What You Can Catch In The Net
| What You Can Catch In The Net | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| NeoNET |
Quxing John Snake Eye's Airtime | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| None | None | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 1 Spirit of Man | None | ||||||||
Background
Quxing has been looking to expand its matrix capabilities in Seattle and needs a capable leader and spider in order to head this new initiative. Jordan Fairclothe is an accomplished Spider working for Neonet who can see that this ship is sinking and wants out. They made it known that they wanted out, and Quxing offered them this high level position in exchange for some pay data within Neonet related to some of the matrix development and technology. Jordan agrees, but not before getting found that they wanted to jump shit by Neonet. Jordan was transferred to a site in Everett, should their investigation show that Jordan really wants to leave, they would transfer him for reeducation, but so does everyone so it takes time. Quxing hires a Johnson to get a Runner team to get Jordan out of their.
Meet
The Runners all make their way to the Fiasco Bar, a "classy" bar in Downtown that has turned into a drug den with a fair amount of Bunraku to enjoy. John and Snake Eye's both make their way to the meet without any hassle, but the place it grimy and gross with a group of suits making a drug addict snort Novacoke until he started to pop. Airtime stole a bike out in the Barrens and started pedaling her way to the meet, losing some money for skipping out on work. She got lost on her way there and ran right into a Knight Errant check point in Belleuve. She has her SIN scanned several times but a drone, but it keeps coming up with errors, though not burning it. She ran for it, and was hit by some bullets from the drone. She thought she lost them, only to find a car following her. She called Madam Butterfly who told her to ditch the jacket as she had tracker rounds in her and to return to the Barrens so that KE wouldn't follow her. She would tell the Johnson that Airtime would not be attending and would receive a dock in pay.
The Johnson shows up, a scumbag in a nice suit with Novacoke on his nose. He tells the Runners that there is a corp extraction job that needs their help. The pay is 16k nuyen each, with 4k being removed from the no show. He is originally cagey on the details of the meet before being convinced to tell the Runners that Quxing wants someone from Neonet, one Jordan Fairclothe. Willing extraction from a location in Everett. They try to convince him to give some of the money upfront and he agrees to give them 2k up front to the two of them who are here, but would give 4k if they joined him with his Bunraku. John agrees, and after the fade to black, John feels the woman writing, "Kill me" on his chest, and as he turns to her, just sees her eyes leaking. He carries her into a backroom without a camera, and shots her through the head.
Run
The Runners all meet at a spot in the Barrens to join their last teammate and start scoping out the situation. They look into the floorplans of the building, scout out the area with drones and astral. John lets his ad drone scope the place which sees a lot of deliveries and not a lot of exits besides those who are forced to leave. There are maintenance and garbage people who also come to the location. Snake Eye's sees that the place has some warding around the basement to the garbage, but the entrance doesn't have a ward, but there are two watcher spirits who are scoping out the place. One of them spots him before he flees and a spirit of man phases in as he departs. John tries to land a drone right on the window, but it is shot at, so instead he lowers it down slowly as to not make it very noticeable in meatspace and it crawls down to Jordan's room, which they were able to discover from his MeFeed which was being very vocal about his location and goingson. Madam Butterfly determines the location and bit of information for the boys. The drone spots that Jordan stays in the living room all day, seemingly staring at the door, waiting to be extracted.
The Runners cannot decide who they are going to get him from the location without a decker, but when they search a Shadow BBS, discover information about the guard rotation for the building and stop to go and talk to the guard who would be on duty. The Runners arrive at his house, pass him 600 nuyen and he runs inside to tell his wife that he is taking her to the opera. The Runners disguise John and Airtime as two delivery people, there to delivery a recliner to Jordan. The Guard lets them upstairs, but when they make it upstairs, Jordan starts asking the Runners if they have his deck or the pay data. They do not and are generally confused so they have to now work to make it to the 50th floor now in order to get his cyberdeck. John goes upstairs while Airtime installs the chair. John runs into a guard, tranqs him and then pops him with neurstun in order to swipe his card and get into the holding room. He picks a lock and as he grabs the cyber deck, notices a spirit of man appearing in the material, inspecting the unconscious guard. Snake Eye's appears in the astral to pester and bother the spirit, who chases after him and manages to get a good smack on him before banishing it with a mana bolt. John runs over and slaps a stimpatch on the guard as a mage materializes in, asking them about the situation before trying to figure out why his spirit was banished. John convinces him that the biomonitor malfunctioned.
Airtime loads up Jordan into the recliner box and then she and John make their way downstairs where they are greeted by some security asking about their purpose, but they manage to pass it off with a solid record and the fact nothing has gone off on the matrix. They walk on out, load up Jordan and make their way to Quxing where Michael Wilford greets the Runners before welcoming Jordan inside.
Aftermath
Quxing now has a new head of Matrix development, Jordan Fairclothe, and Neonet is down one more capable matrix user. They are peeved, but not surprised. They are less pleased with the Runners getting in, and out so easily and frequently at this location and are going to sell off this location to recoup some of their loses.
Rewards
16K nuyen for John and Snake Eye's, with 4k upfront, 4 karma, +2 Rep with Quxing, -1 Rep with Neonet for John and Airtime, Airtime Records on File with Ares 12 K for Airtime Airtime gains 1 extra Karma for total of 5 for police chase 1 not for John killing Bunraku
Player Characters
John
Record Date: 2-22-2079
Record Tags: [Shadowrun], [Quxing], [Exfiltration]
Talk about "not according to plan".... Should've known this was going to go south in the first ten minutes. The Johnson set up a meet in a grade-A drekhole downtown, and the man himself was no better. Had to press him just for basic information about the job. (Note: ask Ellie about her screening methods.) The job parameters seemed straightforward, so it's unclear why the J felt the need to give us trouble. On negotiating for a slush fund, he starts in on some stipulation about joining in his hedonism. Waste of time, but I've done much worse in this line of work. About halfway through this pointless exercise in debauchery, one of the condemned decides that her life is irredeemable. "Kill me" she says.
This world is cursed with oppression, and I will be the first to preach the wickedness of it. But weakness is no excuse for the oppressed. Life is not fair, kind, or good. It simply is. If you walk the wrong path, life will readily reward you with consequences. If you want a second chance, then you'd better be willing to fight for it. If you want to capitulate to circumstance, then I will be life's instrument. It wasn't my cleanest kill, nor does it bring satisfaction to end something so wretched, but weakness is a cancer that I will not hesitate to excise.
No concrete evidence was left, but it seems someone must have put two and two together from that night, as I've heard whispers. Need to be more careful. Anyways, the third runner never showed that night. Apparently, the meathead had tried to run a bicycle through a KE checkpoint. Much to *everyone's* surprise, a troll from the Barrens with a half-forged SIN wasn't received too well in Bellevue. We got a bit of heat, but KE wasn't in a mood to chase a nobody through Redmond.
Recon for the exfil was uneventful. NeoNET is crumbling, and their lackadaisical security reflects it. Hindsight almost took a bullet during the visual survey (note: look into upgrading my two tiny friends), but Insight completed the job overnight without issue. The earlier events must've put me off-focus, as my usual meticulous planning was apparently on vacation. Our entry plan was a bit sketchy, and we resorted to simply passing a minor payment to one of the desk guards. It worked, and the troll and I made it up to the target without issue. And then drek hit the fan.
This soon-to-be-ex-spider decided that he wasn't going anywhere without a stack of data on his cyberdeck. A cyberdeck, he informed us, which had conveniently been re-appropriated by his superiors. Well, thinking on my feet is nothing new, so the troll keeps our wunderkind occupied while I make a jaunt to a completely un-recon'd top-floor security vault. (Clearly one of my better ideas.) Well, chance favors the prepared mind, as they say, and I have two very expensive appendages' worth of preparation at my disposal. Some friendly chat and fast fingers took down the lone security guard at the vault, and his credentials got me Mr. Fairclothe's expensive toy. Of course, that's about the time that a spirit patrol shows up and things get interesting. Our mage cues on the visual link and goes astral to take care of our ethereal friend (nice response time, by the way), and as I'm clearing out of the area, the spirit's master shows up looking for his lackey. Luckily, I'd had the wherewithal to stim-patch the security goon, so between his incoherent mumbling and some fast-talk, the mage decided he had better things to do. Well, the exit went fairly cleanly after that, but damned if I ever let another amateurish egomaniac set the terms for the run. That's two in a row for bottom-feeding Johnsons. Need to find myself a better pool to fish from.
Action: Start pulling in some favors to misdirect the attention I'm getting. It is not the right kind.
Action: Set aside a couple of days to sift through my logs and draft a working MO for exfiltration tactics.