running-the-san-fran-shadows

[running-the-san-fran-shadows]

Fourth Session Recap

This is being written pretty late (actually, *after* the Fifth Session - apologies!)

Date: 2018/09/02 Attendees: Mark and Aidan Summary: Nomad and Father Enoch are sprung out of jail by Imaginary Annie. She sets them up with a Mr. Johnson who asks them to recover some music-related data. Their first lead is a rising-star Orxploitation artist, Nabo, whose commlink they steal from a Barrens gig after buying novacoke for his Head of Security.

Roused from serene slumber by a pounding on his chamber door, Father Enoch was hustled from his quarters early one rainy Seattle morning by a bevy of Knight Errant cops who refused to hear his protestations. They deposited him in an interview room, where it quickly became clear that he was being fitted to take the fall for the hijacking of a shipment of Erika commlinks earlier that night. Since he insisted on responding to their accusations with obscure bible quotations, however, they quickly tired and moved him to the holding cell.

After a few tense hours, he heard a bubbly voice approaching from around the corner, spouting such convincing-sounding legal terms as "due process", "putative identification", and "warrant eligibility-limitation clause". The voice was swiftly followed by a short, red-haired woman, with a dusting of freckles, who brightly introduced herself to Enoch and another inhabitant of the cell, who had so far been sitting quietly in the corner and muttering a woman's name to himself. Her name was Imaginary Annie; and she was, she assured them, a friend.

After our heroes had been re-equipped with their gear (Nomad appearing noticably calmer after getting his hands on his beloved pistol), Annie took them to a local Soybucks to decompress. She breezily dismissed their inquiries about what payment she expected for helping them, and merely suggested that they might find it profitable to go talk to a friend of hers at a downtown bar later that night.

Appropriately cautious, Nomad made sure to get an eye in the club's cameras and security systems ahead of time. Not noticing anything out of the ordinary, he went ahead and met Enoch there at the appointed time, having taken the precaution of changing into more club-appropriate attire in advance. Enoch, on the other hand, considered his priests vestements to be an appropriate armour against the den of sin and iniquity, and it was only with some serious negotiation that he managed to get past the bouncer.

The bassline thrummed through the walls and the floor like a giant subsonic heartbeat, making it difficult to even breathe out of time with the music. People wearing the latest club gear writhed and gyrated on the dancefloor. A bar took up the entire back wall, with bartenders both metahuman and robotic serving the club's thirsty patrons.

Nomad used his existing influence on the club's subsystems to steal himself a drink, while Enoch chose to ask the bartender - an elf girl named Sarissa - for a glass of their finest Italian wine, and advice on how to find Mr. Johson. She directed them to "The Blue Room", accessible from a catwalk hung above the dancefloor, lined with couples enjoying amorous moments in secluded nooks and alcoves.

Nomad was a little unsettled to learn that there were no cameras he could check inside the meeting room, but concluded that such secrecy was probably understandable. As soon as they entered, the difference was noticable - a prominent mushroom-shaped white-noise generator, combined with heavily sound-proofed walls, made this room an oasis from the aural assault outside.

Mr. Johnson was a flamboyant troll, of medium height, no longer young but not quite middle-aged. He’s handsome in a rugged sort of way, wearing a purple and chartreuse (yellow-green) suit that manages to stay the right side of tasteful. He was tapping away at a commlink as they entered and held up one finger apologetically for patience, but soon removed an earbud, stowed the device, and gave the runners his full attention.

After offering them a drink and dispensing with pleasantries, he got down to business: “What you’re looking for is some music-related data, important to my employer’s business, that was stolen from my employer’s home. We don’t know who stole it - the house was broken into a few days ago, and it was taken along with some other items. Your best bet is to keep your ears open to whatever channels you think best. Once you’ve located it, the second part of the job is to track down the person who’s offering it for sale - probably not the person who stole it, since they’ll be working through intermediaries - and retrieve it. Can be stolen or ransomed. We want both disk and data returned, in case one no longer resides on the other. In case it’s not clear, we don’t want this data getting into any other hands, so if it gets out, we expect you to track down and destroy any other copies“

The pair agreed to spend the next day investigating lines of inquiry, and to reconvene later the next evening. Enoch's inquiries among the less-law-abiding of his parishioners wasn't particularly productive, but Nomad managed to find some footage of rising-star Orxploitation star, Nabo, joking to his posse in a club about an email he received offering to buy a high-profile music disc. It seems that he considered the musician in question to be old, past-it, and "whack", though the email's presentation suggested otherwise.

Nabo being their best lead, the pair decided they needed to get their hands on that email. A quick Matrix search showed that he was playing a warehouse gig that evening in the Barrens.

While on the way to the venue, the pair ran further searches on Nabo to help inform their approach. As the golden boy of Horizon's latest chart-push, there are a plethora of sources of information on him, both official and fan-made. He’s an ork ganger from the Seattle Barrens who loves music more than he loved firefights and selling BTLs. He made a name for himself playing some small clubs, and next thing you know, he’s living the high life while still somehow managing to look like he’s “keeping it real”.

The juiciest piece of info, however, comes from a forum where groupies describe their most successful tactics for getting facetime with their targets. More than one enterprising Ork girl claims that the best way to Nabo is through his childhood friend and Head of Security, Jager - and the best way to *him* is by supplying his novacoke addiction.

As soon as the pair arrived at the venue, they wasted no time in finding the shadiest-looking dude hanging around outside, and scoring a bag of susicious-looking white powder. They hung around with a group of orks outside the venue and dropped increasingly-unbelievable claims of having run with Nabo "back in the old days" until one of them insisted on fetching Jager to verify their claims (or, more likely, to throw these Ork Posers out on the street where they belonged). Thankfully, the team managed to slip the pouch to Jager *before* he denounced them, and they were swiftly hustled backstage.

From there, it was just a case of trying doors until they found the one that led to Nabo's dressing room. It was occupied by an Ork guard and two ladies who were none too pleased at the interruption, but Enoch managed to hold their attention for long enough for Nomad to palm the commlink.

* I actually can't remember if it was Enoch or Nomad who got the initial interview, apologies! * Couldn't remember Nomad's gun's name (Delilah?)

[running-the-san-fran-shadows]

This is a test post

To see whether Slack Integration is working

[running-the-san-fran-shadows]

Third Session recap

Seth Dietrich’s commlink, retrieved as a favour for a friend of Imaginary Annie’s, has landed the team in a whole heap of drek. First, a group of Ares-backed thugs crashed the Stuffer Shack where they were holed up, and tried to retrieve it via the old negotiation-by-shotgun routine. Then, Seth himself got in touch to request its return, and was promptly assassinated by invisible cyborg ninjas. Finally, a collection of varyingly powerful people - Karen King of Ares, an unnamed and awkwardly polite MCT exec, Eliza Bloom of Project Freedom, and Zane the shadowrunner - have made a play to buy it.

MCT are offering 200,000 nuyen for its delivery, while Ares are offering 225,000. Eliza’s do-gooders can only scrape together 80,000, while Zane’s shadowy employer can offer 400,000.

Although Darr was nearly swayed by Eliza's snappy outfit, Med's focus on "the most money for the least trouble" led the team to siding with Ares. Karen was amenable to their terms, and promised to send a trusted lieutenant to the meet later that evening. In the meantime, Med returned to his home lab to take samples of "Seth's" blood for later cross-referencing, and set up a "Dead Man's Switch" to broadcast the decrypted contents of the commlinks if his heart stopped.

Once the meet location was secure, the team were met by Baron Grimms (a Norwegian dwarf and acquintance of Ares Europe VP Soren Johanssen, who was in town to oversee an unrelated Ares magical research project) to complete the handover. He brought with him his personal combat unit of eight special ops commandos, though they left their branded Desert Wars uniforms at home.

The drop was made without incident, but Grimms indicated that the runners should stick around for the moment, as Karen might have more work for them. Sure enough, after the data had been uploaded to Ares' corporate servers and their deckers had got to work on it, it provided confirmation of what Ares had long suspected - that Emile Corrigan, Brackhaven's chief of staff, had been stashed an insurance policy (in the form of a drek-list of financial records, recorded conversations, and other evidence of corruption) on the servers in Brackhaven Investments. Now that they know where it is, they want to send in one of their operatives to "safely erase it for the public good" - though, knowing how corps work, it's just as likely that they want a copy for their own blackmail purposes.

Ares can't be seen to be publicly acting against their ally, Brackhaven, though - which is where they team come in. If they could get Ares' decker into the building, into the server room, and out again alive, they stood to make a cool 80K - plus whatever fancy gear Ares would let them keep. It was too good to resist - especially when they heard about the infil/exil plan.

An hour later, the team were stood on the top of the Seattle Space Needle, climbing into semi-autonomous Ares Nightwing ultralight gliders. Med's existing cybernetics had been augmented with Ares-provided skillwires that would allow him to pilot a stolen chopper from the roof of BI once the run was complete. Stel was sporting a new Ares Alpha assault rifle with underslung grappling hook, while Darr's shiny new Ares Crusader Machine Pistol was loaded with less-lethal Stick'n'Shock ammo. Aya's arsenal had been swelled with a Destruction-triggered alchemical preparation of Combat Sense, two of Increase Charisma, and two doses of Psyche (+1L/+1C for 12 hours). Balancing "asset" with "liability", the final Ares-furnished "equipment" was their covert decker, a taciturn man named John Russell.

The glide over from the Space Needle to BI passed mostly without incident. The team got a clear view of protests in front of the building. There was a moment's panic as roof-mounted sentry guns took aim at the group, but John managed to suppress them momentarily, and the few rounds that were fired only punctured a section or two of the gliders' fabric. The landing was rough, but safe.

The team took a service stairway as far down as they could, which put them into the HR department. Darr and Med snuck past them into an office on the far wall, where they attempted to insert themselves onto the payroll as emergency security hired because of the riots. Although that wasn't possible, they *did* manage to acquire five name badges for new-hire "intern guards", although even a cursory inspection would show that they didn't match the description.

After the guards had departed and while the team was preparing to take the elevator down to the 10th floor (Darr had adorned her pistol with an "I <3 BI" sticker from a storeroom, while Med filched a "Racial Purity" inspirational poster), Aya noticed an Air Spirit on patrol that was beginning to enter the floor. She made a snap decision between "potentially alerting the summoning mage by attacking" and "continuing to act as if they were guards", and let it leave, notifying the rest of the team that they might soon have company.

The team wisely pushed various buttons on their way out to throw any pursuers off their scent - Darr left small explosive gifts on each of the floors that they stopped at. When they arrived at the 10th floor, however, a contingent of guards were there, very obviously waiting for the elevator and on guard (Editor's note - I swear, I'd previously decided that every floor you entered would only have guards there on a 18+ on a d20, and you got two 18s).

Diplomacy swiftly collapsed into gunfire.

Aya's opening burst painted the backwall with blood, while Rocky and Darr made short work of another two. The remaining guards retreated to take cover behind the desks and cubicle walls of the Open Plan area, while John (with Med in swift pursuit) took a flanking route to the server room.

As the rest of the team laid down suppressing fire, Med grabbed John's shoulder just before he jacked in. "Change of plans - you need to retrieve the dirt, not just erase it. Got it?". John, his eyes wild with fright in his first gunfight, nodded once, positioned his datajack, and fell limp on the floor.

The remaining members of the security team were already in retreat after Stel's bloodbath and the thorough beating they were receiving from Rocky, and Darr convinced them to surrender. The "reinforcements" turned out to be exactly the Interns that the team were impersonating, who executed some mildly impressive karate movements (https://youtu.be/_IotiinMyTI?t=2m33s) before Stel used her grappeling hook to launch herself across the room and cannonball them all back into the lift, which Aya promptly closed.

Meanwhile, Aya's Air Spirit had found the wagemage who had summoned the previous spirit, and was proceeding to beat the drek out of him. Darr, on the other hand, had broken a window and dropped a couple of bomb drones behind the security forces that were keeping the protests at bay, trigging a HRT call.

By this point, John had awakened after his datagrab, and was blearily climbing to his feet, surveying the blood-splattered walls in horror. The team hustled him to elevator, and Darr successfully held off the security spyder long enough for them to get back up to the HR floor. Unfortunately, on the way, Med tried to convince him to hand the datachip over to them for safekeeping. Maybe it was the previous departure from the plan, maybe it was all the carnage he'd just witnessed, or maybe it just wasn't Med's day, but John was *not* having it. He hammered the Emergency Stop button, and sprinted out of the elevator towards the nearest group of guards, yelling about abduction.

Thinking quickly, Darr stunned him, and Stel used her trusty grappling hook to reel him back in, with Aya's help. The guards got off a few shots at Aya and Med, but nothing that couldn't be patched up.

Finally, the team arrived back at the roof - only to find that Aya's spirit had enlisted the help of the newly Freed spirits to wreck havoc on the HRT chopper, which was in the process of exploding dangerously close to their escape ride. They all piled into the back - unconscious John in tow - and Med's hands twitched to life, pulling levers and opening throttles. They were airborne - but for how long?

Things to note: * Was I too tough on the Charisma test to convince the guards that you were legit? I feel like the alert raised by the spirit, combined with the fact that you weren't in uniform, justified it being "very hard". Although I did realize afterwards that you had a potion that would have boosted Charisma to ridiculous heights, so you had an "out" there that was missed, I think. - There's a great article on "social tests" that I've been meaning to integrate into our games. Link that in here. * I'm not sure, canonically, how spirits communicate with their summoners, so I don't know whether (in rules-as-written) immediately attacking the scouting Air Spirit would have alerted the mage or not. I'll figure that out for next time. * Similarly, I want to come up with "house rules" for covering fire. I figure something like: every hit you get subtracts from their dice on their next fire action, and/or if you get 3+ hits then they can't move on their next round? And an assault rifle (or similar "automatic" weapon) lets you suppress multiple targets? * I don't think I'd made this clear, but Ares would absolutely have instructed John to retrieve the data, not to wipe it. That said, it feels kinda unfair for your glitch on convincing him to do so to lead to him only retrieving half of the blackmail material - I'm happy to retcon that as "he got all the data, but was suspicious that _you_ knew that that was the plan, and that contributed to his later attempt to run", if you want? * I forgot that there would have totally have been an Astral Shield around the building, which would have prevented Aya's spirit coming in with you. Not that it mattered, though, as I think you had more than enough time to resummon. * I totally missed a chance to have the sentry guns be more resilient, make you roll Agility+Piloting to dodge, and potentially need to use the grappling hook to save yourself. I think I was being overly cautious because, at that point, I hadn't realized that you'd already healed up. * We all completely forgot about security cameras :/

[running-the-san-fran-shadows]

Second Session Recap

After recoving two commlink's from Oxycode's Sleep 'n' Eat room, discovering that one belonged to a MIA FBI agent named Seth Dietrich, the team (Medial, Darr, Stel, and Aya) were attacked in a Stuffer Shack by a collection of goons led by a chromed-up shotgun-wielding monster. They beat a tactical retreat, covered by a fire suppression system and Aya's summoned Earth Elemental, Rocky. As a parting gift, Darr detonated a bombdrone under the attackers' van.

After a little time tending their wounds, the team headed out to Fort Lewis Zoo to keep their rendez-vous with the caller who claimed to be Seth Dietrich himself. They carried out some rudimentary surveillance over the area - although Darr's spydrones were chased out by security, Medial managed to disguise himself as an onsite doctor (despite some close calls), and Aya (with the Charisma-boost of a summoned Spirit of Man) infiltrated a maintenance area. Stel managed to sneak past the metal detectors at the entrance by exploiting a fuss caused by a mother of three who was trying to bring a buggy full of wailing children into the park.

The group proceeded through the park cautiously but in good time. Heading past the mated pair of phoenixes, the Piasma, and the pegasus enclosure, the two sisters took up position at the north of the basilisk enclosure and Med at the south. Aya cautiously approached the nervous-looking man who matched the description of their contact, the missing-presumed-dead Seth Dietrich.

The meet itself was short and not-so-sweet. Despite matching Seth's description - and being present at the precise time and place that a man claiming to be Seth had told them yesterday - the man had no idea who Aya was, who Seth was, or where he was.

As Aya managed to convince "Jake Armitage" (as he claimed to be) that he was a friend, the line of perplexed and increasingly paranoid questioning was brought to an abrupt and bloody end as Seth/Jake's head was blown apart by a high-velocity sniper round from the south. Two shimmering patches of air at the north of the tunnel resolved themselves into another pair of assassins.

Although Darr managed to luckily trip one assailant (shorting out their invisibility field by overcharging her electro-frill jacket), the other began to make mincemeat of Medial, who was trying in vain to revive Seth (as well as searching his body for the 100,000 nuyen they had been promised). Under cover of Darr's smoke-bombs and another of Aya's trusty Earth Elementals, the team exited the park swiftly without further bloodshed, and sped away in Darr's van back towards Seattle.

By combining what they found on "Seth"'s commlink with the encrypted files they had already found, the team uncovered a trail of corruption and deceit that pointed the finger of blame squarely at Governor Brackhaven. Meanwhile, with news of Seth's reappearance travelling up the grapevine, Med's commlink began buzzing with various offers to exclusively purchase the two commlinks.

[running-the-san-fran-shadows]

First session recap

Dramatis Personae

An androgynous elf known only as The Model, who is passionate about astrology, physiogonomy, and shooting people. Xer long-suffering sister Darr, a somewhat well-respected fashion designer with delusions of grandeur. Medial, a street doc who aspires to use 'ware to uplift base-humans to be on an equal footing with the rest of metahumanity. Aya, a dwarven Spirit Whisperer with ties to the Russian Mafia, who finds spirits better company than people.

Story

The story began with our "heroes" being rounded up by Knight Errant and bundled into a holding cell. Med was singled out for interrogation, and enjoyed the kindly ministrations of Detectives Quinn and Redoak (playing a classic "Dwarf Cop, Ork Cop" routine) to fit him up for the theft of a shipment of Erika-brand commlinks the previous night. He stuck to the alibi that he couldn't have possibly been committing that *particular* crime (since he was busy conducting a drug deal, with his brother Prox as lookout). Aya was next for questioning, and, despite his effort to burn a previously-disrespectful client, the cops weren't biting.

After they'd cooled their heels in the slammer for a few hours, the door was opened by an beleagured-looking sergeant. Standing behind him was a fast-talking, dimiuitive human woman with freckles, firey-red hair pulled back into a tight bun, and a stylishly-cut suit. Somewhere in her spiel of legal jargon, the runners divined that she'd found a loophole in the "due process" wide enough to walk a troll through, and they were - for the present - free to go.

The woman introduced herself as "Imaginary" Annie Goldsmith. She secured the release of the team's gear, and took them for a recovery drink at the nearby Soybucks. She delicately dropped into the conversation the fact that a friend of hers had a job that needed doing, and, since _they_ were all now friends (weren't we? Oh, it is _so_ nice to have friends, isn't it?), she would be over-_joyed_ if they could help him out. They could? Oh, wonderful!

She left them with a time, a comm-number, and a place - 7pm, The Banshee In The Barrens.

Left with a bit of downtime, they did what any good paranoid runners would do - investigate their new contact. Med's Matrix searches turned up a string of successful legal defences by the imaginative lawyer, as well as numerous testimonials on ShadowNet sites that she put the "criminal" in "criminal lawyer". Aya communed with the spirits, and learned that, although Bear was unsettled by her mendacity and secrecy (being an unwitting devotee of Cat), he respected that she protected those under her care. The Model delightedly gushed to Darr about how Annie's star sign meant that she was clearly a woman of culture and honour.

Aya cautiously elected to arrive at the meet half-an-hour early - and, aside from a drunk Anglo human being forcibly ejected from the premises by "Gorgeous" George the bouncer, and the presence of a few Blood Mountain Boys, he noted nothing out of the ordinary. After the arrival of the rest of the crew, they went in - checking obvious weapons at the door, and Med slipping George a note about potential improvements to his cyberarm.

The bar was exactly what you'd expect in the slums of the Barrens - a sawdust-covered floor with occasional red stains, thumping bass music, and gangs warily eying each other from their own tables. The Mr. Johnson - a thin, somewhat greasy-looking man, with a crimson coat, smart dress shirt, and a gleaming-but-middling-quality datajack in his temple - recognized the group as they walked in. After Darr confounded the Bliss-ed out Ork barmaid's few remaining brain cells by requesting Champagne, they settled into negotiation.

It transpired that some piece-of-drek lowlife named Oxycode, who was staying at room 312 in a nearby Sleep 'n' Eat, had a commlink in his posession that Mr. Johnson wanted. Violence wasn't mandated, but it didn't sound like Mr. Johnson particularly cared if he was roughed up a little - or a lot. With time being of the essence, the runners headed out to scope the location.

Unfortunately, a group of Blood Mountain Boys hadn't heeded the "bodycount" graphics on Darr's van's dyna-camo coating, and two of them were a twitching heap on the floor (thanks to the active shock defence system) while five more were _very_ carefully raising it onto a flatbed. While they were all set to fight Darr to keep it, the spontaneous appearance of a cloud of flying explosives from her coat put them in the uncomfortable position of _wanting_ to pack down, without really knowing _how_ to (never having done so before). Darr elegantly negotiated a mutually-satisfactory solution by "tipping" 100Y them to watch her van until she returned.

Some rudimentary surveillance of the S&E via Darr's spy-drones showed that it was a large central space, with gantries around the outside leading to pod-rooms set into the walls. A few humans and orks were scattered around the common area, and some out-of-order vending machines were against a side wall. The bored-looking dwarf at the front desk barely seemed to care that the (fake) room number the runners gave to visit didn't respond to a call, and waved them inside. With Med standing lookout, Darr's drones providing obscuring puffs of smoke, and and Aya and The Model flanking the door, Darr's spider-drone clambered out of The Model's clothing and began to interface with the room's maglock, which fell open almost immediately.

To reveal Oxycode, lying on the cheap plastic bed, his lips purple, his eyes glazed, very obviously dead. By his side, just out of reach, are two commlinks - one, a Sony Emperor, cheap and tatty; the other, a Hermes Ikon, a high-quality luxury model. After a few moments' inspection, Med could tell that he'd died somewhere between six and twelve hours ago (that is - certainly happened after they were nabbed by Knight Errant, but potentially before Annie had sprung them). A little further inspection by the rest of the group yielded a large-ish stash of drugs hidden inside the mattress.

Med had a small Faraday purse in his pack for just such an occasion, and slipped the Ikon into it immediately. Darr set to work trying to clone the devices - the Emperor succumbed almost immediately, but the Ikon had some pretty high-end encryption on it which he couldn't crack. He was, however, able to identify the commlink as being registered to one "Seth Dietrich", who a quick Matrix search showed up as being an ex-UCAS-Army FBI Agent, with a reputation for rooting out corruption. The Emperor's contents weren't terribly juicy - a collection of call records with unsaved numbers, and a rather amateurish video showing a human female _in flagrante_ with Oxycode himself, were the only contents of note.

Since the Johnson had stressed that time was of the essence, the runners hurried back to The Banshee to make the drop. Thankfully, Darr's van was still there - apparently their territoriality could extend to guard duty as well. George was inexplicably willing to allow the group back in, even after Darr had manifested a cloud of autonomous bombs from under his coat - perhaps he reasoned that, since they hadn't started any violence *before*, they were clearly not looking to do so!

The Johnson was glad to see the runners back, though probably more glad to be able to finally get out of the dive bar. The Model subtly shoulder-surfed to see what he did with the Emperor - scrolled through the Call Log to check for a call to a particular number which he had noted down, then navigated to the aforementioned video and deleted it without viewing it. He dropped the comm into his pocket, smiled grimly, and drummed his fingers on the table before asking what became of Oxycode. Upon hearing that he had been found dead, his smile became a little more genuine - "one more piece of trash off the streets, I suppose". As he rose to leave, he tossed the Ikon back onto the table, and advised the runners to try to find a buyer. "You never know, it might be worth something to someone. Not me. But someone. At the very least - it's a nice commlink."

Back in Darr's van, she had access to some beefier hacking equipment - and, between her theoretical know-how, and Med's knowledge of current exploits, they were able to extract some garbled fragments of text (appended at the bottom), which hinted at a conspiracy involving Congressmen, assassination of FBI agents, and the Ork Underground - all connected to Governer Brackhaven of Seattle.

Incentivized by this new information, the crew reached out to Annie Goldsmith to let her know a) that the job was complete, b) about the existence of a dead body in a Sleep 'n' Eat, and c) that they had come into posession of a "potentially valuable item" that she might be interested in. She was, indeed, very interested (particularly when they mentioned the name "Seth Dietrich"), but wasn't availabe to meet them that night. They set up a meet at noon of the following day at a reasonably-fancy bar just down the street from the Soybucks they'd drunk at earlier. Med made it very clear that, whatever happened with this commlink, *they* were the ones doing *Annie* the favour this time around - which she seemed to respect. She promised to do her best to find a trustworthy and generous buyer for whatever information they could find.

The team immediately went to work:

Aya hit up Bob and Sally, dwarven proprieters of his local talismongers, who had emigrated to Seattle from the Berlin Free States after one too many run-ins with Humanis. Unfortunately, they had nothing useful to tell him - all they could offer was that Seth Dietrich sounded like a German name, so perhaps someone in Saeder-Krupp might know more? Operation Daybreak was even more of a dud - they vaguely remembered it being the name of an old flatvid WWII movie, but nothing more than that. Consulting with the spirits was barely more helpful - they passed through some garbled messages about their fury that the body of Robert Lionel Bannickburn (an Elven mage) has not yet been laid to rest, languishing on the edge of the Scottish Toxic Zone. Sometimes the wires just get crossed.

Darr checked in with a corporate contact with whom she had an arrangement exchanging raw materials for designer goods. Sadly, the contact was clearly pretty far from the shadows herself - all she'd heard of Seth is that he made his name as an FBI agent by busting a group of Matrix thieves operating out of Sea-Tac.

Med finally gave in to his mother's insistent invitations to (VR-)family dinner, in order to get some alone time with his brother, Prox, who is involved with the Humanis Policlub. Through some torturous metaphors, and over their mother's insistence that they needed to eat more and find some nice girls to settle down with, he teased some information out of Prox. Allegedly Project Daybreak had something to do with some fires that were started down in the Ork Underground last year. "Some of those tuskers tried to blame it on Brackhaven" (here his eyes take on something of a sheen of hero worship), "but you know what they're like". He didn't know of anyone named Bill who had been "doing good work", but allowed that Brackhaven almost certainly had someone on his payroll with that name, given the size of his following. All he knows of Seth Dietrich is that he was a G-man who was last seen about a year ago, hitting the shadows pretty hard trying to dig up dirt on Brackhaven.

The Model, meanwhile, hit up her favourite astrology and conspiracy theory websites. Turns out that Seth had a pretty avid fanbase, who liked to speculate on what dashing adventures he was currently embarked upon (mostly based on his star sign), and the only grew more ardent after his mysterious disappearance. Via the medium of "projecting red string-lines onto a cyber-pinboard", she managed to sift through the conspiracy theories (some of which involved his disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle, or initiation into the Draco Foundation) and find some fairly solid intel - that, around november of last year, Seth Dietrich passed a file to "Bull" McAllister to upload to several data havens, including JackPoint and ShadowSEA. The file linked Seattle Governor Kenneth Brackhaven to a criminal conspiracy against the Ork Underground, named "Operation Daybreak". The operation is intended “to prevent the passage of Proposition 23 by highlighting the dangers of Ork Underground”. According to the file, this will be achieved by “hiring operatives to commit random and various crimes and plant evidence framing Project Freedom,” as well as “preventing the truth from coming out by eliminating members of Project Freedom” using deniable assets, in order to “increase the public level of fear and hatred against Project Freedom and the Ork Underground.” Notes accompanying the posting indicate that Dietrich went missing immediately after it was uploaded.

Later that night, as the team reconvened at a Stuffer Shack to compare findings, Med's commlink rang, from a restricted number. A tired-sounding man says "This is Special Agent Seth Dietrich. I believe you have something of mine. Actually, I’m absolutely sure of it. I want it back.” Dietrich’s words are rapid, as though he’s eager to have his business done and be off the line as soon as possible. “Believe me, I know that in this city, possession is eleven tenths of the law. I’ll pay. A hundred thousand nuyen, no questions asked. Meet me tomorrow afternoon, 1500 hours, at the zoo in Fort Lewis. The basilisk exhibit. Bring the commlink, I’ll have the cash on me." He seems keen to hang up as soon as possible, so Med keeps his question brief - how did he find them? "I still have some friends here and there. Even those who may not believe I'm alive anymore will keep an eye out for me when they can". With that cryptic pronouncement, he's gone.

The shocked silence is broken - literally - by a black SUV ramming the plate glass window of the Shack. Thankfully, customers are sparse at this time of night, but tables and chairs are sent flying. A chromed-up monster of a man - 6'5, with cybereyes, cyberarms, and an Enfield Shotgun - stepped out of the driver's seat, fired a shot at the ceiling, and yelled "Give me the commlink!". Four more goons took up covered firing positions behind the back of the van.

The ensuing firefight was short but brutal. The Model landed a few shots on the big man, but was knocked nearly senseless by a punch from his enhanced right arm. Med stabilized her, while Aya summoned an Earth elemental to help dispatch the goons and Darr detonated a smoke bomb to give cover. A stray shot to a patron's Big Gulp caused the fry cooker to explode, triggering the fire suppression systems (and, thankfully, unlocking the emergency exit in the back door) but also throwing everyone in the vicinity to the floor. As she fell, The Model managed to land a one-two slash across the gunman's neck, spurting carotid blood nearly to the ceiling. As they heard the sound of another van arriving outside, the team scrambled for the exit, as the Earth Elemental (Rocky?) covered their exit. As a farewell gift, Darr detonated a bombdrone under the first van, sending it crashing back out into the street.

Exhausted, bleeding, and on the run, the team regrouped in the alley behind the Stuffer Shack. They'd bought themself a little time, but the rest of the goons would be following them in no time. If they could meet Seth at Fort Lewis tomorrow, they stood to make a cool 100 grand - but they'd need to survive to claim it, first...

Out-of-character notes

After reading up a bit more on the Mentor spirits, I retconned that Bear was pleased with Annie's protective nature, rather than "living in tune with her nature"

Adam, if you want to retcon away Prox' presence at the deal, feel free. The nature of the family dinner made me think that they wouldn't have been comfortable running a deal together. Alternatively, you could just handwave that Prox had called in some Humanis muscle to watch Med's back. Let me know.

"How I feel taking hacking actions at a table of real programmers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTwCtQIEswM&

I can't actually remember the exact sequence of actions that were taken after finding Oxycode (in particular, I can't remember if you called Annie before or after going the legwork), so sorry if I've jumbled that. I also can't remember who had the idea of triggering the fire suppression, so sorry for not crediting that!

House Rules that we introduced:

Darr's grenade-bots do 4 points of damage, and are "launched" using Agility + Piloting (Other)

(Not a house rule, but something that was difficult to find in the rulebook) Mundane healing is a Logic + Biotech unopposed check. Recipient heals damage pips equal to number of hits.

Loot:

2000Y each to Darr, The Model, and Aya (less 100Y for Darr's tip)

A kilo of Novacoke, 100 doses of Bliss, and 30 doses of Zen to Med (street value 1500-2000Y)

(I haven’t actually decided how we’ll deal with translating Nuyen into Karma, or handle character advancement - but I’ll have decided by next session, I promise!)

Fragments from the Ikon:

FRAGMENT #1 ?t6L4u;}6J>VK[ljG(6tm<K;lAJd`/d&`”|p,bsiUev\”#)<R^]U~doa3E9`=Y?ious terrorist groups such as Alamos 20,000 and the Humanis Policlub. I also have evidence that speci cally links Bill to the murder of FBI Agent Jennifer Kowalski, with whom this investigation originally began. I took over from Agent Kowalski on March 25, 2074, when she requested my assistance. My previous case, investigating Congressman James Grey, was terminated when the Congressman died in an unexplained plane accident in the Carib League. I had not been assigned anything new, so I decided to help Agent Kowalski. When I was unable to find her at her apartment or through her commlink RFID system, I alerted my section chief at the Bureau. Two days later, Agent Kowalski’s body was found hung from a fkagpole on Renraku Corporation propertynear Downtown Seattle. An of cial invesPk0M{gE6IR}8~^y^jD;)1f\&vF~TB(YNpGL1.$D}C=Y/avCae(Ga7-wT`90g2;  ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— FRAGMENT #2 FF^(ZDnE|8M&<]#LD:w1!Z0+!9G’DzYDy[Ewro8%o>i2T/”}bv~@bUnd)pGc{6Cv832M9WHRe8mnU4qsi2F5cDKtgtHTN- taxvaXQmation was an exercise in frustration. Despite my best efforts, both in the Matrix and on the streets, I could not find evidence of any solid connection between Brackhaven and Bill, other than they both “work” for the city/state. I was about ready to give in and go to my supervisor when my suspicions were confirmed about a cover up in Agent Kowalski’s death. Her autopsy reports were altered to make her death look like a suicide, but the originals indicated carefully hidden trauma to th_ throat, consistent with a mono-garrote, see file #4459-Be2ggzxcadyHlYJuhWc82B GwACfHin7ONGuEOsoSqi  ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— FRAGMENT #3 M32d”$/`oo7]EnQ|.KhY”\x`}-l1t]L%aSLA|S%S&<&a!2Ho5OS:0?psTAEjDR>haven’s press secretary, through a mannamed George Mathers. Mathers had secretly contracted the copycat killer that murdered MacCallister’s daughter, and now he was going after him. But someone was out to take care of MacCallister before that could happen. Another bomb ripped through the Underground and almost killed MacCallister. When I heard about this, something clicked in my mind, and I went back to my notes and realized what Stonewall was—it was a reference to a plan to remove MacCallister from play. Again, I was figuring it out, but too late to do any good. Thankfully, MacCallister survived. I tried to go back to the Underground, to spill my guts and tell them everything hoping it would prevent more tragedies. Too bad I never made it there. MacC—list_r wasn’t the only one who had gotten someone’s attention. On myway to the Unde@kxZSAh\Z(=qRC=3;vP(#K,>A)R`5Fpf[QSt>  ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— FRAGMENT #4 etfH”}dS&34aNz,KS?wmAsD_wF[@v:[H)\F,oUO@X?Ny9K=Pz!pEWVF,WI{ZoN`ity that it was one of Bill’s safe house/staging areas. There was no guarantee that Bill would be there, but I had nothing else at this point. So my team and I (yeah I was a real shadowrunner now) did what all runners do, we scouted the place, did our legwork, and then blew open the front door. After a quick little fireight with a few gangers hired to watch the place, we hit paydata. Located in a vault in the back of the safe house were several data chips with not only detailed plans about the fire bombings and the attempt on MacCallister, but about an upcoming operation labeled Daybreak, see#4471-Charlie. What I read among the files made me sick. This was an order for wholesale murder andwanton destructg>9hj’jL!v2MzDCTv8omFqK;/Ebhw~1>%iT?)vtGonV+3z^Aeq}8$8