Pia Oliversson calls up Caria Alten, Shri Moreau, Achilles Serifim, and Munty early in the morning and tells them she has work for them out of the country, but they have to move quick if they want the job. Pay promises to be worth it though. She also tells them she’s hired a 5th runner for the gig, who’s new in town but seems capable.
They race to SeaTAC, and head to a private hangar that seems to be run by riggers and smugglers. They find a burly 60-ish dwarf named TenTen waiting for them, who tells them he is the 5th member. There they meet a human named Blackhawk and his daughter Osprey. BH tells them they’ll be travelling to Cheyenne, the capitol of the Sioux Nation, and can either fly across Salish-Shidhe territory and then slip across the border, or else fly to Denver and travel overland from there. He’ll provide a safehouse there as well as some supplies and job info. They decide to fly- riskier if detected but less likely to get fucked with.
BH gets them to the safehouse with some close calls and fancy flying, but no real trouble. Munty curls up in a corner and tries not to panic, not liking being airborne, but Rat chills her out. They get info about the meet with Mr. Johnson, and head into Cheyenne, using an old but functional van that BH keeps on-site. The safehouse is an old truck stop that looks pretty abandoned, but seems reasonably secure and stocked with necessities. BH leaves Caria his commcode and tells them that if they need a ride back to Seattle in the next 2-3 days, he’ll be in country for a bit before heading back himself.
They drive to Cheyenne, with Caria up front, being the only Native member of the crew (the nation’s population being over 95% Native post-partition). She hopes that as a Salish woman with some knowledge of Sioux culture, she at least won’t alert additional suspicion, as the others might. They reach the meet on time, and get the details on the job: they are to sabotage a massive industrial agriculture facility that provides about 1/5 of the nation’s food supply, as well as steal a ceremonial tomahawk from the company head’s office. They negotiate pay, and agree. The Johnson’s face looks a little weird, but they can’t quite place it. They do a little research, and based on his rep and slight accent, decide he probably works for Aztechnology, a major food producer, which makes sense for the job.
They go through his dossier and research the facility, and manage to find a disgruntled researcher named Gang Rupert who used to work there, but was kicked out due to the radical direction of his research. Shri interviews and bribes him for info, and they find out that the underground research facility on-site has a number of hidden emergency escape/rescue tunnels, which they could use to infiltrate the cavernous underground farm complex. They gear up, and Munty acquires a large ghillie blanket to conceal them all from drone surveillance. They time the run for the low-point of employee’s present, and Mr Johnson has told them that most of the the automated security will be down for maintenance during a short window while Ares Macrotechnology installs updates.
They head out, find the hatch to the escape tunnel, and manage to open it without setting off any alarms. They enter the research complex, and Munty and Tenten ko 3 of the 6 maintenance workers down there with Caria’s astral guidance. Tenten, Caria, and Shri slip into their uniforms and grab their ID badges, hoping it will help them get topside. Munty and Achilles sneak out into the farm area and start planting explosive charges on the pillars holding the cavern roof up. They notice that many of the farm drones seem to be monitoring their progress, but they don’t see any human guards or hear alarms so they continue.
Up top, Tenten gets stopped at the guard booth, as his uniform is hilariously ill-fitting. Shri and Caria decide to go ahead without him, and head over to the massive processing facility to use the aerosol spray the Johnson provided to poison the outgoing food supply. They succeed and head for the office building to grab the tomahawk. Caria uses a spirit to gain entry, and boosts Shri up. She heads upstairs, and grabs the tomahawk, but sets off an alarm in the process. Her and Caria ko some guards at a nearby emergency exit, and flee the complex, hiding near the van.
Meanwhile, ‘Drekbomb’ has proven his usefulness as a hacker yet again, as Tenten’s cover ID checks out at the guard station (after he spectacularly fails to intimidate them), and he heads back downstairs to meet up with the others, as the guards still seem suspicious. Achilles and Munty finish planting the explosives, but come under attack from a huge swarm of farm drones. Achilles gets sucked into a thresher but manages to jam it up with his heavily-cybered body, taking significant damage. They flee to the escape tunnel, with Achilles in full-on combat mode. Tenten is unable to stop him killing some workers in the research building as they flee, but they make good their escape and detonate their explosives.
The slice and dice some drones topside, and dash for the van. Achilles and Tenten manage to fight off 2 fairly powerful spirits, while Munty sneaks around under the ghillie blanket. They get in the van, and Caria manages to stunball a pursuing vehicle full of guards off the road, and they escape. They bury the tomahawk with a geo-tag, after realizing it is magically active and could be tracked. They burn the van, and hike back across the plains to the safehouse. They contact the Johnson and he puts the payment into an escrow account until he can retrieve the tomahawk and verify mission success. They agree, and contact Blackhawk to leave the country.
He says he’s about ready to leave, and arranges a pickup in exchange for guarding duty and some pay on the way back. They head back to Seattle, but once the wireless comes back on, BH seems pissed, and shares a video feed- it’s his safehouse getting trashed by Sioux National Police. They convince him they didn’t get followed, and determine that the Johnson must have betrayed them. They check the escrow and are distressed to find it closed. They contact Pia and she is also pissed- the Johnson’s data trail is a total scam, he seems to have just posted a series of fake reviews and info about himself just in advance of this job. The team arranges to start looking into him, hoping for revenge!
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