POST BEARD ROUNDUP!
Pete is going to document the Food Fight hilarity, so I shall stick with the Pappa P run. let me know if I have things missed/wrong, and I'll edit.
It all started off with a call from Pappa P asking Nik to meet him at the diner, urgently. "Bring large friends", he said. So Nik did.
Rocking up to the diner with Nik was team regulars Frank and Chopper, as well as new guys Ramirez Hernandez (Pnut), Vodka and Mr J. (Bung me character names, and I'll stick em in here.) The van was parked up out front, and the team entered the diner, finding Pappa in his usual spot, but not his usual jolly self. He barely has time to welcome the group when they are interrupted by a loud BANG.
In front of the shocked team, Pappa P keels over backwards, stiff as a board, with a neat hole in his forehead. Noticing a matching hole in the window, the team quickly put two and two together, and figure there is a sniper somewhere in front of the building. Leaping into action, Frank Vodka, Ramirez and Mr J rush out of the front, but even with cyber enhanced eyeballs cycling through vision modes like something out of Predator, they cant make out exactly where the shots are coming from. However, whilst bullet-dodging, Frank figures the shooter must be on the roof of the building opposite, and makes for the fire escape to climb up. Vodka and Ramirez move to cover the exits.
Meanwhile, back in the diner, Nik is having a lie down. He's not being lazy though! Going into full VR, he orders his trusty drones to launch, and covers the roof from the air. He too is unable to spy the shooters. Sneaky buggers.
You are probably wondering what the lovable rogue Chopper is up to at this point. He is checking the surprisingly stiff corpse of the recently passed on Pappa P. Is he trying some first aid? no. Rifling through his pockets for clues? Only briefly. No, Choppers immediate thought on the teams ex-employer chilling on the floor is "hmm, I wonder if I can get his face off?" Yes Chopper. Yes you can. You fucking freak.
Much to Choppers surprise and alarm, Pappas bodyguard, known only to the team as Hot Ork Chick smashes through the back-door and literally blurs across the room, darting through the front door. In less time than it took the heavily augmented Frank to clear two floors of fire escapes, she had cleared the diner, the road, and has started sprinting clean up the side of the building. She vaults to the roof seconds before Frank. Nik, through the eyes of the drone, sees what is happening and realises that the guns (which have appeared in her hands as if by magic) are pointed at the obviously invisible snipers. She can see them! Aiming carefully to catch the corner of the building they are presumably in, Nik lets fly with a flash grenade from his drone. Frank sees, through his sonar eyes, two men in cloaks flinch from the blast, as does the Hot Ork Chick. Neither seem badly affected however, and it certainly doesn't slow the Hot Ork Chick down, as she plugs both men (using an insane amount of dice).
Having dealt with the men, she turns on the drones. Oh noes! She doesn't realise they are on her side! Thankfully Frank gets a shout out before she fires. Daintily jumping off the side of the building and landing gently on the road 3 floors down, she makes her way back in to the diner, and out the back room. The team have a moment to collect themselves and WTF for a moment.
Not a long moment though. The now faceless Pappa P stands up suddenly (to the mild dismay of Chopper) and addresses the team. Apparently he requires a very important box to be delivered to an address on the other side of Seattle, in the docks district. Dealing well with the fact that he doesn't have a face, the team take the job willingly. Hot Ork Chick comes back with the box in question, lays it on the table, and once more clears off out the back.
A cunning plan is devised. The box has a matrix ID, which whoever is after it could use to track it down. Using this to their advantage, the team collect a number of matrix connected devices from the diner, and using some basic haxing trickery, forges them to all have the same ID. They are loaded on to taxis, which are then sent on their merry way around the city (after a brief, but confusing argument about what directions they should be sent in).
The team then split up. Half go in Niks van, with the box. Half go in Ramirez' van. Frank goes on ahead to scout. After a short drive, a suspicious looking unmarked black van is spotted, approaching Niks van from the rear. Not wanting to tip their hand early, the team let it pass. It could, after all, be completely unrelated to them.
It isn't.
With no warning, Nik looses all control of his van. OMG! HAX! He identifies the hacker as being in the black van, and goes after them in virtual space. However, not being a hacker, he gets a bit of a spanking. Thinking laterally, he pulls back again, and jumps into a drone to take care of things the old fashioned way. Unleashing a fully automatic hail of lead death on the van almost cuts it clean in half, and it starts to wobble out of control. A further round is put into it from the other direction (who fired that shot?) and it slides off the road, smashing into a building. Nik quickly regains control of the van, and picks up Frank (or rather, Frank sticks his hand out and grabs the van as it tears past at full steam. Good thing he is augmented.) Ramirez and Mr J stop to finish the job, Mr J pulling the back door open, and Ramirez using his Ex-ex round to employ the notorious Shadowrun meme of
Chunky Salsa on the poor survivor of the crash.
The team meet once more at the shipping warehouse. Its quiet. Too quiet. They split up again to scout the place out, Frank and Chopper taking to the roofs, Nik in the van piloting the drones, the others keeping watch over the box. The target warehouse is also quiet. They don't like it. Chopper moves up to use his fibre optic doohiky to look under the door, just catching a door inside closing. He moves in, Frank behind him now clad in one of the snipers ruthenium ghillie suits. Chopper opens the internal door, and BAM, guys shoot him up. Oh Noes! Shaking off the mere inconvenience of the sucking chest-wound, Chopper leaps at the gun wielding baddies, Frank following stealthily. All of a sudden, a voice is heard, stage left.
"STOP!"
Everyone stops.
Frank looks around, and at the other end of the room is an older looking man, with a military air to him, wearing the same uniform as the others. Although there is no identifying marks to say so, he is clearly the dood in charge. He is also holding up what appears to be a radio detonator.
"I know you can hear this, Mr Fedorski. And I think you know what this is for. Now how about we all calm down and talk sensibly about this."
The team all, metaphorically, look at Nik. At about this point, Grimmie has an "ooooooh, shitums" face on.
Nik lets the team know that the trigger is likely linked to a bomb. A cranial bomb. Implanted in Niks brain, by people and for reasons unknown. Also unknown is how big the bomb is. Cranial bombs usually come in sizes varying from small enough that there is no external damage to the head, to large grenades, but its not unheard of for them to be potent enough to take out city blocks in extreme cases.
"All I want is the box. I have no argument with you. Give me the box, and I give you the codes to the bomb. A simple deal, lets not get it messy"
After a string of questions and bartering (nearly all of which are met with a "no") the team figure they have little choice but to comply, and hand over the box.
"You will understand if I don't give you the code until we are clear of course..."
The men in black take the box and the detonator, and climb on to a boat, quickly making their way out into the harbour.
Hot Ork Lady reappears, dropping from her vantage point where she was watching the whole thing play out. As the boat clears the harbour, she presses a radio detonator of her own, and the boat ASPLOADS. Mercifully, Nik does not. She gets a much smaller but similar looking box, and a hologram of Pappa P's face emerges.
Pappa P wrote:Dobryj vyechyer my friends! I apologise for the much strangeness this night. I will try to explain what I can. Is only fair.
First, Nikolai, my good friend. Do not fear. The khuyesos did not have code for head bomb. He knew there was code, and knew you would not risk it. Clever for him, but not clever enough, Da? I am sorry, though, I do not know more. Will do what I can to help you with this.
You must be wondering what in fuck is happening, no? Well, you may have guessed that I am not metahuman. I am, how you say, metasapient. AI. Is big secret, but you cannot do what I do and sleep! Or go to bathroom! Work needs dedication. Important work. But I am all russian!
We will talk more later. For now, is best we leave, and fast. Violetta, give them their pay. And extra.
The Hot Ork Lady gives you a certified credstick holding 7k each, plus a 30k bonus.
I've no doubt missed some stuff, so let me know if there is anything you remember, or anything you want to ask about.
Also, all involved get 10 Karma each. New people, if you want to (or already have) made new characters rather than keep the rather hastily assembled characters used at the bash, you can have the 10 Karma for them instead if you prefer.
