This outcome is probably inevitable

So we have a plan to kill Pierce, and I mean kill-kill him. Disrupt him in a way that means he can’t recompile or bring himself back or the other things that Crazy Digital Murder Gods do in order to keep themselves from dying. And it needs to be done, While we’ve disrupted his operations, cost him his allies, killed his crazy bug cultists and ruined their ritual and all that, he’s still active and functional and out there, and he’s still a threat. Killing him is the only way to stop him from coming back and trying some other insane stunt in the name of Dr Okabe’s mutli-stage beyond the grave revenge plan.

The theory is simple. We know where his ‘safe haven’ is, where the device is that he’s designated as a place to fall back to if he’s ever disrupted and needs to recompile. The idea is that we disrupt him on the Matrix and damage him enough that he has to fall back to it, and then once he has we bust in there and destroy everything so he can’t come back at all. That’s it, end of story, no more Crazy Digital Murder God out to get us all or blow up the city or whatever else.

Crimson Dawn (part 4)

Deep breath

Clam

Relax

Remember where you are and who you’re pretending to be

This is easy. You can do this

“Welcome to Vendor Mammoth, my name is Ashley. How can I help you?” The stock greeting had all its usual false cheer and enthusiasm, but a perceptive customer, one who’s assessment of her didn't just begin and end at ‘cute Elf girl’ would have noticed an edge to it, one that was at odds with the attempt to greet the customer, create a friendly atmosphere and encourage them to spend their hard earned money on cheaply made, low-quality products.

Those perceptive individuals might have observed just a hint of resentment, a touch that suggested that the cheer was just as superficial as everything else in the store. They would have been able to tell that her feelings towards the customer wasn’t just the usual bland indifference born of a greeting that was spoken not out of any desire to show them kindness but a requirement of her continued employment.

So stupid he's dangerous

He is the Anti-Sexy

There’s a saying that a man is measured by the quality of his enemies. I’ve never got that myself; in the Shadows, it’s best if you don’t have any personal enemies at all, so how’s someone supposed to measure you by that standard? But there’s one other reason as to why I don’t like that turn of phrase, and that’s because one of our own enemies is a pretty low standard to measure anyone by

Buzz-Bomb was ugly, greedy, cowardly, petty, vengeful beyond all reason, incompetent and, above all else, pretty damned stupid. He also became our enemy largely because of his ability to not leave well enough alone and instead make a bad situation even worse by whatever means possible. If there was a way to dig himself into a deeper hole, then he would find it.

He was an Elf Rigger, but I must admit that I have my doubts on the first pat. I mean, he was ugly, with a nasally voice and weird teeth and the like. That’s not very Elf-y to me, and I should know, right? Personally I’ve always thought that he was a poser, which meant that he paid good money to end up looking like this. It would fit if only because it would make him that extra bit lamer.

The Brat

So I’ve been rather distracted given all that’s happened of late. It’s hard not to be, what with Bug Spirits, Crazy Digital Murder Gods and other such crap. This means I’ve been overlooking something in my journal here which I should have gotten around to long ago.

She's not a kid, and she'll point it out every
chance she gets

Neon is our team’s Decker. We first met on the first run that Me and Freddie worked together on, which in retrospect was the start of this whole Dr Akabe revenge plan/Crazy Digital Murder God/Whatever else mess. Don’t get me wrong, she was actually pretty damned useful on that one run, barring one problem that, in all fairness, she really couldn’t have planned on in advance and definitely falls under the “things that Johnson should have told us” list. Of course, given who the Johnson was and why they were organizing that run, the omission might have been deliberate.

The thing is, though, Neon’s really good at what she does. She’s a master of sneaking around the Matrix and does a lot of things that helps the team. I mean, there’s the usual stuff of stealing Paydata or erasing records or whatever else that you need a Decker for, and that’s pretty wiz. But there’s a lot of other Stuff she does, like messing with security systems, faking passes, bypassing locks, shutting off cameras and the like that’s insanely helpful on a run. Wraith is really good at finding ways to utilize her skills, often thinking of something creative for her to do in support of whatever our objective is.

Crimson Dawn (part 3)

The Redmond Barrens were rarely quiet, even in the dead of night. The streets were usually just as lively after sundown as they were during the day, echoing with the sounds of life on the edge. More than just the usual hustle of day to day traffic, there was so much more that could be heard.

The roar of engines, the blare of music, raucous arguments, the distant wail of sirens, honking horns and, more often than anyone from Seattle's better districts would be comfortable with, the sounds of gunfire.

In among the cacophony that was Redmond, there was one rather odd noise. The irregular but at the same time almost rhythmic sound of wood striking wood, punctuated by cries and shouts. This odd sequence was coming from the roof of a run-down apartment block, one seemingly otherwise no different from the numerous others of its kind around it.

Diplomatic incidents

The last few days have been complicated, to say the least. A lot of things happened, and we’re not entirely sure of what’s going to come of all of it. In fact, to be honest, our team has either achieved a major breakthrough or is completely screwed and under somebody’s thumb, and it’s hard to tell which.

How we got to this point is complicated to say the least. Following our trip to the foundation, we found a whole pile of useful information on Pierce and his crazy plans as well as his insane Bug Shaman allies (They’re Bug Shamans, of course they’re insane) and their own goals and how they were going to execute them. This also came with a bit of good/bad; the bad was that their intended sacrifice/host for the bug queen was Snow Fox, the daughter of a major Salish tribal leader and also Wraith’s fiancée (or something). The good was this meant we had a way to find her.

Data Dumpster Diving

So I said that I'd talk about what we found in the foundation. One of the reasons why I hold off adding it to the last post is because, well, there's a lot of it and a lot of it ties into other stuff that we did, and that last post was already as confusing as all get out. So here we go.

No good can ever come of this

The first run where Me, Freddie and Neon worked together had the three of us head to MCT's Cavilard Research Facility to take out one Dr Shin Okabe. This was not an extraction or anything; this was all wetwork and ensuring that he was dead. However, in retrospect, it seems that was what got the whole damned ball rolling and started us on this mess that has gotten us where we are now, fighting a Crazy Digital Murder God and his Bug Shaman allies. No, really.

In order to explain things a bit more, I need to quickly cover a bit more about Dr Okabe. See, the Doctor was not only an expert in computer software design and development with an emphasis on artificial intelligence and behavior, but he was also a Technomancer. (Geez, this sounds good, doesn't it? Read on, it gets better). But before that, he was one of those creepy-as 'Otaku' guys. Oh, and he used to work for Renraku. Oh and guess where he was during the late 2050s. If you answer involves a certain arcology that was taken over by a Crazy Digital Murder God, then you're correct. I told you it got better.