Runception

Most days when you're on a Run, you don't ask questions, Even if you don't know who your Johnson works for, you can pretty easily guess their motivation from what you're doing. Other days the Johnson is good ad hiding their true motivations and goals, to the point where what you're doing seems nonsensical. And then there are the times when not only are you at cross-purposes with another run, but the two are so mutually contradictory as to make you wonder what the hell is going on. The last Run we were on was that three times over.

Things started out pretty straightforward. I was at the skeleton and flirting with Blindsite (apparently, he thinks I am awesome, which means he's got good taste) when I was contacted by the EVO Lizardman Johnson that Offroad had worked for before. He arranged to meet us at a warehouse near the Tacoma docks (no. Not the same one as last run) to sort out the details. When we arrived there was when things began to get a little odd, as not only was the Johnson in attendance, but there was another figure who arrived in a Bentley Concordat, the sort of car you only associate with Johnsons or big-name celebrities.

Evo Lizardman Johnson (More or less)

The driver turned out to be almost as distinctive as Mr Lizardman. They were a Giant (ie, the green-skinned Scandinavian Troll variant) who was unusually clean-shaven, well-presented and snappily dressed. And also had customized chromed cyberlegs to boot. He introduced himself as Atticus, and said that he was also here to meet Mister Johnson. Sadly, this would be the most straightforward and logical of the events that would unfold over the course of the run.

Lizard Johnson said that he'd hired Atticus for his skills as a face and felt that he could be useful to us in this forthcoming run. The goal seemed simple enough, but then had an added twist. We were going to extract one John Baxter, an assistant to the director of Aztechnology's unusual procurement division. And while that seemed to be straightforward, the thing was that Baxter actually as a spy working for Shiawase, and who was using specialized implanted headware to record info. Lizardman wanted Baxter alive and unharmed, and more to the point, wanted access to his headware and all the info within.

...more of this

So far straightforward, right? We got some info that revealed that Baxter lived and worked in the Pyramid, which did present a bit of an obstacle to us because it meant that we'd need to infiltrate a well-defended structure full of angry people who start at 'shoot on sight' and escalate from there. So we went to work trying to find out some more about him and see if there was some sort of opening we could exploit. The most logical thing was that he had to make contact with Shiwase somehow to do his regular data dumps, as doing such form inside the pyramid would not be conductive to a long-term operation or, for that matter, a healthy life.

Atticus immediately showed just how persuasive he could be when he managed to con Lizard Johnson into giving us an expenses budget, to be presented at the end of the run. We immediately began piling up things we thought would be useful, like Neurostun grenades, restraints, stick and shock ammo, janitorial uniforms and the like. In the end, we didn't use much of this, but the point was that we were able to get money for it no less.

So while we had the vague outlines of a plan., the problem still presented itself in getting to it. I was able to think of one possible route towards more info on Baxter, and that was Lukas who we managed to con into giving Brandine and her child Cody life-long protection from any ham lest his massive screw-ups regarding them become known. We were able to (reluctantly) get some info out of him, a fact sort of helped by his department currently being in some sort of bizarre inter-departmental feud with Special Acquisitions and his looking for a way to get ahead. (Captain cancer had considered using Brandine and Cody as bargaining chips, the jerk)

We didn't tell him about Baxter's little side job, but even then Lukas was rather helpful. He revealed to us that there was one window where Baxter was outside the pyramid on a regular basis. Once a week he went to the Northgate Mall, an upscale shopping precinct in Downtown, albeit with an Azzie security detail in tow. We immediately figured that this was where he was meting his Shiawase data dump, but that it would also be a useful extraction point. Lukas then put a dampener on that when he revealed that Baxter had gone for his regular trip the previous day but then failed to return.

This suggested two things to us. The first was that somebody else had extracted Baxter for whatever reason. The second was that Shiawase had decide to pull him out. The first meant that we could still find him and have an opportunity to complete the job. The second meant that we were screwed.

A good place to shop if you're rich and corp-affiliated. And
not an Ork or Troll it seems

So we went for the first and decided to do a recon run on the mall and see what we could find. Atticus and I did a good job of blending into the crowds and scoping the place out, and were able to confirm that he had indeed been there and on the surface hadn’t done anything too unusual. He'd even visited the Shiawase consumer electronics store, which we immediately figured was where he was going to do his regular data dumps. His car had even left the parking garage on schedule too.

Oh, and the stores there have really great cake and real coffee. Definitely have to go back there again.

Cinders. Good mage, terrible hair

While our initial investigation had yielded nothing too extraordinary, we went to less conventional means. An astral scan of the place by Captain Cancer revealed that somebody had fired off a Stunbolt in the parking garage, one that had left an exceptionally strong lingering astral signature over a day later. Neon did some poking around in the security logs and found a familiar face had been present in the mall during the same time as Baxter's visit, being Cinders. Some extra feet on the ground witness work also revealed that Malthus, her assault-cannon toting Ork merc had also been there with her (albeit in this case without his Assault Cannon).

We retreated Back to Atticus' amazingly luxurious apartment to plan our next move (well, that and to sink into his giant-sized couches a little). Neon was able to do a bit of snooping along the city’s cameras to confirm that Baxter's Ride had indeed left them all, and then headed south on a route towards Redmond. Okay, that seemed simple enough, and we figured that it was Cinders taking him back to their hideout. Since we were on good terms with them, we figured that we could just head there and try to sort things out and reach some sort of amicable solution.

Attending school (Note, not like this)

Things began to sour when we reached Cinders' schoolhouse hideout. While we were able to set up a meeting, there was definitely a lot of tension in the air. It seemed that things had not been going well for the team and that they where collectively rather short of money. Pinpoint, their sniper, was rather grumpy; Pandora, their decker was being reclusive and Malthus was just being... well, himself, really. At first they were rather reluctant to talk about it, but after Atticus tried being incredibly polite, they were able to open up a bit more.

Cinders had been hired by one of her own contacts, being the head of Aztechnology's department of Special Acquisitions. The main reason was that said suit was in a personal war with somebody at Shiawase, and thought that Baxter was there to monitor him specifically. He'd wanted Baxter taken off-site so he could deal with him appropriately while keeping himself free form Aztechnology scrutiny and any backlash that could come from having a spy operating at such a high level of his department. That had all gone to plan and they had almost gotten away too. What they didn't expect was the drive-by attack on the car by some goon on a motorcycle, which saw them toss a grenade into the car and then make off with Baxter.

That’s right, somebody had just kidnapped the guy that Cinders had kidnapped before we could kidnap them. It was a run within a run within a run. It's a runception.

Snig the Axe. He's a jerk
even by Hobgoblin standards

The only good news was that I was able to identify the guilty party from the information that she gave us. Their attacker was another runner called Snig (aka Snig the Axe), a thoroughly unpleasant Hobgoblin mercenary that we'd crossed paths with in past. Snig's only known associate and probably the one who planned all this was a Dwarf Decker called Slackintosh, who was just about as unpleasant and argumentative as he was. We'd (more or less) worked with the pair of them in past on an impro run that had involved us getting their collective hoops out of the mess that they'd gotten themselves into.

Said run had been against Aztechnology, which was a part of a worrying pattern. It had also ended in the pair of them having a flamewar on Lightspeed's data haven that had gotten them both banned for a week. However, it also meant that we had a lead, even if they were an unpleasant one.

While the others tried to smooth things over and work on a plan, Me and Cinders went outside to Have a 'leader to leader' chat and try to figure out the best solution. The good of it was that her Johnson wanted him less for being alive and more so they could pump him for information to find out what he knew and what his role was in this private little war. We worked out a deal where her crew would get to question him before they handed him over to us to hand over to Lizard Johnson. Atticus was able to smooth over this with Cinders' crew, which they (more or less) agreed to.

Slackintosh: The nice one

We decided to take advantage of our one lead, figuring that Slackintosh would know where Snig was if anyone did (if only to keep away from him). We gave her a call, with both Neon and Pandora ready to swoop on it to find her location. Slack was her usual grumpy self and said very little, but what we got suggested that she and Snig were indeed working together. That was also enough for us to get her location, which was in an old pump house in an industrial waste section of Redmond.

Our two teams swung into action, heading to the site and coping it out. Our first concern was that Slackintosh, who had a love of sniper rifles, would be watching and ready to geek anyone who approached. This was born out by the collection of debris around the pumphouse which nicely turned it into a killing field, channeling any would-be attackers into nice, predictable pathways. (And on the one day that Freddie isn't there to provide Rotordrone support too) The second thing we noticed was when Cinders and Captain Cancer did an astral sweep of the place and found that there were several spirits present, telling us that the pair of them had conned some poor mage into working for them. (The last one they'd had wound up being captured by Aztechnology and hadn't been seen since. Notice a pattern forming here?)

I quickly threw together a plan. Captain Cancer and Cinders summoned a gigantic Fire Spirit as a counter to what we had in there. Neon and Pandora mapped out the killing field around the pumphouse and created an ARO map of it. I lobbed the last of my thermal smoke grenades in order to create cover from any attacks. Malthus took the lead, and would be there to suppress ant attacks and force them to keep their heads down because nobody wants to be hit by an Assault Cannon. Me, Captain Cancer, Atticus and Cinders would be with him as the assault force, while Pinpoint would dig in and cover us, And Pandora and Neon would be providing matrix support from their van

It worked fantastically, the team managing to get inside the station unharmed. Inside we were met with our opposition; Slackintosh and Snig were there as expected, as was an Elf mage who had decided to supplement her magical abilities with a rotary shotgun (good plan!) as well as Baxter who was nicely secured. The fight started as soon as we were in the door, with me taking the lead (of course). I lobbed in a neurostun grenade, but both Snig and Slack were ready and had their breathers on. Snig ducked behind some of the pumps, while Slack took up a sniping position above.

Atticus fired up his cyber-legs and took on the mage in a most dramatic way, but delivering a turbo-charged kick right to her midsection... Which sent her through a wall and, as you can imagine, knocked her cold. (Actually, it damn well near killed her, but yeah). That definitely surprised Snig and Slack, The former of which was caught flat-footed when I leaped on him and blasted him with my shock gloves. He went down hard, and Slack figured that things weren't going to get any better quickly. She surrendered, and handed over Baxter.

Manx: Does not have a tail

Captain Cancer got to the downed mage, reviving her with a Heal spell before the internal bleeding did her in. She introduced herself as being Manx ("Because I don't have a tail") and added that she was surprised by what had happened. She also deiced that she'd never work with Snig and Slack again, which is a wise career move.

A bit of questioning told us who had hired her, however. She and Snig got the job from an Aztechnology Johnson. Specifically, it was the same the same woman who had hired me and Abbey to break in to a guys place to steal an artifact, whom Captain Cancer had been terrorizing and was responsible for the job that had vanished half of Twitch's crew and left him an amnesiac mess. Yep, an Azzie was hiring them to run against an Azzie who had also been targeted by another Azzie. The pair of them had no idea why, and hadn't really asked either. So whoever the hell she is, she's definitely up to something big and potentially bad.

Cinders and her team got to question Baxter to their satisfaction before giving their data over to their Johnson. While they didn't get paid as much as they'd wanted, they at least got something out of it. Conversely, when we handfed Baxter over to Lizard Johnson, Atticus was able to convince him not only to honour our expenses budget, but also to throw in an extra for Cinders' team, whoch Lizard Johnson was amazingly amenable to. So everybody wins, except for Snig and Slack. But they're jerks anyway.

In the aftermath of course, we're stuck with the mess that is multiple Azzies working against each other (and Shiawase) for reasons that we can't even begin to figure out. And while I'm tempted to say 'leave them to it', I know that they'll generate a lot of work at best, and find some way to drag us into it at worst. On the upside, Atticus makes for an interesting addition to the team, and I can see benefits from working with him in future. That he has a luxury car and a very nice apartment are but some of them.