Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone
Rooster
Tobias Cheney
Thankyou

After recouperating in a Saeder-Krupp affiliated hospital, the team disburses to spend their hard earned money. Tobias and Thankyou are soon contacted by Daedelus/ the Exchange about doing a two part job, as part of a larger job involving multiple teams. They accept. UB! is busy with the Ultradudes, and Atlas is wrapping things up with SK from the last job, so only Rooster and Lodestone join in.

Part one is to gain access to a nearby SETI facility which has a secure lab/observatory/monitoring station that shares space with a Mars City University campus on the high point of a caldera rim. There, they will add a data packet provided by Daedelus to the software upgrade that SETI is going to beam out to it’s satellite network in 3 days time. Rooster, posing as an investment banker, meets with the local SETI head and negotiates access for himself and a client, as well as their bodyguards, which allows the whole team to be on site in disguise. Tobias manages to access the secure network, and implant the data. He then erases his presence, and sets up a camera loop so they are not caught on film in the lab, and then erases the record of the loop, making his intrusion look like merely a camera glitch, should they check. He sets off an alarm while exiting, but they seem to believe the camera trick, and the team leaves without trouble. Rooster promises to be in touch about his client’s money, and then sends a regretful e-mail about their decision not to get involved.

For part two, the team has to intercept a convoy moving from one secure facility in the wastelands to another near the spaceport. They will take out the tail and lead cars, any security personnel, and any tracking devices. They will then steal the semi-trailer carrying the desired commodity, and bring it to a location in the wastes that Daedelus specifies. Tobias scouts the route via satellite, and lets TY choose a good ambush site. He also buys a new HERF gun from Patrick Henry Hughes to replace the one that got melted a while back. TY purchases all the engine repair components they will need to get the semi running again after HERFing it.

They set up their ambush, and TY HERFs the semi on his second try. It rapidly comes to a stop, as do the 2 security SUV’s trailing and leading it. They are marked with ‘wide load’ signs, and the semi cargo looks to be house-sized, although it is encased it protective casing of some sort. The team easily dispatches the 3 security goons and 3 drivers, who look like pretty standard corpsec types. They then tag erase the semi and cargo, after Tobias scans for emitting nodes. They haul ass to the second site, and find an enormous multiple kilometer long ramp stretching out across the Mars desert. Huge camo tarps lie to either side. They drive to the low end of the ramp, where a crane is waiting to unload their cargo. There is also what looks like a large rocket booster and multiple fuel tankers. They seem to have stolen a satellite.

Daedelus enlists Tobias’ assistance in swapping out a large and very dense hardrive for one that Tobias removes from the satellite. Once installed, the crane hauls it onto the launch track, where the other runners present begin connecting the booster under Berokh’s and Daedelus’ instruction. They are told to hurry, as corpsec forces are no doubt on their way. A hum and strange pressure fill the air as magnets along the launch track are readied. Once the booster is attached, the Daedelus body on site directs everyone away from the engine, and fires it up. The satellite, with booster attached, rockets up to an incredible speed before launching skyward, its ablative coating shining. It drops the first stage of the the booster on the way up. Daedelus instructs everyone to clear out and cover their tracks to avoid arrest.

The team is paid for the jobs, and once back in the city, hears news reports of a press release from their old nemeses, the Turing Army. The TA is claiming that they have finally cornered and destroyed the rogue AI Daedelus in its undercity warehouse compound. News footage shows burning buildings, and reports gunfire and explosions in the area earlier in the day. Lodestone and Rooster piece together who exactly they have been working for, and find themselves a bit disturbed.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney
Thankyou
Atlas Park

Combining Tobias’ matrix investigations of the rural airport that the Tamanous pilot took off from with Lodestone’s astral tracking, the team is able to get a rough area of South pole glacial field that the secret Tamanous base is likely located in. Atlas takes this info to Tony Barnes, who is able to use Saeder-Krupp’s admittedly impressive tech to narrow it down to a 1 km radius. Atlas gives Barnes a shopping list of supplies that the team requests for the mission, most of which they get, and then Barnes loads them onto a chameleon-coated VTOL and sends them South, with a powerful antenna that they are supposed to activate in the center of the facility. They will then have a 10 minute window to vacate the area before it is destroyed with orbital weaponry.

Upon arrival in the area, the VTOl pilots use their sensor array to locate the exact (concealed) base entrance, and blast it open with a missile barrage. They then pull a crazy Ivan, flipping the VTOL around and landing in the raw opening of the landing bay backwards. They order the team out quickly, and fly back out of the opening, to circle and surveil until extraction.

The team makes quick work of a surprised security guard in the air traffic control booth in the bay, and gains access to the next room, where they make short work of the 5 security goons who have tried to fortify behind some refrigeration equipment. Tobias’ gauss rifle proves their barriers a joke. The guards are all ghouls, and are using a safe target system and frangible rounds to avoid damaging the expensive equipment present. The team moves on, Tobias having secured a facility personnel ID comm code to open further doors. It seems like they don’t have a facility-wide network (perhaps due to extreme paranoia) which now might work to their advantage, as Tamanous may not be able to easily lock them out. There are physical alarm sirens and lights going off, however. Tobias also finds a disturbing external camera feed, showing the crashsite of their stealth VTOL. So, no ride.

The team encounters 6 more guards, in milspec gear, in the hall, and take considerable damage before downing them. They find a few rooms of vatgrown/preserved organs, limbs, and other tech and implants. Tobias downloads all the info he can, but it seems the system does not have any stored client info, just vat status reports and the like. They find a young woman in what appears to be a recovery suite, and Lodestone gets a disturbing feeling of absence from her aura- she seems to not really be inside herself, some sort of blank person. Atlas, in a kamikaze-fueled combat rage, quickly kills her, ending the discussion of what to do.

In the hall, UB! loses control of himself as something hijacks his body. He touches Tobias, draining him of his life energies and sending his body into a rapid shutdown. UB! feels the entity controlling him grow more powerful as it does this. The rest of the team rushes into the hall after seeing Tobias’ biomonitor flatline, and manage to subdue UB!, who appears to be possessed. The spirit vacates his body, bursting forth in a cloud of blood and dealing serious damage, and flees up what appears to be a secret elevator exit. LS sends a watcher spirit after it, but the watcher is quickly killed or banished.

In the next room, the team finds a Horizon exec, Ted McNicholson ,getting a Leonization treatment, guarded by a serious looking corpsec type. They work out a deal to get a ride out of the polar region with these guys in exchange for leaving them alive, although they ask after the young woman, and don’t seem to entirely believe Rooster’s story that the blood spirit killed her. Tobias fetches two cowering ghoul doctors from the last remaining room, and finds that they have wiped the system of all client data. He wants to kill them, but McNicholson convinces the team to let him bring the two doctors back to Mars City under his control, after they disconnect him from his treatment.

The team checks up the elevator shaft, and discovers (via drone scout) a secret exit through an ice cave out onto a small shelf, on which the trashed remains of 3 gliders sit. It looks like there may have been 5 originally. Combined with the spirit, this means that the 2 most disturbing auras that LS saw astrally when entering the facility also escaped, apparently, one of them possibly being The Brassface Man. The drone feed then goes dead. UB!, using his t-ray, discovers and maps a minefield between the team and the shelf, and starts picking his way through to check things out more, while LS astrally scouts ahead.

LS tracks down one of the disturbing auras about 700 meters away, and using his impressive brain scan abilities, ID’s it as former teammate and Prime Runner April O’Mally. She has apparently been recontructed by something called the Gilgamesh Initiative after her seemingly fatal encounter with Halfman. She also now has an active astral presence, which LS doesn’t want to get too close to. She tells him to leave and forget he ever found this place, and seeing that she has summoned astral assistance, he hightails it to his body, leaving Baelor behind to hold off his pursuers. LS warns UB! not to continue to the cave mouth, as April is covering it with a long-range silenced rifle, aided by a targeting drone that is painting targets for her. She shot down the drone.

The team decides that they have uncovered the whole of the facility, and heads back downstairs. Using their recently acquired arctic survival gear (and some grappling guns), they descend the sheer cliff face under the blasted open hanger door, and make their way to a pickup point a safe distance from the facility (to avoid the upcoming explosion, and avoid losing a 2nd craft to AA fire). Tobias remains behind to activate the device, which he does, and then Iron Man’s it out the front using his suit-mounted rocket pack, along with his underarm squirrel-glide ‘wings’. He powersails down to the team, and sticks the landing with an acrobatic flourish. Golf claps all around.

McNicholson’s guard pops open his briefcase and radios for pickup, and after waiting for about 15 minutes, their ride arrives and safely transports them back to MC. McNicholson tells Rooster he will be in touch should he require the team’s services in the future- a new Johnson perhaps? Atlas contacts Barnes, who tells them that it was a job well done, and forwards them 120k nuyen, and tells them that SK had other teams wipe the rest of the discovered Tamanous facilites, while quiet backroom contact was made on Earth with the main Tamanous organization, who have disavowed knowledge of the Mars splinter factions ‘extracurricular’ activities. They will be sending up new personnel to take over the non-destroyed facilities and rebuild their Mars operations.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney
Thankyou
Atlas Park

After receiving instructions from Tony Barnes, the team surveilles the Tamanous facility. Tobias carefully hacks in, and adds TY to the list of authorized drivers, and Rooster to the list of authorized doctors on call. UB! then calls in some more bodies (some folks who owed Ibn Hassan some money), and Tamanous calls TY to pick them up, and Rooster to come extract their organs.

The pickup goes off without a hitch, and TY manages to leave some mini-drones behind unnoticed. Rooster, however, has a complete lack of medical knowledge, and manages to stumble through the organ harvesting on sheer charisma, with major assistance from the Tamanous employees, and suggestions from Tobias via Tacnet. TY sneaks one of the drones into an organ package, after they determine that some organs are going to listed hospitals, and some are going to unlisted facilities.

The drone leads them to a wasteland storage facility, where they appear to keep the organs alive by grafting them onto host bodies, which are kept in some sort of induced coma. The team is horrified, to varying degrees. From there, they manage to piece together the Tamanous network a bit more, discovering the locations of two well-concealed wasteland clinics near to Mars City, as well as a back alley dive bar that some of the drivers seem to frequent between assignments.

While observing the bar, Tobias sets up a conversational filter software to alert them to certain keywords being said. It eventually goes off, and they listen in on a convo with a man who seems to be a pilot, and says he came in ‘from the south’. Lodestone astrally follows him, with Baelor’s help, and is able to determine that he is traveling via some sort of sub-orbital flight path, giving him a range encompassing essentially the entire southern hemisphere. LS breifly manifests once the plane stops moving forward, and begins to descend, and finds that it is a medium sized VTOL craft, which performs a difficult looking insertion into a landing bay cut into the side of what appears to be the south polar glacier, based on locally visible constellations.

With this knowledge, LS traces the pilot’s astral signature back to the location of the airfield that he took off from. Tobias prepares to hack in and learn what he can about the flightpath, and the exact location of the base. Atlas contacts Barnes again, as this seems like this may be the main base, and they have found what they can of the rest of the network. He tells the team to exactly locate the base, and they will proceed from there.

Meanwhile, UB! has been haging out with his newest Ultradude, Mike, and teaching him how to shoot with a gun that Jaro provides.

Next up: Polar Assault!

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney
Thankyou
Atlas Park

Rooster, disguised as a starving ghoul, manages to talk his way into the African ghoul tenement, telling them he is from Chicago. Although he tries to avoid it, he downs a bowl of suspicious meat stew while gaining the ghoul’s trust, and arranges to return the next day to meet their supplier.

Meanwhile, UB!, along with his UltraDude of the day, hears of a firefight in progress and heads there to grab some bodies. He cuts off their gang tattoos with his monofil katana, freaking out the ‘Dude a bit. Jaro tells him of some of Ivan’s old body-storage spots, and he heads to the nearest and arranges a pickup with Tamanous. The driver shows up, after UB! has terrified Mike, his ‘Dude, by suggesting that he probably won’t survive very long. Mike takes off as UB! and the Tamanous driver examine the bodies and load them up in the truck. UB1’s debt is slightly reduced.

The team, minus Tobias, meets up at Slot to plan their next move, and drink. UB! tries to make amends with Mike, with some (awkward) success. He also finally hooks up with Jaro. LS fails to find a willing partner, and goes home alone, as do the rest of the team. Tobias is busy liasoning between the Problem Children/ Mad Martians and Knight Errant, to pave the way for an easy cooperation once LoneStar is out of the way.

Rooster receives a call from John Caruthers, who as thanks for finding out who killed his uncle and nieces, has located Rooster’s missing car. It still has the two surveillance drones inside, so TY tunes them up and uses them when Rooster returns to the tenement. He is ushered into the back while LS observes astrally, alongside his spirit Baelor. Rooster purchases some fresh human meat from two ghouls in the back of a freezer truck that has backed up to a loading dock on the back of the building. LS gets a read on their auras, and he and Baelor follow them when they leave.

The auras stop for a while, seem to change speed (as if walking), and then vanish. LS thinks they probably entered an astrally sealed space, or passed through a mana barrier. He and Baelor manifest, and find the location of the warehouse that the truck entered. It looks fairly secure, but isn’t especially large. Atlas calls it in, and Tony Barnes tells him to find out more about it and report back before making a move. Saeder-Krupp believes that the main Tamanous facility is not in the city proper but don’t have any good leads, so they hope to gain more knowledge through surveillance of known facilties.

LS returns to the car to report this info. Luckily, the team hasn’t moved and his body is still where he left it. The car is starting to smell pretty bad from the human meat in the back. TY becomes convinced, due to his superstitious nature, that they must eat the flesh, raw, to suceed in the coming mission. Atlas disagrees, and leaves. The rest head to Slot again, and UB! starts a trashcan fire, attracting some hungry bar patrons. TY tries to interest them in joining in, but Rooster quietly convinces them that it isn’t actually human flesh and gets them to leave (and buy him a drink). Tobias and LS both eat alongside TY, before he throws the rest into the fire. UB! refuses to try any, which convinces TY that he can’t fully trust either him or Atlas.

Next up: surveillance!

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney
Thankyou
Atlas Park

The team collects themselves, makes sure the Prime Runner van is destroyed and empty, and finishes off Wakizashi, the injured street sam. Not seeing any other life, they check the nearby area until Daedelus calls and tells them that he has the rigger’s location, and some bad news. Apparently the rigger called a LoneStar contact, and there is a drone strike incoming on their location.

They abandon the hideout to chase down the rigger (and avoid the explosion). TY cuts him off, and they kill him. Tobias hacks his comm while everyone else gets extracted to a medical facility where Saeder-Krupp is footing the bill, Atlas having sold them on this being a necesary expense. They heal up, and T finds out that UB! has a backdoor in his comm that Remus Chandrasekharan had added on some time ago. T erases it.

After LoneStar claims credit for eliminating the fugitive Prime Runners, the team edits together a trideo of the battle, with their id’s concealed in the style of the PR episodes, but with the PR members revealed. Tobias also adds in a “Hamshallow Sends His Regards” announcement, trying to suggest that the PR team was connected to or included that wanted bomber (who is actually Tobias, although only UB! knows this). The team sells this trideo to Knight Errant for a sizable sum, and Elton Massey tells Tobias that their plans have finally borne fruit: KE is getting a bunch of LoneStar’s undercity contracts. EM tells T to have the gangers keep the heat on the Star until the switch, and then back off. T passes this on to One Shot Wade, with his assurances that KE will in turn play fair with the gangs.

The team spends their money on some new armor and gear, feeling slightly underpowered after their run-in witht the PR team. Rooster spends a day focusing on his magical pursuits, and gains some new abilities, such as aura masking. The team then turns to tracking down the diamonds and their thieves at Atlas’ insistence. They review their info about Tamanous and decide to track down some local ghouls, in the hope that they purchase excess metahuman flesh from them. Ibn Hassan points them in the direction of some African ghoul immigrants near his area, and Rooster disguises himself as a ghoul to attempt to put them at ease. TY, Lodestone, and Atlas accompany him.

Meanwhile, UB! receives a call from Tamanous, telling him that due to Ivan’s recent death, they require UB! to take over the role of theirgang turf supplier. He agrees, seeing an opportunity to a) reduce his debt, and b) gain access to info about how to strike out at them. They tell him to have a crew of subordinates help him stow bodies after any lethal firefights, call it in, and load the bodies onto freezer trucks. He agrees.

The team decides to pursue both leads, hoping that one or both will lead to some sweet revenge, and a payday from SK.

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?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone aka Kealt Sanja
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney

The runners safely return to the city via their various routes, and deliver Marlowe and his team safely into the Exchange‘s custody. Thankyou receives a message from a mysterious source telling him “Keep up the good work”, and believing it to be from his benefactor, he is thrilled. He decides to celebrate by finally getting his whole rigging suite installed. He disappears into a clinic for a few days. UB! finds out that the UltraDude who was hospitalized after the LoneStar SWAT assassination is still in a coma, and no-one is paying his bills. UB!, sadly, is out of money. Rooster tries to start putting his life back together, paying Exocet to set up a new SIN, and accessing the funds that LoneStar didn’t seize.

Lodestone has a message from Detective McCormick, demanding info about the spaceport raid. He decides to ignore him, but fears he is now wanted by the Star. Lodestone returns a call from an unknown number, and talks to the Brassface man (he thinks), and promises to stop interferring in the diamond business. In exchange, Brassface suggests the LS and the team will be left alone. Although, Brassface expresses his displeasure with Rooster, so he might be in trouble. He burns most of his SINS, gets a new one from Ibn Hassan, and hides out for a bit. Hassan also says that he has made contacts with both Aden and Lofwyr’s organizations, and will make contact if LS still wants. LS tells him to contact Lof only, deciding not to trust Brassface.

Tobias, hearing all this, decides to share the info he required from Daedelus with the team. They head out to the hideout to talk, since it is the only secure place they can think of. Brassface appears to be connected to the skin-noters, who Tobias now knows are a Tamanous faction on Mars. He believes that this faction was involved with hiding the diamonds, and suggests that LS feed them to Lofwyr. UB!, humorously, has a job from Tamanous, to drive some freezer trucks out to a facility in the wastes. The team declines to participate, so he recruits some UltraDude wannabes from the Problem Children ranks. The team also receives the upsetting news that Ivan the Jackle, identified in the news as “Hamshallow’s Driver”, has been captured by the Prime Runners. This makes UB!’s recent purchase of the entire PR merch line somewhat awkward. He decides to keep wearing the hat anyway, since it looks cool.

They meet the trucks, and head out. The team tells UB! to hurry back for the “Christian Melange Presents: HCB Lives!” Crod Stompaz tribute benefit. The trucks reach the facility, and find a seemingly abandoned farm. They park in the barn, and head down a concrete tunnel into a medical bunker. The place is trashed, and they find a wrecked office, medical room, and a few executed employees. UB! spots some suspicious wiring, traces it to a timer and some explosives, and flees. Sadly, one of the the UltraDudes trips on the way out, and UB! slams the exterior door shut to dampen the explosion. They head back to the trucks, find the tires slashed, and flee the barn. The trucks blow, collapsing the barn, and an ARO phrase in German pops up in UB!’s hud. Tobias translates it as “you have something of mine”. UB! reports all this to Tamanous, and decides the message was probably for them. He gets a cab back with the 2 surviving ’Dudes and they head to the concert.

LS, before going to the show, talks to someone from Lofwyr’s org on Earth, and tells him essentially all of the info that he has. The timelag makes the convo a bit awkward, but the man tells LS that they appreciate the local assistance, and will have a local agent get in touch with further instructions. They transfer some money as an advance payment, and the agent warns LS not to disappoint. Tobias finds that there is a lot of speculation amongst commentators and pundits that LoneStar isn’t properly enforcing security in their areas. Apparently, Knight Errant has been publicizing the SWAT deaths and spaceport detention center raid embarassments. Good news!

They head to the show, and hang out a bit, and then take off. UB! shows up later, and gets trashed with Jaro at the bar, commiserating over lives lost and Ivan’s capture. He hides his PR hat, though. They eventually bail on the show to go smash some stuff in an abanodoned warehouse. Rooster and Exocet leave shortly after, and notice that someone is tailing UB and Jaro pass out in the warehouse, but are soon awakened, as they come under attack by the Prime Runners. UB! is quickly ko’d, but Rooster arrives on the scene in time to help. He commands the street sam hauling UB! out of the warehouse to drop him, and commands the cab that he and Exo were riding in to smash into the PR’s van. Lodestone summons his elemental, Baelor, to fight the street sams, while Tobias races to the scene. T also calls One Shot Wade and tells him to get anyone he can to the warehouse.

LS fights a mage in astral space, while Baelor demolishes one of the street sams, smashing his head into a fine pulp, but is defeated by a combo of sniper fire, and the other street sam. The PR team flees through the alley into the sewers, and LS sends some watcher spirits to try to tail them. The snipers ko Rooster, while Jaro heals UB! a bit. They haul Rooster into the warehouse and take cover as gang cars approach. Tobias plans to try to chase the PR team into the sewers.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone aka Kealt Sanja
Thankyou
Rooster
UltraBoy!
Tobias Cheney

The team sucessfully links up with TY, who passes off the latest Knight Errant shipment to Ivan’s assembled gangers: a crate of assault rifles for each ganger car. There are 13 cars in the convoy, disguised as a funeral procession. UB! has packed a coffin with explosives in the hearse. Two other cars are empty, rigged by Ivan to detonate mines and crash through the fences. The other ten carry the team and gangers, and will carry prisoners out again.

They head out towards the spaceport, diverting off the highway at the last minute and heading across the desert towards the prison complex. Tobias hacks into the system again, gains admin access, and inserts his edited targeting program with no problems. The convoy hits the fences, and the hearse and dummy cars set off a large series of explosions from the electrified fence and minefield. The rest of the cars start piling through the hole, but get backed up in a huge dustcloud. The first car gets pretty fried going through the remains of the 2nd fence. Tobias opens all complex doors and shuts down the cameras.

The cars pour in, and spread out. The team car heads for the buildings that Marlowe and his crew are supposed to be in. Tobias announces over the comm system that the facility is being liberated, and that there are guns waiting for the prisoners in cars outside their buildings. KS and UB! take out some guards, as well as the security mage, who does some serious damage before dying, including defeating KS’s spirit friend Baelor in astral combat.

Meanwhile, inside, Rooster has just convinced one of the guards to hand over his keys when the guard is decapitated by a burst of autofire from the turret over the door. Rooster gets other prisoners organized to start unlocking themselves, and finds a mage, who he frees, figuring he’ll do some damage once he’s out of his magecollar.

KS and UB! find Marlowe and Astrid in the first building they search, free & arm them, and leave the keys with the other prisoners to free themselves. They start destroying turrets as they go, after noticing them power down again. TY decapitates both gaurd towers with RPG rounds once the turrets drop. Meanwhile, Tobias has been discovered in the matrix, takes some damage from IC, gets his connection jammed open, and has to hotdump, leaving him dazed and shaky, as well as severly injured. He sits in the car for quite a while, trying to remember how to assemble his shotgun.

KS and UB! continue to the next building, find Berokh, and once again leave the keys for the remaining prisoners. TY, Tobias, and the gangers/armed prisoners exchange fire with the remaining LS officers in the processing building (seemingly the facilities redoubt in case of assault), and manage to do some damage. The remaining turrets finish rebooting and start firing on the assaulting parties and armed prisoners.

TY links up with Rooster, and finds that he has already loosed Scratch, the mage. Rooster and Scratch load up and head out in a ganger car with other prisoners. KS, UB, and the rest of Marlowe’s team do the same. The rest of the gangers follow suit, as sirens are becoming audible in the distance. Those that don’t fit in cars begin fleeing en masse on foot. They also notice news choppers monitoring events: apparently Elton Massey alerted them as Tobias suggested.

TY and the rest manage to come up with a number of different routes back into the undercity, as well as some hideouts in the wastelands, so the surviving cars all split up and head in different directions. As the flee towards the city, the sound of distant gunfire continues and they notice an ominous explosion from the direction that one of the wasteland cars headed. The team hopes for the best….

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone aka Kealt Sanja
Rooster
Tobias Cheney

Sanja is interrogated, once again by LoneStar Detective McCormick, who seems to have taken a particular interest in him. Sanja tells what he was doing for Toomey (i.e. researching the magical diamonds), and suggests that he will cooperate further if LoneStar helps keep him alive, as he is worried that one or more dragons might be after him. He also gives up one of Rooster’s fake SINS as the ID of his accomplice in infiltrating the hotel. He is once again let go, with a warning to stay in contact and out of trouble. Sanja promises to relay any new info he uncovers in regards to the diamonds, Hamshallow, or anything else to McCormick. Figuring that McCormick might have him followed, he gets Ibn Hassan to set him up with a hideout & activate his newest fake SIN. Sanja also keeps a “detect individual: McCormick” spell going, to find out if the detective is ever close.

After Sanja warns him of LS’ portential interest, Rooster purchases a lethal BTL dose, and installs that and his junkie SIN on a disposable comm. He then finds an especially decrepit looking junkie in the undercity, and foists it off on him, hoping that he will take the BTL, die, and divert LS’ attentions from Rooster himself. It is at this moment that he realizes how far his newfound teammates’ influence have pulled him away from the pacifist path he had been following (after a promise to his mother). He decides that what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Tobias analyzes the data he retrieved from Robert Toomey‘s commlink. He sets off a data bomb on a file that seems to be travel & purchase records, but successfully accesses a video file. It shows the last moments of Toomey’s life, picking up as he lets in The Brassface Man (from Thankyou‘s recollections of the spaceport). Toomey seems surprised and worried to see him. The man gives Toomey the missing artefact from Arlen Thompson’s, and presses Toomey for information about Sanja and the group. Toomey devolves as much as he knows, basically just contact info and description. The man then kills him (seemingly with spellcraft) and the video ends.

Hearing this, Sanja is even more worried. He goes to see Ibn Hassan, and purchases Rooster a replacement SIN for the one he gave up, and then asks Hassan a large favor: Sanja wants to be put in touch with either or both of the great dragons he thinks are pursuing him, and requests that Hassan reach out (cautiously) to see if that is possible. Hassan says that he may know some people back on Earth who have connections to Aden’s organiztions and to Saeder-Krupp, and will do what he can. In exchange for an appropriate donation, or some future work, of course. Sanja agrees.

Ivan the Jackle & Daedelus both contact Tobias to warn him that LS is engaging in a massive sweep in street gang turf, apparently in response to the recent SWAT assassinations, although there has been no public mention of those. Ivan says that One Shot Wade wants those deaths publicized, for effect. Daedelus wants Tobias to rescue some participants in the Exchange who have gotten caught up in the sweeps. There is apparently a new detention center out by the spaceport which LS is using as a proccessing point for all the detainees. Daedelus provides some intel about the spaceport, and Tobias plans to do some hacking recon.

Tobias, sensing an opportunity, agrees to both of these requests, and calls Elton Massey. Massey agrees to increase the flow of weapons to the undercity, to better fight LS, and to fund Tobias in assaulting the detention center and freeing inmates there. Massey suggests that this will go better if it looks like a gang operations, and not a targeted rescue, and Tobias agrees. Massey provides some useful intel about the layout of the spaceport facility, from KE satellites. Massey also agrees to look into the SWAT deaths, and pass any reportable info onto news sources.

Tobias also calls Patrick Henry Hughes to warm him of the danger that Tobias has found himself in, and suggests that if PHH or Ares was itching to try out any particular tech against a dragon, Tobias may have that opportunity. PHH is worried but supportive. Tobias also forwards video footage of the Brassface man, and specualtion about Aden’s magical cloak, in the hopes that Ares can develop something from that.

Rooster receives a call on his Vendiagram SIN that the LS station in the undercity needs a resupply on some snacks. He grabs an appropriate van, purchases some snacks, and heads over, only to be immediately arrested upon his arrival, and beaten unconscious by some spectacularly angry SWAT team members. Upon regaining consciousness, he is interrogated by three LS detectives about his role in the assassinations, but amazingly manages to spin a story about his mother having been kidnapped and held hostage to force him to engage in criminal activity. With some relucatnce, the LS detectives eventually buy it, and while he is still under arrest, Rooster feels significantly better about his position. He ID’s the Brassface man for the kidnapping as the ringleader of the plot. He is transferred to the holding facility near the spaceport.

Meanwhile, Tobias and Sanja do some recon. The detention center appears to have multiple watcher spirits observing it’s astral surroundings, as well a projecting mage. There are two concentric circles of electrified wire, with what looks to be a 20-ft minefield in between, ringing the enclosure. There is one heavily guarded entrance, where prisoners are brought up from the city and processed in. There are four holding buildings, and three guard towers. All in all, pretty secure. Tobias decides to hack in, and manages to breeze through the system with no significant trouble, even imitating an LS employees avatar to avoid suspicion.

He gains access to a prisoner manifest, and finds the four people that Daedelus wants rescued on it, as well as Rooster. He finds camera and door controls. And he finds and copies the software that operates the automated turrets, which he plans to alter to attack LS instead of prisoners. They plan to have gangers flood the area and pick up as many freed detainees as possible, while a small team tries to rescue the specific Exchange members and Rooster. Ivan says says that he can get a bunch of gangers and cars as long as ThankYou and Tobias can supply the guns. Massey confirms that TY has met the latest shipment at the safehouse, so it seems like they are good to go.

Next up: the assault!

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Lodestone aka Kealt Sanja
Thankyou
Rooster
UltraBoy!
“K”
Tobias Cheney

KS prepares to release a rampaging earth elemental into one of the LoneStar choppers, waiting to see if they will accept his attempt to surrender. Tobias, fearing surveillance, jacks out, but tells Rooster to get over there and pick up his car and TY’s motorcycle, so as not to leave any extra evidence.

UB! launches some grenades at the choppers, in the hope of grounding them, or at least shattering the glass so K can stunball the pilots. However, the pilots seem skilled, and UB! is unable to do significant damage. They return fire with hull mounted miniguns, shredding the upper floor of the house. K is ko’d in the first burst, and left hovering invisibly over the bed. TY dodges out of the room and rushes downstairs, where he begins frantically sawing through the kitchen floor with his monofil chainsaw. UB!, refusing a final offer to surrender, takes cover and lets off another grenade. The helicopters open up again, and K is shredded almost completely in the crossfire. His lifeless body crashes down onto the bed as his spells are broken at the moment of his death.

UB! joins TY in the kitchen, and blows a huge hole through the floor with a large chunk of plastic explosive. They jump in, and fall quite a ways. They are not sure if they are one or two floors down. Meanwhile, on the roof, the heli’s land, and KS is detained, and flown off to a detention center while Swat team’s search the property.

UB! and TY proceed down the elevator shaft, after slicing open the door, and UB! frantically calls the skin noters, hoping for assistance. After they climb and slide about 10 floors down, a door slides open, and a man pulls them in. He appears to be moving somewhat odd and jerkily, and they see a woman sitting with their back to them on a couch who appears frozen in place staring at the wall. The man guides them to a window, opens it, and catches a grappling hook as it sails through from across the alley. He punches a hole through the wall, and wraps the hook around a stud, ignoring the damage he has done to his hand. UB! and TY rappel down the line, into the waiting arms of Ut-Napishtim. He tells them they owe The Exchange a favor.

He gives them bulky coveralls to wear, and loads their weapons into a few large duffel bags. He takes them threw a series of maintenance corridors, down a service elevator, and out a door, where they encounter a surprised Rooster, who has just received a message to drive to this spot. They take off, and TY manages to get them safely out of the area. They disperse to various hideouts in the undercity.

KS is interrogated after a long wait. He demands a lawyer be present, and calls one in. A Detective McCormick questions him about his relationship with K, and what he knows of the events at Arlen Thompson’s. He also asks what KS knows about K’s connection to Andoras Hamshallow. KS mixes truth with some deception and outright lies, to cover for his fellow runners. He tells McCormick as much as he feels he can, and frames two undercity gangers for TY and UB!’s roles in attacking the choppers. McCormick eventually lets him go, but tells him to stay available for further question. KS signs a magical oath of truth after a woman comes in and verifies his official statement. He pays the lawyer and heads home, and orders a new SIN from Ibn Hassan, in case he needs to flee.

The team is worried about what KS may have given up to the cops, and goes into total hiding for a bit, while they heal. Rooster provides a useful crashpad that is not connected to any wanted SINS, as far as he knows. They eventually link up with KS, and decide to take his word that he didn’t sell them out. They get a call from One Shot Wade, telling them it’s time to move on the LS Swat assassinations. The team will be in charge of three of them, while other Problem Children handle two. Wade gives them some surveillance info on the targets.

KS volunteers to take on one target in the uppercity himself, to regain people’s trust. TY, Rooster, and Tobias will tag-team another, while UB! and some of his unofficial ‘UltraDudes’ will take out the last one. KS’ hit goes off without a hitch, as he deathtouches the guy while introducing himself as a ‘new neighbor’ after spotting the target in the parking garage. TY and Tobias team up to hack the door and nearby store cameras on their job, while Rooster distracts the crowd with some enthralling oratory. TY rushes up the stairs as an alarm goes off, and assassinates the target in his bathroom with autofire. Hearing a woman’s scream from another room, he dives through a second story window and flees on his bike. T hacks all their datatrails, and R infiltrates away on the subway, shifting his face as he goes.

UB! has a little more trouble, of course. He blocks the woman’s car with his car as she is leaving her building’s parking lot, and opens up with a machine gun, while the ultradudes use their KE assault rifles. The woman’s car seems to be bulletproofed, however, as she survives the first burst, and accelerates towards them, apparently trying to bash past them. UB! kills her with a second burst, but his car gets t-boned pretty good, and one of the gangers in the back is injured pretty bad. UB! starts driving off, but the cars barely limping along, so he gets in a head-on crash with another car, in order to stop it and then steal it. The injured ganger is ko’d or killed in the crash, he’s not sure, so he orders the other ganger to haul his friend into the new car.

They race off at a better pace this time, although UB! has to cut the driver out of his seatbelt and airbag, and leaves him bleeding on the road. He calls Jaro to arrange a car swap, and get directions to the nearest street doc. They somehow evade detection, and he drops off the ultradudes to get fixed up.

Tobias, getting curious, asks Daedelus what they know about the skin noters, and promises some future work of a major scope for the Exchange in return. Daedelus provides some info, and tells T that they will call on him soon- LoneStar has been indiscriminately rounding up runners, gangers, and others from the undercity and incarcerating them in a new holding facility out by the spaceport while they ID them.

KS and Rooster decide to look into Robert Toomey’s whereabouts, thinking he might have some info on who has the diamonds, and who killed Arlen Thompson. They find out that Toomey hasn’t been seen by hotel staff in a few days, and his room is rented through the end of the month with a permanent “Do Not Disturb.” They head over, with Rooster posing as Toomey’s wayward son, who KS was ‘hired to track down.’ They talk their way into his room, and find his rotting corpse near some drinks at a table. KS tells the employee to call the cops, and Rooster distracts him in the hall, while KS links up with Toomey’s commlink and patches Tobias in to try and steal as much data as possible. They download some packets, but don’t have time to get everything.

KS also takes a look around the scene for anything notable, and sees two drinks on the table, and no signs of forced entry. Apparently it was someone Toomey knew. He also spots the artefact that K had mentioned stealing from Toomey at Thompson’s request, and which K had noted was missing from Thompson’s place. Then, he is escorted downstairs by the hotel employees to await the arrival of LoneStar officers. Rooster flees, feigning distress at his ’father’s’ death.

Next up: another interrogation!