their thighs - a pair of timely lucky ducks from Ace and Rewired save them from being unable to continue fleeing.
On the Matrix, Cricket has a pair of deckers to deal with - thankfully she has her pet sprite Tresspasser on her side. Managing to mark the Firewatch decker, she eats a massive data spike right to her frontal lobe (the guy really doesn’t like her bug persona, for some reason) and barely survives before having Tresspasser delete the decker from the Matrix in turn and quickly forcing the Shadowrider decker to jack himself out. Counting herself lucky to be alive, she compiles up a machine sprite to pop into the car and focuses on killing cameras and protecting the team from further Matrix shenanigans.
In meatspace, Rewired just barely manages to drive the car well enough to avoid a called shot from a sniper to the engine block, and Black Samurai blocks a shotgun’s worth of stick-and-shock flechette rounds from hitting both Barracuda and the car before attaching them both to the vehicle with his new magnetic system. Peeling out, they head north to make their way into Snohomish - only to find that a pair of air spirits are in hot pursuit. One appears in the vehicle, where Ace bullseye-bursts it into oblivion, while the other appears outside and gets into a fight with Black Samurai, using its fear power to force him to flee; this results in him leaping from the car - still clutching Barracuda - and onto the bottom of a passing garbage truck
With the runners now split up, the Firewatch and Shadowriders teams split their focus - still not communicating with one-another. The spirit fades into the astral to follow the adepts, however it glitches its test and loses sight of the truck. Meanwhile the decker comes back online and guides a dragonfly drone to follow after the car - Ace manages to spot it out, and Cricket is (eventually) able to take it offline. Making their way to a mafia-controlled smuggling route to bypass checkpoints, they quickly locate a no-tell motel to hide out in, while Black Samurai and Barracuda get very close on their ride on the bottom of a truck, eventually rolling out from underneath it once they’re half a district away and finding a brothel to lay low in for a while.
Aftermath
After several days of laying low and moving between motels/brothels, the team are confident that they’ve manage to shake their respective trails (thanks to the infighting between the OPFOR forces more than anything). They count themselves lucky to be alive, though the notion of plants and sellouts within the Haven remains a nagging thought in the back of their minds; there is no sign of "Spartan", and the identity of the DA's informant, if they do indeed exist, remains a mystery.
Firewatch and the Shadowriders have some footage of the fighting, but none of it is very useful as the runners managed to restrain themselves and not commit undue violence in close proximity to civilians; as the footage makes law enforcement look heavy-handed, it will be kept private and is of little use to the Light the Shadows campaign. Mr. J and his goons skip the sprawl and move to Denver to start over, and the initiative to entrap more high-value targets continues with other collaborators.
Rewards
15 karma 2 CDP Optional Quality: Cynic @ chargen price
For Cricket: Optional Quality: Brilliant Heuristics @ chargen price -5 Firewatch rep (for looking like a bug on the Matrix)
For Rewired: Optional Quality: Stunt Driver, Speed Demon or Subtle Vehicle Pilot @ chargen price
For Ace: Optional Quality: Perceptive @ chargen price