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…..