A Simple Repossession
| A Simple Repossession | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Agustin Diaz | Knight Errant | ||||||||
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Ace Milliam Strobe Spider | |||||||||
Summary
The runners steal art from a gallery, so the J can get an upper hand in a matrix feud.
Background
Agustin Diaz, artist and corp kid, has been following his passions. Working on transcending the limitations of his skill, becoming a greater artist, he has been trying to increase exposure for his work, applying to galleries, networking, and posting on the matrix. Over time, he and another artist, Karl Becker, developed a bit of a rivalry. While both are admittedly talented, animosity grew as they trade barbs back and forth. The final straw for Agustin came when Karl narrowly beat him out for an amateur exhibition spot, in a local art gallery. Furious, both at being passed over and his rival's mocking, he swore to get revenge.
The Meet
The runners gathered in a dusty parking lot in Tacoma, waiting for the J to arrive. As the arranged time, came and past, they became slightly confused. Were they in the wrong spot? Or had something happened to the J? Milliam, instead of thinking about that though, played with a squirrel. Eventually, about 15 minutes after, a limo pulled into the parking lot, a figure casually emerging.
Agustin, stepping out of his vehicle, surveyed his team, offering cursory greetings, not even mentioning his lateness. As his familiar level of disinterest and condescension began to approach the runners, Strobe vaguely remembered this J. She had worked for him on her first haven run ever. His behavior hadn't seemed to have improved since then.
Telling the team that he needed certain art stolen from a gallery in Downtown, he gave a brief explanation, lacking his personal connection to the issue. Mentioning offhand that there would be security, he assumed at this point that everything important had been shared. The team obviously having more questions, began to interrogate him in more detail. Asking about the security, repeatedly, his embarrassment beaten down by Strobe, a story began to unfold.
Angered by being passed over by the gallery, Agustin had gone on a rant on the matrix, including threatening the gallery. Not settled with that, he hired a shadowrunner team to steal the artwork. A different one. A cheaper one. They infiltrated the museum, only to be repelled, the run a failure. The museum thankfully thought they were targeting the most valuable exhibit on display, not the one they were hired to steal, but several security officers died defending the gallery. While he couldn't say for sure, he felt it would be likely that they would remain on heightened security for as long as they valuable exhibit remained.
The teams respect, if any, dropped after learning all of this. Still, Agustin promised quite a bit of money if they could get him his rival's pieces, so that he could move on to a mysterious "stage two". The team ultimately agreed, deciding to do the J's dirty work.
The Plan
To start with Spider search the matrix for information, using her mastery to dig up information that they really really didn't want to be found. In her searches, she found out multiple tidbits of information that seemed promising. First, she managed to find a floor plan of the gallery. An older building, public as well, finding the documents wasn't too difficult, but it would be a helpful aid in an infiltration. It also hinted that there could be a potential link to the Underground. Many buildings from its era were contiguous with it in some form or another. Verifying this, and finding the connection, would take some physical work though, or a connection with someone more knowledgeable about the tunnel systems. In a more worrying discovery, she learned that the gallery had contracted a special response force from Knight Errant. Though the details available online were sparse, they apparently cut some sort of deal for extra protection in response to the failed attack. The team, still needing to look into things further, split into two tasks, casing the gallery and finding the Underground entrance.
Milliam, often roaming around the tunnels, and with many connections in the Skraacha, felt confident that she could find a way, if she looked hard enough. To provide a bit of additional protection, Ace decided to accompany her, so together, they entered the Underground, looking for an entrance to the art gallery. Wandering around for quite a while, vaguely trying to follow the direction of the target in the twisting maze, the duo noticed a large figure in the dark distance. Cautiously approaching, wary of a fight, they realized that they had come across a large earth spirit, passively watching them.
After a moment, the duo asked the spirit if it could help them find the way. It communicated agreement, and started walking away. Hesitantly, the team followed, as the spirit lead them through a winding path. Eventually, the spirit stopped gesturing at the wall ahead of them. Closer examination revealed an old rusted grate, drywall on the other side. It seems that the gallery at some point in the past built a wall over a connection to the Underground. It's uncertain if the people in charge even remembered that it was here. Thankful to the spirit, when asked if they wanted anything in return, they asked for steel. Not exactly what the pair were expecting, they promised to find them some metal from a junkyard regardless. Ace broke the grate on the tunnel side, leaving the drywall untouched for now. This would give them a possible entrance or exit, depending on the ultimate plan.
Meanwhile, the other two members of the team, Strobe and Spider, focused on gathering intel above ground. Strobe, pretending to be a normal member of society, decided to buy a day pass to the gallery and check it out. Spider, at the same time, would peek inside the host and mess around. The plan immediately met a snag. At the entrance to the building were rather sophisictated scanners. Apparently the DA's movement had arranged an upgrade in their detection hardware. Slightly panicking, Strobe asked Spider for help. Thankfully, Spider is pretty good at this matrix thing.
Avoiding sight of the host and the security spider, Spider hacked the SIN scanner, allowing Strobe access into the museum. Walking around, Strobe checked out the art in the various exhibits, noticing security guards monitoring the crowds. She managed to not stick out, and eventually worked her way to the target exhibit. Located on the second floor, directly next to the works of Marty Smith, it didn't seem to have enhanced security for it directly, but the nearby display clearly did, a small, vaguely disguised checkpoint being manned by security guards. Aftering making a loop around the two floors of the buildings, Strobe decided to leave while she could, and Spider hacked the scanners again to allow her an exit.
Spider though was doing more than hacking SIN scanners in the meantime. Poking around in the files, she found the number of guards on shift, the rotations of the guards, and the company that the gallery contracted janitorial services from. She found a few more hints about the special Knight Errant force, as well, something about them staying in the "loft" with the decker. Not really sure what that meant, considering there was no loft on site, she filed that away for later. After Strobe left the gallery, Spider eventually jacked out of the host, not wanting to alert the security just yet.
Recombining, the team started to put together a plan for entry. They could pose as janitors, enter, steal the paintings from the target exhibit, and exit through the basement tunnel to the Underground. Spider, hacking into the host for the janitorial service, added the team members to the staff list, also getting a copy of the uniform regulations. Realizing though that she should maybe check out the contract the service had with the gallery, she encountered a snag. To increase security, the gallery received a list of all workers that would attend each week, handing out keycards to only those members. To infiltrate as a janitor, Spider would have to re-enter the gallery host, and add them to the authorization list.
Wary of the security spider, she entered into the gallery host one final time. Finding the janitorial list, she saw that it was unfortunately encrypted. She tried to wait for someone to open it, but she never got lucky, ultimately deciding to crack the file. Momentarily having an issue with the operation, but alerting the spider, she easily bricked the security spider, booting them off the system. Unfortunately, even though she got the data, the host and gallery were alerted. With emergency services being called, the team decided to just enter now, taking a less subtle approach.
The Run
Ace and Spider approached the front entrance, night fallen and building locked up. Milliam headed to the roof, Neurostun grenades in hand, and Strobe stayed in their vehicle, ready to provide drone support or a quick exit plan. Milliam dropped the neurostun grenades into the ventilation systems of the compound, gassing the place with the knockout gas. At the same time, Spider and Ace began going through the entrance, disabling the maglocks. For a moment, all seems well.
The infiltration duo can clearly see disabled security guards, and incoming KE reinforcements were too far away to matter. Heading deeper into the gallery, Spider and Ace started to head towards the second floor.
At this point though, things got more complicated. The "loft" the communications were referring to turned out to be across the street. From an apartment above a nearby deli, a well armed and well trained fireteam began to slink down the stairs, approaching the gallery entrance. Milliam, providing overwatch from a nearby roof, tried to slow them down, though was ultimately unsuccesful. Her attack ineffective against their armor, one member trained suppressive fire on her location, forcing her to drop, and allowing the team to advance unharmed to the gallery.
Inside, the pace picking up a bit as they realized as high threat response team was hunting them down, Spider and Ace sprinted towards the target gallery. Strobe tried to stop them more by sending in a drone to flashbang the HTR team. It did absolutely nothing. Panicking, Strobe tried to suppress the the people in line of sight of the drone, but they managed to break the fire line, heading up the stairs towards the infiltrators. While strobe was doing this, Spider and Ace starting quickly throwing the art pieces in their bag, trying to grab as many as possible before KE came to swat them.
Milliam, unable to enter the gallery because of the neurostun clouds, spent time shooting incendiary arrows into a skylit ballroom, half trying to start a distraction, half just wanting to burn things. She was foiled by sprinklers. She was not happy about that.
As it looked like Ace and Spider were about to be caught by the HTR team, they were given a moment to breath, as the response team thought the infiltrators were heading towards the neighboring gallery, where the actually valuable art was. This narrow time extension gave them the time they needed to grab the remaining artwork, and for Strobe to launch a thermal smoke grenade, obscuring their path to the basement. While the HTR team was breaching the other exhibit, the team was escaping into the Underground, safe and free.
Aftermath
Heading back to Agustin and disabling the tracking chips in the paintings, he was thrilled that the team managed to steal all of his rival's art. Ready for "phase two" he asked the team if they had any ideas for something demeaning to do to the art. His original idea was to just give it to the SINless, their plebian natures obviously unworthy of any art of real quality. Thinking on it a moment, the idea came to give it to ghouls. Both infected and blind, giving them paintings would be an ultimate slap in the face. Calling up Swerve, she agreed to take the paintings to Nameless's commune, a brief video to be sent to Agustin, so that he could mock his rival.
Happy with the team's work, Agustin promised his help if the team needed it, and paid them the promised some. At the end though, Strobe approached the man, telling him that his rival was a better artist than he ever would be, and to stop whining on the matrix. Insecure enough to just take the verbal lashing, Agustin meekly stood there, saying nothing in response.
Rewards
32k Nuyen (16 RVP)
2 CDP
Optional Contact: The Dweller of the Tunnels as a 2/3 (4 RVP)
For non-Strobe Players, Optional Contact: Agustin Diaz as a 2/3 (4 RVP)
For Strobe, Optional Contact: Agustin Diaz as a 2/1 (2 RVP)
Agustin comes with 1 chip if taken.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Ace
Got to use the miniwelder in my gauntlet today. We had to steal something over an artist's spat. And I met Spider today, and saw her bifurcating arms, and today was the first day I've shaken someone's hands with my eyes closed. Met a spirit, notes add drams of reagents to gear for bribing spirits. I also did some HVAC work for the first time and got Strobe's drone in, and we filled the Museum with neurostun. And when HTR-lite came a knocking Spider and I broke in. Guards: Unconscious, Paintings : Stolen, HTR: Baboozled, Runners: Nowhere to be seen, Dweller in the Underground: Satisfied. Well Rick, seeing as there's no proof anyway even hoisted those paintings, I've got no examples for you this time.
Strobe
"Man, what a great job! The whole team were super good at what they did, and the heist went off without a hitch. It felt real good to get to use some of my technical skill. Felt like a movie when I rigged that neurostun up. Couldn't even dent the HTR that showed up, but those jokers barged into the wrong room and gave the team time to escape. Only bad part of the job was the J. What a prick."