Sim Hell (Remastered)

I hate the foundation.

But we had to go there anyway in order to kill Pierce, so I really had no other option. And so, Me, Freddie, Neon and Captain Cancer (Best not to ask where he came from) plummeted into it, knowing full well that we'd end up having to navigate nonsense dream logic in order to find the nodes and their connections. In theory all we needed to do was indentify the control node and then interact with it to destroy the hose. Of course, since it could be anything and the interaction could be anything, that just meant we were casting a very wide net.

We got an eleventh hour call from Dayglo, which was her asking for help to go reclaim the spirit of the Brooklyn Bridge form Aztechnology for some random neo-anarchist reasons. We said 'yeah, that's nice, will totally get on it' in a way that was a massive brush-off and instead asked her to watch Nobosuke Yamura’s yacht. With that minor obstacle out of the way, we jacked in.

Open plan offices: the Runner's worst nightmare

So in order to stop this while Crazy Digital Murder God CFD conspiracy thing, we needed to steal a piece of prototype software from a NeoNET research facility. While that does seem to be a pretty routine run, there were some caveats (of course) that meant it would be a hell of a lot harder.

The biggest problem was that the research facility in question was within NeoNET's New York headquarters. That meant that security was going to be super-tight and the instant that the shooting started there would be HTR teams on their way. And I don’t mean 'coming straight from the district HQ' on the way, more of the 'they're within the building' on their way which meant that we'd have an escape window so slim as to be near impossible. And while I know I could take them, there were issues like the fact that we wouldn't have Drone support and that I'd have to drag Neon through the line of fire.

So that ruled out the go in shooting approach, as fun as it would have been, Instead, it was time for something a bit more subtle.

The curse of the flaming luchadore

So after being caught in the middle of the dick waving war between NeoNET and Renraku (And me maybe spending a couple of nights at cool New York clubs dancing with cute dumb Elf guys), we managed to get ourselves back on course for our main job that had bought us to New York in the first place. Our investigation of the missing people had turned up teo more "persons of interest" that were still uncounted for either way, which was quickly turning into our only real avenue of investigation. Of course, since both were Shadowrunners, it meant that being hard to find was key to the lifestyle, which was going to make things a little difficult.

Of the two names we had, one held a little more promise than the other, even if the pair were loosely affiliated. Crashdud was a decker who kept a low profile, even by Runner standards, so that wasn't much help. On the other hand, El Fiendo proved to be a lot easier to find Information on given that he was a rather... colourful individual, again, even by Runner standards.

Sixth World theme parties

There is nothing more dangerous then a wounded Megacorp. If one is in trouble, then the others will step up their actions against it, eager to exploit the weaknesses. Aty the same time, that corp will also lash out on its own, trying to buy time and cover their own problems by making things worse for the others. This means a lot of work for people like me, mind you, though it tends to be in the 'high risk' category. That'll happen when you're dealing with people who have nothing to lose.

NeoNET is very much in a bad place right now. While they've done their best to keep their lid on what's happening in Boston, the loss of their headquarters and a huge chunk of their resources contained within is hurting them bad. Renraku has been getting particularly vicious, given that the two companies have a rivalry going back to the old days of Fuchi (Cue Lightspeed being old and Cranky). And we've been getting involved in it.

Protection detail is annoying

It's an old Runner cliché that Mister Johnson will always betray you. It actually happens a lot less then Runner folklore would have you believe, and when it does, it's often more by accident then any deliberate effort to screw you over; a hold in their intel, an unexpected turn of events or the like. I'm not saying that Johnsons are trustworthy, mind you. Anything but. They're still corp suits and they still need their companies to make money, and so if leaving your team dead in a ditch will help them, then they won't hesitate to do it.

And then you have those times when the Johnson is actually on the level, but it's the actual run that is all over the place. This last one I was on was a perfect example thereof.

Minster had been contacted by Willard Johnson, the NeoNET suit that he had worked for before (and apparently had a good relationship with). W. Johnson had a protection job for him that was a bit bigger than his usual one-man deal, so he had in turn come to us for some support. This lead to me, Minster and Neon meeting W. Johnson and getting the details of the job.

Rock Lords, interior decoration and Tea Houses. Find the connection

Freddie and Wraith were off doing stuff (Freddie was looking into Street Races or something and Wraith? Well Lofwyr alone knows) when we got two job offers drop in our lap at once. I figured that Yens are good, so I looked into them a bit further. The first one was coming from a Renraku Johnson so I was immediately 'Nope nope nope nope no way in hell." Seriously. I never want to work for themn again ever.

The second one was odd that it came to Captain Cancer of all people, and was passed to him through a strange source. The request for a meeting had been delivered via a local weirdo called - and no, I am not making this up - the Ballard of Pudding Quest. The guy had apparently heard of Captain Cancer, even if the good Captain had never heard of him. Added to that, the meeting was going to be in, of all places, a tea house in Chinatown. Yeah, getting stranger by the minute.

Phones, Drones and Automobiles

Okay, still fuming over the whole "Pierce" thing, but at least I'm a bit more settled. This summary will be somewhat more coherent, at least.

Our investigations into the matter were somewhat sidetracked when Dayglo pointed out the fact that we hadn't gotten paid in some time and that giant elaborate penthouse apartments don't pay for themselves. This much was true; we'd been doing waaaaaay too many unpaid jobs of late looking into this, so some money would be good. Plus I was personally itching for something to do that wasn't related to this whole trainwreck. So when Dayglo said that she had a potential job lines up, I was all over it.

That moment when you wish you'd geeked somebody when you had the chance

Word of warning. After the events of the last couple of days I am so angry that it is going to be very hard for me to give an even remotely coherent summary. So yeah. If there’s huge gaps in this summary I don't frakking care.

This whole terrible downhill slide began in the aftermath of our execution of Teh Dave and the mess with Doctor Hughes. The SK Johnson had asked Us to follow through with racking down everyone he had infected, which then meant finding the people that Teh Dave's underpaid bar staff had sold the CFD bombs to. All of which was resulting in a massive headache-inducing mess of people to track down and find out just how badly they had been infected and how heavily subverted they were.

The good news is that Teh Dave had a list of all the people he had infected. With Minster's aid, we were able to compare that to Runners he knew in New York and find out who were on the known to be missing list. From what we had found, some were more vulnerable to the infection then others, most notably those with more augmentations. Of those he’d infected, we found only two that were still missing and unaccounted for, which is good after a fashion.

Demon Rats are the worst thing ever

This is a great place for a covert meeting, and is very relaxing
to boot

The meeting Me, Freddie and Neon set up with the SK security boss went well. She chose a nice cafe with real coffee that was by Central park, which added a charming old-world atmosphere to our discussions of espionage, intrigue and attempts to deliberately induce a large-scale pandemic. We explained what we had found and then arranged to safely hand over the CFD tablets that Teh Dave had been using. She said she'd have them analyzed to find out more about them and, hopefully, where they came from. We also explained his supply chain and how it went back to a man we thought was with Renraku. She offered to investigate further.

As we were wrapping up there, Dayglo told us that she had a job and arranged a meeting. Her contact was from Renraku (Funny that) and wanted to meet us in the middle of Central Park. (How very Cold War!) She was rather open with us about what she was after, given that this was a job of opportunity and was definitely on a limited timetable. What had happened was that Doctor Abigail Hughes, a researcher at Mindstorm Neurotechnologies had vanished, and she wanted to find out where they were and, if possible extract them.

In other words, somebody at the same company that we had just foiled an attack on. Funny that.

A pain in the (robo) pants

So after the arse-up at the end of the last run, Minster was left babysitting Slayer for a few days until Walter Johnson got back. Given the spare time now on our hands, we took it upon ourselves to get back to the investigation that we'd come to New York for in the first place. Fortunately, we'd found ourselves something that resembled a lead, courtesy of the rather distinctive missing runner Robopants. She'd worked with two others in past, Mudbug and Ripstar, and we knew where to find the latter.

Ripstar hung out at the Link Club. She was an Ork street racer who ran with a tricked-out Americar and liked to use it to swindle Corp kids out of their expensive rides. Based on this, we told Freddie to take the lead, given that the pair of them had a lot in common, like a love of driving fast in unlikely vehicles. At first he hit it off, with the pair of them talking about (what do you know) street racing, and her recognizing him from several vids that got out of Seattle. They even went out for a practice race which Freddie won, clearly impressing her.

Sadly, he tried turning the conversation to Shadowrunning, only to fumble it badly. She told him to push off.

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.

Where even the architecture tries to kill you

Our trip to New York has managed to be full of surprises, both good and bad. This last run was no exception, although I'm going to say the good won out this time for a number of reasons.

We'd gotten nicely settled in to our new hideout, with any lingering concerns over Full Otto's rather unexpected demise somewhat offset by the fact that we live in an awesome penthouse abetment with swimming pool, gym, massive lounges, massive bedrooms and whatever else. You know, the little things. However, we did need work to help support our luxurious lifestyle, as well as the job that had bought us to New York in the first place. Dayglo had found us something that looked to be fast and financially very lucrative.

Welcome to New York

New York is the city that never sleeps and where everything happens at once. That certainly seemed to be the case when our flight touched down at Empress Hitomi airport (Stupid Shiawase ruins everything. Megacorp history proves this point). As soon as me, Freddie, Neon and Captain Cancer were off the plane, we were approached by s guy offering us a job. See, New York.

Teh Dave, as he introduced himself, had apparently heard about is from my fixer. He immediately assumed that Freddie was in charge because of his "thick and authoritative moustache" (In all fairness, I will give him that; Freddie does have a pretty awesome 'stache) and opened negotiations. He did seem to be a bit surprised when I took over, even when both Freddie and I pointed out that I was the team leader. You can tell this relationship is already off to a great start.