The Night the Lights Went Out In Redmond
| The Night the Lights Went Out In Redmond | |||||||
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| Part of Sins of the Mother | |||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||
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Usagi Rambozo Moth Twitch Flyboy |
Knight Errant Lone Star Shotozumi-gumi | ||||||
Summary
Mother Komodo hired the runners to rescue a falsely accused young ork who had been framed for the arson of a tenement building in the Redmond barrens. He was being held by Knight Errant and was scheduled on the following day to be transferred to Lone Star and taken to a secure facility in the Mojave Desert. She also asked them optionally to find evidence that the Judge in question was dirty.
The runners investigated, and planned how to rescue him.
The rescue went well, the boy was saved, and the Judge was proven in the pocket of several syndicates, including the Shotozumi-gumi, who were specifically behind the arson of the building that was framed on the boy.
Background
Mother Komodo was the defense attorney for young Aron Howard, a sixteen-year old ork, framed for an arson he didn't commit. The arson was committed by the Shotozumi-gumi, who paid off corrupt Judge Ben Garner.
Mother Komodo is the mother of fellow runner Tanuki. She did not know he was a runner. He did not know that she was seeking runners help to address injustice against metahumans.
Rambozo, a runner on this job, is in a relationship with Tanuki but had never met his mother before. He wears full clown make-up, made from novacoke, and combat fatigues on his runs.
The Meet
The meet was held at the office building downtown where Mother Komodo works. She had reserved a conference room on the first floor. The receptionist was startled by Rambozo's appearance, but gave the group directions to the conference room.
When they entered, several of the runners, including Rambozo realized from the strong resemblance that the Johnson was Tanuki's mother.
Rambozo sent Mother Komodo a private DNI message "Hello future mother-in-law." She was quite startled, and began to realize that her son was secretly a runner and dating a clown who wants to marry him. He also draped himself over the back of Usagi's chair, hinting that he was in a relationship with another man also.
Moth helped smoothed the matter over, and set the Johnson at ease, so the meet could proceed. She requested the dossier on the case. She also helped negotiate that they would be paid part of the money up front to off-set expenses, if needed, and the opportunity for bonus pay for the optional job.
Mother Komodo emphasized that she would prefer that law enforcement was not harmed, though she understood if it was necessary. But it was essential that the job be done subtly enough that it could not possibly be traced to her. It would be best if it was not connected to runners at all. (Perhaps a new fear given her dawning recognition that anything to do with runners might trace back to her, through her son.)
The runners agreed to do the job, eager to help Tanuki's mother, and to right the injustice.
The Plan
Twitch proved exceptionally good at hacking into KE's host, with a little inspiration from Moth. He obtained Aron's file, including the exact time and route for the run.
After considering many options, the runners concluded that the safest option was to rescue Aron from Lone Star after the hand-off to them, and after they had driven outside of Seattle into a much lower security area and on an empty patch of road near a small town.
Rambozo and Moth investigated the case files, for gang connections to help find a way to conceal who did the rescue. Though it was clear from Mother Komodo's files that Aron had no actual connection to gangs, the KE files connected him strongly to several gangs, including the Halloweeners. Racist drek. But this made it easy to make it look like Aron's gang had rescued him, while hiding the runners' identities.
The plan was for Flyboy to drive Usagi's jeep, which had seats for six. They would take up a stealthy position on the route. They knew there would be two vehicles traveling together. The vehicle with Aron and a decoy. They would force the vehicles to stop, use stun on the guards with the prisoner (Aron), and extract Aron safely.
Moth prepared six Halloweener disguises, and obtained a temporary SIN and synthskin mask for Aron. Mother Komodo had a long-term SIN ready for him once he was free.
The Run
Usagi drove the car stealthily into position, and then Flyboy took over the driver's position for the trick driving. Flyboy drove up beside the lead car. Moth and Usagi used thermographic vision to count the people in each vehicle, and confirmed that the boy (Aron) was in the 2nd truck. Twitch brought the 2nd truck to a sudden halt, cutting off all of its systems with technomancy. Rambozo jumped with gymnastics to the back of the truck, and used a torch tool to began cutting open the back door of the armored car.
Flyboy stopped the jeep. Usagi jumped out of the jeep and took a shot at the tire of the still moving vehicle. It was quite a shot. The entire wheel was demolished and the truck came to an immediate halt, barely managing to stay upright. Riggers inside each truck released sets of gun drones from the roof of each truck. Flyboy took over Twitch's drone. Usagi shrugged off all the gunfire of the squad emerging from the lead vehicle, while holding dynamite against the side of one vehicle rigger's compartment, threatening to blow him to pieces if he didn't call off this drones. Those drones returned to passive position.
Rambozo got the door open and repeatedly tossed in two flash bang grenades in a row, hiding behind the door for cover. He shrugged off the gunfire. Flyboy sent in the drone with stick & shock to take out the last goon standing. Rambozo grabbed Aron's unconscious body and ran with him for the jeep. Twitch took out the 2nd set of gun drones with suppressive fire. Usagi made it back to the jeep.
Throughout, Moth kept inspiring the team to act more quickly and take more actions than they might otherwise have been able to do, helping the entire extraction to be done in a very short period. (One combat round!)
Flyboy drove them away, avoiding most of the gunfire.
They had successful extracted Aron safely. All the opposing forces were unconscious or still alive but left behind, remembering that the attack had been carried out by Halloweeners.
There was time on the drive back for Twitch to do the hack on Judge Ben Garner's personal files. He obtained proof of substantial dirty behavior. The Judge had been working with several syndicates. He had been paid off many times. It was more than enough evidence to remove the Judge. Twitch verified for Moth that the Laesa syndicate was not involved.
The boy was safely freed to a new life.
Aftermath
The runners delivered the files on the Judge to Mother Komodo. She was delighted that the run was done so efficiently and well. No unnecessary loss of life. That eased her conscience. The boy was safe. The Judge was going down.
Max nuyen possible earned due to completion of the side quest.
Rewards
14k nuyen, 9 karma, 2 CDP
OR
14k nuyen, 6 karma, and Mother Komodo as a 2/2 contact, 2 CDP
Game Quotes
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Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Moth
Moth here. This was my 19th run. This was a great team. I really enjoyed working with everyone. I felt like I helped Twitch shine at the hacking. And I helped everyone shine in the combat. Getting so much done so quickly! This has all given me a lot to think about though. It turns out Tanuki's mom didn't know he was a runner. He'd lied about it. Because he thought she would be upset. And I guess even the runners here with kids like Shark and Usagi don't want them to be runners. But it's a good life. And it's the life papa wanted for me. But why does everyone else's parent want something else for them? Did Papa just think this was the only thing I could possibly do? I guess it's better to just think about how nice it is that there are people who love each other and want to get married. I'm happy for Tanuki and Rambozo!
Twitch
I think hacking with Moth on DNI might be addicting. Like, I blazed through the matrix. Haha. But the drones was where it was at. One shot from me took out an entire swarm! Ha! Totally crushed that rigger's dreams. Honestly, this whole run made me feel really good about my job and really good at how I am doing at my job. I was wondering if getting the ware was the right move and... yeah, it's been working well for me. Also, Tanuki is getting married! Whaaaaaat?!
Flyboy
Well this lot were wiz fun to run with! The whole Tanuki's mum / Ramby thing was probably not ideal but... well it was gonna happen eventually right? And they're still all good now so ah well. It was quite nice of Usagi to let me borrow his Jeep, good to see a wider variety of vehicles than just Dodge Scoot's by an increasing number of people! And likewise being allowed to ride Twitch's drone 'cos all mine were back in Seattle, even if by the time I was able to be useful in them the situation was mostly resolved! Note to self: Keep drones away from suppressive fire