 |
| A Rotordrone. Freddie's are now less prone to exploding |
Despite the Ares Johnson's ominous
sendoff, things have been pretty quirt around here. About the biggest activity
for a while was Freddie, Benny and Dave (a mechanic they know) doing some
modifications to add more armor to his Rotordrones so they wouldn't explode as
soon as somebody looked at them funny. Along the way we gained a Garage Couch
(you know the type; covered in a drop sheet and then cluttered up with parts)
which I am earnestly shocked we didn't have before.
And then things got awkward when Aphonso
called David to ask Freddie for a favour. A friend of his, a Dwarf Rigger
called Offroad, had apparently gotten into some trouble during a smuggling run
and desperately needed to be bailed out. After a lot of me not talking to
Alphonso stuff (including when I was finally actually speaking to him my
deliberately not speaking to him; can't he just get the picture already?) we
agreed to go help him out as a favour to Dave and, of course, the possible
benefits down the road.
 |
| When this is all you see for two and a half days, you'd get testy too |
The downside was that Offroad's last
known was over in the PCC, which meant that me, Freddie and Neon had to drive
two and a half days out there. That was not a fun experience, to say the least;
two and a half days cooped up in a Van with nothing to do but stare at the road
and play AR games is enough to drive anyone mad. Throw in the crappy motels we
were staying at (Some of them could only be cleaned with flamethrowers, and I
encountered sheets with a negative thread count) and I was pretty pissy by the
time we got to the destination.
On the upside, we didn't have Captain
Cancer with us because he would have made the whole experience exponentially
worse with his constant need for a nicotine fix
At any rate, we arrived at Offroad's
Last Known, which was a ghost town that had been abandoned during the Ghost
Dance war and left to rot since. We split up to do some recon of the area; me
on my bike and Freddie using the fly-spies. Neon confirmed that there was
pretty much no Matrix activity in the area (in fact, there was pretty much no
Matrix to be had full stop) although we found out that we weren’t alone.
 |
| Only slightly crappier then some of the motels we stayed at. Slightly. |
There were some bikers milling around in
the town, mainly focused on the long-abandoned municipal building which we
figured to be their hangout. Adding weight to that argument was a pair of cars
parked outside; a reasonably new Jeep Trailblazer, as well as a crapped out
junker of an Americar that had a MMG strapped to the front. Freddie also found
something else interesting; a derelict motel on the outskirts of town (which
was only slightly less habitable then some of the motels we'd stayed in) where
two gangers were guarding a massive Ford Percheron. Based on the intel we had,
we figured that it was Offroad's truck, although there was no sign of him.
I deiced to check out the municipal building
more closely, making my way in through a broken window and sneaking my way
through it. Inside was pretty much a complete mess, though there were signs of
habitation. Somebody had strung up some lights and other amenities that were
being run off a generator, After a bit I got a good look at what had once been
some sort of meeting room, which was when I hit paydata. Offroad was there,
tied up and pretty beaten looking.
Three gangers were also there, all rough
looking wasteland crazy types, clad in whatever scraps they could find. There
was a fourth guy who clearly wasn't, however. He looked clean and professional,
and was equipped with some good quality 'ware including obvious Cybereyes. I
tagged him as being a pro runner (and owner of the Jeep as it was the only
remotely clean vehicle outside) who likely was the one who had intercepted
Offroad and also the biggest threat there.
I quickly came up with a plan to get
Offroad out of there while also covering our escape. Unfortunately, the cars
and bikes were all Matrix offline, so Neon couldn't just hack them into
oblivion. Instead, I took out the generator which plunged the building into
darkness; one of the goons came in to check it out, and I quickly shock gloved
him into submission. The pro Runner also came to investigate, so I went out the
window as the Runner followed up, ducking back in to the main hall through a
different entrance. This left two gangers on Offroad, which meant it was time
for phase two.
Phase two, by the way, consisted of
Freddie's four Rotorodrones opening up on the Americar and then bolting. That
was enough of a distraction, with a third ganger running out of the room to see
what was going on. That left just one on Offroad who I quickly disabled and
then recovered him, He was pretty beat up but was good to go (Here's a hint
guys; beating info out of a Dwarf never works) and quickly filled me in on the
details as we snuck out. It turned out that he'd been ambushed by the gangers
who in turn were being lead by the guy in the Jeep. However, they still hadn't
gotten into his truck as he'd convinced them that it was rigged to blow if they
tried to break into it. Nice.
Unfortunately, they'd put a Head Jammer
on Offroad so he couldn't just get control of his truck right there and then. The
other problem was that the gangers were now well and truly on alert and
definitely didn't want their prize to get away. So while me and Offroad were
escaping on my bike, they went into action including the Runner dropping a pair
of Steel Lynx drones out of his Jeep. Fortunately, Freddie's drones were
already on standby to cover the escape. Some deft maneuvering and misdirection
left both the Gangers and the two Lynxes distracted, and both drones were
destroyed in short order.
That gave us the time we needed to
rendezvous back at the van and quickly take stock of the situation. Some quick
work got the Head Lock off Offroad, and he was able to find and regain control
of his truck in short order. Turns out it was the one at the abandoned model
after all, so yeah. He was able to distract the guards on it by activating its
alarms, which gave Freddie enough time to take them both out with a Drone
strike. Offroad was able to confirm that both the truck was fine and that the
cargo was intact, and then we were on the road again
Unfortunately, the Gang had noticed
Offroad's absence and figured out what we were trying to do, and were after us
in force. Quickly, our smell convoy (Freddie's Van, Offorad's truck and me on
my bike) were being chased by a gaggle of Bikes (including some toolbag on a
Monocyle), as well as the pro Rigger in his Jeep and a shot to all hell but
barely running junkpile Americar. They were out for blood, and there was no way
we were getting away from them, which resulted in a high-speed battle on what
passed for a road out here.
 |
| Steel Lynx drone, for when you need the big guns |
They had speed and numbers on their
side, but we had a few advantages of our own. Even on a fragged to all hell
excuse for a road, my fast and agile, which combined with my own abilities
meant that I could still weave around them with east. Freddie, on the other
hand, was able to quickly deeply his drones on swarms, including the Lynx
clinging onto the roof of his van with its Gecko Grip tires, which put a lot of
fire on the gangers. Plus Neon jammed their comms, which meant they couldn't
coordinate at all.
I took out the jerk on the wheelbkie,
while Freddie's drones did a pretty good number on the rest of the motorcylces.
The Rigger in the Jeep, however, was rather good both at evading fire and. He’d
tried to plow me under a couple of times, but also had electrified his jeeps'
body so I couldn't just jump on him and take him out that way. In the end, it
took Neon hacking his systems to pop the doors open to get him; once she'd done
that, Freddie did a fly-by with the rotordtones going full-auto into the cabin.
Messy.
With the gang out of the way, we were
able to make good our escape. And so after another two and a half days of hell
via crappy motels later, we arrived back at Seattle where I immediately booked
myself into a spa so I could get all the grime off and feel human again. But
before that we had to met Offroad's Johnson for the hand-off (fortunately, we
didn’t need to meet Alphonso in person) which meant going to an EVO-owned club
which was full of... Unusual people to say the least. Like Offroad's Johnson,
who was some sort of a lizard man.
Because EVO, right? At any rate, Lizard Johnson was happy with the work
we did and glad for our assistance, and was able to provide some monetary
compensation.
We were left to enjoy the club, which
naturally lead to a conversation on EVO culture and the like. This in turn lead
to discussing the Pierce problem. Simply put, given that at least one of the
megas knows where we live, keeping a live even if contained Crazy Digital
Murder God there suddenly becomes a lot riskier. And while Wraith had given his
word that we would keep him 'alive', the rest of us were ever increasingly
unsure of we liked that idea. I had suggested that we re-house his computer in
a block of concrete that we dropped into the harbour myself. Freddie, on the
other hand, suggested we put a fail-safe explosive device on Pierce so that if
anything happened, we could blow him by remote. Neon said it was a good idea
just a bit to quickly, like in a way that suggested she had already thought
about it... or even done it
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