Babysitting with Battleaxes

Despite the temptation to lounge around in the pool in our penthouse apartment (You would too, admit it), we had actually made some progress on the investigation that had bought us to New York in the first place. For starters, we had a name for the creepy ripper doc we'd spied on. What we found interesting is that yes, Doctor Sleep was indeed a ghoul, but people seemed to be okay with going to him no less. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t, and that was before we did some more digging to give us good evidence that he was still using dangerous (ie, CFD vector) techniques in his surgery.

We knew that Full Otto had been to see him for gene therapy treatments (in his case, to deal with Cybernetic Rejection. The irony, it burns), but Fast Pig hadn’t. On the other hand, it's also possible that Fast Pig could have been infected vua Full Otto, so yeah. Neon managed to pull his records, which while they were full of dates, visits, procedures, augmentations and the like, were also full of very obvious aliases. However, she was able to rig up a facial recognition program that would match footage of his visitors. Of course, that still meant tracking them down.

With that lead we engaged in more investigation of the New York runner scene, trying to find out more about the missing people and seeing if we could find patterns or common links. We swooshed around high-end bars and clubs and the like, while Captain Cancer crawled from one seedy dive to another in the name of gathering intel. (Better him then me). Of course, the other problem was that 'missing runner' is also a hard thing to qualify. Runners go missing in the process of a run all the time; you get geeked or sent off to some corp lab and never seen again or whatever. So the secret was to isolate those who had disappeared outside of 'a run went bad'.

Our research turned up a list of names. Only one of them also had been to Doctor Sleeps' house of horrors (and grill), albeit over a year ago. That was still a good lead, and also that particular Runner gave us a lot to work with on the grounds of their very distinctive nature. Their name was RoboPants, formerly a human girl who was also some sort of crazy (creepy?) transhumanist fetishist. She'd had her entire body blow the waist replaced with a modular mount that allowed her to connect to various insane lower torso/leg setups. Her latest (and of a long line at that) had been a mechanical horse body that basically turned her into some sort of weird Cyber-Centaur. That's all kinds of crazy (It means chopping of your fun bits. Who does that?). It's also a very nicely distinctive trait that we could follow.

This lead us to a place called Link Club, supposedly New York's hottest club for Runners to be at. It was... Okay, I mean, the AR band was all right and the interaction with other link Clubs from across the world vua AR was also cool, but Dantes' is all that and so much better to boot. I don’t know, I guess I expected more from a New York club. Maybe I just need to find something cooler that's non-runner themed. But anyway, it was okay, but not fantastic, and I did have a great time on the dance floor while shopping around for info. We found out that while RoboPants didn't have a regular team, she hung out with two others pretty often; Mudbug and Ripstar, giving something to look into.

We also found a job, which was even better. Dayglo got a hit form a regular contact of hers who was looking to hire a team. Following her lead, we headed up to a private room to met the Johnson. There were three people in there; the first being a middle aged exec who, in spite of his casual wear, just screamed "Johnson", a fact aided by his obvious recognition of Dayglo. According to her, he worked for NeoNET and had been a regular source of work for her team in past.

Minster. Yes, the axe is that big

The other two were a bit more distinctive. There was a very professional looking middle-aged Dwarf (Which for a Dwarf means 'anything over thirty five') in a good suit with sharp shades who just screamed 'bodyguard; roight there and then. The other was a human man who couldn't have been any more then nineteen (even Neon could have called him a brat) who’s outfit of black tactical wear, coat and shades couldn't have been any newer if they still had tags. Everything about him screamed 'poser'.

The Johnson introduced himself as Walter Johnson. Yes, that was really his name. It was one of those cases of he might as well just run with it and make the most of it, so here he was. He did seem to be a bit surprised that Dayglo had a new team with her rather than her regulars, which merely added to the growing list of things that Dayglo wasn’t telling anyone.

With that out of the way, his job was relatively simple. He wanted us to steal some records from Champion Financials secure system. The only problem was that this was kept internally for security purposes, and as such, we would need to get Neon into the building so she could pilfer them. That limited our options but, but there was another wrinkle in the plan.

The Dwarf and the kid were being added to the team, with this entire run apparently being put together for the kid's benefit. The Dwarf introduced himself as Minster, with everything about him matching that first impression. Calm, measured, professional, all business. Walter also added that he was one of the best personal protection specialists in North America. Sadly, when the kid introduced himself as Slayer in a fake deep tough guy voice, he also confirmed my impression; that he was a try-hard kid acting tough.

As soon as the pair of them left the room, Walter Johnson confided that yes, Slayer was some suit's brat kid who wanted to play at being a Shadowrunner. While he wanted the brat to come back in one piece, he was hoping that we would teach him a 'life lesson' along the way.

Seriously, there's nothing worse than a corp Kid pretending he's a runner. They go in with a mountain of stupid perceived fantasies about what it's all about and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. And they also abuse their parents' accounts to get them as outfitted as they want and to hire 'real' runners to prop them up. I mean, hell, I had to work hard to get where I am and gave up years of my life to be there. I didn't just go 'dad, I want to be a Runner, now fund my dream or I'll set fire to school again' or anything like that.

So with this lump weighing us down, we set off to get to work. Some quick investigation turned up the location of the Champion office in question, occupying several floors on one building in West Side near Central Park. They had only low-end corp security on-site, but that did include a security mage. And because they were in a Good part of town, any break in would have a HTR on the way in three to four minutes. So we'd need to do this relatively quietly and only go loud as a last resort.

The site itself turned up relatively little surprises. It was your basic high-rise office tower with commercial space on the lower floors. It was free-standing, so there would be no ways to sneak in from other structures. Its car park was for staff parking only, which meant we couldn't use that either. What it meant was that we'd need to find some way in there that allowed us to blend in. And while we were spending our time casing the joint, Slayer was being a whiny, demanding little bitch, whining about how he wanted to 'go loud' at every opportunity. Minster was doing a fantastic job of putting up with it. Must come with the territory.

Fortunately, we were able to find a crack in their defenses, and it was the good old human idiocy factor. Building access was regulated by ID badges and pass cards which meant that only those with both could get in. We found that there were a pair of Challenge employees, a junior twerp and a doughy middle-manager, who were regularly leaving the building and hanging out in a distant corner of the ugly forecourt to take smoke breaks. This gave us the entrance we needed to build an effective plan. After studying their patterns for a few days (and Slayer bitching every step of the way) we struck. I snuck up on the pair of them while they were having their puffs and quickly shock-gloved them out. Captain Cancer and Neon took their IDs and badges, while I discretely stashed them. I also slapped them with a couple of alcohol patches and left an empty bottle of bottom-shelf liquor nearby just to cover things a bit.

At the same time, Dayglo had used some of her contacts  (Something like 'Neo Harlem Anarchists' or some other such drek) to stage a small protest outside the office in order to keep security busy. She was aiding in the process by firing off some arcane pyrotechnics, which would also serve to distract the security mage.

Captain Cancer dropped physical masks onto both him and Neon, with the pair of them walking in like they were regular employees. The pass cards worked, getting them up to the Challenge offices. That was when they met the first real obstacle, in the form of an angry manager who demanded to know where the pair if them had been as well as why their performance was so crap. And while Slayer was already reaching for his gun, I quickly relayed them a line of Corpspeak crap that left the boss befuddled and got the pair of them past him with ease. Thanks stupid corp education, you have your uses.

Neon sat down at her appropriated workstation and got to some serious hacking. After being almost defeated by the user interface (whoops!) she was in and was able to quickly locate and appropriate the data in question. And then the pair of them made an excuse to leave the building for another smoke, and they were out. And, as soon as they'd slipped into Freddie's van, and we were off. Minster was following in his car with Slayer on board, and Captain Cancer was sweeping ahead on Murdercycle. But all in all, we'd gotten away clean.

So that's when we were attacked.

Minster's car. (Note: I don't have a picture of Slayer. Nor do
I really care)

A pair of pickups cut us off at an intersection, sandwiching Minster's car before disgorging a bucket load of goons. They opened up, with both Minster and Slayer coming under fire. The pair of them bailed out, with two of the goons immediately going after Slayer with stun batons, knocking him down. As Freddie backed off from the attack, I opened up with my Alpha from the Bulldog's back, putting down one of them before I jumped out to close in on foot.

While I was plucking them off and Freddie was sending in the Rotordrones, Minster was definitely holding his own. He'd produced a massive axe that was longer then he was tall, and had started laying into the goons. The highpoint came when he cut down two of them in a single swing, cleaving them in half while spraying Slayer with their gibs and taking a chunk out of one of the truck doors.

That was enough to convince the goons that they'd bitten off more than they could chew. The survivors (minus one girl I'd shocked) took off at speed, even if one of the trucks lost a door to minster's axe. The other one didn't do so well, quickly taken out by Freddie's drones. I dumped our captive into the back of the Van while Minster dumped Slayer back in his car, and we took off.

Captain Cancer in the meantime had intercepted the second truck after a fashion; he'd ridden Murdercycle up its back, over the tray (and in the process, over the guy squatting there) and up onto the roof of the truck. That had confused them in their attempt to escape, but also put him in a position where he couldn't really do anything about it. Again, Captain Cancer. He's like this.

Minster reported that Slayer was stunned but okay, and that he was going to take him back to 'somewhere safe' to lie low. I questioned our prisoner, who quickly gave up that they were hired to extract Slayer. They had no idea who their employer was, only that he was a heavyset Asian man who Had a distinct Japanese accent, who had arranged to meet them in a vacant lot ion Jersey. In exchange for this hit, he would give them a supply of weapons, ammo and other gang startup supplies.

I relayed this to Captain Cancer who dismounted his bike from the tuck, instead opting to follow it at a safe distance to observe. It did indeed head into a tunnel and over to Jersey, where it arrived at a vacant lot. A moment later, a car pulled up that produced a heavyset Asian man, the sole surviving member of the gang taking the time out to explain what had happened. And in reply, the Asian man shot him and then torched him and his truck. And nobody noticed this, because Jersey.

After a quick explanation of what had happened, I told the surviving ganger girl that it would be best if she got out of the van right now and never spoke a world of what had happened. She agreed, and did such. Oh, And Dayglo was nowhere to be seen during the entire fight again. Funny that.

This left us with one problem; whoever was after Slayer was still going to be gunning for him. After all, they’d put in enough resources to buy off a small gang, and shown the willingness to (literally) torch the evidence when things went bad. The other problem is that we weren't due to meet Walter Johnson for another two days, so Minster would have to sit tight on the kid until then.

So all up, our run succeeded flawlessly and then it went bad.