Session started at 7:19 pm on 9/05/06
Attending players: Michael, Ben, Sarah, and Eva
Presiding GM: Aaron
Major NPC's: Wow, this field is useless when you don't know who your Johnson is and you don't get names from the goons before you paste them...
(We spend a little bit of time trying decide on a group name but aren't able to settle on anything.)
The doctor's money is running out, so Ajax has been trying to get in good with a local fixer and get us some work. He seems optimistic that we'll get something soon.
We are relaxing at the Orc with the Gold Tooth Tavern. It's not a bad place, though the soy is a bit low grade for my taste. Ajax likes sitting still a bit much for my taste, but sometimes I have to humor the hacker-lump.
(Ajax gets a mental phone call from a fixer called Vasquez offering a job... he declares the job to be "very simple." The players start worrying. It's apparently "running overwatch" for another team. Ajax accepts the meet and the fixer passes on the Johnson's contact info.)
Apparently we've got a job. Ajax is looking into the meet place. He says its a virtual reality bar, some sort of hacker hangout. I'm not really clear on how this is going to work since I don't frequent such places.
Ajax must be feeling good about the job, cause he orders a round of real drinks and some non-soy snacks. The meet isn't until midnight, so I get some exercise in the mean time. Lump-boy and B hang out in the bar. I'm going to have to try to get the doctor into jogging so she doesn't have to put up with the boys so much.
Ajax and B are going to go into the meet virtually, since they've got sim set-ups. The doc and I are going to watch their flesh for them while their gone and keep an eye on their video feeds so we know how things are going.
I'll never get over the weird things that hackers construct. The club is enormous. Someone must have been feeling bad about living in a basement downtown when they came up with the floor plan. Even the door is lost in the vastness of the interior. There are crazy floating platforms and lifts between dozens of dance floors and bars, catering to sim delights from the mild to dangerous. It's crowded but not packed. I'd guess the space expands to hold the traffic. It's weird to think that people could get so worked up about a place that fundamentally isn't really there.
Ajax points out an image of the fixer, a guy named Vasquez, over in the corner and the two of them move over to him. He looks like a slightly squirrelly little guy, but I'll trust Ajax's judgement for now. As they approach the image of Vasquez leads into a private conference room, rather swank, and the guys hand in. A generic salary man icon is waiting to meet them. The corporate icon on his lapel is a constant state of fuzzy flux. It's nice to know he at least has a sense of humor about his anonymity.
Ajax bows low and B follows suit. They greet the Johnson, sit, and begin discussing the job. It sounds like we have to find "a place" and cover his team while they pull a job there. He's being vague. I hate it when they do that. Ajax coaxes the pay out of him. It sounds like 8000 ¥ is his starting bid.
Ajax pushes for more info and the guy gives some. So we would need to find a particular subway station in Puyallup then call in his team via the matrix. They'll get there on their own. We'll have to cover them while they install some sort of equipment in the station and then escort them out. Ajax is not really keen on the placement of the job, but the Johnson tries to talk it up like going into gang country is no big deal.
The Johnson seems to think the area is in the turf of a gang called the Chulos. I'm pretty sure the name means pimps, but that gives me nothing. With my luck they'll be angry auto-matic weapon wielding pimps.
Ajax is trying to talk him up because of the gang turf thing. I remember why we let Ajax talk. He gets the guy up to 10400 ¥. The Johnson wants it all finished before sun up, but it does not sound like he will cave and pay extra for speed. They make some nice words and end the meeting pretty quickly.
Ajax has a laundry list of crap the Johnson wants in the subway sub-station. There's a roughly 2 km wide swath across the city that it needs to be in and the place has to have power cables running through it, even if they aren't live they have to be intact.
Ajax doesn't have any luck trying to get info on the Johnson, so we are flying a little blind. B has the gal to ask what can possibly go wrong. I'm going to light him on fire in his sleep if things blow up in our faces.
B needs to stop by his apartment and meanwhile Ajax is trying to figure stuff out. He's figured out where the general area of the Chulos turf, not a better part of Puyallup sadly. We will start out at the southern part of the area and work our way north. The first two stations we visit are gutted and not at all useful.
As we are heading to the third station, B notices a sedan with some shady characters following us about a block back. Ajax doesn't want to kill them, which seems like a good idea to me, since they probably have a lot of buddies. Ajax sends the doctor and I go in and take a quick look at the station while he and B talk to the folks in the car. I don't want to take too long in the station, in case things get ugly.
(When the sedan pulls up four rough looking hispanic guys in brown clothes get out. Ajax has a chat with them. They seem moderately amiable fortunately. Ajax passes them a little bit of money to leave us alone for the night.)
Ajax relays that he was able to bribe the gentlemen from the sedan for a reasonable fee to leave us alone. Good news overall.
The station looks pretty clean. I don't think anyone's been scavenging it. We go back to tell the guys. The sedan and its occupants have already moved on, so that's a load off my mind for now.
B stays to guard the car and the rest of us head back down to make sure the station is in good enough shape to work. The power cables seem to be okay, so this place is probably good enough.
Ajax brings his car over by the entrance and I wait in it watching for any skulkers above ground. Ajax calls the com-number the Johnson gave us. About two minutes later I'm surprised to see a parachuter drop from the sky. Five more parachuters and a crate follow in rapid succession. They must have be just flying around in a 'copter or plane waiting for Ajax's call. Must be nice.
They've also got a crate. They drag it inside. I stay at the top of the stairs to cover things and keep my eyes open. B covers the station and the doctor and Ajax hang out on the stairs. The team starts unpacking the crate and it looks like they are building some sort of gadget. I'm not sure how they expect to keep it in one piece for more than one night in this part of town. Maybe a few hours is all they need.
We wait about ten minutes uneventfully and then the doctor hears a diesel engine approaching. Sounds like things might get exciting.
I'm pretty sure they've made my position, so I duck right, under the handrail. Two goons in heavy armor pop out from further down the street and move towards the station, but they don't have a clear shot on me. I catch sight of two others covering them as they move. They seem a bit unprepared for the topography. The two that are advancing almost step on me before they realize I'm here.
While I have a chance, I quickly step in between them and catch the left guy's neck with a strike which drops him mostly paralyzed and gasping to his knees. I'm in the range of fire of the other two but since I'm right next to their buddy they'll have a hard time of it.
I hear Ajax's gun scream as he opens up on the goon still standing next to me. A few of the bullets ping off his armor but I think Ajax got him at least once or twice.
The doctor steps up a bit shakily and mumbles some arcane intonation. A haze of blue stun energy flies from her fingers towards one of the two goons across the street. It hits him full in the chest and he stumbles. I can hear him swearing all the way over here.
B fires off some shots at the goon standing next to me and they faithfully find the chinks in his body armor. He sputters and coughs up blood before he falls.
I drop back halfway behind the retaining wall and tag the goon taking cover behind Ajax's car between the eyes. He goes down.
B is trading fire with the remaining goon, who has taken cover behind the corner of an adjacent building. B's having a hard time getting past the guy's cover.
I spray some lead at him as well just to keep his head down.
B manages to hit him, but I think he's still up.
("I think it would be really funny if he glitched in combat and his wife left him."
~ Michael)I can see the grenade as it flies through the air, but I'm barely able to dive out of the stairwell and behind Ajax's car as the debris slices though the air. It stings like a bitch, but I'm mostly okay. I hope that f'ker doesn't have any more.
I try to put as much lead as I can in the air in the hopes of averting another grenade. By the gurgling and lack of bullets I think I got him. About ten seconds of silence upholds this theory.
Ajax and I go to toss the bodies in an alley. Ajax says their gear is calling home, so unless he can shut it up fast I'm going to see if there are any grenades left on them to destroy it with.
The team is reporting they're done, but now we've got to get the six of them out of here. Ajax manages to get into the goon-squad leader's comlink and shut off their screaming bio-monitors. He also grabs what info the guy had.
Fortunately for us, the baddies' left us their van. How generous of them. A quick sweep shows it's relatively clean. Ajax spoofs the baddie leader's comlink and starts it up. B and the team pile into the van. The rest of us get back into Ajax's car. We get the heck out of dodge.
B is trying to figure out a safe place for the team to lie low until their corp picks them up again. He turns something up and we drag the team over there. Ajax sends the van off with instructions to drive north on I-5. Free van for the Salish-Shidhe border guards I guess.
B comes up with a safe house for us to rest in. It's a decent place and rents by the day. The food in the fridge is good and the rooms have wood floors, so I can do forms. Much better then the last sh*t hole we had to hang out in. The doctor patches us up while we wait to hear back from Vasquez about our payment.
Ajax says the meet with the Johnson is in the same virtual club at noon. We wait in the safe house since we paid for it and it's much better than driving the streets or risking a tail back to our homes. The Johnson forks over 12,000 ¥, better than I expected. That's 2,800 ¥ for each of us, after expenses.
The doctor mentions that she has to fly out to Boston to meet with an old friend, so we'll have to make do without her for a few days (just next Tuesday as it were).
("I'll leave med kits in the refrigerator with reheating instructions."
~ Chordae, joking about how we'll manage without her)("I've taken contagious stupidity. It's awesome. Best feat ever."
~ Michael)End of Session