Another Night In Hell
| Another Night In Hell | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Mush Lexi Andrews | Knight-Errant/The Law | Gianelli | ||||||||
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Gerisa Delphi Mission Control Jowls |
District Attorney Mark Donaghy |
Antonio "Vice" Vecce Gianelli Sorcerer Gianelli Mooks | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| A stress-free week. | Sorcerer, 2 mooks. | |||||||||
Summary
Runners get caught in the middle of mafiosos and cops. It doesn't go smoothly at first, but they figure it out!
Meet
During the meet, which takes place at the lakeside Gene Coulon Memorial Park in Renton inside of a very fancy limousine, an enterprising J offers the team a job of intercepting a courier and getting some information from him. This all seems fine and he's paying, but he doesn't seem particularly well versed in the ways of a Johnson, though he has enough since to bring along a bodyguard. Still, the team's in and they agree to the terms after a bit of finagling about the price. During the meet, the runners hear a small boat horn sound out on Lake Washington, not too far away. Delphi assenses the boat, and spots three metahumans. But, quite naturally, she thinks nothing of it at the time. Occupied boats are common on Lake Washington. Even late at night.
Run
Really, finding the courier isn't the hard part. The route is known and so is more or less the time when the guy takes his leave. It's a quick chase, a skip and a jump, and he's down on the street, being glared at by four strangers with guns. Or, well, three strangers with guns and one with fists. Regardless, since he's a simple courier and not a battle-hardened soldier, he agrees to give the information stored in nanites. Delphi is impressed by the inventiveness, but the fact of the matter is that it contains junk data that makes no sense. Not convinced, she looks for a data-lock and lo and behold, there is one. Demanding that one as well, she takes a quick look at both, doesn't start decrypting them and the poor courier has to bike off for his dear life.
The problem arises when the team gets back to the memorial park within the hour. The place is quiet. Too quiet. Gerisa gets up on top of a tree, remains as quiet as possible and takes a careful look. There's an arm hanging out of the limo and a puddle of blood. The J has been murdered, and upon checking the limo more closely, she sees a fist-sized hole in his chest. She sees he's holding a badge and a gun, so she takes the former and just then an ambush is sprung. A shot rings out from the lakeside, which Delphi quickly assenses from some cover and police cars crash into the park, ambushing the runners on the scene itself. With some quick thinking, three of the runners get inside of Mission Control's car. Delphi's given up running away and tries to hide in the bushes, but even as the police are telling them to stop, a shot rings out from the lake and they seem surrounded, Gerisa's refusing to leave anyone behind, parking directly in front of Delphi's little bush and yelling at her to get in.
She's not the best driver, but the smog of Seattle helps hide her tracks. They manage to lose the police, but now there's a bigger problem. They're wanted within minutes and Delphi can spot the news bulletin with a six figure bounty on their heads. They're wanted for the murder of a KE officer and, worse, injuries to the son of District Attorney Mark Donaghy, a patrolman in one of the pursuit cars. The area is getting cordoned off and all they can do is hide in an alleyway to evade detection. The few contacts they manage to get a hold of, such as Informer, are dead set on not getting involved. Some of them even owe favors to the team members, but the situation's nova hot and suicide to get involved in.
They do get contacted by someone, however. One that they'd later find out to be Mush, a former Shadowhaven runner turned fixer who offers to get them out of the situation. Delphi and Mission Control are able to recall Mush as a long-time member of the Haven, a cautious runner, and one proving to giving out good advice. Crucially, they also remember hearing that he is an orc. Eventually, given that Delphi's matrix search on Lexi Andrews [the missing bodyguard] revealed that her neighbours are pissed at her for dating an orc; the team take a chance on Mush being who he says he is and call him back. After some tense consideration, they agree to meet up nearby, splitting in two: Gerisa and Jowls go in to see what the fuss is about while Delphi and MC stay behind to keep an eye out on things. This was a test by Mush, one which they passed at least partially by not going in wholesale with blind trust. Mush explains that he knows one half of this situation; the J's bodyguard is someone he knows and wants to ensure the safety of. Moreover, he has an Astral Connection to her and knows where she is. With her testimony and the evidence yanked from the courier, they may be able to slip their rapidly tightening noose. There's the location of the bodyguard and a van that Mush offers as more discreet transportation. The team agrees. On the way there, the team realise something else: Given that Lexi Andrews is a former KE cop turned private close protection officer, KE probably have an astral connection to her too. They'll need to work quickly to get to the bodyguard first, or one half of their leverage is gone.
Once they arrive to this half-cylinder building, they park nearby and leave Jowls and Delphi in the van as roughly non-combatants. They're still at the planning stage when they begin to hear the distant thrup-thrupp of a chopper. Guessing KE are on their way, Gerisa and MC approach and breach with MC's guidance, since he's the one with more organized training. He's quick to open fire while Gerisa charges the Gianelli magician. The mooks are surprised by the sudden charge, and while the superterrorist doesn't manage to land a hit, she gets the magician's full attention. A firefight ensues where Mission Control handles the pistol-wielding mafia thugs two-on-one with the help of Delphi's calibrations and firewalling as well as Jowls' encouraging words. Gerisa benefits from these as well and stares the magician down, eating a lightning bolt to the face without flinching and killing the mage in a single strike.
Delphi's had enough and sneaks around the back to free up the bodyguard. As soon as they've neutralized everyone, with two of the mooks down and bleeding out and one knocked unconscious, the team begins desperately extracting themselves, with Delphi taking the time to hook up the two dying mooks to saviour medkits on the way out the door even as the police helicopter comes to a hover outside and fast-drop ropes are thrown out. The unconscious mafioso and bodyguard both get shoved in the van and Gerisa speeds out with plenty of backseat driving being unironically helpful to her. The smog lets them lose the trailing rotorcraft pretty well, and with the bodyguard's help they contact the local district attorney, Mark Donaghy. He not only had a son that was injured in the entire debacle, but also knows the bodyguard. By leaning on the DA's honor, they have to work things out bit by bit, but end up managing an arrangement where the runners lose the bounty, quit being chased like rats in a maze and he gets the evidence the undercover cop posing as a Gianelli Johnson was trying to acquire. Fortunately, Mush is also appraised of these happenings by the bodyguard who has a private conversation with him after the fact.
Aftermath
In the end, all four manage to sit things out, lose the bounty and sigh with relief, getting some well earned freedom as the blockades are removed and travel is free once more. The Gianellis contact Delphi about the information, demanding it back, but the team cuts a deal and lets them have their unconscious mook back. This soothes both sides and keeps the runners from engendering any ire from factions. It was a tightrope run, but they managed it!
Rewards
- 5k Nuyen each as a Thank You from Mush
- 10 Karma.
- For Jowl & Gerisa: Mush, 4/1 Contact
- 2 CDP
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Gerisa
I see how it is. I fucking knew it, should've listened to 'em back then. Get connections with KE, it'll save your ass, they said. No, I wanted to make do with corpos and here I am. Oh, well. I admit, that elf needs to learn to stick with the group. Humanity didn't win by flying solo back in the stone age, it won by sticking together and working as a group. Crying out loud, do I need to drag all of these people into the future by the scruff of their necks?! At least MC handled himself well. I'll give him that, he can handle a gun. So can many others, but it's something I'm not going to scoff at. Not at all. Still, might be I want to get in touch with this DA in the future. Mush, however... I don't get a good vibe out of the man. Something's off, I just don't know what yet.
Delphi
Holy shit, my heart's still racing... fucking Gianelli's, I knew that Omerta thing was drek. Never kill cops my ass. Between them, KE, and the fragging DA I'd say we were lucky to come out of this without a price on our heads. Frag it was close though, hours of running and hiding and still if it weren't for the tip-off from Informer and the info from Mush we'd have been screwed. I'm gonna need to start setting up bolt holes for situations like this, and making sure I have another safehouse ready for if things go badly in the future. This was a wake-up call for sure - gotta step my game up in order to survive when the drek hits the fan.