Dramatis Personae
Runners
April O’Mally
Scrounge
Remus Chandrasekharan
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Others
Ango Tyrell
Daedelus

Remus is trying to distinguish himself on hacking forums, and leaves April’s hideout to attend the ever-relocating hacker cafe and symposium “Hack The Planet.” Posters of Fastjack’s avatar and t-shirts bearing logos like “Captain Chaos Lives!” are the norm. Sadly, Remus gets a little too amped on one of the meetings, and isn’t quite careful enough about disguising himself and his route when returning to April’s hideaway, not that he notices. He goes into the apartment and greets his roommate, Scrounge. Both suddenly hear a noise by the door and turn towards it-Remus is injured by the explosion which blows it open, but Scrounge is able to dive out of the way. He goes invisible, and overcast stunballs the first wave after they enter, then quickly executes all four of them. Remus takes some machine gun damage, but still, it seems like they might escape. They call for backup and exit into the hallway, where they engage in a running gun and grenade battle as they head for the stairs and the ground floor.

HCB, in his enthusiasm to rush to their aid, hails a cab and offers the driver a 30 nuyen bonus if he can get him there in two minutes. Being new to Mars City, he does not realize that this is dangerous bordering on impossible. The resulting 200 mph crash decapitates the driver and sends HCB flying thru the car, out the shattered windshield, and into the side of a brick building, where he lies broken and bleeding, quietly calling for help, until April tracks his signal and get him to a hospital. (But hey, at least he saved 30 nuyen. – The Dour Salmon)

Meanwhile, Ivan makes his way towards April’s hideaway in his cab with his newest toy alongside-a Steel Lynx fitted with a White Knight lmg. April lent him money to purchase it, and he feels like this will be the perfect test run. Scrounge and Remus are fighting their way down the stairs, heavily injured and outnumbered, when a dog-sized robot careens around a corner and jumps off the wall and over their heads quickly killing the nearest two hitmen with a full auto burst. Outside, Ivan fires an autocannon shell into the very surprised hitman van parked out front, as the driver frantically tries to start the already running engine. Remus and Scrounge make their way to the ground floor and into Ivan’s car. The lynx jumps out of the window and joins them, having sustained fairly serious damage while covering their escape. Ivan blows out the second floor facade behind it, as two hitmen appear and begin to fire. The team speeds off, away from the burning and partially collapsing building.

They have a few jobs on offer: Srounge’s talismonger (Madame Gavral) is having supply issues, Ango has an extraction that needs to happen, and the Johnson from the Azzie drug raid has a mission on the prison-moon. The team decides to do the job that Ango is offering: they need to extract the hirer from the core of the Renraku acrology in the wastes, and bring it to a safehouse that Ango has been preparing. Ango gives them the job details, and an advance on payment, which they spend all of on medical, lynx repair, 1 more missile that Wade finds for them, and various other gear. April sets up a press tour thru Hermes news -doing a puff piece on “life in the arcologies.” The team attends as cameramen (scrounge), editor (remus), driver/lighting (ivan), and sound guy (HCB). Ivan slips away well April gets the tour and does some staged interviews and Remus, Scrounge, and HCB get background shots and such. He meets up with a maintenance crew, and they take him to a still they’ve constructed back in the vents-shutting down some of the fans to get to it and back. He then proceeds to show off his extreme alcoholism by trying to drink them under the table, and then trying to extract information from them. He discovers that there’s a truck which takes non-processable wastes out to a toxic dump, and convinces the crew to allow him to ride along with well they go out. They all head down to the garage and convince the guys who were going to be driving that they should go instead. They take Ivan out and he sees the route and procedures for opening the outer gate and whatnot.

Meanwhile the press tour wraps up, and there is a minor crisis when Ivan can’t be found, and his visitor badge is detected offsite. April tries to explain it awa that he’s just a drunk, and only the team’s driver (hahaha), not even that important of a part-he doesn’t even have a camera, what harm could he do? April then threatens to release a severely negative piece about Renraku if the press agent doesn’t back off and let them leave. When Ivan shows back up in the company of drunken maintenance men, it seems to confirm April’s story, and Renraku doesn’t want unnecessary bad PR, so they let them go, but the press agent says she will be contacting Hermes News about their team’s unprofessional behavior. Ivan begins talking about how great of a way he found in before Remus shuts him up, suspecting that Renraku might have placed monitoring devices in their news van. They try to pay it off as the ramblings of a drunk and silently agree to talk later.

The hirer has promised he’ll be able to help with some alarm and internal subsystem control once the team is inside, but they need to gain entry of their own initiative, as there are limits as to which systems the hirer can affect. The arcology consists of 6 semi-spheres, each set inside of the previous. The outer layer is the least secure-lowlevel employee housing and such. The next level is mid-management, and some of the nicer dining areas and such. The third level is offices and lowlevel IT. The fourth level is upper management. The fifth level is the high level IT and research labs. The inner core is The Vice President in charge of operations, the boardroom, and the mainframe. This is where the employer needs to be extracted from. The employer will assist the team from when they access the third level on. All the food growing/waste processing/etc. is underground and only connected directly to level one.

The team returns the next day and stashes Ivan’s car a little ways from the dump. They sneak up on it, and ambush the guard and two maintenance guys onboard, killing all three. They dump the load, including the two maintenance guys Ivan had been drinking with yesterday, now gorily deceased. Dressing in stolen coveralls and the guards suit, Ivan, Remus and Scrounge sit up front. Ivan pulls his hat down low, to conceal his ears. HCB rides in back, and April (in stealth suit) up on the roof. Ivan eventually retraces the previous day’s driving thru the drunken haze of his memory, and they arrive at the gate. It remains inert. Remus eventually thinks to check the pocket of the stolen suit he is wearing, and find the code scribbled on a slip of paper-Ivan types it in to the overhead on the truck, and the gate opens. The three team members hold aloft their security passes as they enter and are scanned. Once inside, they exit the cab, and Ivan fasttalks his way past some other maintenance guys. HCB and April slip past the camera and the team enters the maintenance tunnels, and from there, the airducts.

Once again, Ivan’s questionable memories of the preceding day’s events are relied on to get them closer. He eventually follows his nose back to the site of the still, which is now gone. He finds the buttons to shut down the vent fans, however, and the team heads for the second level. They make it past a small array of sensors as Remus jams them for a few moments-hopefully not long enough to register. They continue through the vents towards the third level-the sensor array is much larger and more intense this time, however, and Remus’ jammer doesn’t seem to be taking effect on the floor sensors, only the scanners. The team rigs a line over the sensor pads and one by one crawl over. Remus and Ivan struggle mightily, both appearing to call up all their reserves of luck to eventually make it safely across. The team descends thru a ceiling panel into a bathroom, as the vent comes to an end here. April drops onto the lap of a man sitting in a stall below, and quickly breaks his neck.

They get contact from their employer now-they tell the team to prepare to make their way on foot towards level 4, as a distraction has been arranged. The team exits the bathroom to the sound of fire alarms and pushes against the flow of people-not totally out of place, as they still all have their coveralls on (except April, in her stealth suit). They reach a guard station at the entrance to level 4 and approach. The guards warn them off, but April quickly dispatches one, and the rest of the team perforates the other guard as he goes for the alarm. They use one of the guards’ prints and retinas to gain access to level 4. They quickly sneak along amongst the offices until they find an occupied one, they enter and hold the manager at gunpoint while Scrounge controls his mind and forces him to take them to the elevator to level 5, where they use him to get past the guards and into the elevator.

They emerge on level 5, and some more guards ask the manager what he is doing up there with these maintenance guys. The manager shakes free of control and makes a run for it-the team opens fire. They quickly slay the defenseless manager and two surprised guards, although Remus and Ivan are wounded. They then enter the nearest lab room (a chem research station) to obtain a box that their employer says is needed to complete the mission. The scientists inside have tried to bar the door ineffectually and when one of them doesn’t respond quickly enough to April, she (in her adrenal rage) breaks his neck. The scientists quickly give up the box (which they would probably have done anyway), and the team heads upstairs. One of the scientists splashes April with some sort of acid, which eats through a good portion of the torso of her stealth suit and some of the flesh beneath-she manages to stuble out to the hall, closing the door behind her against further salvoes.

The rest of the team has started up the stairs to level 6, their destination. Their employer has placed 5 dots on their huds, which are the necessary component pickups. As the team emerges from the top of the stairwell, they are fired upon, HCB being wounded, and hear “fire in the hole” as a grenade arcs into the stairwell-they manage to bobble it along until it reaches April at the bottom, who having just gotten the last of the acid off doesn’t have time to respond. It detonates near her, and she only dives partway out of the way, taking severe damage. Fortunately, it was clear of the much more enclosed stairwell, avoiding the proverbial “chunky salsa effect.” The team hears one of the guards above order someone to “release the special project.” The rest of the team takes some minor damage and then chucks grandes in response and charges up the stairs, finding 1 guard blown to bits and the other curled up behind the booth. HCB rolls him over and gets gunshot in the gut for his troubles, before the team finishes the guard off in a hail of bullets. Scrounge and April down below hear the elevator they came up on close, and begin to descend, and they decide to grenade the shaft to prevent anyone from getting to their position easily.

The team upstairs enters the boardroom and discovers what they are picking up. The three members of the board are all jacked into thick fiberoptics cables emerging from a new looking hole in one wall of the room. The team’s employer contacts them and tells them that only the heads are needed-there is a cradle in the box for each. just disconnect the cable and decapitate them. They do so, and then head across the hall to get the VP, who has apparently been resisting, Ivan chucks a gas grenade in, blinding the guards, who fire wildly in response to little effect. Scrounge enters and stunballs the room, knocking the guards unconscious. They drag the resisting VP over to the board room and hook him for a few seconds, and then decapitate him and place his head in the fourth and final cradle-one dot left to investigate. The team enters the mainframe room and quickly realized that they are extracting the arcologies central A.I core. It tells them to hurry as a detachment or Red Samurai appear to be making their way towards their position, shutting down all systems and closing off escape routes as they go.

The team takes the computer data core which emerge from the mainframe, and the mainframe quickly begins to sputter and shutdown. They slap the core in it’s slot in the box and seal it shut. The A.I. tells them it will be operating in a severely limited mode while in the box, but should be able to provide some aid-it tells them to head for the fourth lab, the experimental flight division. The team reenters the downstairs hall, only to come face to face (?) with some horrible mutated monstrosities-thy attack with hoof, claw, tooth, and tentacle, and inflict serious damage on Ivan, April, and Remus before they team puts them down. Not such a special project after all! They make their way down the hall, and bust through the door to flight division-two paragliders sit within. Remus and Scrounge shoot up the control board in one and the team enters the other, as HCB attempts to determine how to launch. They hear an explosion from the far end of the hallway, and then the sound of frantic cries of “help us” and “they went that way” followed by gunfire. as HCB launches the glider, the door to the room splits open, and some hulking red armored assault troops enter, blasting fire at the rapidly exiting glider.

As they break free of the acrologies walls and exit the flight tube HCB feels fully at peace. This lasts until the second glider emerges behind them, apparently not sufficiently disabled. They exchange fire, although at the speeds they are traveling, it is fairly inaccurate, and the gliders themselves are unarmed. HCB makes for Ivan’s car, and Scrounge launches a stunball at the tailing craft, dropping a red armored figure off the side and a long way to the ground. They rapidly approach Ivan’s car, and he dives in and deploys the autocannon. At the least minute, HCB pulls out of his dive, and Ivan fires straight thru the tailing craft, sending its’ flaming wreckage hurtling into the ground, barely avoiding the car. HCB lands the glider a little rough, but they all survive and make their immediate escape via automobile.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
April O’Mally
Remus Chandrasekharan
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Others
Daedelus
Yann Tillberg
One Shot Wade
Long Pig

As they are driving across the wastes back towards the highway, they are strafed by a small fighter drone, the car takes some moderate damage before Remus is able to hack and take command of the drone’s systems and crash it into the ground. The team drives to a nearby town to throw off tails and figure out what to do next. Remus scans the car and finds tracers, apparently fired into the car by the drone. He carefully removes them and the plant them on a semi parked nearby outside the bar/fuel station. They then head back to town to drop off the box at Ango’s arranged safehouse. The box tells the team that it was called “Mother” in the arcology, but wishes instead to go by Daedelus. It handily defeats April at chess. Shortly before arriving at the city, Yann sends April a breaking news feed of a semi truck shot up and in flames with the driver crucified near the side of the road.

They drop Daedelus off at the warehouse, and it installs each head on a cyber skeleton, sending the main core out of the team’s sight into the back of the warehouse. It tells them it might have use for them in the future and will be in touch. They get paid the full amount plus medical, plus a little extra for a job well done-which is good since they pretty much already spent it all. They heal up at Doc Todd’s. April gives the Yann the latest sim, which he quickly edits and uploads-it’s a near instant viral hit, and a major moneymaker and attention getter for their shadowsim service. Remus attends another Hack the Planet cafe location, and catches wind of the sim, however. He quickly recognizes it for what it is, and even with Yann’s careful editing, it is not too hard to deduce which team member is recording. He extorts April for 40% of the profits, and sets up a deadman’s switch e-mail to alert the other team members if he doesn’t check in regularly. April lacks the money to even fix her suit for now, but she begrudgingly agrees.

Wade has a job lined up for them, though, so it looks like they might not be broke for long. One of Long Pig’s favorite boytoys, Eronemus, is heading back into town from the spaceport, apparently having returned from a trip to Earth, probably financed with some of that intercepted ransom money. He will be traveling in a two-car convoy, probably through the upper city until they reach a ramp to a Black Shadows controlled area of the undercity. The team begins planning and preparing. HCB steals a beater van to ram and hopefully halt the convoy. April calls the cops to report a stolen car in the undercity in order to see if they will respond. Since she is an Upper city resident, they do, but it seems like they won’t to respond to undercity citizens. She calls it back as a false alarm. April then finds a sniper post on a fire escape across the alley from the main offramp from the highway from the spaceport to the upper city, and sets up to wait with her rifle. Remus hacks the spaceport camera feeds, and picks up and tracks the Eronemus (he thinks) leaving the shuttle and exiting into the second car of the convoy. He is spotted by some low-level security bots, but manages to exit the system before they track him. He then tracks the convoy via hacking the traffic grid, so he can give the go. Remus and Ivan are in Ivan’s car parked down the street a little ways from HCB in the stolen van.

As the lead car reaches the top of the off-ramp, HCB guns the van and slams into them straight on, doing massive damage to both cars, and launching the van end over end into a nearby building. HCB is nearly killed in the crash, but manages to bust out the windshield with the butt of his pistol before the leaking fuel that he is covered in ignites. Meanwhile, April snipes one of the goons in the second car, which tries to drive past the first, as Ivan pulls up in his cab, and sends a few autocannon shells into the front car. Two bodyguards and Eronemus exit the second car, and head for a nearby street level storefront at the base of one of the office towers. April takes another shot, as does Remus (from Ivan’s moving car) and they manage to take down one of the guards and wound Eronemus (which was not the plan). The remaining guard gets him inside the store, though. HCB begins crawling towards Ivan’s car, as Ivan sends the lynx into the store-shoots out the glass in the door and dives thru to enter. This triggers a booby-trapped grenade, but the lynx was moving fast enough to avoid most of the the damage. It jumps up on the counter at the rear of the store and is severely damaged by machine gun fire from the goon hiding behind it. There is also a shopkeeper screaming in terror.

Ivan pulls the lynx out, not wanting it to get destroyed, and Remus decides to play the action hero again, bursting through the door and leaping over the counter, to the surprise of all involved. April has begun her descent from her sniper post, as her and Ivan have noticed cops rapidly converging on the site from multiple directions. Remus and the goon both fire simultaneously, killing each other-or so it would seem, however, through some insane happenstance of luck, Remus has managed to knock a bunch of goods and the register off the counter while diving over it, and also managed to land partially behind the storekeeper, so some of the fire that would have killed him is absorbed by his flesh and merchandise shield. He falls unconscious and near death, in a state of shock at his grievous wounds. April double times down the rest of the fire escape and into the store, triggering her adrenal pump to allow her to haul both the passed-out Remus and the passed-out Eronemus to Ivan’s waiting car. HCB reaches it at about the same time, and hauls himself in. Ivan begins evasive maneuvers to attempt to escape the enclosing law.

After some ridiculously dangerous and high paced driving, he manages to lose the cops in the undercity. This might have something to do with the fact that the cops seem to know that the kidnapped boytoy is a Black Shadows member, and the cops hate the Black Shadows almost as much as the team does. At least the cops who aren’t employed by the BS, anyway. Also, once a chase enters the undercity, and its clear that it won’t be going back topside, the cops tend to lose interest pretty quick, unless they’re after someone they really want. The team contacts Wade to find out what the next chunk of the job is….

Dramatis Personae
Runners
April O’Mally
Scrounge
Remus Chandrasekharan
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
Others
Long Pig
One Shot Wade
Doc Todd
Karen Cortez
Yann Tillberg
Jerl
Daedelus

After they lose the cops in the undercity, Ivan spends as long as he can making sure to lose any other tails, based on the desperate need for medical attention of three of the passengers in his car. While doing so, he notices someone unfamiliar and unmarked cars that seem to be following him, albeit fairly non-agressively. He thinks he ditches the last one, and swaps cars to get to Doc Todd’s clinic, where Wade has told them to bring Eronemus. April gets called up by Karen to do a stupid little puff piece about a successful grade school in the undercity, since April is one of the only reporters that regularly operate there. She makes a number of children cry, by asking them how they feel about their dead parents, and the fact that most of them will end up as wageslaves, junkies, or both. She is immediately suspended for an indeterminate period.

Meanwhile the team heads out to Doc Todd’s private clinic in the stolen car, drops off Eronemus, and heals up. HCB uses this chance to get an olfactory enhancer implanted, and is instantly transported to a world of overwhelming odor. He has trouble focusing on things for a while. He also embarks on a project to record any unique smells he encounters, initially focusing on explosives, in order to better be able to notice traps.

Todd heals up the team, and performs some sort of operation on Eronemus. While Remus is still unconscious, April has Yann come out to the clinic and hack his comm, altering his share of the simstim subscription fee to 10%. Wade sets up the swap once Todd tells him the op is done and the team is ready-they have spent most of a week healing up. Todd explains the operation he performed-he implanted a high-powered cranial bomb, set to trigger the next time Eroneums ejaculates-he’s really gonna blow his load this time! Anyway, this should hopefully ensure that Long Pig is close by. Todd thinks he hid the bomb pretty well in some pre-existing implants, so he doesn’t think the BS should pick it up even if the do scan him. Todd seems weirdly excited about this-maybe he doesn’t get out enough.

The team heads to the meet-site with Eronemus, who threatens them the whole team with his boyfriend’s wrath. The site is an empty warehouse on the front between PC and BS turf-BS will enter from their side, two reps will approach the center with the payoff-money and some stolen data. Two team members will approach with Eronemus, and they will make the swap. The outsides of the building will be covered on either side by gang backup side is supposed to send more than the two reps forward. Easy in, easy out, right?

Surprisingly, it actually goes pretty well. They swap Eronemus for the credsticks and data, which check out. The BS goons scan Eronemus, but don’t show any obvious response, other than taking him back with them. They also have some tigers along, which most of the team (and the other PC members) have never seen before outside of trideo and sim. The team heads back under cover of the gang, and the BS reps do the same. The team returns to Wade with the loot, and Ivan wanting his approval, brags about a number of their other recent jobs. Wade doesn’t believe that he has actually killed Red Samurai, but when Ivan describes the specifics of the arcology run, Wade recognizes it from the simstim that April and Yann posted. He shows it to the team: HCB is aghast, as he feels this is a gross violation of trust. Scrounge is on the fence. Ivan is super stoked. Remus quietly removes his killswitch e-mail system, ad April tries to justify her actions by saying that all the profits are going towards the team. HCB is unconvinced, and worried about the effect something like this could have if word got back to NeoNet.

Scrounge uses Wade’s current good mood to get him to agree to allow Scrounge to build a mana lodge in an obscure corner of the sewers under PC turf. He does so, and establishes a force 1 lodge, where he proceeds to learn suggestion. When picking up supplies for the spell learning process, his talismonger attempts to recruit him to track down her missing courier and get her supply line up and running again. Scrounge agrees, in return for an advance on the payment. He returns to the team, and they decide to do this job a little later, as they all have some other stuff they feel like getting up to now. HCB has begun spending a lot of time at Slot, befriending some rowdy trolls that he meets there, especially Jerl. He is hoping to eventually start a band with them. Ivan goes off to a PC members-only gathering, where he proceeds to brag about the kidnapping anf swap they just performed-word gets back to Wade, who calls Ivan, furious that he almost told a bunch of people about the cranial bomb. Wade tells Ivan that it is imperative that this remain a secret. Ivan leaves, cowed.

Daedelus contacts the party with what it promises is a quick job-a Japanese importer is refusing to deliver a package to Daedelus until Daedelus pays more. Daedelus wishes to be taken seriously, and is not about to be extorted, so Daedelus wishes to hire the team to go get him the box, collateral damage to the importer is irrelevant. The team agrees. Ivan drives the team to a Yakuza district in the Eastern undercity, and pulls up outside the importer. HCB enters, believing that they have merely stopped to go shopping. Remus begins to try to hack the seurity, however it appears that their is just an irregular data burst leaving the store every few seconds, and the all the other security is purely on-site.

HCB gets in an argument over footwear fashion with the clerk, and storms back outside. He soon sheepishly reenters when he realizes that this is the destination. He pulls his pistol to shoot the clerk, but he dives over the counter, dodging out of the way of his shot and attacking him with some shoeblades. Remus jams the external signal, and heads in with Scrounge, April, and the lynx as Ivan stays in the car. They kill the clerk. Remus hardwires open the door at the rear of the store, and is sliced badly by a samurai sword as soon as it slides open. The team quickly. The team quickly dispatches the two goons in back, and locate the box fro Daedelus, based on a shipping manifest. Some of them are distracted for a few long seconds by a flashing light on the wall, which they eventually determine is the jammed wireless emitter. They clear out of there, only later thinking that they should have destroyed the store to avoid leaving evidence and such.

They drop the box off at Daedelus’, and it informs them that the importer was a Striking Crane Clan affiliate, which it thought Scrounge would appreciate. It thinks the yakuza won’t retaliate, however, since it appears the extortion attempt was not an official decision, but just some local thugs looking for some extra cash. One more group for the team to be wary of, though…..

Dramatis Personae
Runners
April O’Mally
Scrounge
Remus Chandrasekharan
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
“K”
Others
Daedelus
One Shot Wade
Long Pig
Halfman
Jerl

Daedelus’ warehouse looks more and more developed and fortified every time the team visits, but they don’t wish to discuss it in the car,or possibly anywhere else, as they believe Daedelus is constantly monitoring their comms. The team gets a call from Wade to meet up and get info for a new job. While driving there from Daedelus’, HCB is convinced that he sees Bathcat, his former jailer. It turns just to be a local newspaper vender, whom Remus recognizes and prevents HCB from killing. Scrounge takes this opportunity to slip away, seeming somewhat perturbed to have come back into contact with the Striking Crane. Everyone else gets back in the car, and notices an oily black cloud to the northwest, over BS turf. They arrive at Wade’s office in PC territory. He introduces them to a wagemage he has hired to assist them, named K. K is very apparently wearing fake legs, a fact which the team is amazingly tactful enough not to point out right away.

Wade informs the team that his inside source tells him that Long Pig was injured in the explosion whose evidence the have just seen outside. The plan is for Wade and Yoleus to go with some of their best soldiers to the hospital that LP is supposedly at, and finish him off, while the team infiltrates his mansion and steals and destroys as much as they can, as well as seeing if they can get any info on the extent of his injuries. K has done a variety of undercity wagemage work over the last year or so, and has been inside LP’s mansion, and will hopefully be able to direct the team to it, as it and it’s location are protected by some serious illusion magic. Wade also warns the team that LP is thought to have hired the services of legendary hitman Halfman to track down and destroy them.

April tries to figure out which hospital LP might using press contacts to no avail. The team goes to Slot to plan the job, and notice two exceedingly non-descript people watching them discreetly from a nearby both. When April approaches them, they get up and leave, entering one of the unmarked cars that Ivan had previously noticed before April can question them, although she gets trideo of their faces. HCB hangs with Jerl and his buddies at the bar-he has started a trollrock band called Crod Stompaz with them, in which he sings. Remus hacks while K astral projects, and they manage to locate the source of the smoke-presumably LP’s mansion, although the concealing spell is good: it looks exactly like the surrounding apartment building’s. Remus finds some sewer plans to follow there, and gets some advice from Scrounge on which route to take.

K loses one of his fake legs while trying to quietly exit the bar, and is fairly embarrassed. He puts on his running legs for the job, and leaves his show legs in Ivan’s car, which they leave parked out front of Slot. They enter the sewers thru the dump in back, and begin making their way towards BS turf. HCB is somewhat overwhelmed by the array of odors in the sewer, and has to tone down the input on his nose to function properly. He plans to add smell to April’s simstim uploads, having partially come to peace with them. He also decides to get a voice enhancer so he can sing in his new trollrock band, The Crod Stompaz, without external amplification.

As they make their way thru the sewers, following the route Scrounge marked on the city map, they eventually determine that they have reached the borders of BS turf, and proceed to move more cautiously in order to avoid setting off any traps that are present. There are some signs of the gangwar down here-blood splatter, shell casings, and walls pitted from gunfire and explosions. They encounter and disable some simple mechanical traps, and make their way towards the sewer exit in the alley behind their target. They spot and kill a cyber-rat which seems to be being used for surveillance. They then sneak up on and rapidly eliminate two BS goons at the bottom of the exit ladder. They emerge in the alley, and determine which building they are headed into-there are a pair of fences running around it, which they decide to cut through. It seems they are still outside of the illusion spell’s boundaries, however, as it still appears as a normal building. K astrally projects to watch the guard patrols, and suggests away one guard that seems to notice them cutting the fence. The patrols are irregular however, and K can’t quite get the pattern down.

Ivan sends his eyeball drone thru the hole so he can see what’s going on. The next guard along notices the hole in the fence, and is sniped while coming to investigate. This alerts the other guards, who K astrally see converging on the position from the front and side-yards. HCB chucks in a grenade, killing another guard, and they respond in kind. The team enters the yard thru the fence, as only K can see what is going on thru the illusion spell. All except Ivan get shot up pretty bad, Ivan is busy sending in the lynx. April runs up on a guard in a rage and tears his throat out as K watches in horror. Remus snipes another, and the lynx takes out the remaining two. HCB has been ko’d during the fight, and the team drags him into shed set against the back of the mansion (it’s much fancier looking inside the illusion-there’s grass in the yard, and simulated blue sky above). Ivan leaves his eyeball drone in the yard to watch for trouble, while K checks out the astral presences on the ground floor of the mansion and informs the team.

K begins working on healing HCB, while Ivan sneaks around to the front entrnce with the lynx. April decides she knows a quicker way in, and blows a hole in the back wall with a big chunk of c4. While squeezing thru the hole, she nearly gets her head taken off by a shotgun-she exits and beats that goon to death, and is promptly shot again by another goon from down the hall. Remus enters behind her, slides down the hall, and snipes that goon. Meanwhile, Ivan has entered the front yard, and after glancing around briefly to check for more guards, enters the house thru the monumental front door, which is wide open. In the main room, he finds a series of disturbing flesh sculptures, which he decides to investigate later, since he sees the final goon on this floor trying to sneak around behind April and Remus. He sends the lynx after him, and sprays him with machine gun fire, sending much of his insides all over some fancy looking, but very macabre art that hangs on the walls.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
April O’Mally
Scrounge
Remus Chandrasekharan
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
“K”
Others
Daedelus
Long Pig
Ut-Napishtim
John Caruthers

The team takes a second to collect themselves, and look around the ground floor. Flesh sculpture garden is profoundly offputting to most of the team, although Ivan is somewhat interested, until he recognizes the torso of a centaur as being from a missing Problem Children member. Ivan begins destroying the art on the walls around the ground floor, looking for a secret basement entrance. Remus and April head upstairs to see of they can discover anything. Meanwhile, K heals HCB back to consciousness in the shed out back. They decide to head back to the sewers-abandon the mission since it has gone so off track. HCB exits thru the hole in the fence, K decides to levitate over. They come under fire as soon as they leave the illusion’s radius from windows overhead, as well as goons in cover behind sideways cars at each end of the alley. They try to make for the sewer entrance, but are forced into cover by suppressing fire. K launches fireballs at the cars, reducing them to smoldering wrecks, and they take this opportunity to reenter the fence, and head back for the mansion. They contact the rest of the team to let them know that BS reinforcements have arrived….

Inside, Ivan has destroyed a number of works of horrifying art, and has finally uncovered what looks like a basement door behind a large oil painting of a shadowy figure (presumably LP) surrounded by a number of young males, who all look similar to the boytoy that the team recently ransomed. He can’t find any way to open it. Upstairs, Remus and April enter the right hand side door, and discover the smoking wreckage of a nice four poster bed. There is limbless, charred torso leaning against the wall, Remus turns it over to discover the boytoy’s face staring up at him, intact. They panic, thinking that the cranial bomb somehow didn’t activate-yet there’s a hole blasted in the wall, and the room bears significant evidence of an explosion.

Downstairs, Ivan has set up with the lynx covering the open front door from behind a nearby statue. He notices BS goons beginning to enter thru the front gate of the fence at the head of the yard-the illusion prevents him from seeing out, as it appears LP didn’t like looking at the surrounding neighborhood, and preferred mountain vistas. Ivan opens fire with the lynx, scattering the first wave of attackers, who take cover in the guard booth by the gate, as well as behind the various exotic animal cages in the small zoo set up in the yard. Ivan fires thru the animals to get the guards behind, with mixed successes, but he eventually finishes off the first wave. He lets the rest of the team know that they have company out front as well as out back. He ponders how long it will take his cab to get here on autopilot, and decides that they may need to find a different way out, although he tells the car to get near to the edge of BS turf, in case they need it for extraction.

Upstairs, they exit this room, and Remus tries to kick down the door in the center, at the head of the stairs. It is locked and doesn’t give, and he injures his foot. April decides to blow it with c4. As she’s rigging the charge, Remus barrels thru the other door (on the left), finding it open, and going flying into the room. He lands in a pool of blood and viscera at the top of a drain set in the floor beneath a gore-stained operating table. The room has a series of cameras, torture tools, and simstim rigs with accompanying restraint devices. There is blood spattered over most of the walls and equipment. Remus is readying to leave, when something breaks thru his “hidden” mode comm firewall, and opens a channel. It is Daedelus, requesting that Remus grab a bag which should be nearby-it describes it to Remus, and he locates the bag. Daedelus says it will pay the team well to deliver it, also, it has arranged so that there is a someone in the basement who can aid their escape, if other paths are closed off.

April blows the security door, and sees a security station, two guards, one of which was stunned by the blast. April quickly dispatches him, but takes serious damage from the other guard, who shoots her repeatedly with his sidearm, sending her to the floor in a pool of blood. Remus runs and blows away the still-seated guard, leaving brains splattered all over the cameras and readouts behind him. Remus first aids April back to consciousness, and then begins searching for ways to open the basement door and close the front door.

Downstairs, the second wave has arrived, this time with a rocket launcher in tow. April sets up at the top of the stairs to snipe, and gets the drop on a few goons, as Ivan continues to fire with the lynx, eventually needing to bellycrawl up and replenish it ammo drum. Many more caged exotic animals meet a grisly end. The goon with the rocket launcher dodges out and lobs a rocket directly into the statue the lynx is behind, sending Ivan and the lynx scrambling for cover. The lynx takes serious damage, but covers Ivan, protecting him from harm. Remus has hacked the system and is perusing a diagram of a nearby switchboard, to determine which switches to hit to open and close the doors he wants. He finds the switch to open the door to the basement and does so, and then finds the switch for the front door of the house and sets that to close as well. The door begins to slowly grind shut along a track. Remus turns to exit the control room.

K and HCB have entered the house thru the hole April blasted in the back and join up with the rest of the team, just in time to see a final missile slip between the closing front doors. HCB, feeling lucky, makes an amazing shot and wings the missile, sending it off-course (it was headed for the lynx again) and straight into the upstairs control room-a little bit of bad luck, but still an impressive shot. Remus dives out of the room as the missile approaches, and avoids taking serious damage, but April is unable to move far enough due to being in a sniping position, and is knocked unconscious again by the force of the blast. Remus lands atop her body sliding down the stairs to temporary safety. April is looking really rough by now, but K restores some of her vitality with magical laying on of hands.

The team enters the now-open basement door, and finds it to be an elevator, with no buttons. Remus examines the copied switchboard diagram, and finds the “use elevator switch. He returns to the blasted control room, and begins trying to hardwire a usable fix. HCB and April go to cover the hole in the back wall, as it seems to be the only other entrance. They shoot the top of the head off of the first goon thru, but then are met with noxius smoke grenades launched past his body. They retreat towards the elevator, as Remus sets up the switch-he rewires the circuit, but doesn’t want to hit the switch and get left behind, so he attaches a pullcord, enters the elevator, and yanks. The circuit closes, as do the elevator doors. The team begins its descent.

K decides to astrally project ahead of the group to scout for trouble, and discovers an astral barrier near the bottom of the shaft. Deciding that any alarms which might be triggered have already gone off, he destroys it in astral combat, and the team descends the rest of the shaft in peace. The doors open at the bottom with a loud “ding,” and they exit into a short hallway with a set of swinging doors at the bottom. A small amount of mist or fog of some sort is seeping thru cracks in the doors. They enter, Remus first. He is hacked with a meat cleaver as soon as he crosses the threshold, and turns in shock to see a large fat man in a sleeveless shirt and sweatpants, with long stringy hair and an unkempt goattee. He swings the cleaver again, and Remus dodges out of the way, as the lynx slips past him and prepares to fire. K suggests they don’t shoot, thinking this might be the ally Daedelus spoke of, but Ivan disagrees and opens fire, disembowling the man with a full-auto burst into the gut. He crumbles to the floor moaning and hemorrhaging. HCB executes him with a shot to the head, and tries to record the smell of the moment of his death with his olfactory system.

The team examines the frigid room, and all except Ivan are horrified to see human carcasses in various states of disassembly hanging on meathooks around the room, as well as some choice cuts layed out on a nearby butcher block counter. Ivan, having seen a lot worse in his days as an organlegger, is fairly blase about the whole thing. They decide to leave the room thru the second set of swinging doors at the back. This time April goes first, fueled by her adrenal pump. It is warmer in the next room, and the smell is a great deal worse. April sees 8 persons chained to the floor along the walls at the side. The floor slants towards the center of the room, where the is a grated drain which runs its length. The whole spectrum of bodily excretions is draining down the slanted floor, away from the captives, towards the grate. Many of the chained persons moan in fear, as April looks truly terrifying-covered in both dried and fresh blood, with a variety of bullet holes, scorch marks, and other wounds visible thru her tattered clothing, she also has the wild-eyed look of a heavy stim user, due to her adrenal overdrive.

The rest of the team enter-HCB is overwhelmed by the odors. K sees one legless captive, who he instantly identifies with. They also notice that only 1 of the captives, a bald elf with a large red beard, does not appear afraid of them. They question him, and he introduces himself as Ut-Napishtim, an expert housebreaker and safecracker. He then makes a deal with the team, after they fill him in on the current situation: he can help them escape, in exchange for a few things. He wants to be freed, reacquire all of his gear, and retrieve a small item from the safe in the next room. He says he was hired to retrieve this item by a family who paid it in ransom to the BS in exchange for their kidnapped daughter, and wishes it returned. He was captured while infiltrating the mansion, and is not sure how long he has been here, as he was being tortured in horrible “BTL” simstims for an unclear amount of time, and he obviously hasn’t been able to see the day/night cycles. He says if they would be so kind as to free one of his limbs, he will be able to do the rest. The team agrees to his demands.

He is far more heavily restrained than any of the other captives. Ivan frees one of his arms with his monofil chainsaw, and Ut removes some lockpicks from his beard and quickly makes his way out of the rest of the restraints. He dances a small flourish, and declares himself as “The Escapist”, his performing name, which he says he took from an old book. He proceeds to free the remaining captives. HCB attempts to heal one of the captives, who appears catatonic, but accidentally kills him in the attempt. K heals and levitates the legless man, John Caruthers, as he feels responsible for his well being. There are 5 other hostages remaining, 3 men and 2 women, all human. The walls in the room are covered in sratchmarks, where captives have attempted to record the length of their stays.

Ut leads the team into the next room thru a secure door at the back, which he quickly opens. They enter what appears to be a high-tech lab of some sort-there are a variety of computer systems and vats, as well as a large painting hung on the rear wall, and some supply lockers near the door. Ut opens one, and retrieves his gear, equipping various devices to his bod before donning his full body stealth suit and mask, and equipping his goggles. He rummages in a bag he has with him, and pulls out a variety of complex and arcane looking tools, and then approaches the painting, which swings aside to reveal a long corridor leading to a huge safe. Upon further inspection, this turns out to be a tromp-loeil, providing a false illusion of depth, the safe being much closer, and smaller, than it appears.

The rest of the team, while exploring, has found a medkit, which K keeps, as well as examined the vats. They contain a number of persons in various stages of development, but all sharing a familiar face: that of Eronemus, the boytoy. Apparently LP has really specific taste in men (in a metaphorical sense-his taste for metahuman flesh appears less discriminating). The team is fairly disturbed by this discovery. HCB and Remus provide some assistance to Ut while he hacks the safe, using a multi-digit glove and muttering under his breath. He seems surprised at how quickly it goes, putting it down to good luck. He grabs a small pouch, and checks inside. Satisfied, he tells the team that the rest is theirs, but that they out to hurry, as BS goons will probably find their way down eventually.

Remus checks the safe, and passes Ivan the pistols that Wade requested, as well as grabbing a handful of credsticks and a detachable harddrive. Ivan and Ut then rig up a series of grenades to the clone vats on a pullcord, and exit the room. Ut pulls the cord, and there is a satisfying explosion. He then pulls up a section of the draingrate in the dungeon room, and tells everyone to get ready to jump in. From a few rooms over, the team hears aloud ding which they recognize as the elevator arriving-they didn’t disable it or even try to jam the doors. Whoops. This convinces them that the sewers are a decent option. Ivan commands his car to meet them at a nearby location at the edge of BS turf, and the team begins jumping in, lead by Ut. K and his legless friend float down. As the team lands in the chamber below, they hear gunfire from above, and the two male captives who remained above drop down, trailing blood thru the air, to land with a grotesque splash in the filthpool.

Next up: can they make good their escape?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
April O’Mally
Remus Chandrasekharan
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
“K”
Asp
Ramose Hotep
UltraBoy!
Others
Daedelus
One Shot Wade
Long Pig
Ut-Napishtim
John Caruthers
Madame Gavral
Yann Tillberg
Karen Cortez
Romulus Chandrasekharan
Tamany Clark
Kano
Thutmose

Ut and April rig the last of her c4 to the side of the wastechamber, and blow it open-it begins draining into the public sewers below. The team quickly drops down, motivated by the gunfire and grenades from the BS goons above. They begin making their way thru the sewers out of BS turf. They come across a t-intersection near the edge, and come under fire from the walkway opposite-some goons are crouched behind some stonework and in some alcoves in the sewer walls. Ut dives into the flowing sewage (he is wearing a fully enclosed suit) as does HCB. The rest of the team goes prone or takes cover where possible.

HCB fires and clips a goon, but is felled by machine gun fire in response. April jumps into the sewage to attempt to help him, and is herself knocked unconscious. K drops his levitating friend, and tries to start healing people, but is distracted by the shooting and explosions. The lynx provides covering fire a Ivan dives into the sewage. He dispatches one goon with a grenade-he attempts to throw it back, but fumbles it and takes a dive into the sewer to save his friends. It detonates underwater, limiting the blast. Ivan takes some fire in response, but Ut emerges from the sludge and sprays that goon with burst fire from behind, quickly dispatching him. Two goons remain, and the team is looking rough-Ivan takes a lucky shot at one and does some damage, as the lynx continues to fire, finishing off that goon (the lynx is also severely damaged at this point). As one of the goons leans out to take a shot at Ivan, Ut emerges from the sludge again, and lodges a knife in her throat, sending her tumbling back into her alcove, dead.

K spends a few round healing his nearly deceased team members, and then they make their escape from the sewers, piling into Ivan’s cab with the remaining captives, all of whom survived the sewer shootout, largely due to the lynx’s distracting fire. Ivan gets a message from Wade that the hospital was a trap, and to watch his back at the mansion, which had apparently been jammed whilst in BS turf and the sewers. They drive to PC turf (finally! back on safe ground). The team hires a cab and sends the captives to the hospital. April busts open a fire hydrant, and they all hose off. She then decides to head for the same hospital, to heal up and try to get some exclusive. She leaves her gear with Ivan, and buys some disposable paper clothes. She contacts Yann to meet her at the hospital with clothes, make-up and a camera, and then calls Karen, to tell her about her exclusive take on the rescue.

Karen is impressed-she had just heard about the arrival of the disoriented captives at the hospital. She temporarily lifts April’s suspension, and tells her that her hospital bills will go on the corporate account, since April convinces her that she was injured in the course of pursuing leads in this story. She goes to the hospital and heals, and then attempts to get an interview with the captives. Only John Caruthers accepts, and quickly wishes he hadn’t, as April suggests that the loss of his legs, as well as his kidnapping in general, were his fault, and were possibly deserved. She also gives him a really creepy wink, in an attempt to alert him to the fact that she was one of his saviors. He ends the interview. Yann is disturbed by April’s behavior; she has been having more and more trouble understanding emotions and feelings, which seem increasingly irrelevant to her. Karen extends her April’s suspension, and tells her she doesn’t want her working at all, as she is starting to become somewhat of a liability. April decides to take a break for awhile to heal and figure some things out.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team returns to Ivan’s cab, and discovers that both Ut and the detachable harddrive are missing, a note says “see you later-”the escapist””. Remus begins decrypting the credsticks, and gets three of them open, for a fairly large chunk of change, but wipes the fourth on a failed attempt. The team drives to Daedelus’ warehouse, which is positively imposing now, and sells it the bag it requested. It seems thrilled, and compliments the team on their continued good working relationship. Remus gets contact from his brother Romulus, and decides to go hideout for awhile, as there are a wide variety of folks are looking for him, and he is a bit wary of the rumors he has heard of Halfman. Romulus tells him that both Weyland-Yutani and Aztechnology have seperately offered to protect him from his other enemies if he will sell out the rest of his team. Remus decides to find a safehouse thru his Hack the Planet connections, and ponder the offer. The rest of the team heads to Wade’s.

They drop off the pistols, and discover Ut and Wade planning a job to hit the BS’ main money laundering operation. Wade wants revenge for the hospital set-up: apparently his source in the BS may have been compromised, as they definitely had prepared an ambush, with BS soldiers disguised as doctors, orderlies, and patients. And he has some especially bad news: Halfman is definitely in town-Wade’s never seen a metahuman that heavily cyber-modded before, and he made quick work of everyone Wade and Yoleus sent against them. Luckily, some of the BS guards were called off the site (probably back to the mansion) and Wade and Yoleus were both able to escape, with the help of some young ork thriller Yoleus picked up at Fat Carl’s. This reminds Wade that Yoleus is trying to unload this kid, who’s apparently kind of obnoxious, and suggests that the team go pick him up, as he’s decent in a fight. Test him out, see if he’s worth keeping around. Ut and Wade say they will be a bit yet planning the op, so the team decides to look for work elsewhere.

Ivan spends some time up-armoring the lynx at a city chop shop/junkyard operated by Tamany Clark. Ivan impresses him with stories of his exploits and prowess, as well as with the impressive speed of his drone repairs. HCB practices with the Crod Stompaz. K decides to seek out some formulae for some new spells he feels he might need after the last mission, and heads to Madame Gavral’s shop. She fills him in on the job she needs done, which Scrounge had previously gotten an advance on, and tells K that it needs to get done before he can supply all of the items he needs. She introduces him to Asp, a sad looking Israeli man accompanied by a dog. She had hired Asp to act as a local guide to the city of Heliopolis, aka Little Memphis, which is connected to the illicit magical supply harvest that takes place in the Mars Crater. K agrees, and rounds up the team to head out there. They go by Fat Carl’s and pick up Ultraboy! on the way. He is a young, pink-skinned ork, with some cyber-mods, an armored trenchcoat, and a grenade launcher. Ivan instantly falls in love-this is someone who will love all of his bragging. Asp worries about his youth and inexperience.

Ivan realizes that he forgot his eyeball drone on the mansion lawn, and re-opens the connection-it appears to be mounted in a torture chamber, overlooking the slow death of a Problem Children member lashed to an operating table. Ivan permanently severs the connection, and contact Remus to have him hack the datatrail. The team then leaves Mars City, and heads for Helipolis. Ivan spends the ride telling UB! (who is sitting bitch) tales about his various exploits and his past as an organlegger. UB! responds with stories of his idol, Ultraman. This disgusts and annoys Asp, who is a more of a quiet military professional type, and also considers himself somewhat of a humanitarian. He fills the team in on some local customs and practices on Heliopolis in between Ivan and UB!’s banter.

They arrive at the gates of Heliopolis, finding them closed and watched by crocodile headed figures with large halberds. After some quick questions about their purpose in Heliopolis, they are allowed in, and park nearby. The city streets are narrow, and not meant for automotive traffic. It appears to have been built to remind it’s citizens of the old city neighborhoods of many cities in the middle east and north Africa-3 or 4 story buildings surround the narrow streets and allies, filled with the cries of street vendors and small bizaars. Over all of this looms the massive temples to the various gods worshipped here. Following Asp’s lead, the team makes for the temple of Hathor-essentially an entertainment center, with sacred prostitution, gambling, bloodsports, and other activities available. In the attached bar, the Red Delta, they meet Asp’s old merc friend, Kano.

He seems like he is avoiding Asp’s line of questioning and suggests that the team partake of some of the temple’s offerings. They proceed into the partner selection room, and peruse the temple workers on offer. They are all exceptionally beautiful, and provide a plethora of choices in terms of gender, metatype, and size and shape. Asp only sees his dead wife when he looks at them, however, and an insensitive remark from Ivan nearly sets him off. A temple guard bumps into Asp and walks out, and Asp notices that something was dropped in his pocket. He carefully reads the small note, telling them to come to a certain nearby garage for the information they seek. He relays this to the team, and they depart the temple.

K trails behind and attempts to detect threats on both the physical and astral planes. He notices that there are an unusually large amount of spirits performing services throughout the town, but doesn’t find anything worrying. The rest of the team heads into the garage (near the protective wall which rings the town) and sees the troll temple guard from before. He introduces himself as Ramose Hotep, and explains about the current situation. Essentially, since the farming/harvesting of magical supplies in the Mars Carter is illegal without a permit, and these permits are controlled by the AAA megacorps and the great dragons, the local Collosus Corp is reluctant to be officially connected. However, many citizens are involved, and they have recently begun to disappear is disturbing numbers. There are always some people who enter the crater and don’t return, as well as some small processing stations near the crater which go silent, destroyed by unknown forces. But usually, these are a small percentage of the total operation-lately, the numbers have been unacceptably high.

Colossus is trying to keep it quiet, but locals are starting to wonder where some of these missing people have gotten to, so the High Priests on the governing board have decided to deputize an investigation. At the suggestion of Thutmose, from the temple of Thoth, they agreed to cooperate with Madame Gavral (one of their biggest local clients) in seeking out her missing courier, and simultaneously, seeing what has been happening to the harvesters and smugglers in and near the crater. Knowing thar Ramose-Hotep has a cousin on a farm which recently went silent, Thtumose suggested sending him along. RH, eager to please, agreed. The team decides to head for RH’s cousin’s farm, and see what they can find out.

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
“K”
Asp
UltraBoy!
Ramose Hotep
Others
Lefty

The team, plus Ramose-Hotep, load into Ivan’s cab for the drive to the farm. Ivan and Ultraboy! once again trade tails to the horror of Asp. K scouts ahead astrally, noticing that both Asp and RH give off particular signatures on the astral plane-Asp’s is especially glaring. He also discovers a huge and powerful dual-plane barrier just beyond the farm’s location. Ivan, accepting a dare, tries to drive really fast, and nearly wipes out, but recovers quickly. Asp and K are launched into each other by the car’s sudden halt, giving K a bloody nose. RH is terrified of the speed. HCB is not impressed.

Ivan is still driving pretty fast as they near the farm, and doesn’t notice the concealed spike strip which springs up and shreds his tires. The car screeches to a halt again. Ivan and HCB exit and begin repairin/replacing the flats, and HCB drops a bunch of lugnuts all over. Ivan is slightly upset. He deploys the lynx to watch his back. The rest of the team gets out to check out the area, and try and find the hidden farm. Using thermographic vision, they pick up some heat signatures around the edges of a nearby rocky outcropping, and decide to approach. Asp leads, and calls a halt when he notices part of a ring of small concealed sensors embedded in the ground. Most of the rest of the team do not recognize his military signals, however, and he has to stop to explain. Ivan reclines in the cab after fixing the last tire, and dives into the lynx. The team throws some rocks into area within the sensors, which has no effect. They then destroy the nearest two, which also has no effect. HCB then decides to walk thru, which does have an effect.

One of the heat signatures moves, and the team sees a door swing open in the side of the rocky outcropping ahead. Some spiky mastiff-sized dogs approach aggressively. The team tries to respond, but misses with their initial shots, and then the dogs are on them. The lynx, and HCB both take damage, but RH manages to shrug his off, due to his troll hide and massive ceremonial armor. They counter-attack, felling two of the dogs. K manages to do a killing blow to the one in front of RH with a bolt of magic called from the sky, causing RH to believe that his gods have intervened in his favor. Asp attempts a non-lethal strike, but doesn’t succeed. The remaining dog takes another bite out of HCB before they put it down. As it dies, it lets out a terrible howl, which seems to slow most of the team members down quite a bit. The dogs don’t seem to have been fully natural.

The team approaches the cage-it is soundproofed, and now empty. They open the concealed door on the adjacent structure (the other heat signature) and jump when RH is hit in the face by a mop falling over. This room just has a lot of random supplies and heat generating engines inside. Both sheds are under a rock ledge that juts from the side of the outcropping, concealing their heat signatures from airborne surveillance. The team circles the outcropping, and finds a door carved out of the rock, that seems to be open a slit. K tries to project inside, but can’t force his way thru the living earth. RH opens the door and enters.

The room inside is trashed-shelves are tipped over, and bit of debris, food, and such are strewn around the floor. There are bloodstains aplenty, but no bodies. There is also a second door, in the back of the room. HCB cautions the team to be careful, as he smells some explosive residue, and this room doesn’t look like it was damaged by an explosion. Ultraboy! examines the door, and notice a trap set to it. K and Asp leave the room, Ivan pulls the car around. He manages to disarm it (it was fairly basic) and opens the door. Inside, they find the corpse of RH’s cousin, clutching a detonator for the explosives. There is also a small amount of magical items on the processing counter nearby, next to some scales and measuring devices. Asp searches the body for clues-he appears to have died from a series of deep cuts. He also finds a note, saying that “they came at night, and the rest of his team had been killed, and that he hoped to try to escape and bring word to Heliopolis once he was sure they had left. for now, he had set a trap in case they returned-he would not let them take him alive. he thinks they may have headed back to the crater, but is going to wait a bit longer to be sure. he is very tired.” RH translates this from the heirogyphics/script combination it is written in.

The team decides to head for the crater. K projects ahead, and figures that the enormous mana barrier he saw earlier marks the edge of the forbidden zone, and tells the group as much. However, they deduce that the smugglers must have had a way in and out, so Asp decides to try to track the group that left the farm back towards the crater, hoping to find their secret entrance. He gets a little ways, and then loses the trail, although he has a fairly good idea which direction to go. Th team continues along this route, until they see the shimmering barrier at the edge of the crater and halt. Asp once again searches for tracks, and finds an ATV trail along the barrier edge, which they follow to a concealed stone door set into the ground, near where they ATV track turn around. RH opens the door without further investigation, triggering an explosion which he manages to mostly avoid. However, UB!, who was nearby, is heavily injured in the blast.

The team then enters the tunnel, and crawls thru, losing wireless comms halfway, when they cross the barrier. Ivan instructs his car to fight back against anyone who arrives, and then to flee if it takes more than half-damage. They emerge from the far side of the tunnel, and see some firelight flickering from the mouth of the nearest cave set into the craterside. K astrally projects to see if their entrance was noticed, and encounters two watcher spirits approaching Asp’s strobing astral presence. He convinces the spirits to ignore the team, and they depart. But he is worried about Asp endangering the team, as he seems especially worried about water spirits, claiming they hate him for experiments he was forced to partake in back on Earth. They approach-K levitating while Asp sneaks and the rest of the party hangs back. Asp tries to signal that he sees three people around a fire inside, but the rest of the team is somewhat confused, and UB! decides to approach, to clarify. He makes too much noise, and one of the men comes to the cave entrance. Asp shoots him with a taser and knocks him unconscious, and then enters the cave with UB! with their guns out and tells the two remaining men to freeze. They comply.

The rest of the team comes up and they begin questioning the men. The men appear somewhat pale and sickly, and have longer than usual fingernails. They find out that the man they knocked out was the courier they were seeking, which they confirm with the picture Madame Gavral provided. They say they have been hiding in these caves, avoiding whatever is that is out there and has been killing their friends. Asp heals the courier a little, and he regains consciousness and rejoins them around the fire. They offer the team some of the meat that they are cooking. Asp refuses on grounds that it might not on kosher, and RH refuses for similar religious reasons. Everyone else partakes. They begin to feel ill almost instantly, and while questioning what the meat is, one of the men attacks Asp, and the other RH. The fight quickly ends, with two of the men dead, and the courier once again unconscious. They tie him up, and K levitates him to prevent him fleeing.

Meanwhile, UB! and RH have decided to check out the rest of the cave. They wander down the passage aways, and find a dead end, with some stacked boxes. They are pretty sure this is what they are looking for, and both feel a sudden and powerful urge to get the rest of the team back here, and they call out to them. Ivan And HCB join them and ask what they found-as UB! turns to reply, he is sent flying by a blow from a huge hand that swings out from the shadows along the nearby wall. A huge stone-colored furred beast emerges and attacks RH. Ivan slumps to the floor as he brings the lynx back and begins firing, and the rest of the team attacks. K and Asp rush to the area after hearing gunshots, leaving Lefty by the front entrance. K halts the levitation spell on the prisoner when he leaves, accidentally dropping him in the fire, which he doesn’t notice.

RH, Asp, and UB! are all attacking the beast in close combat, as HCB and the lynx attempt to fire between them, and K floats overhead providing spell support. The team is impressed by Asp’s two weapon fighting prowess, involving careful balancing of offense and defense, and swift, brutal counterattacks. However, for all the damage they are dealing to the beast, it seems to be healing rapidly enough to ignore much of it. Meanwhile, it is dealing out some serious hurt to the surrounding team members. Eventually, it seems to be weakening, and finally drops to the ground, leaving the team exhausted. K flies back to the front room, and discovers Lefty confronting a group of 5 more ill-looking humans (which the team has decided are ghouls, based on popular myths and trideo/sim programs). Lefty’s barks and growls were apparently inaudible over the combat in the rear of the cave.

Ivan has the lynx stand over his body while he observes the beast’s corpse to make sure it it actually dead. HCB suggests they burn it, when they have time, believing that he once read a sci-fi story where that worked with this kind of monster. The rest of the team returns to the front of the cave to fight the additional ghouls. Once they realize they have been spotted the ghouls stop trying to placate the dog and attack-1 on Lefty, the other 4 racing towards the team. Lefty takes serious damage, and goes on defense, as Asp races to his aid. K calls down magical attacks on the other four, while UB! launches grenades and RH closes in for the kill with his ceremonial vibroblade. They quickly finish off all 5 ghouls, with limited injury, much of which comes from and errant grenade shot from UB!. UB! and RH return to the back room to grab the boxes they found and make their exit.

Next up: can they escape the crater intact? did they find the answers they were seeking?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
“K”
Asp
UltraBoy!
Ramose Hotep
Others
Lefty
Madame Gavral
Thutmose
Tamany Clark
Jerl
Mikko Asparen
One Shot Wade
Ut-Napishtim
Long Pig
Daedelus

The team decides to burn the wendigo’s body, not being sure how else to halt its regeneration permanently. Since they are still in a wireless dead zone, they are unable to research further for now. The ghoul that K dropped on the fire previously has roasted fairly well by now, and the fire quickly begins to consume the large beast. The cave quickly begins filling with acrid black smoke and the stench of burning fur. HCB records this. Asp heals Lefty’s damage with supplies from his veterinary first aid kit. RH slumps over as his auto-injected drugs wear off, and appears heavily exhausted. Asp warns Ultraboy! that this is the danger of drugs, but UB! doesn’t seem to care what the “old man” says. In the back room, Ivan exits the lynx and examines the stack of boxes that UB! found.

There are six boxes, and as he lifts one from the stack to examine it, he notices a spray painted Olympus Prime logo on the side. He checks the other boxes, and they all bear the same mark. HCB and Ivan open two boxes, and find some leaves, mushroom caps, stems, ores, and such carefully packed inside. They ask K to identify them, and he verifies that they are unprocessed components of magical compounds, although he can’t specifically identify any of them. They intuit that this is probably at least some of Madame Gavral’s missing supply, as they had id’d one of the ghouls as her missing courier. Ivan and HCB begin piling up the boxes outside the cave entrance.

K checks out the area around the entrance, and discovers a few sets of tracks coming from one of the other nearby cave mouths. He assumes these were the ghouls that they just fought, and suggests they investigate, as they may find more supplies, and thus get more money. HCB, Ivan, and Asp initially disagree, although Ivan and HCB come around when Ramose-Hotep volunteers to go in first. Asp ignores them, and orders Lefty back to the car, forgetting that Lefty cannot travel thru the closed smuggler’s tunnel, lacking opposable thumbs to open the door. Asp calls Lefty back, and begins carrying the boxes they did find towards the tunnel, with the assistance of Ultraboy!.

Meanwhile, K astrally projects into the cave mouth, and travels a short ways in before seeing a water spirit ahead. It appears bound to it’s location, and doesn’t follow him back out. He tells the rest of the team, and Asp informs them that he can’t help them in the cave, as water spirits are especially offended by the terrible and unnatural scarring of his astral presence. The team decides to throw in a tear gas grenade, Ivan gives one to K, and he flings it right into the middle of the cave mouth. They hear a small explosion and gas pours out of the entrance. RH enters the cave, travels a short ways using ultrasound vision, and decides he needs to sleep immediately. He lays down, and is soon in a realm of dreams. HCB, after 30 seconds or so of silence, decides to follow RH in. He relies on thermo-graphic vision, and detects a large presence lying in wait-another terrible beast? Upon further inspection, it is only RH. HCB also decides to go to sleep, although he announces this intent over the subvocal mic.

K, hearing this, decides that something is up, and astrally enters the still gas-filled cave (all of the team members have been wearing gas masks/chemical seals). He once again encounters the water spirit. It launches an small orb of water at him as he near the auras of his sleeping companions-they appear to be under some sort of spell. K takes some damage from the orb, but then successfully suggests to the spirit that it leaves them alone. It does, but does not leave its position. K decides to pull out, and returns to his body. He then physically enters the cave to retrieve his still-unconscious teammates. He is struggling to figure out how exactly to wake them up, and decides to take off HCB’s mask to get a better look. HCB awakens in a coughing fit, but manages to overcome the toxins and get his mask back on with minimal injury. He then awakens RH in the same fashion, after trying to nudge him awake doesn’t work.

The three leave the cave, vowing never to tell anyone else what happened within. They tell the rest of the team that they encountered a spirit guard and decided not to go further, since there probably wasn’t anything there anyway. Everyone heads back to the tunnel with the lat of the boxes, and begins traveling thru. Halfway there, their wireless comes back on, much to Ivan’s relief. He begins checking the are with the car’s sensors, while RH opens the door at the opposite end. While holding it open, and looking out, he is slashed in the throat and head repeatedly by a clawed hand emerging from the cover of a nearby bush. He falls unconscious, although his armor prevents any serious damage. The door falls shut as he crumples. Ivan deploys the autocannon, blasts the bush, and calls out “clear” as a spray of blood and viscera covers a few square meters of the magical barrier nearby.

The team exits the tunnel, and enters the car, heading back to Heliopolis with RH’s cousin’s body in the (refrigerated) trunk. The drive is uneventful, and they once again pass thru a gate guarded by crocodile-headed men. They park, and upon RH’s suggestion, make for the temple of Hathor to receive some sexual healing, get a drink, and sit for a minute. Asp plays with Lefty in the street outside. Lacking money, most of the team settles in at the bar and orders drinks, but K gives the temple a 100 nuyen donation for an hour of one of the acolytes time. UB! decides not to, since Ivan doesn’t. K picks the most standard, unmodified human he can find. He spends the first ten minutes crying inconsolably over the loss of his legs, and then collects himself. He feels much better afterward-he has not been with a woman since then since the accident, and finds it less shameful than he initially feared.

HCB, Ivan, and UB! sit in the bar. Ivan opens a tab, and buys everyone drinks. He looks around for anyone interesting, and failing to find anyone, tells stories to UB! once again. Ivan really enjoys the attention. HCB convinces the bartender to broadcast some Crod Stompaz songs over the system, and holds forth on the undercity music scene. Eventually, K emerges, and they exit the bar to return to Mars City and get paid. Ivan tells Kano (the bartender) that UB! is picking up the tab, which he does, admiring how Ivan got him so good. Ivan receives a call from Wade, telling him that the heist job that he’s been planning with Ut is about ready. Ivan says the team will be back shortly.

Across town at the main temple of Thoth, RH has brought his cousin’s body in for the proper burial rites, and meets up with Thutmose. RH fills Thutmose in on the mission, the ghouls, and the possible involvement of Olympus Prime. Thutmose tells RH that OP has been making inroads in Heliopolis, since some of the schismatics are also against terraforming, as they believe it might destroy or obscure ancient relics and temples left behind by the gods in their flight. Thutmose believes that OP hasn’t been acting openly, but he has heard rumors of them recruiting on the sly, and presumes they are planning something big since they have been stealing and apparently hoarding magical supplies (unless they are selling them to unknown sources for funding, of course). Thutmose says he will investigate further, and that he will probably have some work for RH in the near future-Thutmose fears there may be traitors within Heliopolis.

RH returns to his quarters at the temple of Hathor, changes out of his armor into his everyday ceremonial clothing, and then exits thru the bar, encountering Asp and the rest of the team outside. They tell him they are headed back to city to take on a job from Ivan’s gang. RH says that he is going to stay in Heliopolis, as this is his home. Ivan convinces him to come with, since they will be attacking a heathen financial institution, which is the proper domain of Hathor, and also that the Black Shadows, whose money they will be taking, are totally evil. RH eventually agrees, and goes back to Thutmose to get approval. Thutmose agrees, after RH promises not to give Helipolis a bad name, and also to kick back a good portion of his earnings in the usual tithe. The team loads into the car and departs.

Upon arriving back in Mars City, they contact Madame Gavral and tell her they’ve got the stuff. They request she meet them in the undercity, but she refuses, saying she needs the wards around her shop to protect her from her enemies. They agree to meet her there, after she advances them enough on the payment to disguise the car. Ivan purchases morphin license plates and an ID spoofer from Tamany Clark’s chopshop, and Clark informs him that his oil slick sprayer is ready. Ivan, lacking the money currently, says he will return later. Clark offers to delay payment on the install labor for the mods until then as well. Ivan accepts.

Meanwhile, Asp and K take a cab to Gavral’s, where they discuss the job and wait for the rest of the team to arrive. HCB, UB!, and RH go to Slot, where HCB has Jerl meet them with some less obtrusive clothes for RH. Jerl brings a bondage suit that he wears onstage, and which is both too loose and too short for RH, as he is both tall and thin for a troll. He looks less obviously out of place, but still very odd. Ivan picks them up after his mods are finished, and they head for Gavral’s.

Upon arrival, Madame Gavral instructs the them to pull around back, and load in thru the alley entrance. They do so, and Gavral has an employee take over the storefront as she sorts and catalogues the haul. She says it appears to be most of her last shipment, and is very glad to have it. The team informs her of the courier’s fate and the scene at the farm, and she says she has heard some of that just recently from her contacts in Heliopolis. She says it is always a shame to lose a good employee, and that she will need to get some people out to Heliopolis to re-establish regular shipments. Ivan tells her a very crass rendition of their various encounters on the job, playing up the gore and violence. She seems impressed, and offers a little extra money for hazard pay, especially given that they survived an encounter with a wendigo, which she properly id’s for them. The team finds out that Scrounge already collected part of the pay for the job, and didn’t even help out. They get the rest of the money, less the advance, and depart.

Asp and UB! buy subvocal mics and micro-tranceivers to fit in with the rest of the team, and everyone refills their various supplies. They agree to meet up at Wade’s in a day and a half to get the job info for the heist. Asp has posted an ad offering to take in and care for any strays/unwanted pets/etc. that people encounter. He doesn’t get any immediate calls-lots of undercity residents rely on those same animals for free protein and calories. K begins researching some new spells to learn, now that his talismonger is resupplied. Ivan works on repairing the lynx. UB! buys a handheld trideo recorder and shoulder mount, so that he can record his future exploits to show to Ultraman. UB! is also looking for some explosives, but doesn’t have enough money to buy anything powerful right now.

HCB contacts Mikko Asparen and discusses leaving the corp life behind permanently. Mikko masks their call, and warns HCB that the corp won’t let him leave easily, as he has some of their tech and a lot of private knowledge, in his head. HCB ponders faking his own death, but then decides that he has a better idea: he will get arrested for something which will get him sent to the Deimos moon-prison. The corp might extract it’s tech, if they can, but they probably won’t kill him on Lonestar’s jurisdiction. He decides he will take the Mr Johnson from the Azzie drug raid up on his standing job offer to infiltrate the moon, and extract a certain person. The team hasn’t heard from Mr Johnson in a while, but HCB hopes the job is still available. He doesn’t inform the rest of the team yet, although he runs his plan by Remus and April, who both offer him slight encouragement, but don’t seem interested in going along.

The team then meets up at Wade’s the next day, and he and Ut fill them in on the job. Ut tells them that they hacked the hardrive that the team stole from Long Pig’s safe, and that it contained financial data, from which they were able to eventually reconstruct the money laundering set-up that the the Black Shadows use to route their income into respectable financial institutions. Ut tells the team that they had a lot of help hacking from a friend named Daedelus: initially Ut and Wade didn’t believe he was the team’s friend, and assumed it was a trap, but Daedelus knew all the proper watchwords and provided satisfactory proof, so they cut him in on the job.

Ut says: The money laundering operation works like this: the Black Shadows get deposits for their ransoms/extortions/etc. in one-time use secure accounts via matrix transfers. They also sometimes get payment in precious metals, information, and other mediums, but we’ll ignore those for now. They download the money from the matrix to secure credsticks via undercity banks. They then transfer the credsticks to an uppercity bookie, who launders the money through its gambling operation, and then transfers it back to secure credsticks, which are taken by armored truck to a private upper city bank and deposited, along with any non-money payments, in a safety deposit box. This leaves their funds less vulnerable to hacking, and covers their trail pretty well, if angry ex-victims or the cops or whoever go looking for the money.

The plan is to first hit the bookie’s. It’s in an mafia controlled area above the warehouse district, and is probably paying “protection” money, but since it’s not actually mob-ru (they’re more into BTL’s and the like), they probably won’t care too much if it gets hit. So the team needs to take over the bookie’s without alerting any external security or setting off any alarms, and then needs to get one or two guys ready, in uniform, to get on the armored truck with the day’s shipment of credsticks. Obviously, they can’t let the guys on the truck see anything irregular at the bookies, so they need to hit it pretty quietly and quickly-get in and out before anyone notices. They can’t hit the truck when it arrives since the area is too busy and populated-there’s a bunch of pawn shops, drug dens, and the like around. Daedelus is going to hack the wireless security link and any nearby cameras to keep scrutiny away from the bookies for the 10-minute window the team will have to take it over before the truck gets there.

Once they got some guys on the truck, the team is going to wait until it goes under a certain overpass on it’s route (Ut sends an ARO map to all the members), and the halt the truck and take it over. It’s a Spartan Armored Car, and should have two guards (probably trolls) in back, and 1 or 2 guys upfront. Their cars usually go wireless or in hidden mode to avoid hacking. Daedelus is going to be hacking cameras again, as well as diverting traffic via NavGrid to allow the team to operate unmolested. They need to take over the car with minimal damage, since they’ll need it to get into the bank.

Once they have the truck, they will get the uniforms off the guards and drive to the bank, arriving as close to on schedule as possible to avoid any unnecessary questions. They will park in the secure lot by the bank’s side/business entrance, and two or three guys (however many uniforms they can get) will go in with the shipment, and meet up with the bank manager. The bank will be using MAD and millimeter-wave scanners, so anybody with illegal cyber-mods, or anybody who relies on conventional weaponry, should probably not be in this group. There is also a separate entrance for preferred clients, with biometric scanners, if they can figure a way to get thru that. The team convinces Ut to go with them at this point, so this group will be made up of: Ut, Asp, and RH, since none of them have any cyberware.

Ut then explains that this team will need to temporarily or permanently disable the scanners, so the rest of the team can get in soon after without triggering the alarms. The first group will go down to the basement vault with the manager, and probably two bank guards. They will incapacitate the guards and manager once the vault is open, without setting off any alarms, and will then raid the BS deposit boxes, as well as one box whose contents Daedelus has requested as payment for its assistance (Wade, Ut, Asp, and RH are unaware of Daedelus’ nature-Ivan informs UB!). Meanwhile, the team upstairs will have gained control of the situation, by closing off the exits and pulling the tellers, guards, and any assistant managers away from their stations, which are surely equipped with alarms. The team upstairs could also collect loose credticks and various small valuables from any clients that are present. Daedelus says it can handle jamming wireless signals leaving the bank, but that the alarms also probably have hard-wired components, so it would be best if they didn’t go off at all.

If any alarms are triggered, but no specific information is sent out, the first responders will be a few cars of Lonestar street cops, who will ascertain the nature of the problem and call in backup as needed. They will arrive in about a minute, give or take a few seconds for variables. If somebody actually gets them some info, they will respond with appropriate force initially. If anything really heavy goes down, Daedelus might need to get out of there to cover his tracks, so that he can’t get traced back. Wade tells the team that collateral damage isn’t an issue on any part of this mission, as long as it doesn’t compromise the mission, and that the success of the mission is the most important thing.

The team briefly discusses their plan, and then heads out. RH purchases a cermaic knife from Wade. Asp leaves Lefty and his gear behind. Ivan steals a car, which HCB and UB! drive to the bridge ambush site and park. They remain there. The rest of the team goes to the bookies. Ut, having said he will meet them there, is giving an entrancing perfromance across the street, distracting the nearby pedestrians. RH almost gets sucked in, but pulls himself out of it. He goes around the side of the building after Ivan discovers what looks like a loading door there. They wait while Asp and K go in thru the front. There are two clerks behind thick glass, and two customers in the lobby. K suggests that one clerk go into the back room and open the loading door. He does so, as one of the customers starts hollering about “where’s my money!” “that guy jusy wandered off!” and so forth. Asp tries to talk him down unsuccessfully, and K eventually suggests he quiet down and relax, which he does.

The loading door opens, and RH lobs in a prepared neuro-stun grenade. The surprised looking clerk who opened the door drops, as does one of the guards inside. RH also takes a blast of the gas right in the face, but stays conscious. He runs into the room, ignoring a silenced shot from the guard’s pistol, and knifes the guard in the throat. Ivan enters and finishes him off with his silenced room sweeper. Out front, they hear some popping and thudding from the back room, and the remaining clerk grabs something under the counter and heads for the door, to the protests of the customers. K fries the clerk with a bolt which emerges seemingly from nowhere above his head. The clerk drops the sawed-off shotgun he was holding. Asp paralyzes one of the customers with a nerve strike, and then does the same to the other, who froze up during all this. Ivan tries to hack the camera system he finds in the back room, with no success, and then decides to just take the mono-filament chainsaw to it, and rips the devices up right good.

Asp ko’s the 2 paralyzed customers by repeatedly punching them in the head. K comes to the back room, while Asp watches the front door. K and RH find the secure boxes by the loading door, and RH rips the arms off one of the guards’ jackets to provide his disguise. K decides not to accompany RH in the truck, since they can’t find a big enough bag or box to hide him in. Ivan stacks all the bodies behind the counter out front. Asp tells him to hide the customer’s bodies too-Ivan executes them, and then hides with K behin the counter once the truck arrives. RH opens the loading door, one of the Spartan guards scans the secure boxes, and RH gets aboard. One of the guards mocks him for being so thin for a troll. There are, as expected, two troll guards and 1 human driver.

Once he’s in, Asp sends a comm message to HCB and UB! that they’re on their way, and phase 1 is complete. Ivan and K head for Ivan’s car, while Asp exits out the front-he signals Ut, whi wishes his audience goodbye, and then disappears in a cloud of smoke, quickly reappering next to Asp at the door, changed out of his performance clothes into his sneaking suit. He tells Asp to head for the car while he fuses the lock on the door. He then joins the team in the car, and they head for the truck ambush site.

RH prepares 2 more neuro-stun grandeas in his pockets, and plans that he will set them off once he feels the truck slowing, near where his ARO indicates the site is. UB! gets out and hides next to the stolen car, while HCB waits in the driver’s seat. The rest of the team follows the armored car until they see the bridge coming up, and then pull up alongside. K suggests the driver (the windows are only partially tinted) pull over and get out under the overpass. As the truck approaches the overpass, it begins to slow, and RH sets off his grenades in the back. They quickly flash and RH and one of the guards slump unconscious in their seats, the other barely stays awake. He begins pounding on the wall separating the back from the cab, as he can’t see the intercom button in the smoke. The truck has stopped at this point, and the driver seems to be still planning to get out, when he sees UB! running towards him with a grenade launcher and snaps to his senses. He floors it, and peels out. Asp jumps out of Ivan’s cab and runs for the truck.

HCB decides to try to ram the truck with his stolen car, and accelerates a little too rapidly, zipping past the front of the truck and smashing into the pylon behind it. He escapes injury and doesn’t even go flying or anything due to the realtively low-speed impact, but the car is pretty trashed. Ivan cuts in front of the truck with his cab to try and slow it down, by aggressively cutting it off, and hoping it can’t just ram thru him too easily. Behind the truck, Asp sees the back door swing open, and a cloud of smoke pour out. He puts on an impressive burst of speed, and ends with a powerful leap, grabbing onto the rear bumper and beginning to follow suit. UB! attempts to imitate him, but misses by a few feet and falls flat on his face, bruising his body (and also his dignity) in the process. HCB runs after the truck, firing blindly, but does no damage.

The remaining troll guard tries to stomp on Asp’s hands, but seems woozy from the neuro-stun and misses. Asp is able to reach up and throw him off the truck while hauling himself up. The troll rolls and skids down the road, and is shortly unconscious. HCB walks up and executes him, and then begins stripping him of his uniform. From Ivan’s cab, K attempts to blast the driver with magical energies, but misses, and passes out from the mental drain of all his strenuous spellcasting. Ivan deploys the autocannon, and points it at the driver, while Asp, in the back, suggests over the now-visible intercom, that if the driver pulls over they they will let him go. The driver doesn’t believe him until Asp swears on his dead wife, and then he pulls over just short of the end of the overpass’ concealment.

Asp grabs the shotgun off the unconscious troll guard in the back, and heads out to where the driver is standing. UB! is holding him at gun- (grenade-?)point. Asp orders him to strip, and then paralyzes him while he is bent over taking off his uniform pants. It is very difficult to get his pants the rest of the way off, but they manage. Asp then ko’s the paralyzed driver, and tells the rest of the team that he will personally hurt them if they try to kill the driver, since he swore to let him go. Everyone thinks he’s a softie, but they also know he’s tough, so noone seems to wish to fuck with him. They now have two unconscious trolls in the back of the truck (on of whom is supposed to be entering the bank in the first wave), 3 uniforms (two of which are troll sized), and an unconscious mage. Fortunately, the truck is largely undamaged (aside from some denting on the front where it rammed Ivan’s car) and they are still on time, and seemingly unnoticed.

Next up: can they pull off phase 3?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Harmony Craig Bottow
Ivan the Jackle
“K”
Asp
UltraBoy!
Ramose Hotep
Others
Halfman
One Shot Wade
April O’Mally
Tendo
Remus Chandrasekharan
Thutmose

The team takes a moment to collect themselves under the overpass. They collect weapons and uniforms from the dead and unconscious guards, and take stock of their situation. Ut-Napishtim and others provide some healing to K and Ramose-Hotep, returning them to consciousness. K then provides some magical healing to the team members who need it. Ut fills them in on the plan again, as they seem to have forgotten who it is supposed to go down. Basically, Ut, RH, and UltraBoy! will enter the bank wearing the Spartan uniforms, with the Black Shadows deposit box, make their way to the vault, get the manager to open it, and then take all the contents of the BS safety deposit box, as well as the content of box #317, which is Daedelus’ payment for helping to plan the job, as well as providing hacking cover during the job. The other team members will meanwhile be upstairs doing crowd control and making sure that no alarms get triggered. Should be a breeze, right?

UB! cuts down the legs on one of the troll uniforms, and cuffs the ends of the pants and shirt. Since he is wearing his armor underneath, he looks appropriately bulky. Ut scans the hand and eye of one of the guards, and gives a contact lens and glove to UB! with copies of these scans. The glove molds to UB!‘s hand and takes on his skin color. This will allow him to use the “executive” side entrance on the bank and bypass the scanners. Ut and RH don’t have cyber or metallic weapons on them, so they won’t set off the scanners either. Asp and RH move the bodies of the guards and driver into a ditch on the side of the road. It is decided that HCB will drive the truck with the first group, and then Ivan will follow with the rest, park nearby, and walk the last block or so to the bank. Ut says he will place a device on the back door which should temporarily keep it open and disable the MAD and mil-wave scanners, allowing the rest of the team to enter without triggering alarms.

They embark. The first team arrives, and they all jump out the back of the van while HCB remains inside. UB! uses an external retinal and palm scanner, and gains entrance. The bank manager greets them, and tells them they were getting worried, as the truck was slightly late. He snaps his pocketwatch shut and suggests they proceed downstairs, followed by two guards as expected. They do so, RH and UB! carrying the box. UB! sees Ut place a small metal box on the door frame as they walk thru, but noone else seems to notice. They enter the bank behind the teller counter, and take the stairs to their right down to the basement.

The other team parks, and begins walking to the bank. K decides to take the front door, as he doesn’t have any ’ware or weaponry to set off the still-working scanners there. The rest of the team goes around the side. In the basement, the first team reches the vault, and the manager pulls out a key on a chain, and asks them for their key. The team did not see this coming, and is unsure how to respond. Ut falls back on the old classic of “kick the nearest guard in the face.” UB! stabs the bank manager thru the mouth with his hand blade. The manager seems shocked by the turn of events, as he now has a hole in the side of his face, thru which a number of his teeth just fell out. RH and Ut take out the two guards, who are firing at them with fortuitously silenced SA pistols. UB! tells the team upstairs that they have a problem as they are entering.

The second team, hearing this, comes in thru the side door. HCB tells them he’s looking for a bathroom, and heads out of the teller cage into the lobby. When Ivan and Asp are questioned by the tellers as to who they are and what they doing there, they respond somewhat inneffectively, and one of the tellers reaches for a button under the counter. They attempt to quick draw there guns. Asp does so, but Ivan has less luck and shoots his roomsweeper thru his jacket. They are both yelling at everyone to stay calm and surrender, so that noone gets hurt. Asp also fires in the direction of the teller near the button. Ivan has taken some Cram, and then modified that with some alcohol, and is freaking out a little. K, near the front door, suggests that one guard surrender, but fails on the other. K also attempts to appear approptiately panicked. An alarm starts wailing, the glass on the office to Ivan’s right shatters, and he is hit with a burst of submachine gun fire from the assistant manager, who is crouched behind his desk. A stunned looking elderly couple sits across from, apparently having been mid-conversation. Ivan responds with a grenade, the assistant manager dives over his desk and out the door, and the elderly couple is shredded, as well as the office windows and walls getting blown out. HCB shoots the remaining guard.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Ut is trying to hack his way into the vault, while RH heals the moaning manager a little bit. The manager reaches for his pocket, and UB! tries to stomp on his throat, but steps on RH’s hand instead. The manager triggers a second alarm, which registers a high whine. Security doors begin to close down over the entrances, and K decides to make a quick escape out the front, before the door slams shut. Two other customers got out with him, and he suggests that they go home and never speak of this to anyone, which they do. Ut is slowly progressing on the vault door. HCB and Ivan are trying to control the crowd, and most of the customers lie down and surrender, but the tellers make a run for a staircase leading up at the end of the hall. HCB shoots two customers by the door since the tellers don’t stop, in the hopes that they will take him seriously. They continue fleeing. Asp is running downstairs to see what’s happening down there, since he hasn’t heard from UB! since they entered.

UB! reports that everything is alright, but that the manager triggered a wireless alarm-hence the lockdown. The team is now on a clock, as the first responders will be there within 30 seconds-1 minute of the first alarm being triggered. Ut is nearly thru, and suggests the Asp and UB! head back upstairs while RH watches his back. They do so. UB! intercepts the fleeing tellers at the far end of the hall, using the other stairs up from the vault. He kicks one out of his way and heads upstairs. Asp emerges at the top of the stairs.

For the last few seconds, the team has been receiving meesages from an unknown source on their wireless comms. The meesages are philosophical in nature, questioning the true meaning of existence, perception of time and self, and the purpose and nature of (meta)humanity. Asp is entirely opposed to the positions that the speaker takes on these subjects. The messages end with the mysterious speaker telling the team that his employer has decided that they all must die. One of the customers in the lobby stands back up, and reaches out towards HCB. As he does so, his arm splits open, revealing a minigun begin to cycle up. HCB attempts to shoot him right in the mouth, but Halfman seems to laugh off the damage, telling HCB that this is the first time in a while that he has had to engage his pain editor, and he looks forward to a good fight. HCB dives for cover, but his luck betrays him and he is gunned down in a hail of bullets. The rest of the team surmises that this is Halfman. They are unsure if HCB lives or not. The assistant manager (who had just dived out of his office to avoid Ivan’s grenade) fires on Halfman, who promptly returns fire with somewhat overwhelming force. The manager is quickly shredded into bloody tatters.

In the basement, Ut and RH are into the vault, and Ut gives RH his autopicker to start work on one of the boxes, while he works on the other manually. Outside, K has doubled back to the side entrance, and is astrally projecting back into the bank, where Halfman is spraying the whole lobby with autofire, and making short work of the remaining customers. K sees auras rapidly dimming, and is somewhat horrified at this level of killing. Ivan, meanwhile, has brought the car around front and begins blasting the security door with autocannon shells, making a series of large dents. Asp decides to assault Halfman head on, as he is so offended by his philosophy. K simultaneously attacks Halfman in the astral plane. This seems to be working for a bit, as Halfman has to divide his attentions, but he does considerably more damage to K and Asp then they are able to do to him, and K is forced to retreat as he nears death. He reenters his physical body and heads out front to hide out in Ivan’s car. Inside, no longer distracted, Halfman is pummeling Asp severely.

Fortunately, Ivan’s autocannon shells finally punch thru the front door, with a little help from a bolt of mana from K, seding the security door flying towards the rear of the bank, busting a huge hole thru the bullet-proof teller cage. Halfman and Asp both dive out of the way, but this gives Halfman room to open up with his minigun again, which he does, and Asp is ko’d. Police cars also pull up out front at this point (although this is still only the first responders, so just 3 patrol cars for now). Halfman yells about how much he hates cops over the wireless. Gas begins to pour out of the ceiling in the bank, and most of the team quickly puts on masks, or holds their breath and makes for the exits. Ivan, unfortunately, is still rigging, and passes out quickly, being entirely unaware of the gas. Halfman seems to merely stop breathing.

In the basement, Ut finishes his box, and then quickly finishes off RH’s as well, while RH runs upstairs to help out, grabbing the unconscious Ivan on the way. Ut seems terrified when the team relays that Halfman has arrived, and wishes to make a quick exit. Outside, the cops have left their cars, and two advance on Ivan’s dormant vehicle while the other 6 covert them. They are shouting to put both hands out the window and open the door. K obliges, and gets out. They tell him to get on the ground. Instead, he levitates straight into the sky, superman-like, avoiding most of their gunfire as he does so. However, he is still grievously injured, and decides to make for his home base to recuperate, hoping that the team can make it without him. Upstairs, UB! busts into an executive office, and finds a control panel. He decides to start pressing buttons, and is eventually able to figure out a sequence which shuts off the gas and releases the security doors. He heads back downstairs. The cops are now approaching the front of the bank, having determined Ivan’s car is empty. Halfman wastes 3 of them as they enter the front door. The remaining 3 call for backup, meaning the SWAT team is on it’s way.

Ut and RH (carrying Ivan) dash out the side door while Halfman is distracted, and hole up in the back of the Spartan truck, where RH and Ut team up to quickly heal Ivan. Ivan dives back into his car and pulls away thru the cop car barricade, obliterating another cop with the autocannon as he does so. He tells the car to get around back and meet them at the far end of the alley as they hear Halfman approaching from the bank-he fires on the truck, and the armor dents heavily but holds. Ut tells RH and Ivan to cover their eyes, and chucks a few flashbangs out the back. They all run for the end of the alley, where the car should arrive shortly. Halfman comes charing out of the bank and fires on them, but they manage to avoid the rain of lead, diving into the car, which absorbs much of the damage. Ivan rigs again, speeding back around front to try and rescue some of the team from the lobby. Halfman, frustrated, reenters the bank.

Inside, UB! has run out into the lobby to try and grab some of his teammates. He hauls Asp partway up and is making for the door when Halfman reenters and opens fire. Although Aps absorbs some of the shots, the ones that get thru are enough to Knock UB! unconscious, although they are near to the door. Ivan’s car pulls back around front, surprising the cops, who had not expected it’s return, and had only just gotten into their cars again to chase it. Ivan rams the car blocking th street on the side he is coming in on, and pulls to a stop right in front of the bank door. RH, having quickly equipped his cermeonial armor, jumps out to grab some teammates. They can all hear sirens approaching rapidly-presumably the SWAT team. RH grabs UB! and Asp, and starts hauling them towards the car, but is also gunned down by Halfman, who is approaching the entrance. Ut is screaming at Ivan to get the fuck out of there, but Ivan insists they get the team members, so together they manage to haul RH, Asp, and UB! into the car. The SWAT team arrives in two large trucks, unloading two squads who rapidly deploy into cover and open fire. Halfman steps forth from the front of the bank, and Ivan finally decides it is time to get the hell out of there, even though HCB is still inside. He directs Ut to the rocket launcher in the back, and Ut blasts one of the original patrol cars out of their way as they speed off. The SWAT teams do some damage to the car as they flee, but they seem pretty occupied by Halfman, who is wreaking some pretty severe havock. Ivan alters his morphing license plate to read “Fuck Cops!.”

As they flee, Ivan tells Ut to get up front and man the dash mounted machine gun, which Ut sets up on it’s pintle. He begins firing at any cars still in the street to clear a path, leading to a lot of civilian vehicles swerving wildly to either side, and pedestrians diving for cover. Ivan is freaking out, the cram and alcohol combo seems to be affecting him something bad. He hears a helicopter, and looking up, sees one bearing down on them from straight ahead, a few stories above the traffic. He nails it with the autocannon, sending it spinning out of control into a nearby building, where it crumples and crashes to the ground in flames. As they drive by, Ivan and Ut clearly see the Hermes News logo on the side. April gets a call shortly thereafter from her producer (Karen Cortez) that April’s cameraman and friend Yann Tilberg, was horribly injured while covering a chase in progress. Viewing the footage, April recognizes Ivan’s car.

Meanwhile, the (mostly unconscious) team is fleeing in Ivan’s car, and making tracks for the undercity, where they hope they will be safe. Ivan morphs his plate back to something regular. Once Ivan is doubly sure that they aren’t being followed, and Ut has gone over everything a couple times with a scanner and tag eraser, the team calls Wade to meet up, and head to an abandoned warehouse. Ut takes his share and skedaddles, as well as taking Daedelus’ box to drop off. Wade pays the team well (10% of the total haul, plus medical at Doc Todd’s). Wade also tells the team that Tendo (a now ex-PC member) snitched them out to the Black Shadows on this job. Apparently he held a grudge against Ivan for outing him as an ork poser and getting him arrested for boosting cars. Wade gives Ivan the address where Tendo is holed up, and tells him that there might be a few BS guards.

April calls Ivan, and tells him he better help Yann out in any way he needs, or else she will be holding him personally responsible (which, techinically, he is). Ivan tries to talk her down a little, but is not very successful. He heads over to Tamany Clark’s chopshop/scrapyard and quickly removes the catbomb, just in case Yann dies or something else sends April over the edge. He keeps the detonator on his dash. The rest of the team heals up and lays low, after splitting up the money. They hear that K got away all right, and get him his share as well. They meet up at Slot to talk about future plans and commemorate HCB, who was arrested by Lonestar and sentenced to hard time on Deimos. They also hire Remus at a group rate to hack their collective datatrails, clean up the car’s records, etc. They also watch some news footage of the heist, and see that after they left, Halfman continued his shootout for another minute or so, appearing to finally take some damage, before escaping in a hijacked SWAT van, which has since been found stripped of parts in the undercity. They also find out that they are all wanted, with at least some trideo of each of them, although most have not been positively id’d. RH calls Thutmose to apologize for disgracing Heliopolis, and Thutmose tells him not to return until he has redeemded himself. The team agrees to deal with Tendo after they’ve all healed up, as nobody likes a snitch.

Meanwhile, in a Lonestar holding facility in the upper city: HCB awakens briefly for the first time since his arrest (he was briefly revived and then beaten heavily). A Lonestar judge sentences him to 15-20 years hard labor on Deimos Prison Moon after reviewing trideo and testimony from the heist. HCB next regains consciousness to a NeoNET rep sitting across a table from him in what seems to be an interrogation room. She tells him that he has no idea how expensive it has been to get in to see him, but that fortunately NeoNET is on good terms with Lonestar, and so they have arranged it. NN of course wants their proprietary tech back from HCB, and plans to remove it before he begins his sentence. The rep signals to someone behind HCB, who tries to turn, but finds himself immobilized. He hears a saw start up, and then quickly passes out from the pain as they cut into his skull. He awakens next in a holding cell, waiting for the next shipment to Deimos. His skull feels fragile, and he has a large scar on the left side of his head (the hair around the area is stubbly-it seems he’s been out for a few days at least). He can;t access any of his ‘ware to see what they took, but he definitely feels like something is missing. Now he just has to let the Johnson know that he’s in, and get the mission details.

Next up: The prison moon-will anyone come to help HCB complete his mission?

Dramatis Personae
Runners
Harmony Craig Bottow
Others
Mr Johnson
Keb
Luther
Malice
Samson
Ken Ichiro

HCB awakens again, in yet another holding cell. He is getting sick of this shit. As he regains awareness, his head still feels lighter and he is really missing the lack of his olfactory booster, which seems to have been disabled or removed. Without his suit/helmet and comm, he can’t even access his internals to tell what’s missing. He notices that he now shares a cell with three other people: one ork and two humans. The ork and one of the humans appear to be asleep or unconscious. The other human is watching him intently. When HCB reacts, this person starts talking.

He tells HCB that he has been sent by a mutual friend to inform HCB of the terms of his current employment. Mr Johnson is apparently not thrilled at HCB going to jail ahead of schedule, as it cost quite a lot to send this person in. He has been imprinted with a construct persona capable of answering limited questions regarding the job and providing basic parameters, as well as discussing compensation to some degree. He has disabled the other two prisoners with a poison concealed on his person, and temporarily jammed the comms leaving the cell’s monitoring systems. When the guards ineveitably come to investigate, a transmitter in his head will emit a HF tightbeam signal to a nearby concealed transponder, which will relay the conversation to Mr Johnson, who will then arrange for the rest of the team to join HCB. Obviously, this is expensive and rather unideal, but Mr J is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

HCB and Mr J’s messenger converse about the job: the basic plan is that HCB will first enter the main facility and get processed, as all prisoners do. Having no useful gang or syndicate ties to help him out, he will have to find his own allies in the main complex to help him gain access to a travel pass to leave for the external farms/factories/labs. Once he has the pass, he needs to do a few things. He needs to find a farm where he can either permanently or temporarily disable the sensor grid to allow the rest of the team to drop in (although any of them that wish to come in through the jail will be encouraged to do so, as it will be far easier). He will also need to plan for future access to a farm where he can once again disable the sensors to allow for pickup/extraction, although that can wait until after the team arrives. HCB also needs to gain access to a factory where the team can produce the mechanisms of their escpae, plans for which will be sent along with the rest of the team. HCB can also lay the groundwork for the actual mission as much as he is able: namely, finding out how best to gain access to the Faraday cages in the secure wing of the main complex in order to extract the target. THe messenger promises that compensation for this job will be commesurate to the difficulty of the tasks at hand.

Unfortunately, they are not able to discuss much further as the guards arrive more quickly than expected. The messenger’s eyes flash briefly and he emits a high scream and begins bleeding from his eyes and ears before collapsing on the ground. The guards rush in and forcibly subdue HCB, who is about as suprised as they are. As they search the messenger’s body, they find a number of Black Shadows tattoos. They then beat HCB into unconsciousness.

He awakens a bit later (he thinks not too long) staring into space. He appears to be enclosed in some sort of small pod with a transparent front. He panics briefly as he is encased in some odd sort of gel, but this is cut short by a far greater panic as he suddenly drops rapidly towards the moon below. He appears to be traveling at fairly extreme speeds, explaining the cushioning gel. It is still fairly crushing, both physically and mentally. The speed keeps up until he enters the atmosphere (Deimos was terraformed before Mars, as a test run), at which point his pod breaks heavily, jolting him again. HCB gets a brief overview of the prison layout, although the closer horizon lines of the small moon prevent him seeing as much as he would like. His pod lands on some sort of pad, and splits open, spilling him and the gel onto the nearby pavement. Some guards in full armor armed with submachine guns gesture him over to a small building on the edge of the complex. He enters, and is processed thru-they record his SIN and biodata, assign him a prisoner number, and inject him with tracking nanotech in order to make sure he is where he is supposed to be. The guards ignore his attempts ar conversation, and HCB cannot make out there faces behind their full riot gear.

HCB exits the processing center thru the back and heads down a set of stairs. At the bottom, he takes a seat in the waiting railcar. He recognizes the ork from his holding cell sitting across from him, and strikes up conversation, braggin about how he killed the BS guy in the cell. The ork seems nervous about talking shit on the BS, and warns HCB that they have a lot of people in here. HCB laughs it off, and talks about how many of them he has been killing lately. The ork moves a couple seats away as the train starts moving. It is a fairly short trip to the main complex, where they emerge into a common area off of the messhall and cellblocks. The prisoners from the train split off, and some head off with group or individuals that seem to have been waiting for them. HCB, unsure what to do, mills around a bit.

All of a sudden, he realizes that there are no guards in sight. He bolts for one of the doors as the room clears out, but it slams shut-the ork from the train apologizes on the other side. HCB turns around and finds three human males sporting BS tattoos approaching him. He tries another door-also locked/barred. The center BS goon tells HCB that he’s got a message from Longpig for him, they engage in some fairly uninspired insult oneupmanship, and then HCB tries to kick him in the balls. The goon deflects th first blow, and hammers HCB in the side with a pipe. The other two goons are circling around, but appear to be following the center goon’s lead. HCB tries to kick him again, and connects this time, sending the goon to the floor with a groan. The other two goons are wailing on him now, but he focuses his attacks on the guy on the floor, stomping on the back off his head and knocking out most of his teeth on the hard concrete floor. HCB takes a hard hit in the back with a pipe from one of the other goons just as some guards rush in and begin breaking up the fight. They finish sending HCB back to the realm of the unconscious, where he has been spending so much time lately.

He awakens sometime later in what seems to be a prison hospital. He drifts in and out of consciousness for a while, and eventually feels able to move about some. He strikes up a conversation with a neighboring convalescent, an Amerindian man named Malice. They trade some stories and info, and HCB finds out he is in the Anarchist Black Cross controlled prison hospital. They also run the library, tech schools, and some of the other main complex facilities. The Mars City Street Gang Collective operates under leadership from some upper echelon Ancients lifers from Earth. They run the messhall and most of the cellblocks, although the AB+ controles their own living areas. Malice warns HCB against the Ancients/MCSG. These seem to be the two main factions in the genpop areas of the main complex. HCB convinces Malice to help him get a job in the prison library, due to his love of sci-fi, although it seems Malice doesn’t really trust him, and is somewhat evasive about the possibility of HCB acquiring a travel pass. HCB is consistently disappointed that no-one seems to have heard of the Crod Stompaz in here, and sets about rectifying that.

After his first shift at the library, HCB heads to the messhall. He is stopped in line and told that Keb wants to see him, and directed over to a young man sitting alone at a nearby table. HCB joins him-Keb is a human male in his late teens/early twenties, and is covered in prison tattoos. Keb suggests that HCB can help out the Ancients since he seems to have access to the AB+ areas of the prison. Keb is looking to expand his turf and impress Luther, the head Ancient, it seems. He wants HCB to find a way to sneak a bunch of gangers into AB+ areas and take over the hospital as a first step. HCB says he will do it and will go look around for a way in. Keb tells him he better not take too long. Keb is kind of obnoxious, but he says he can help HCB get a travel pass and other privileges.

HCB gets up and starts leaving. He decides to start a fight in the hopes of getting sent back to the hospital, and getting a chance to look about. He starts saying the most insulting military specific slang he knows until someone reacts. A guy tries to jump up and swing at him from a nearby table, and HCB swings back. He is soon shot in the back from a gantry above by an Lonestar guard with a nonlethal projectile of some sort. He fakes a seizure until the guards approach and beat him some more before commanding some of the other inmates to take him to the hospital. This time he strikes up a conversation with an African ork named Samson. They discuss sci-fi classics, and Samson talks some shit on the Ancients. HCB asks after Malice, and then gets up to wander around. He encounters Malice as he is exploring a stairwell that seems to have maintenance tunnel access. Malice tells HCB that he has been seen with Keb, and that he best watch his back, if that’s how he’s going to play things. HCB heads out after pretending like he’s not working with Keb at all.

He goes back to the messhall later and tells Keb that he found a way in thru a maintenance tunnel, and Keb tells him that they are going in that night-Keb will arrange for HCB’s cell to open, and then he will sneak to a camera free area to meet up with the rest of the force, and lead them to the tunnel. HCB tries to weasel out of going, but Keb won’t have it. After some contemplation, HCB decides to tell the AB+ about the planned invasion. He finds Malice and fills him in, Malice thanks him and tells him how to actually get into the maintenance tunnel (which HCB hadn’t bothered to figure out) via a nanotattoo map. Malice tells HCB to make sure he isn’t in front when they come down the tunnel. HCB heads back to his genpop cell and waits for night.

As promised, his cell slides open around midnight. He exits and attempts to sneak to the rendevouz. Although he is fairly quiet, he unfortunately manages to let nearly every other prisoner see him as he keeps halting directly in front of the cells. As the inamtes begin to raise a hue and cry, HCB begins shouting “fire!” in hopes of causing a distraction. It works, since the inamtes still locked in their cells begin panicking. HCB moves quickly to the rendevouz, and leads Keb and the rest of the gangers to the tunnel access, which one of them fortunately has the key for, as HCB didn’t bother to check it out at all. They enter the maintenance room, and pry up the tunnel lead, heading towards the hospital. HCB is leading, but is moving slowly and attempting to remain quiet. The gangers get impatient and most of them push past him, which he allows. However, Keb doesn’t let him slip away.

They reach the far end of the tunnel, and the front gangers burst thru the door, and are quickly engulfed in a gout of stinking flame. It appears to be some sort of gel based substance that sticks to their skin and burns extremely hot. The first group of gangers seem to be melting in front of them. In the confusion, HCB bolts for the door with some of the other gangers, and manages to get ahead of them, racing up the stairs. He is almost impaled by a sharpened pipe thrust in his direction as he rounds the corner, but Malice allows him thru the lines. The gangers behind him are not so lucky. Keb is shouting abuse at him from below and promising retribution. HCB heads back down to take him on, as he is pretty annoying. Keb quickly cuts HCB down with a pair of shivs, as HCB deals minor damage with a short pipe. As he falls to the ground and passes out again, he sees Malice and some other AB+ folks chasing the few remaining gangers down the tunnel.

He wakes up in the hopsital again. Malice and Samson come to see him, and tell he him that he’s got lodging in the AB+ area, and that someone will get his meals for him and such, since he wouldn’t be safe in genpop areas for now. HCB inquires again about getting a travel pass, and Malice says he will see what he can do once HCB decides where he wants to go. He heads back to the library and researches the prison layout/factions/activities/etc., as well as advocating for expansion of the libraires sci-fi selection. He also tries to meet any outside faction reps who come into the AB+ areas of the main complex for whatever reason. He encounters a yakuza named Ken Ichiro, who he manages to gravely insult in flawless Japanese, a languagw which he is mostly unfamiliar with. A veteran of the occupation of San Francisco (evidence by his SoCal accent), Ken has a more played back attitude than some yak, so after HCB’s profuse apologies, he lets it slide. After talking for a while, Ken offers HCB a chance to race on the yak’s illicit tracks if he can make out to their area. With a destination in mind, HCB heada back to Malice and procurs his travel pass. He tells Malice a litte about his eventual escape plans, and Malice tells him not to forget all the folks who help him get there.

HCB heads out, and travels as straight as he is able to the yak areas. The paths aren’t really marked, but he actually manages fairly well. He arrives and looks around for a bit before locating Ken. When he does, Ken suggests that HCB try some demo races vs other yak drivers before getting into actual competition (mostly against the neighboring mafiosos). HCB smokes the test races, and quickly moves up to the real thing, all the while gradually customizing and improving his car. The cars are mostly scrap built and vary widely in capability and design. He is being built up for a big race against some mysterious new mafia driver that Ken’s feeling a little nervous about. The races are recorded and smuggled off planet for sale, in both trideo and sim-LS is definitely getting a share, of course. HCB initially focuses solely of driving better than the other racers, but as the the challenges get bigger, he adds on some offensive capability to his vehicle in the form of a scrap metal caltrop drop concealed in the rear. He employs it to limited effect in his first race againt the mysterious mafia racer, which HCB just barely wins. During the second big race (this time on mafia turf), HCB’s car is rammed by a sacrificial mafia car, from which he barely recovers. HCB uses a modified caltrop dropper with a much wider spread to disable a number of the less competitive cars, leaving him and the mafia driver neck and neck for most of the race. HCB once again pulls off a narrow victory.

Ken and the other yak clear out of there pretty quick with HCB as the mafia types are looking pretty pissed. HCB seems to be in good with the yak for now, due to his racing prowess. He makes plans to head for Trogville next…..

up next: can he get the team safely down? can he even protect himself?