Spy Games
| Spy Games | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Ares Macrotechnology | ||||||||
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Voltage Vichnozeleny Absolute Zero Cricket |
Ares Security Mission Targets | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| James Riley | |||||||||
Summary
The runners are hired to murder a man in his bed while planting encoded evidence in different locations. They succeed, though many mysteries remain.
Background
The runners are contacted about an elven man recruiting a team. Networking around different underworld circles, the man left few details in his wake but seemed legitimate enough for the team's fixers to refer their runners.
Voltage intimidated a guy for walking while suited.
The Meet
The team are led to a nondescript building in the north-eastern part of Downtown. In the transition zone to Snohomish, the area lacked the energy and wealth of Downtown proper. The building was bare, with little to see other than a locked door, maglock activated. Waiting outside, the team chatted some, a bit of tension being added when Voltage and Cricket realized Vic was part of a group targeting gangs. Tiring of nothing happening, Vic eventually decided to bypass the maglock, breaking their way into the building.
Stepping into a generic hallway, an elf with soykaf walked past at the end, only to double take and head over to the team. Confused at how they got in, and somewhat curious why they didn't knock, the man lead the team over to a conference room. Inside, a few elves were scattered across the room, a small table to the side loaded with cheap donuts and soykaf and pop music being played through the air. At the centerpiece, an elven woman looked at the team as they entered, sipping soykaf and bobbing her head slightly to the music.
Welcoming them to the meeting and offering them refreshments, the conversation quickly became less polite. The J was cryptic and wove insults into her speech, the team enduring a large amount of denigration. Cricket especially, insulted back. Eventually, a vague job description was hashed out. The woman wanted the team to kill a man in an Ares compound, James Reilly, and search his room for commlinks and data chips. Additionally, she wanted two other chips placed in very particular locations. One was to be placed in an exact location in a nearby park, and the other was to be stealthily placed in another worker's room in the compound, a person named Alissa Johnson. While the assassination could be loud and detected, the other two objectives had to be done quietly. Any alert in those objectives would spell failure.
In return, the J offered a vague payment, with a bonus for a good performance and deductions for problems. Wanting something a bit more defined, they managed to get the bonus incorporated into the default payment and received a half-spoken promise of bioware. Voltage also asked for a new arm.
The team varying degrees of angry at the J, they still ended up accepting and left to begin research.
The Plan
Vic's first and last plan was to call Amrei Veidt. Wanting information and aid, it was promised on the condition that Vic passes her the contents of the chips. Not exactly able to do that herself, she turned to Cricket for help. While this was happening, Cricket had already failed to resist the lure of forbidden knowledge.
Leaving the meet with two datachips that she wasn't supposed to open, it was only a matter of time until she opened them. Heading to a safer place, she took a look at one of them, the chip to be placed in Alissa Johnson. The file was encrypted and databombed, but using techno magic, she bypassed all of that, getting a copy of the data within. With anticipation, she opened the contents, only to see lines of gibberish. It was encoded.
Not at all sure how to actually read the file, she decided to call a friend to Uncover The Truth. Commlink ringing, Cricket called News Van Dan to decrypt highly secret data. As Cricket started to talk with Dan, about to tell him about what she was up to, she felt a presence behind her, waves of power rolling over her. Slowly turning around, she faced a spirit, elven in appearance, holding a shining sword directly at her.
Cricket mixed her normal bravado with a bit of fear and tried to tell the spirit to fuck off. The spirit did not. They did send a message though. Keep trying to do this and die. Eventually, the message sunk in enough for Cricket to not call Dan again. Over DNI though she sent copies of the encoded message to the rest of the team, warning them that they might have spirits observing them.
Vic, getting both the data and the warning, immediately sent the datachip contents to Amrei. Eventually, she called back, apparently having cracked the code and being intrigued by the knowledge within. While she didn't tell anything about what was inside, she gave an overview of the two targets at Ares and requested that Vic pass over anything else she finds of interest.
Voltage and Zero decided to do some physical recon, first to check out the park and then the building. They headed over to the park in Bellevue, only a few blocks from the target building. Suspicious that something more was at play here, the searched around, both physically and astrally. Nothing seemed to be amiss though. Heading to the specified location, they found a small envelope wedged between a trash can and bench. This was where they were supposed to put the data chip they were given. Obviously concerned that something bigger was happening here, they continued further trying to find the hidden "trap", but ultimately found nothing. It was just a normal park.
Leaving the area, they decided to pay a visit to the Ares compound. Three floors, surrounded by a medium sized wall, only a single gate led inside. Cameras were liberally placed throughout, so finding an uncovered way in would be difficult. Zero decided to check for astral things, and started astrally perceiving, on Voltage's shoulders for a better vantage. The first thing she noticed was a watcher spirit. The watcher spirit noticed too. After staring at each other for a few moments, she hurriedly told Voltage to leave, so Voltage dropped her in a panic, literally, and they left the scene. She also saw a ward around the building in the chaos.
Next Cricket did a variety of matrix searches to gather information on the two targets, the building they will have to enter, and the building that they got the job from.
All together, from that and earlier information gathering, they found out the following.
The primary target, James Reilly, was a human wage-mage stationed at the location for the past few years. Working primarily as a magical consultant and bureaucrat, he checked off on designs, answered questions, and generally did incredibly boring work. A quiet man, with few attachments beyond networking at corporate events, he seemed to be an incredibly bland person.
Alissa Johnson was a bit different. A employee at the Ares subsidiary operating in Tir Tairngire, she was visiting Seattle on a temporary assignment, going to meetings and the like. Mundane, she worked as a liaison with local officials in the Tir, schmoozing her way into the good graces of those in power and trying to keep logistical chains moving freely and business operations steady.
As far at the team could tell, there was absolutely no connection between the two targets, both in terms of work and personal connections. They seemed entirely unrelated to each other.
Cricket, curious about the J, dug into the place that they met her, trying to find out more about the job and calm her conscience enough to proceed. It was a tough thing to uncover, but after digging through countless shell companies, she found out a primary money source for the property acquisition.
The Run
Aftermath
Rewards
24,000 Nuyen (48000 of Bioware of Betaware or lower)
3 Karma
4 CDP
1 arm for Voltage
1 Chip on Amrei Veidt for Vichnozeleny