Runners
Hotkey
Avocado
Aylin
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Keg

Avocado and Kit have a good “getting to know you” interview on Kit’s shadowcast show, though Avo deflects and fronts a bit. The team, high off their previous night’s successful mission, decide to check some smaller jobs off the list. Carol heads in to get some cyberware put in by Tate, and Aylin heads off with her mom to start working on luring the Black Lodge to town with the book they need. Avocado heads out a little early and makes a large donation (with a small contribution from Kit) to the Desolation Angels for their outreach work, and meets Blue, the DA seemingly in charge of that wing. It looks like the teenage gunner from the opening fight, Fidget, has been recruited already as well. Avo notcies 6C’s bike is still at the Vault, and seems to have morphed into an impromptu memorial site- single bullets stacked atop it, and some weedy Zone bouquets scattered around.

The team hears some rumors from astral contacts of some kind of astral assassin taking out community leaders and defenders in the deep metaplanes, and based on the fact that this figure is being called “The Devil’s Revolver”, assume that 6C’s gun/spirit are likely involved. The 4 available team members all link up at Midway Airport to follow up on some leads and figure out next steps. They chat with Old Crow a bit, who confirms it is likely 6C, in some form, being called to serve after his death, and OC says he needs to get with Aylin ASAP to sort this out. They also find Jazz and get the intro spiel about the Shadow Chapters- she agrees to an interview on Kit’s show and the team seems potentially interested in learning more. Blue from the DA’s also was excited about the Shadow Chapters, which is putting Avo a little more in favor of joining.

The team meets up with Lycus and checks in on the progress of his SIN registration project. They arrange a meeting after some careful negotiation between him and Sierra Corp, which will hopefully benefit both. They also discover some background on Lycus- he used to be a fixer for Gov. Presbitero before he ascended to the governorship, and disappeared amidst some sort of scandal just before the election. Lycus then emerged some months later, with a very different philosophy. The team gives Mrs. Clean this info in case it can help Sierra Corp in their negotiation, and she seems stoked about their work. They also warn Lycus that the info is out there, and he says he needs to rescrub his data trail, but doesn’t give them anything further.

They also head over to train at the onsite facility, and find two of their bounty targets: Anne Ravenheart and Li Wei. They decide to feel it out, and start getting the 2 newbs trained on the team’s common maneuvers. Both Ravenheart and Wei seem very skilled, and also pretty cool based on HK’s quick research. Ravenheart specifically is somewhat of a local hero, one of the few (former) Ares employees who’s seen in a positive light. Their unit at the training facility all has modded Ares armor with the branding stripped off and new “Freewatch” logo applied, perhaps explaining why Ares wants into on them. The team decided to shelve that for now and discuss further down the road.

They take a job with Sid Gambetti to do a little sabotage, and take a side job from Tate to throw an extra element into the mix, which with some investigation looks like it will have the effect of framing Simon Andrews, or at least sending suspicion his way. They head to the Wind Transit Terminal and port warehouse, which has been taken over by a squatter community since Winterknight was kicked out a few years ago. They find the container they need to access, but they notice the community is about to come under attack from some protection racket enforcers from the Horde, and intervene. Using some slick driving and nonlethal weapons, as well as aided by the communities 3 defenders who they warned, they drive off the attackers with no casualties and minimal damage to the team’s car.

Avocado arranges for the DA’s to start protecting this community, and uses this as a bargaining chip to allow access to the container they need amidst the tent city. They get in and find the decades old Shiawase chemical tank they needed as part 1 of the job. They load it in the truck with help from Spills, the troll defender, and head to Goober’s to get a few repairs and upgrades before they drive south a ways out of town to the agricultural facility they need to poison. They also upgrade Kit and Keg’s fake SINs to make sure they pass muster, and since they used team funds for this they insist both also sign onto the group norms, and say they will explain some of the obscure ones later. The assumption being that both Kit and Keg are joining up for the foreeable. Aylin and Carol come link up with the team at Goober’s while the repairs are happening, and they convo out of town.

They bribe their way through a checkpoint, and head south to the farm, doing a little research on the way. To Carol’s distress they find out it’s an Ares facility, but they assuage themselves with the info that it’s a fancy test farm, so the poison they deliver shouldn’t get distributed to vulnerable populaces, at least, and likely won’t go out at all. They seem to be intended to disrupt an upcoming bidding process, so they tip off the McCaskill mafia to allow them to make some money off that knowledge, in order to make peace there. They arrive at the rural site, and come up with a quick plan. Kit drone rigs a flyspy with a data tap into the guard shack, and HK uses the remote access to add the team car as a “scheduled part delivery”.

Avo talks them past the semi-skeptical guards, with HK, Carol, and a misted Aylin hiding in the trunk. Keg hangs back a ways with the 2 bikes to cause a distraction or come to the rescue as needed. They get up the loading dock, and using some clever tactics get HK up close enough to hack a rail drone to deliver the poison tank to the main water distro spot, and loop some cameras to help Carol sneak up to hook it up. Aylin sneaks off to plant the sample of lizard skin they were given. Avo and Kit spend quite a while faking car problems and flirting with guards to delay their exit, while Carol does an impressive infiltration. Unfortunately, he oversold his mechanical abilities and really struggles to hook the poison up. The team is forced to exit the lot, but luckily Keg finds a promising distraction in the form of an anti-corp-agriculture protest nearby that he lures in their direction.

Avo convinces the guards at the exit to allow the team to wait there in their car til the protest passes (the guards seem creepily excited about the prospect of getting to bust heads, though), and Carol, with some coaching from HK, finally gets the poison going. He then almost gets out unseen, but gets spotted by a patrol, and starts getting tagged with gel rounds. He hides amidst the livestock, correctly assuming they’re too valuable to shoot, and it seems like the guards think he’s connected to the protest. He shoots his way through a dome wall and races for the car. Finally blowing their cover, Kit slams it through the boom barricade, and smoothly sweeps Carol up with a tight turn. They smash through a fence and race off.

Meanwhile, HK has done some sneaky hacking to make it look like these intrusions were protest-related, and the onsite spider has gone after the protest’s deckers. WIth Knight Errant reinforcements on their way, everyone scatters, and the team has to take backroads back to town. They ditch the cops and make it back, just in time to get some drinks with Sid and Matt Wrath after his latest victory. Sid pays up, and they check in with Tate, giving him the sparest details as requested. He tells them to rest up and return when they’re ready for more work.

They head out and prepare to introduce Keg and Kit fully into the team lifestyle.