Tontine Trouble
| Tontine Trouble | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Proteus | ||||||||
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Geodesic Lace Monitor Tsarina Zero |
Various Proteus Security Dr. Wilson and other researchers HR Executive Abraham Phelps Patrolling Krake Drones | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | 1 Krake drone destroyed, 1 security officer subdued, Abraham Phelps temporarily killed but resuscitated | ||||||||
Summary
The spoils of war leave a man fat and happy. Bloodstained hands often leave their mark on ill-gotten goods, when the rightful owners are 6ft too low to stop the pilferings. It's a lucrative way of setting your future up. Such was the case for a number of veterans of the Eurowar whom set aside a number of keys to a vault of stolen artworks for their own sakes and those of their children. Keys that would be activated once they were no longer with us.
Naturally, a thief should always be expecting another thievery in the future. And so, bloodied theft welcomed another bloody theft.
Background
Abraham Phelps was a retired veteran of the Ghosthawks and a fighter in the Eurowars. He and other members had set aside stolen artworks and other highly valuable assets to fuel their retirements and those of their children for generations, the just desserts of a hard fought life. Such was his wealth that he could live in a Proteus Arcology off of Vancouver Island and afford a leonization treatment comfortably. To say this made someone out there very envious would be an understatement.
To say Proteus is a difficult nut to crack would be an understatement. A highly secure and scrutinized building, the waters around it patrolled and monitored leaving the single highway as the only real way to approach it, and crawling with security personnel and drones from top to bottom to respond to threats with a very powerful host. It was not, however, invulnerable. 3 times beforehand they had security incidents. This would have to be the fourth, if that wealth were to be reallocated.
Mr. Smithers is the Johnson set on call to handle the hiring. He set aside a place on Anderson Island over by Seattle and prepared to meet the runners who would set that 4th stain upon the arcology's record.
The Meet
The 4 runners assigned to handle this affair were as follows:
Geodesic, running as the primary matrix operative for the mission
Lace Monitor, engineering expert and rigger who could assist in piloting, provide her own unique insights into the corporate research field due to "past experiences", and provide drone support
Tsarina, the mystic adept face who would be negotiating for them that day, gather assets for the job, and providing social cover for the team as bypassing defenses might be tricky
and finally, Zero, the physical muscle of the group and infiltration expert who would serve as backup in case something went wrong on the front end of infiltrating and the actual assassin in question for the job.
The 4 gathered together and drove to the small cabin their Johnson had arranged for the meet and the next 2 days and discussed the job. The team was to infiltrate the arcology, kill Abraham, and then take his key. The key was to be returned to the J for the job to be considered a success. For their reward? 20k nuyen a head. Tsarina tried to haggle for some vehicle upgrades or magical gear but that was unavailable. However, she did manage to secure about half of their pay up front to handle business expenses and acquiring gear for the job, along with the Johnson being willing to arrange for transport and help them acquire vehicles they could use for the job in particular to infiltrate more easily.
With that settled, and hands shook, Smithers left the runners to attend to business and find out more.
The Plan
Geodesic immediately went home to check the situation out more clearly, digging up information on Abraham and the arcology's layout and business to give the team a few different avenues of entry and possibilities. There was a potential for bribing their way in or physically infiltrating, but those seemed on the whole riskier on both infil and exfil compared to a socially credible excuse to get in there. Thankfully, Lace has a friend (Handler)) whom she can rely on for times like this to get some 'convincing fake MCT IDs" for a commercial visit expedition to the arcology, a perfect excuse for the three non-matrix operators to get inside. This required bio material (which Tsarina and Zero both clocked as a bad idea) and would also require pay data to make her friend (handler) happy, but they were able to make work arounds.
The team set aside funds to get disguises and the SINs, using genetic infusions to swap out their biometric data for the duration of the job so that whoever this was giving them these IDs did not have biometric information on them. They also bought cabling and acquired a Water Strider modified for submersion so Geo could give them a secondary means of exfiltrating, hidden, and do her work from a device down below since they knew that there would be some kind of work there (legwork revealed underwater mining that was fueled by technically not slave labor).
The basic structure of their plan was as follows:
1) Lace, Tsarina, and Zero would enter the building, posing as members of an MCT expedition to discuss research and conduct business. Lace as the technical expert, Tsarina as the managerial and social leader, and Zero as the discriminated security (sorry)
2) Meanwhile, Geodesic would quietly approach from under the water and find a way into the host. Her actual hacking into their robust security was to be brief: all she needed to do was gather information on where exactly Abraham was since they only had a vague notion he was somewhere on the upper residential levels and then focus on providing backup.
3) Once Tsarina and Lace provided Zero with the cover she needed to make an exit, she would separate from the group to make the kill, retrieve the key, and alert the others so they could make their exit without being detected.
4) The final step was exfiltrating, either the way they came in with a plausible excuse from Tsarina to allow them to head back into their car and drive over smoothly, or through the underwater exit Geodesic would assist them with.
The Run
It is not often that a plan goes perfectly.
But thank god this one was close to it.
Social and underwater infiltration proved to be successful. Lace's expertise into being a terrible human being working for MCT and Tsarina's charm and good looks, combined with their extremely plausible and high quality fake credentials allowed them to enter into the area smoothly. Meanwhile, Geodesic was able to sneak close enough to the arcology's base to begin her work and hack in. There was a brief moment where she risked detection via the patrolling Krake drones, but a number of puppeteering complex forms allowed her to safely disarm of the threat and feed fake data that the firing was a freak accident and not a security incident to be handled. With that, she was in the host, found the exact residence of Mr. Phelps, and was able to pop out safely without incident.
Back above the surface of the water, Tsarina continued to butter up the researchers and effortlessly endear herself to the welcoming party as Geodesic gave the data through dni back to the others. Tsarina gave Zero a convenient excuse to retrieve something from the car they left behind. Zero was allowed to go back with an escort, who was promptly knocked out by a lizard's little flyspy (and an injection of narcojet) and dumped onto a utility closet on the third floor. With some specialized active camo, navigational assistance from Lacey, and Geodesic on standby ready to get through electronic locks, Zero made her ascension up 33 floors of Arcology. She narrowly avoided detection several times, having to work quickly and quietly to get the lock off of the residence proper with Geodesic's assistance, and managed to just barely sneak up on the trained veteran. She lined up her shot carefully, and planted 2 stick and shock rounds into his chest right over the heart. Abraham was unconscious and at her mercy. She sat him up, snapped his neck, and retrieved the key.
Which was now...glowing. The team had no clue what this meant. But the clock was now ticking: His biomonitoring was going off and they would be coming to check on him soon enough. Zero stole his badge, used it to get up the elevator since her own RFID had to be ditched to keep from being tracked, and then smashed it.
Tsarina had been schmoozing up to a Dr. Wilson during their time being cover, not only to distract him from Zero's disappearance, but also to give Lacey time to steal some paydata for her handler who is totally not a handler and is just her friend. Once Zero arrived, she made the team's last excuse about needing to head out to meet with "the chairman", and they had a tense travel to the car and off the arcology.
Tsarina...could not identify what this thing was. She barely recognized that it had a signature and was probably some kind of alchemical item that had been activated upon death. A worrying, trackable signature. But, thankfully, the Proteus members seemed to have not realized what it was they were hiding away.
And with that, the hard part was over.
Aftermath
Zero got in contact with a more experienced aura reader and found out that this key was part of a set of keys to some...vault or treasury or something, set to activate upon death. They couldn't get much else beyond that, so Tsarina spent some of her own funds to get a Quicksilver photo of the key's signature. A curiosity for later, a paycheck once given to Mr. Smithers for now.
They did so, and were soon off with their cash and some gear saved up after the job. Though...blood-stained theft begets blood-stained theft. And death is not so certain an end to bloody business. Even if you snap a man's neck, so it turns out.
Rewards
20,000 nuyen
2 karma
14 CDP
For Geo:
Optional Gear Reward: Evo Water Strider w/ Submersible Propulsion (no krake tho)
Optional Quality: Subtle Pilot (Watercraft)
For Lacey:
+1 chip on Satoko Obara for stolen Proteus cyborg research data
Optional Quality: Alibi @ chargen price
For Tsarina:
+1 commlink number for Dr. Wilson
Optional Quality: Alibi @ chargen price
For Zero:
Mundie ascension rewards (for ghosting the job)
Optional Contact (from IKAG): Ezekyle Burton (C2/L1 Ghoul Therapist) for 2 RVP or 4 CDP
Optional Quality: Alibi @ chargen price
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
"I think that was the smoothest job I've had in a while. Usually I have to deal with someone being excessive, someone trying to kill me, someone trying to steal me away...no, no. Just a smooth talking experience. Can't say it was all easy but, I'll take a bit of weight off my shoulders every once in a while."
"You know. That was kind of fun. Despite the trouble. With the Krakes... hacking. Into something isolated. Like that. Was an interesting challenge. Really, though. I just provided. An entry. Most of it. Was the rest of the team. And, well. Zero. God damn. She's impressive. Sneaking like that. Owe her. A drink, probably. Tsarina was. Easy to work with, too. Though Lacy... Hm. She worked well. Still a little curious."