Wow. It feels like forever since I posted
here.
So one thing that you quickly learn as a
Runner is that there’s a whole world of different types of Mister Johnson. Not
just different behaviours depending on which company (or whatever else) they
represent, but also their approach to the run and the runners they’ve hired for
it. On this last run we encountered one of these types in the form of the
meticulous overplanner.
This type has a rather unique approach to
their operations. They’ve basically plotted out the entire run in advance, and think
they know exactly how it’s going to go. The only reason they’ve hired Runenrs
is because they’re expendable deniable assets; otherwise, they’d do the entire
fragging thing themselves. Of course, this type has two weaknesses. The first
is that their plans rarely account for anything untoward happening on the run;
rather, they simply assume it’s all going to go off like clockwork. The second
is that they hate it when the Runners they’ve hired decide to creatively reinterpret
their orders in a way they feel is better.
We definitely had one of those on our last
job. And in our decision to go off-plan, we not only saved the job but probably
saved our lives as well.
This job came at an interesting point. It
was one of three different ones to come in at once, and the one that looked the
most exciting and was the most time-critical. Added to that there was something
interesting brewing from Tyler. He didn’t have anything solid as yet, but he
said it could do lead to us doing some work for him in Cuba in the near future.
Hey, if it meant that I got to hang out some more on his yacht, I was totally
cool with that.
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| Hello, we're evil and we don't like you. |
So we went to the meat which proved to be
one of those ones where the Johnson is all but screaming about which corp he
works for. We went to an expensive traditional Japanese restaurant to meet a
slick-looking Japanese man who was wearing black shades indoor at night. At
this point, he might as well have also been wearing a MCT t-shirt while chopping
somebody’s fingers off for how obvious he was.
His pitch also screamed MCT Johnson. You
know the overplanner types I mentioned above? Just like that. He had the run
planned down to every detail, including the places and times. The premise was
that we would ambush a Knight Errant convoy and extract from it a scientist as
well as the cargo’s convoy. The sort of thing we’ve done plenty of times
before. However, he had to have it done precisely his way.
We would arrive at a point at a given time,
where we would collect a GMC Sidewinder SUV. Then we would ambush the convoy
and extract the scientist and cargo from the vehicle they were travelling in
(also a Sidewinder) and drive to a specific highway underpass. From there we
would drive to a final rendevous point in order to deliver the goods.
See? Stupidly over-planned.
We agreed to it no less because the pay was
good (well, that and the idea of a high-speed intercept did sound cool) and
went about planning the attack. The first thing we did was assume that MCT
Johnson’s plan was stupidly rosy and optimistic, and that everything possible
would go wrong. To prevent it form blowing up in our faces, we spent some time
driving the route and getting to know it so that we would have a lot of
options. You know, making sure there were plenty of possible alternate routes,
that there weren’t any massive yawning holes in the street or roadworks, that
the underpass wasn’t populated by hobos with rocket launchers (it could happen)
and the like.
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| Hobos with Rocket Launchers are a thing and they do happen |
The second thing we did was decide that we
were not going to carry both the cargo and the scientist in the Sidewinder that
was provided to us. Sure, we’d use it, but there was no way we were going to
make ourselves such an obvious target. Instead, we were going to extract the
scientist and throw her in Freddie’s Bulldog while the cargo went in the
Sidewinder. And then at some stage we came up with the idea of also
transferring the cargo to the Bulldog while in motion. Given that it was a basically
casket sized box, this did seem a little insane but Freddie assured us that he
could pull it off.
Come time for the ambush and we had our
plan of attack ready. The two escort cars would be taken out by drive-by
attacks from me on my Mirage and Shortcut in his Golf Cart (Which Freddie had
managed to tune-up and turbocharge, if you can fragging believe it). Then
Freddie would cut off the Sidewinder while we took out the guards inside. After
quick cargo and passenger swaps, Freddie and Abbey (who would be in the decoy
Sidewinder) would take off on different routes.
The ambush went off without a hitch. Shortcut
drove by the convoy to do a quick assensing recon, verifying that the scientist
was in the Sidewinder as expected. Also as per expectations she had a heavily
cybered-up bodyguard with her. What was odd was that there was also something
alive in the cargo; apparently ‘casket’ was more then just a figure of speech.
With all that in mind, we proceeded with
the attack. Shortcut threw some magic at the rear escort car to make the driver
head off somewhere else and forget about what he was supposed to be doing. I
was a bit more destructive, putting a grenade under the lead car which not only
blew it apart but also nicely blocked the road and halted the Sidewinder. The
bodyguard inside went down courtesy of some APDS fire from me and a lightning
bolt from Shortcut, leaving the way clear for the extraction.
The Scientist was quickly bundled into Freddie’s Bulldog.
Transferring the casket to the decoy Sidewinder took a bit more, but we were
out of there before reinforcements showed up. Neon was running jamming on the
various trackers to ensure that we would not be too easy to locate, which made
the next part of the plan a touch easier. We set of on separate routes with
Abbey following the planned route to the
destination and Freddie taking a parallel track. Me and Shortcut were running escort.
Problem was our getaway wasn’t as clean as
we thought. A pair of surveillance drones had picked up Abs in the Sidewinder
and had dispatched a pair of KE Limpet Mine drones to take her out. I called
for backup from Freddie, who dispatched two of his rotordrones to take out the
watchers. With them out of the way, I was able to deal with the two limpet
drones; one through a burst of SMG fire, the other with a sword strike.
This left the way clear for our high-speed
cargo transfer. While Abbey simply maintained speed and direction, Freddie backed
the Bulldog up to her Sidewinder, reversing at speed. Once they were close
enough, me and Shortcut climbed onto the Sidewinder to move the casket out of
it, aided by Thinman who was inside the Bulldog to receive (along with a very
surprised scientist). With all that handled, we again separated to resume our routes.
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| Very cool until it's chasing you |
Abbey reached the underpass where she was
joined by a pair of identical looking Sidewinders who began driving in
formation with her before splitting up. While this was obviously a part of the
MCT Johnson’s plan, what happened next wasn’t. The three of them were attacked
by an unmarked Dodge Charger interceptor, which announced its presence by blasting
one of them apart. It then dropped onto Abbey’s tail. She wisely decided to
leap out of the vehicle while it was in motion, something she’s rather good at.
The Charger blew her Sidewinder away and then proceeded to take out the third.
By the time Freddie got Rotordornes onto it, the car had managed to give us the
slip.
All that was left was to make the delivery.
After recovering Abbey, we headed to the rendezvous point that MCT Johnson had allocated
to us in the plan. A quick drone recon confirmed that he was on-site with a
bodyguard as well as having two more lurking in ambush nearby. We had the
Rotordrones park near them just to let them know we had spotted them before we
drove in. Johnson was characteristically expressionless as we handed over the
goods; likewise, if he had any feelings about us deviating from his plan, he
didn’t let it show.
But at the end of the day it was a bit more
money in the bank, and that’s what we’re here for.
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