A Knife in the Back is a Good Payday
Mission Type (see SR6 pg. 20-21) Babysitting(ish)
Players: 2-4
Date and Time of run: Oct. 7 13:00 Eastern
Expected Session Length: 3-4 hours
(time is somewhat flexible, if you can't quite make it respond with what time you CAN make)
Threat Level: Medium
There's someone rummaging through things that they shouldn't and need you to deliver a small thumb drive. Mr. Johnson needs you to do it fast, without questions. Does he have secrets he's not telling you? Absolutely, but that nuyen is nice!
Runners -- Slow Ride, Fisher, Chatterbox, Balabolka, 8Bit @Security Protocl Heightened -- ICE Engaged, File Copy Forbidden
Frag where do I even start? Well, I guess at the top. There were signs this run was a bad deal from the drop. We did our homework and knew there was something off. For one thing it had been on the boards too long, and it seemed too easy. But, needing the money we decided to meet Mr. Johnson anyway. Straight forward meet, at a dive bar. Johnson was a Troll, well dressed, drove a Eurocar. One thing was immediately apparent he was nervous, and that gave us the nerves. Rich troll Johnson working for some Mega? Why is he so nervous and if he is freaked, we probably should be too. The face haggled back and forth, did a good job of it. Pegged the Johnson for an Azzie but the money was good, and the job seemed easy…
We finally get to the wrinkle, seems J wants us to recover a data chip from an operative some other runner geeked. Possible it’s a conflict with one of our own but we haven’t heard anything about it. We put our heads together decide at the end of the day, a job is a job. If we won’t work for anyone that has been on the bad side of another runner we know, well, we won’t work. We take the job and decide to get it over quick. We spot some signs other parties are interested and decided to play things close to the chest. We hoof it to the site, an apartment complex, real near the [Redacted]. You know that sinking feeling that things are going too easy? Yeah? That times infinity. The drive over was intense, we realize we are neck deep in this job working for Azzies questioning our life choices, but it is not getting any better talking about it. We go into the building and start casing the place like the paranoid survivors we are. Fast forward a bit, at this point I’m basically running security spider, watching cameras, reviewing footage. Our target is in room [REDACTED] and looks like something is wrong. Bullet holes in the curtain, hallway camera footage is looped. It’s all off at this point. But the Azzies are paying us 10k each, of course it isn’t going to be a feel good mission right? I manage to get a shot of some Ork in a hoodie leaving the room a few days back doesn’t seem that important. My main concern: Is my team safe? And yeah, nobody’s been in or out of that room in a few days. Waters been running the whole time, probably nobody alive in there. The rigger is talking about a blood bath they see through the window. I’m watching a half dozen camera feeds. They spot a body on the floor, looks bad.
Carefully the insertion team makes their way to the door, right as they are about to go in, I send them the still I got of the Ork. Not sure why I didn’t sooner, like I said my main concern was threats to my team. Anyway I figure maybe we will want to get to the bottom of this later, maybe we can ID the body? The rigger starts freaking out, says he knows the guy in picture. Suddenly he is worried his chummer got fragged. Insertion is a go. They get in the room, sure enough somebody had been exploded in this room. Fragged up Azzi blood mage stuff. Honestly not enough left to even confirm what kind of metahumanity is splattered on the ceiling. Is this corpse the Rigger’s buddy? We don’t know but what is left of the corpse is holding onto the paydata.
So we find the chip we are here for and then unholy hell breaks loose. Some kind of blood spirit monster ooze thing? Frankly I didn't get a good look. I was working off a hallway camera with a bad angle. Anyway suddenly everyone is shouting to bail. And we bail.
We call the Johnson and the Azzie pick up team is right freaking there to catch the chip, not even a block away. If we'd had a chance to pause we would have, but we are worried about our chummer, [REDACTED]. Between that, the score, and the realization we are in bed with the Azzies and they are right here we decide to turn the chip over without much discussion. Heck I never even got a chance to touch the pay data. So we turn over the chip and get our payday.
Then we start to think, wait did our buddy maybe do this to the other guy? Did we just turn over evidence of their crime to the Azzies?
So Yeah, run went sideways and we maybe inadvertently knifed another runner in the back. One thing is for sure, this isn't over. -- 8Bit
Alright, this one is personal. We got job from a J that stunk to high heaven from the jump. Someone needs to vet our Johnsons before we take these jobs. One of the worst jobs I've ever done, and this is coming from someone that lost an arm to Firewatch once. To say it stained my soul is far from over-dramatic.
It all seemed so simple. We pop into an apartment in Renton, grab a datachip out of a room, and drop it off. Easy, right?
No. Rover gets eyes in the window. It was like a blood bath, except they forgot a bathtub. It was wall-to-wall, room-to-room fraggin' blood and guts. This is, as you can guess, when it goes south, and I'm not talkin' Puyallup. One of the crew runnin' on this drekshow pulls up the video feed taken off the cams, and it's our good friend name redacted, and it better stay that way.
Before we could decide whether to ghost the J or frag the job, a blood spirit shows up out of the fraggin' bedroom and chases us out of the apartment where the J's bagmen are waiting for us to drop off the package. I wish we just dropped a grenade in a bag and handed it to them, in hindsight.
When we realized what we did, name redacted was kidnapped by who knows who yet, though all signs currently point to Aztech. His girlfriend might geek me in my own pad, because she's on her way to either help us save him, or, as she put it so eloquently, "put her foot through my spine". I'll update this drek later. Much work to do. Damn I messed up...
-- Slow Ride