Metroplex Muckraking
| Metroplex Muckraking | ||||||||||
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| Part of The Metroplex Governor Race of '84 | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Carly Reeves | Eagle Security | Rival Runners | ||||||||
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Bleach Mara Red Rain |
Security Mage Security Officers Security Spirits |
Gecko Mustang Vortex | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| Gecko (nerve striked into immobility by Bleach and captured by Eagle Security), Mustang (dumpshocked by Red Rain) | ||||||||||
| Bleach burned a point of edge to smackdown. | ||||||||||
Summary
In which the runners assist with an endeavor of investigative journalism.
Background
The Metroplex Governor Race of '84 is in full swing, with Harrison Yuvlicht of the Technocrats as the presumptive frontrunner thanks in large part to an intensive media blitz undertaken by his campaign. Some members of the media aren't fans of Yuvlicht however, and have been digging into his background in order to find compromising information which will deflate his popularity in the eyes of the voting public. Foremost among these outlets is KSAF, who have tasked investigative reporter Carly Reeves with uncovering Yuvlicht's secrets; Reeves hit a lucky break when an inside source with Pendant Publishing - an underpaid intern assigned to document review - revealed to her that Yuvlicht once shopped around an autobiography back in the early 2060s, and even submitted a manuscript which was given an editing pass but recalled before general publication due to concerns over some of its content. Carly would very much like to get her hands on the manuscript, but the archive room is too secure for her to get inside without risking exposure that could jeopardize the whole story - thus, she decides to contract out the job to some capable freelancers.
Unfortunately the aforementioned intern decided to double-dip and get paid twice for the intel by informing the Yuvlicht campaign of the continued existence of the manuscript - they have in turn dispatched their own team to recover and destroy it before it ever sees the light of day.
The Meet
The runners are contacted individually by their fixers and told to meet with a "Ms. Sinclair" (Carly in disguise) at a Soybucks in Downtown located across the street from the building Pendant Publishing's offices; each of them manage to arrive without incident (Red Rain appears via drone and handles the PAN for the meet) or attracting too much attention to themselves. Carly pays for their drinks and, via private DNI chat, fills them in on the situation, indicating the building across the road and telling them she needs them to acquire a manuscript located in the document archive section on the 60th floor; she says that she needs the job done quick and clean without any bodies left behind (so as to not give the Technocrats anything to spin the story and distract from the issues at hand). She offers the team 14k nuyen each for the job, with Bleach and Mara successfully negotiating the figure up to 20k each.
The Plan
Lacking a proper decker, Red Rain proposes contacting her AI friend for legwork purposes; the team acquiesce to this, so - after rebooting her RCC - Red Rain gives Alexandria a call. In exchange for a scan of the book they're after (and some pop music from Asamando), Alexandria provides the team with a data dump on Harrison Yuvlicht and the little (pre-crash) information she can locate online about the unpublished book, as well as the floor plans from the City of Seattle for the building containing the Pendent Publishing offices.
Bleach proposes infiltrating the offices in the guise of a cleaner from SanitatInc., the cleaning company which has the contract for the building. Mara contacts Ohrwurm and lets her know she might have access to some some interesting information soon, and requests info on the company - after a solid networking check (and a payment for the paydata), they find a list of employees and identify a good one (an elf named Grace Carson) for Bleach to impersonate. The mage also performs an astral flyby of the office, finding it well-defended by wards and watcher spirit patrols.
Red Rain manages to surreptitiously pilot her fly-spy past Eagle Security by hiding in a bag being brought into the building by a courier; wrappering her icon as a package of gum and hiding near the trash, she observes the comings and goings of the publishing company workers and identifies an editor named Lucy Wallace by her keycard. Some spying reveals she has access to the archives so the team plan to steal her card.
The Run
After following Grace home from work the morning of her day off, Bleach manages to swipe her access card from her purse; later, with some aid from the others in creating a distraction, and after adopting a less-than-stellar disguise bolstered by a smart wig and synthskin mask, she manages to do the same to Lucy by bumping into her in the parking lot as she's leaving work. She is able to fast talk her way past the Eagle Security guards, who allow her access to the building, and makes her way up to the 60th floor to clean for a little bit while the rest of the employees finish their work. Mara and Red Rain remain outside, with the mage in the getaway car and the rigger performing overwatch in a hovering mini-zep above (with her rotodrone on standby in the car's trunk, just in case).
A few hours later, only a lone intern and a few other night owls remain in the office - Bleach decides to make her move. Sneaking to the archive room, she swipes Wallace's card and manages to get inside; using a mini-welder hidden in her box of cleaning supplies, she starts to remove the lock to the box containing the manuscript. That's when she feels the gun pressed against her back - when her captor starts to handcuff her, she turns to nerve strike him only to find not a security guard but a black-clad masked individual who is evidently much more proficient than her at unarmed combat, as he easily swats the nerve strike aside.
Mara and Red Rain spring into action, with the former shapechanging into a bird to fly towards the roof and the latter rigging into the rotodrone to follow close behind. In the archive room, Bleach pulls out a desperate maneuver and manages to strike her assailant's chest, considerably reducing his agility. The attacker - a runner called Gecko - attempts to grab the manuscript and flee, but Bleach manages to intercept and take him down for the count. She starts to rifle through his pockets when a security spirit manifests in the room and tells her to hault, signaling that it's time to make her escape.
Bleach breaks line of sight with the spirit and hides under a desk, then makes a break for the stairwell towards the roof with both the spirit and the Eagle Security officers hot on her heals. Once she bursts through the rooftop door Mara transforms her into a bird as well while Red Rain prepares to suppressive fire the exit and keep the guards from pursuing. However she is intercepted in this task by Mustang, Gecko's rigger comrade, who fires upon her with his own rotodrone; Red Rain manages to dodge the volley of stick-and-shock shots and return one of her own which Mustang unfortunately does not manage to avoid, causing him to become dumpshocked from the device as it crashes to the rooftop.
While Bleach reorients herself after suddenly growing wings and extracts herself from her clothes, Mara attempts to scrub away the signature caused by her shapechange spell. While doing so she is assaulted by a projecting mage - however it is not the security mage, but Vortex, the third runner sent by Yuvlicht to retrieve the manuscript. She avoids being sliced in half via astral combat and closes her third eye, while Bleach narrowly avoids being struck by a bolt of lightning sent by the security spirit; the birds grab the manuscript and fly away while Vortex gets into a scrap with the security spirit and Red Rain keeps the guards pinned down. While Eagle Security deals with the rival runner, Mara covertly sends a spirit to scrub the rest of her signature and Red Rain slips into the drone stream above.
Aftermath
The team lay low for a while, then contact their "Ms. Sinclair" and arranges a meet at another Soybucks. They present her with the manuscript (a single sheet of smart-paper which contains over 400 pages of text and notations from editors), and ask her if she knows anyone who might have sent the other runner team; she freely speculates that Yuvlicht was behind the matter, then sends along their promised payment, telling them to keep an eye on the election news.
Rewards
- 20,000 nuyen
- 5 karma
- 12 CDP
- Optional Contact: Carly Reeves (C4/L2 Investigative Reporter) for 5 RVP or 10 CDP
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Bleach
Okay so hear me out – I show up in -not- the maid dress, because it's the middle of Seattle, right? I meet up with the mage, who seems pretty cool, and not just because she saves me from immediate death by spirit or bullets. I let the rigger piggyback on my microcamera, because apparently she's stuck in traffic or something? We never even met, but she did good work so whatever, right? Well – we get asked to steal a paper copy from a vault. Yeah, like it's really the 2040's or something!
So our plan after the rigger does a fan-tastic job of scouting – she's the best pilot in the city, did I mention? - our plan is to grab ID's from this editor and this cleaner, so I can just walk in and out. Simple, easy, breezy. So I walk in, all disguised up, and walk to the right floor. I tidy up some, partly to blend in and partly to settle my nerves a little, then I go for it! Walk into the office, past this intern, and start in cutting open the locker, right?
And y'know that feeling of a gun being planted against your back? Yep, that! This guy snuck up on me to steal -my- job! The nerve! Of course I beat him up, wasn't even close! Huh? No, I definitely don't look nervous. Shut up, I made it out without an extra hole in my head, that's good enough isn't it? The other runners never stood a chance! What a dream team!
Mara
I didn't expect to get swept up into the political season, but here we are. It's going to be interesting. I have to say I miss the back and forth that politics can be, but this is more like scorched earth in every direction. That being said the information we uncovered was fascinating. One of the candidates wrote a book before the crash and now that we've uncovered that draft it doesn't paint him in a favorable light.
- Bleach - Newer runner. Appears to like to pose as a janitorial service member. That aside, they were effective. I feel more than a little bit bad that we let her go in by herself. And I feel lucky that she was able to handle the hurdles she found therein. All in all a professional that I would recommend.
- Red Rain - I didn't actually meet this runner, perhaps for the best. From what I gather, they are infected, though not a vampire. That aside, they were effective and so long as they are willing to eat conscientiously sourced food I don't have a direct problem with them.