Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney
Thankyou
Atlas Park
Tobias, Thankyou and the gangers arrive at the warehouse. UB! and Jaro are busy trying to revive Rooster while hiding inside. As T and TY investigate Katana’s corpse, they come under fire from a sniper. Rooster, awake, tells them it is probably a decoy or remote, but TY genades up the apartment it came from, just in case. Fearing LoneStar’s imminent arrival, they leave the wrecked Prime Runner van alone, but toss Katana’s body in the trunk after running a tag eraser over him.
They decide not to pursue the PR team, after Lodestone and Tobias review the multitude of possible escape routes they may have taken since they last had watcher spirits on their trail. The various team members head off to recuperate in assorted hidy holes and medical clinics of varying repute. TY joins up, and Tobias finishes setting up the team TacNet. T also spends a bit of time setting up a personal medical facility at his condo.
Lodestone receives a message apparently from his Saeder-Krupp contact, and heads downtown to meet up. Rooster accompanies him while TY keeps an eye out outside. UB! decides not to attend, and gets drunk with some Ultradudes!, to celebrate their successful selling off of the drugs that he and T manufactured. He cuts a bunch of stuff apart with the monofil katana he took off of Katana’s corpse. They also got an HV submachine gun, which Rooster holds onto, and some decent light military armor. UB! posts some photos on some popular matrix sites of him posing ‘comically’ with the corpse.
LS meets the contact, a tall asian troll named Atlas Park, who is there with a troll he introduces as his brother, Jason Park. Jason seems to be a sort of personal assistant. Atlas obliquely tells the runners that he is being employed indirectly by SK, in order to verify the info that LS provided, recover the diamonds if possible, and take revenge on the parties responsible for their theft. LS and Rooster hit it off with him, and they all go out for drinks after, while TY stands guard. Tobias is stuck healing up in his personal medical suite and stews at not being invited, or even being able to attend.
Late that night, T, TY, and UB! get an urgent call from One Shot Wade demanding that they meet him immediately in the undercity. They head to the location specified, a burned-out two story building, and head inside after determining that it isn’t a trap. Wade is in the back, where Ivan the Jackle has been hung from the ceiling and tortured to death. He has a large, ragged “PR” logo carved into his chest. The runners are understandably distraught, as they had been hoping to rescue their friend. After contacting LS, who brings in Atlas and Rooster, they come up with a strategy to enact some bloody revenge.
LS gets in touch with a lawyer, to publicize the extrajudicial execution. As there have been a lot of rumors about excesses in the PR program, this new proof does not seem too farfetched. After taking down the body, and leaving the scene, they call in favors from the skin-noters (now ID’d as Tamanous) and Daedelus to ID some of the PR team. They already know that Mikko Asparen is the rigger, ‘Geargrinder’. Atlas calls in a favor at Evo Corporation and gets some photos and biometric data. Tamanous, who Ivan worked for, ID ‘Ghost Messenger’, as April O’Mally, a former newscaster that they did some work on for an unknown party in a blacksite clinic. This worries the team, as UB! shows them trid footage from April’s old sim channel: she is a cybernetic killing machine, and her allegiances seem to have shifted. The team also ID’s ‘Bridman’ as the bird shaman and Olympus Prime founder, Bathcat.
UB! records himself making a rousing anti-PR (and anti-LoneStar) speech, and shows Ivan’s corpse, as well as presenting all of the ID info they have. The team also starts an assassination reward fund, for anyone who wants to see the PR team dead to contribute to. Anyone who provides info leading to the death of PR members (or kills them themselves) will receive a slice of the money. Daedelus and Tobias both kick in a good starting amount. The team then heads out to their gunrunning hideout in the wastes to wait a bit and see what happens. Atlas joins them, telling Jason he’ll be out of touch for a few days.
T watches the news over a few days and reports to the team that LoneStar is being forced to disavow the PR program and team after some serious public pressure. There is also a movement afoot to remove some of LS’ undercity security contracts and replace them with Knight Errant. Then, a bulletin comes in: apparently a LoneStar SWAT team attempted to detain the PR team, who fought their way out and are currently wanted for murder, assaulting officers, etc. Tobias and team celebrate. Atlas seems to get along with everyone reasonably well, altough TY makes him a bit uncomfortable, and he is worried about UB!’s rep as a loose cannon. However, he also joins the TacNet, putting the team up to full potential when they are all running it.
Lodestone, fearing that the PR team or others might try to track them down, posts some watcher spirits, who return with the disturbing news that they noticed another spirit observing the hideout. The team gears up and prepares for action. An alarm goes off in T’s comm alerting him to cyber-intrusion into the building’s system. He calls Daedelus and requests some support, which D agrees to, in rememberance of Ivan. T and TY barrel out the front door and head for the rood to gain a better vantage point. Rooster and UB!, next through, sadly do not have camo armor and are hit by snipers, taking some damage. Rooster ducks back inside while UB! heads around the exterior.
T, TY and UB! fire on a PR logo van speeding towards the generator and manage to destroy it. UB! is then attacked by a near invisible street sam with a monofil blade: Wakizashi! He takes some serious damage before Atlas joins the fight and disarms him. Together, they beat the street sam down. Sadly, Atlas is heavily injured and ko’d by one of the snipers. The other sniper is keeping the front door covered, until Lodestone toxic waves him, and he puts his head up, at which point Tobias takes it off with his gauss rifle. They ID this PR as April’s old friend Remus Chandrasekharan, aka ‘Wolfchild’.
After a fireball scorches the inside of the building, Lodestone summons Baelor, who grapples the invisible flying mage who has been assaulting them with spells. The mage splits apart into a flock of birds to escape temporarily, but Baelor reestablishes his hold and crushes him to death.
Two drones are laying down machine gun fire on the hideout, meanwhile. UB! and Rooster team up to take them out, but there is no sign of the rigger, unless he was in the van. TY takes out what he thinks is another sniper position but seems to be another decoy. However, they are no longer coming under fire, and the team is able to pause for a minute and catch their breath.
Next up: do they pursue the remaining two Prime Runners? The team fears that April will not abandon the fight….. but where is she?
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