[The Sprawl IC] Leviathan: Evaporation and Liquidation

[Thanqol]

The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.

- Joseph Conrad


Say you've got a machine that can bring the rain.

Agriculture is the obvious application, but you've got a board of directors to answer to and they're looking for more than an increase in crop yields. So selling customized weather patterns to wealthy megacities is the logical followup, but to do that right you've got to make an example of the cities that won't cough up. So the rain starts and it doesn't stop. But that itself is an opportunity because all that decaying stormwater infrastructure now needs to be updated and so long as you put the price for that lower than the price for blue skies you can squeeze something out of cities too broke to pay for paradise. Call it the economy package.

The Five State City has been flying economy for a while.

The rain is cold - it can't be pleasant rain, that's a luxury much as lightning. It's cold like an augmentic handshake and just windy enough to constantly surge horizontal, making a mockery of umbrellas. Hats are back in vogue, broad brimmed and grey. The power to the street lighting is on 24/7 but there's no money in the budget for maintenance so it's a free for all - if some upscale neighbourhood wants to organize a contractor to fix the bulbs on their own dime that's their business.

No one wants to go outside into the cold, dark wind tunnels formed by the skyscrapers. Where possible people are leaning into matrix coms - check out. Of course, there's no percentage for Spice and Shake in that - how can it sell real blue skies to people wearing VR goggles? It's responded by hiring goons to dig up cables, flood the net with viruses, buy local telcompanies and run them into the ground. And so, after your nice warm uplink crashes for the fifteenth time in three hours you might just say 'screw it' and go outside to get a real job.

Taylor, you're the one who's been contacted for the op, but the job is for all three of you. Roll to get the job and while you're at it tell me a bit about how your team fronts. Do you give your people a brand name, uniforms, a carefully cultivated reputation? What's the image that you present to potential customers? How do they come to hear about you? Are there any guarantees? Anything you've made it clear that you won't do?

Zero Null, where do you hold the meetings with new employers? Do you have a home base of operations and make them come to you? Do you go to them? Public places or creepy alleyways? What's the atmosphere, the décor, the tone? And if you don't meet them at home, what's your home base like?

Peregrine, who are your staff? Do you have a couple of disposable contractors to answer phone calls and stand out the front looking menacing? Do you have actual employees with permanent positions and health care? Is there an operations room where a bunch of guys manage coms and overwatch or did you just pick the prettiest musclehead as secretary?

[Eldest]

It's a good day when you're woken up by a job offer.

Taylor didn't do that directly, of course. She had intermediaries, people to get in touch with to get the message through to her. She liked to keep the nasty side of business at a remove from her personal life, and rather quiet. So when she gets woken up by a call trying to arrange a meeting, she was delighted: work had been slow for a while, and it was good to add a new client to the roster every now and then. She didn't let that show, of course, she was a cold-hearted professional, ask anybody, and she'd tase them if they said different. The Crowd (nobody had gotten the reference yet, which just made her sad) all were, when on the job at least. She takes the call. "This is Taylor."

TL:DR I view it as she has a list of clients she does work for, anonymously, and relies on careful referrals to get new clients. Those people, in turn, act as fixers, taking jobs from corps and giving them to the Crowd when it suits our talents. Seem reasonable?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

It was called центр урагана by it's proprietress, Ekaterina Kazan, however it was more widely known by it's english name, Eye of the Storm, or to those in the biz, just the Eye. Ekaterina was a veteran of the '27 Corp Wars fought on the Rwanda-Burundi border, she flew a mag-lev panzer, ask her about it sometime, if you have an hour or so to waste, vet's, they love their war stories. Kat was a small woman, shorter than Ibraham by almost a head, but she sported an old-school Gosudarstvennoy-Bezopasnosti cyberarm, mil-spec, bulky, hummed with the motion of it's sub-standard nano-servo's, and lacked the dexterity of later models, but the old DB's were durable as hell.

The Eye's decor was an old veteran bar, old war memorabilia adorned the walls, unit insignia's, uniforms, service medals, pictures of brothers-in-arms, as worn and faded as their memories. Sometimes one of the regular's would lift a glass in the direction of one of them, a far off look in his eyes as he remembered armed conflict decades old, and half the world away. It had foggy, inch thick plas-steel windows that a 7.62 would be hard pressed to crack, though there were chips here and there, an indication that some ignorant f**k had tried. Long horizontal slats that ran the length of the bar filtered the light from outside, a bright neon sun, extolling the virtues of XTOC's orbital ventures, reminding the boys and girls stuck in the dirt that they'd never escape the grav-well, that they would live and die in the mud.

Kat had connections though, military grade encryption protected her uplinks, you could conduct biz at the Eye and not worry about S&S tagging your messages. That was what Ibraham was doing now, checking the dropbox he had set up with his Echo Mirage crew, still nothing, but it was important to monitor these things. He'd set his persona program to monitor these things, modeled after an infamous pre-VR actress, from the film noire era of cinema. Looking through the haze of whiskey and plas-steel filtered light, he absently thought of having his eyes replaced by some Ikon-Ziess custom job, turn the world into a monochrome of black and grey.

[rooster707]

Peregrine took another sip of coffee and grimaced. At least, it had said "coffee" on the menu. Evidently the drink machine was broken again. But at least it was caffeinated.

He was in the back of his truck, scanning the net and tinkering with things, going through the same mostly-useless routine he always fell back into between jobs. Today he was screwing around with new protocols for the team's "helper" AI, the closest thing they had to a support staff. DEMETER (it was some ridiculous corporate acronym, he couldn't remember what it meant) had started off as a simple secretary construct that one of them had acquired on some job or another. Over time, the "crowd's" endless revolving-door stream of bored hackers had added more and more subroutines, until a somewhat surprised Peregrine had deemed her worth the processing power to operate.

By now they relied on DEMETER to handle most of the team's logistics, as well as act as "mission control" during jobs. Annoyingly, however, she lacked any hacking capabilities whatsoever, something Peregrine had tried on and off to fix for a while, but never successfully. Peregrine sat down and resumed his net search, idly wondering if he'd actually get anything done today.

[Thanqol]

You meet your employer in the bar. He shows up in person which is pretty ballsy, but he's kind of got that type to him. Big tough contractor, sunburned and shades wearing, styling like he's straight out of Africa and adjusting poorly to the rain. His knuckles are bloody messes and he's got fingernail scars all along his big bare arms. The kind of guy who's part of the stock footage for special reports about child soldiers. A grin that's clean like sun bleached bone. Little stormcloud patch on his shoulder with a derpy smile to match. Family friendly.

"I am Oloc du Montegro," he says, and his teeth click when he talks. "And while I ordinarily take great pleasure in hunting my own game, I cannot fathom the sick mind who could live in this awful city for any length of time. So, I found you - three sick minds known for finding people, killing people, and getting away with it."

He puts a photograph on the table. Teenager, serious augs. Cutting edge military stuff, clearly branded Transcendence. Four more photos, four more kids. None of them could be more than twenty.

"These are deserters. More than that, they are thieves. They have left my employment while wearing my property and I want it back. Get the cybernetics on this list," he taps a piece of paper. Five arms, four legs, four eyes, and a spine. "And get them back to me. No questions on how you do it. Huh?"


Taylor, you have an option to pick off the Get The Job list, so get to that.

[Eldest]

Taylor looks over the list of targets. "You know, any information you can provide us will help with the retrieval of your property. It's in your own best interest, after all. As well as the minor detail of pay, of course. We can provide the services you request, but the fee would be... proportionate to the PR risk. You understand, of course."

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham studied Montegro, knowing full well that was not the name he had been born with, or he wouldn't be sharing it with them. Not at this stage. Fairly standard business, but something about the situation put him on edge. These kids, deserters, brought up old memories, like scabs in his brain, and they itched, and tugged. Until he picked at them, until the name Vættir oozed to the surface, seeping tainted blood. The aug's were impressive, there was no doubt, and costly, but Montegro had to have done his homework, had to have known that the independents he was contracting didn't have access to a cyber surgeon or high grade clinic required to remove the hardware from the host. He was asking for a chop job, which meant he wasn't concerned with recovering the hardware, it would be inoperable on receipt, not suitable for re-integration without a considerable expenditure of resources and man hours.

A chop job was intended to send a message, corporations used them in the same way as the crime families, raw, unmitigated violence, to tell someone that I can get to you, no matter where you run. Now, the target of a chop job was never the target, because after the job they're most likely parts for reclamation, the question was who is the message for. And why.

He studied their contact with cold, unflinching eyes, the challenge was there, two trained dogs, looking into each other's tarnished souls until one flinched, until one looked away. Service patches, easily reproduced, tan, scars, shorn hair, all easily changed or modified with less than a days worth of time in a gene clinic. But the grin, that was muscle memory, something beneath the surface, the eyes, they were the key, that was the measure of the man.


OOC: As stated earlier, I am going to Assess Montegro, try to see what I can determine. Rolling Edge, +1, [roll0]. Lets see if this turns up anything useful, or escalates the situation. Preferably the former, and not the latter. Whelp, that looks like 1 Hold on Montegro. Do I need to use that *this* scene, if so, I would spend it for the following; What do I notice despite an effort to conceal it?

[Thanqol]

Taylor looks over the list of targets. "You know, any information you can provide us will help with the retrieval of your property. It's in your own best interest, after all. As well as the minor detail of pay, of course. We can provide the services you request, but the fee would be... proportionate to the PR risk. You understand, of course."

"I understand," said Olec smoothly, dropping a handful of memory chits on the table. "Personnel files, transportation records, everything the corp has on them. They are dangerous people and it pays for the hunter to know her prey."

[At this point everyone needs to set their stake in the mission. How this works:
- Pay a number of Cred between 1 and 3. This Cred is lost.
- At the end of the mission, upon successful payment you get 2x the cred you staked back. If you put down 3 you get 6 back, for a total profit of 3.
- If you choose 'the mission pays well', which you did not, it would be 3x instead.
- If you fail the mission or the employer doesn't pay you the cred staked is lost.
- If you stake 3-Cred then the Legwork clock immediately advances one. Best not to do this on a low-paying mission but it's up to you.

Note that a profit of 2-cred for the mission isn't a particularly big payday. That's fine - the real money is in the side jobs you do in the course of the mission. If you're cracking a secure facility already, taking the time to loot the high tech prototypes isn't particularly far out of your way and can match the profit you'd get off the VIP extraction. Also keep in mind that Cred isn't just hard cash - it's street cred too and you can earn it by making a social splash.]


Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham studied Montegro, knowing full well that was not the name he had been born with, or he wouldn't be sharing it with them. Not at this stage. Fairly standard business, but something about the situation put him on edge. These kids, deserters, brought up old memories, like scabs in his brain, and they itched, and tugged. Until he picked at them, until the name Vættir oozed to the surface, seeping tainted blood. The aug's were impressive, there was no doubt, and costly, but Montegro had to have done his homework, had to have known that the independents he was contracting didn't have access to a cyber surgeon or high grade clinic required to remove the hardware from the host. He was asking for a chop job, which meant he wasn't concerned with recovering the hardware, it would be inoperable on receipt, not suitable for re-integration without a considerable expenditure of resources and man hours.

A chop job was intended to send a message, corporations used them in the same way as the crime families, raw, unmitigated violence, to tell someone that I can get to you, no matter where you run. Now, the target of a chop job was never the target, because after the job they're most likely parts for reclamation, the question was who is the message for. And why.

He studied their contact with cold, unflinching eyes, the challenge was there, two trained dogs, looking into each other's tarnished souls until one flinched, until one looked away. Service patches, easily reproduced, tan, scars, shorn hair, all easily changed or modified with less than a days worth of time in a gene clinic. But the grin, that was muscle memory, something beneath the surface, the eyes, they were the key, that was the measure of the man.

He's convincing as a warlord. On the silver screen you'd buy it; the ruthless, perfect killer in charge of a legion of child-soldiers, bringing anarchy and death to some sub-Saharan wasteland. You'd go home after watching that film and feel chills and the callous, raw power and total lack of morality he represented.

And you did. Because you've seen that movie. He's that exact guy, Warlord Toboske. In the credits he's listed as Frank Nikuragua. He's a Bollywood actor who's never held a real gun in his life. He's doing his bit, just the same as he did in Heart of Darkness IV: The Congo Strikes Back - and to be fair to the corp who hired him for this meet, that movie was a total flop and it's surprising that you've seen it.

[You do need to use your Assess hold this scene, but the +1 forward lasts until you use it so note it down somewhere]

[Eldest]

"I understand," said Olec smoothly, dropping a handful of memory chits on the table. "Personnel files, transportation records, everything the corp has on them. They are dangerous people and it pays for the hunter to know her prey.

Taylor nods and swipes the memory chits off the table. "And as for our fee.."

Taylor stakes 2 cred.

At the end of a small bargaining session, Taylor stands up. "You'll have your property returned to you." She then goes to meet up with the other two, to make good on her word.

Using It All Fits Together!. Rolled a 9, for 1 hold. At any time, I can spend that hold to ask one question from the research list. I am holding off (if you'll pardon the pun) for now.

[Thanqol]

If there's nothing further to ask your employer you're back on the street. Wet and raining and glittering with that neon that never should have gone out of style in the first place.

Op like this will need a little planning but not too much - this isn't your first rodeo and you don't need to chart out your patrol routes. This is also the most open and unstructured part of the mission; you've got free reign to wander the streets, meet with contacts, pick up gear and backup and so on. You might want to crack open a corporate facility and get your hands on some data troves you can Research. You've got an package you can spend to just [I]know something but that's the kind of thing that's really valuable to have around in the action phase when bullets start flying, so up to you.

So talk amongst yourselves a bit and basically figure out what each of you are doing. Where you're going, if you're pairing up or walking solo. There aren't really any wrong answers here, so long as you're somewhat on topic and doing some kind of Legwork to prepare you for the op you'll be good. What's interesting here is your approaches to solving problems and gearing up for missions. Ball's in your court.

[XP For the Mission:
1 when you Get The Job
1 when you locate your targets
2 when you decide what to do with the cyberware
1 when you go to get paid]

[Eldest]

Taylor paces in the small room they did planning in. "So, the way I see it this breaks into a few tasks. Find the kids. Either kill or capture the kids: here I'd prefer capture, just because it sends a message that we are able to do the trickier jobs, show a bit of flair. And then get paid without getting ripped off. I would also like to figure out the client, see what his angle is, just as a way to help the "not getting ripped off" angle. Anybody see anything I'm missing?"

[rooster707]

Peregrine shakes his head. "No, I think that about covers it... so what's the plan? I know some people who do augs, I could see what they know about this stuff," he says, looking over the list of parts. "Would be nice to know exactly what we're after."

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham watched as Olec walked out of the Eye, he turned and caught Katarina's eyes, motioned for another round for himself and his companions. He listened closely as they talked, his own thoughts flickering through his mind, like a radio scanning for a signal. Static buzzed as he nodded his thanks to Katarina, bringing the amber liquid to his lips, letting the liquid fire ignite a path down his throat.

"Used to be poker was the thing in the corporate barracks," he smiled at memories long since forgotten, "and you could play one of two ways." He paused, "you either played on the cards he was showing, or the cards he was holding."

He nodded, taking another sip of the whiskey, not the real thing, he had enjoyed that part of his partnership with Constantineau during his time at Vættir, if nothing else. "So let's go over Olec's hand, what's he showing us?"

"He wants us to retrieve military grade implants, knowing full well we're not cyber surgeons, his unit deserted, and he wants us to chop them to send a message to other deserters. He's showing us the loyal corporate soldier, now ask yourselves, what card's he's holding."

Another pause, another sip. "He's not a soldier, not a veteran of any war, or skirmish, or corporate engagement. He's a new Delphi-wood c-list sim-sense actor, his only battles fought on a set, wind, sand and rained doled out so as not to ruin his complexion, blood dabbed on with an applicator, by a professional effects artist." He continued on, "So this means, he's running this job against someone else, who actually owns those boys, and their implants. Someone else invested time, money and training into those soldiers. And someone else probably wants them, question is who?"

He put down his glass, considered the options, "Likely we're running this against another team, the professionals who want those boys, and our guy, who wants us to chop them first. We just need to find out why, yeah?" He shrugged, "I can reach out to my old unit, see if they can help us identify these boys, with the info our actor gave us."

[rooster707]

Peregrine frowns. "Well... that complicates things. Doesn't really change our objectives, though. Just means we need to be a bit more paranoid."

[Eldest]

Taylor

She frowns and sits down. "So we got a rival team who is trying to get them back first. Okay, that does complicate things, so I'd add a fourth objective: figure out who wants these kids back."

[Thanqol]

A more pressing question would be: Who's on what job? Planning in a low-information environment is usually a wash; it's far more productive in ops like this to just divide up the teams and start working.

[rooster707]

"Well, if that's all, I'm gonna head out," Dante says, standing up and going to the door. "I'll call you if I find anything interesting."

A few minutes later he's out on the curb, watching the rain pour down. His bike pulls up and chirps softly to get his attention - as if he hasn't been waiting for it, hadn't called it in the first place with the wireless transmitter implanted in his skull. Shaking his head, he climbs on, keys the address into the navcomputer, and sits back, letting the bike drive itself while he pulls his helmet on. For a moment there is blackness, as the helmet's metal plates unfold and slide into place. Then the display boots up, various UI elements flickering into existence as the helmet syncs with his suit, the bike and his implant. With a flick of his wrist, Peregrine dismisses them; for a drive like this they'll just get in the way. He leans forward and puts the bike on manual, weaving in and out of traffic towards his destination.

That destination is Unit B12, more commonly known as "Augmentation Station" - a cutting edge cyberclinic tucked away in a massive stack of storage units. The owner, who goes by "Scissorhands" these days, is an old friend of Peregrine's - not to mention she still owed him for that shipment of bioware. Chances are she'll have some info on the parts the team is looking for.

Declaring a contact.

[Eldest]

Taylor nods, and starts to head to her favorite haunt: The Clearinghouse, a small independent coffee shop inside the Golden Triangle that was a favorite of tradecraft professionals. Nothing kept it safe or private save custom and mutual, unofficial agreement. Using careful questions, she tries to piece together any pieces of the story behind the kids, find out who employed the kids?

Taylor rolled a 6 on research, so the GM answers the question and makes a move.

[Thanqol]

"Well, if that's all, I'm gonna head out," Dante says, standing up and going to the door. "I'll call you if I find anything interesting."

A few minutes later he's out on the curb, watching the rain pour down. His bike pulls up and chirps softly to get his attention - as if he hasn't been waiting for it, hadn't called it in the first place with the wireless transmitter implanted in his skull. Shaking his head, he climbs on, keys the address into the navcomputer, and sits back, letting the bike drive itself while he pulls his helmet on. For a moment there is blackness, as the helmet's metal plates unfold and slide into place. Then the display boots up, various UI elements flickering into existence as the helmet syncs with his suit, the bike and his implant. With a flick of his wrist, Peregrine dismisses them; for a drive like this they'll just get in the way. He leans forward and puts the bike on manual, weaving in and out of traffic towards his destination.

That destination is Unit B12, more commonly known as "Augmentation Station" - a cutting edge cyberclinic tucked away in a massive stack of storage units. The owner, who goes by "Scissorhands" these days, is an old friend of Peregrine's - not to mention she still owed him for that shipment of bioware. Chances are she'll have some info on the parts the team is looking for.

Declaring a contact.

Scissorhands, cute. Great incident of personal branding and the gal leans into it; her surgery is done up like a kitshy XTOCoween store; all spooky masks and plastic cobwebs. Sets her apart from all the other back alley butchers, saves her a couple of bucks on mops and Spice And Soap!, and helps distract people from the part where backalley cyber surgery is legitimately scary.

Scissorhands - Sciz if you're nasty - is currently elbow deep in the mangled torso of a cyber-mastiff. While most doggos and dog-related brands carry an impression of loyalty, stupidity and benevolence this particular mutt - even unconscious - gives the look of a British MP who is sincerely irritated by the fact that reporters keep pestering him about an alleged famine in India. Not a good doggo then, if such a thing can be believed. Sciz gives you a cheerful wave that sends blood splatters across the surgery; "Hey Dante, how are you doing? What's up with you?"

If you want your intel, Hit the Streets to see how busy the lady is.


Taylor nods, and starts to head to her favorite haunt: The Clearinghouse, a small independent coffee shop inside the Golden Triangle that was a favorite tradecraft professionals. Nothing kept it safe or private save custom and mutual, unofficial agreement. Using careful questions, she tries to piece together any pieces of the story behind the kids, find out who employed the kids?

Taylor rolled a 6 on research, so the GM answers the question and makes a move.

So what you're doing is legwork, the big boring walk around and talk to people phase that the hoopleheads don't have the stomach for but lets a professional survive a mission. Most of the job is this. Asking the right kind of questions.

You get your answer pretty quickly; the chain of custody goes back to Transcendence Inc - but that's like saying the trail goes to the military-industrial complex, like saying it goes to popular culture. Not helpful. The real answer is that it goes back to the Original Ideas Branch, a section responsible for new and visionary cyberware. Kit that advanced can't be transferred smooth between corps.

But while that's interesting and all, you're probably way more interested in how you found it out. Well, it's simple - you just read the logo on the kid's arm. You know, the one that's wrapped around your throat, choking you out. Bastard got the drop on you and is strangling you from behind without so much as a how-do-you-do. It's a rock solid grip. That's good kit.

How are you gonna get out of this one?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham nods as his partner's file out of the Eye, finished his vat grown whiskey, aging alcohol in oak casks, it's just not time effective these days, and if it were aged whiskey, well, lets just say this job wouldn't pay enough for a bottle. He grimaced as he finished the bitter amber liquid, nodding to Kat, she'd put it on his tab, and he'd clear it within thirty days, that was the deal, or the Eye would be closed to him. Her cold Ikon-Ziess eyes, military grade from some foreign conflict in Eur-Asia probably twenty years ago, glinted back at him. He liked to pretend the look said, 'Be careful,' he shrugged, knowing that we all have our fantasies.

He walked out to the slick wet concrete, turned up his collar against the rain, breathed in and tasted the acrid, chemical bitterness at the back of his throat, affixed his filter mask to extract the worst of it, and moved down 407th. Wandering, aimlessly. The display link in his mirror shades was slaved to the signal from his Navantia v13.3, and the augmented reality blazed to life around him, as he was assaulted by virtua-advertising and marketing for the shops he walked past. He dismissed it with a flick of his eyes, opening a message board for Chess enthusiast's, he was midway through a game with a veteran of the Vættir Bio-Pharm team, Echo Mirage. Oda Frey, a tall scandinavian woman, their network specialist, she'd gone to work with Tetreault Transhuman Technologies, T3, helped turn the tables on Constantineau and his strike teams. She was loyal to Echo Mirage, St-Onge's strike team, but she wouldn't risk her position within T3, it protected her from any reprisals for her actions against Vættir.

He tanked the current game, sacrificing his Queen for a Pawn, and exposing his King to a brutal sequence of moves that would culminate in Checkmate, likely in three moves. It was a signal, a call for help. Ibraham needed information, service records, unit and designation, areas of operation, and primary, even secondary fields of specialization. Oda could help, assuming it didn't risk her position at Tetreault.


OOC: Going to my old unit's Network specialist, hoping to find information on our targets, specifically their employers, rolling Style, +0, and Hitting the Streets. [roll0]. Lets see how this goes.

[Eldest]

Taylor knows some things about violence. She doesn't mind knowing how to break some ribs, hit somebody in the head and give them a concussion, or even the right amount of force to break an internal motor on a cyberarm. She reaches up and twists, not against the pressure but sideways, aiming to overtax the arms flexibility standards.

Turns out, they patched that particular problem with the fancy new arm this kid's sporting.

[rooster707]

"Hey," Dante responds, narrowly dodging the spray of blood as he approaches. "Eh, not much. Been between jobs for a while. How've you been?"

Once the pleasantries are over, he pulls the paper out of his pocket and puts it on a nearby table. "Anyway... I could use your help for a job. You keep files on this kind of thing, right? I need everything you've got on the parts from this list."

Rolling to hit the street: [roll0]

[Thanqol]

Taylor knows some things about violence. She doesn't mind knowing how to break some ribs, hit somebody in the head and give them a concussion, or even the right amount of force to break an internal motor on a cyberarm. She reaches up and twists, not against the pressure but sideways, aiming to overtax the arms flexibility standards.

Turns out, they patched that particular problem with the fancy new arm this kid's sporting.

It's not the fact that you're not good at martial arts that gets you, it's the fact that you're treating this like it's a robbery and not a murder. That mistake earns you one (1) bullet, used, worth $2 when returned to a Spice And Shake! brand recycling bin. Turning a profit on this one already.

[Harm Move: 6. Take two harm, one after your armour, but you come through it without further complications.]

Unsilenced gunshots in public places do get attention, though, and people are arming up and or dialling up their security services of choice - just for reference we're in some sort of squatters mall? Like a closed down strip mall that folks have hermit crabbed into and turned into a community centre. Kid's wearing a bandanna across his face, holding a 9, got you dead to rights. He's not a pro, though, that's plain to see, and he's currently trying to process how long he has before the stompers get down here, why you're still f*cking standing, and what his next move should be. You're not sure if he's going to beat it or take another shot but you've got a hot second before his decider comes down one way or another, so what do you do?


"Hey," Dante responds, narrowly dodging the spray of blood as he approaches. "Eh, not much. Been between jobs for a while. How've you been?"

Once the pleasantries are over, he pulls the paper out of his pocket and puts it on a nearby table. "Anyway... I could use your help for a job. You keep files on this kind of thing, right? I need everything you've got on the parts from this list."

Rolling to hit the street: [roll0]

Hey, so what are the odds that you and Taylor get ambushed at the exact same moment? Pretty slim, right? Well, the Cosmos With XTOC tells us that the universe is a beautiful and infinite arrangement of possibilities, every moment unique, every coincidence inevitable. It's a nice thought; you should think about it while you're sleeping off the surgery from that bullet that just clipped through your shoulder. At least you got shot in a hospital, right?

[Take 2 harm. Harm move: 6+2-1 synth leathers = 7 - you lose your footing]

You're on the linoleum before you can fully process it with the sound of a WM22 SMG roaring above your head. The doc got sprayed down too, she's bleeding badly and clearly thinking about going into shock. Is this just a really bad coincidence or was the job bad when you took it? Something else to consider when you've got the luxury of a knife, right now there's at least one live shooter outside - what do you do?



Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham nods as his partner's file out of the Eye, finished his vat grown whiskey, aging alcohol in oak casks, it's just not time effective these days, and if it were aged whiskey, well, lets just say this job wouldn't pay enough for a bottle. He grimaced as he finished the bitter amber liquid, nodding to Kat, she'd put it on his tab, and he'd clear it within thirty days, that was the deal, or the Eye would be closed to him. Her cold Ikon-Ziess eyes, military grade from some foreign conflict in Eur-Asia probably twenty years ago, glinted back at him. He liked to pretend the look said, 'Be careful,' he shrugged, knowing that we all have our fantasies.

He walked out to the slick wet concrete, turned up his collar against the rain, breathed in and tasted the acrid, chemical bitterness at the back of his throat, affixed his filter mask to extract the worst of it, and moved down 407th. Wandering, aimlessly. The display link in his mirror shades was slaved to the signal from his Navantia v13.3, and the augmented reality blazed to life around him, as he was assaulted by virtua-advertising and marketing for the shops he walked past. He dismissed it with a flick of his eyes, opening a message board for Chess enthusiast's, he was midway through a game with a veteran of the Vættir Bio-Pharm team, Echo Mirage. Oda Frey, a tall scandinavian woman, their network specialist, she'd gone to work with Tetreault Transhuman Technologies, T3, helped turn the tables on Constantineau and his strike teams. She was loyal to Echo Mirage, St-Onge's strike team, but she wouldn't risk her position within T3, it protected her from any reprisals for her actions against Vættir.

He tanked the current game, sacrificing his Queen for a Pawn, and exposing his King to a brutal sequence of moves that would culminate in Checkmate, likely in three moves. It was a signal, a call for help. Ibraham needed information, service records, unit and designation, areas of operation, and primary, even secondary fields of specialization. Oda could help, assuming it didn't risk her position at Tetreault.

Oda shows up - digitally, obviously. She's not about to leave a cozy warm office building to go jaw with you in this rain. Her avatar is... cult-y; all hoods and robes and third eyes and stuff. You've heard of these guys, the Parallel Planet? Some kind of nuts, headquarters on a yacht that never leaves international waters, big into radio of all things. It's always a bit skiff when you catch up with an old buddy and they've gone subculture.

"Twice greetings," she says in a tone that maybe she's a little self conscious about using cult slang in everyday convo but almost a bit defiant, like she's ready to fight if you call her on it. "And twice damn, you've got yourself mixed up in something ugly. Office is on lockdown, OIB is doing a weapons test in the city and all staff are confined to deskpods. I were you I'd get somewhere warm, maybe even somewhere foreign."

You're free to have a bit of a chat here, and to choose [intel] or [gear], that's for free. Some stuff or some intel might cost you cred but the prices'll be fair.

[rooster707]

S***! The first thing Dante does is slap his helmet back on and open a channel to the rest of the team. "Peregrine here, I'm under fire at Augmentation Station. Some backup might be nice, if you're not too busy?" As he says this, he's crawling over to check on Scissorhands. Pulse, breathing, check. Need to stop the bleeding. Shouldn't be a problem in a place like this. He looks around for a derm spray - Hell, I'd even settle for some bandages at this point.

Do you have to roll for first aid on NPCs? :smallconfused:

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

As Oda spoke, Ibraham shook his head slowly, she had always been into the various sub-cultures that sprouted up amidst the corporate culture, her parents had been 2nd Chakra in the Body of Vishnu before the group cannibalized itself due to some internal schism. Universal Brotherhood, Akashic Connection, and apparently now the Parallel Planet, all trying to cause a paradigm shift, when in reality she was just rebelling against corporate socio-economics. However, he was hardly in a position to lecture her, as long as he could keep her from the koolaid.

"Yeah, twice blessed be." He intoned by way of greeting, "Thanks for the heads up on OIB, I'll keep my eyes open." He continued ahead, "These kids though O, they remind me of us when we signed up with Vættir. Remember?" Fresh out of GIGR he'd been young, idealistic, he'd bought the recruiters warrior-scholar philosophy based on the stitched together corpse of zen philosophy and corporate culture; I have no sword, I make absence of self my sword. All bull****, but feed it to recruits without strong ties, to family, to location, uproot them, give them a garden in which to grow and they become loyal, until you don't need them anymore and then you can bury them in that f**king garden.

"Send one of your twice blessed pledges to do the drop, hard copy only O. Same place, usual rates apply." He made ready to cut the connection, paused a moment, "Listen O, if things change, let me know," his comm chimed, Peregrine, he muted it. I'll blow that f**king boat sky high and make a raft out of the bodies if I have to. He didn't say it, someone who knew him, someone who served under him, would know what that pause signified. "Be safe, keep your head down."

He cut the connection, listened to Peregrine's comm chatter;

"Peregrine here, I'm under fire at Augmentation Station. Some backup might be nice, if you're not too busy?"
Ibraham's face remained impassive, as he hand slipped into his Levi Strauss Microweave Jacket, he felt the cool metallic inhaler, he knew what it contained a synthetic trigger that would activate his hard wires, a synaptic accelerator that would allow him to react with near superhuman speed and efficiency. He didn't know what kind of team was hitting his partner, but he knew it was serious for him to give his location on an encrypted line. After all, in their line of work, all an encrypted line really represented was a polite request for privacy, anyone who *wanted* to listen in, could, given the right resources.

He chirped an affirmative, and proceeded towards the traffic, hailing a Psotnik Transit Vehicle. Psotnik, a subsidiary of Complete Solutions, provided cost effective secure transportation, without endangering drivers to the violence of the sprawl. The automated system provided the illusion of anonymity, though pick up and drop off locations were tracked by their Dispatch Division, however, given the sheer volume of use the service saw, it at least maintained some degree of the alluded privacy. Ibraham slotted his re-purposed Ident Chip and transferred the appropriate credits to ensure emergency transport protocols, and leaned back into the battered synth-leather seating securing the 5-point harness.

Once secure the vehicle pulled into traffic, and accelerated into the Corporate Traffic lane, his hand withdrew from his pocket, the refrigerated inhaler cold against his nostril as he fired a torpedo of Hardfire into his system. He closed his eyes and shuddered, the synthetic trigger activating his neural hardware, triggering his synaptic accelerators, the receptors along his spine burst into life with only a slight twinge of pain. Ares Liberator under his left arm, he'd left the heavier firepower at the office, but the weight was comforting even as his nevous system recoiled under assault from the synthetics he'd introduced into the system. Within seconds the effects of the trigger wore off, and he was combat ready.

His hard eyes stared straight ahead, there was no point in trying to formulate a plan, he would be arriving into the unknown.

I have no tactics; I make emptiness and the void my tactics.

More zen bull****, but there was a certain truth to it.

[Thanqol]

S***! The first thing Dante does is slap his helmet back on and open a channel to the rest of the team. "Peregrine here, I'm under fire at Augmentation Station. Some backup might be nice, if you're not too busy?" As he says this, he's crawling over to check on Scissorhands. Pulse, breathing, check. Need to stop the bleeding. Shouldn't be a problem in a place like this. He looks around for a derm spray - Hell, I'd even settle for some bandages at this point.

Do you have to roll for first aid on NPCs? :smallconfused:

First Aid isn't the appropriate move here - you're in a clinic surrounded by medcrap, there is ab-so-lutely nothing stopping you from patching up Sciz if you can crawl your way over there and have a few uninterrupted moments.

But you're doing this under the time pressure of some guy with a gun about to kick down the door. So I think you're clearly Acting Under Fire here, roll it.


"Yeah, twice blessed be." He intoned by way of greeting, "Thanks for the heads up on OIB, I'll keep my eyes open." He continued ahead, "These kids though O, they remind me of us when we signed up with Vættir. Remember?" Fresh out of GIGR he'd been young, idealistic, he'd bought the recruiters warrior-scholar philosophy based on the stitched together corpse of zen philosophy and corporate culture; I have no sword, I make absence of self my sword. All bull****, but feed it to recruits without strong ties, to family, to location, uproot them, give them a garden in which to grow and they become loyal, until you don't need them anymore and then you can bury them in that f**king garden.

"They've been doing a few tests like this recently," she says, hotlinking you to a couple of disconnected news articles; secure warehouse cracked, minor gang skirmish. Local; someone's been busy - but the coverup looks surprisingly solid. If the kids are out committing then someone's working the PR backend for them, you wouldn't have flagged those incidents yourself.


"Send one of your twice blessed pledges to do the drop, hard copy only O. Same place, usual rates apply." He made ready to cut the connection, paused a moment, "Listen O, if things change, let me know," his comm chimed, Peregrine, he muted it. I'll blow that f**king boat sky high and make a raft out of the bodies if I have to. He didn't say it, someone who knew him, someone who served under him, would know what that pause signified. "Be safe, keep your head down."

I figure from that you're taking [gear], yeah?


He chirped an affirmative, and proceeded towards the traffic, hailing a Psotnik Transit Vehicle. Psotnik, a subsidiary of Complete Solutions, provided cost effective secure transportation, without endangering drivers to the violence of the sprawl. The automated system provided the illusion of anonymity, though pick up and drop off locations were tracked by their Dispatch Division, however, given the sheer volume of use the service saw, it at least maintained some degree of the alluded privacy. Ibraham slotted his re-purposed Ident Chip and transferred the appropriate credits to ensure emergency transport protocols, and leaned back into the battered synth-leather seating securing the 5-point harness.

So this thing's going to be obeying traffic laws for liability reasons. And that could be fine, you know? Sit back and enjoy the view. Maybe you're feeling a bit more heat than that allows you, though - and a pro of your shade certainly knows how to rip off the console and f*ck around with the manual override setting. That kind of thing could get you dinged in any number of ways, though, it's not like the eggheads at Psotnik haven't planned for meathands shuffling around in their lovely machines.

So, either sit tight and do your time, or roll Acting Under Fire to do a manual over-ride and get to your target a bit quicker, what's good?

[Eldest]

Taylor

Taylor clutches at her chest where the round hit: either the coat had caught it and she busted a rib, or it hadn't and she was leaking. She isn't sure which she would prefer. She stares down the kid with the gun. How can Taylor get out of this situation, and how is the kid vulnerable to her?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

As the trigger raced along his nerve endings, like a cold synthetic fire, his perception of time dilated, and suddenly he realized that the Psotnik-pilot would never get him to Peregrine, not in time.

He remembered Khandaq, some **** hole country in the sand, his team had lost their Panzer jockey, a woman named Saamiya. Mag-coil gauss round took off her leg above the knee, Ibraham had to land the Panzer through a storm of gauss rounds, get his team on the ground, so they could extract with the Khandaq diplomat, their target.

He pulled a multi tool out of his armored jacket, began to work off the cowling exposing the controls underneath that would let him manually control the vehicle, and allow him to get to Peregrine before he was overrun.

[Thanqol]

First Aid isn't the appropriate move here - you're in a clinic surrounded by medcrap, there is ab-so-lutely nothing stopping you from patching up Sciz if you can crawl your way over there and have a few uninterrupted moments.

But you're doing this under the time pressure of some guy with a gun about to kick down the door. So I think you're clearly Acting Under Fire here, roll it.

You're sharp on your heels, Peregrine. You grab the right kit, move the right distance and patch the doc with skinfoam as you're moving. You make it into the back room just as the attacker kicks in the door and jumps into the room. He's lost track of you - but the office ain't that big and there is a bloodstain leading back to you so you're not drowning in minutes here. You can either lay an ambush or make your exit through the back, or something else if your vision goes further than mine. Through the mirror, looks like it's Luke Gordon - kid with cybered up eyes.

You got a little breathing room and the advantage of surprise, what do you do?


Taylor

Taylor clutches at her chest where the round hit: either the coat had caught it and she busted a rib, or it hadn't and she was leaking. She isn't sure which she would prefer. She stares down the kid with the gun. How can Taylor get out of this situation, and how is the kid vulnerable to her?

Best way out of this situation is to stall until the stompers get down here. You don't need to make a break for it - you're the victim here, just surviving for a few beats is probably enough. Dive for cover or talk fast.

The kid's vulnerable to you in the medium term, you reckon. He busted out a gun, caused a scene, made a murder attempt in a public place - and you're getting a good look at the idiot with those artificial eyes of yours. This is someone who doesn't know the rules of society, where to put the bribes, how to properly manage a hit. Turn this into an Investigation with the system on your side and you'll have the high hand.

Oh, you're dealing with Phillip Miles here, assuming the dossier your boss gave you is good.


Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

As the trigger raced along his nerve endings, like a cold synthetic fire, his perception of time dilated, and suddenly he realized that the Psotnik-pilot would never get him to Peregrine, not in time.

He remembered Khandaq, some **** hole country in the sand, his team had lost their Panzer jockey, a woman named Saamiya. Mag-coil gauss round took off her leg above the knee, Ibraham had to land the Panzer through a storm of gauss rounds, get his team on the ground, so they could extract with the Khandaq diplomat, their target.

He pulled a multi tool out of his armored jacket, began to work off the cowling exposing the controls underneath that would let him manually control the vehicle, and allow him to get to Peregrine before he was overrun.

So you're in the midst of prying off the cowling when you notice the doors to the taxi lock themselves - and then the thing starts taking a hard right away from where you want to go. Your rideshare partner isn't compliant seems like. Your instincts tell you that this isn't the corp f*cking you either, this is some hacker ghosting in the matrix taking you for a ride.

Good news is that she's not pitching you off the nearest bridge, bad news is that she's driving you into an ugly part of town. But hey, you're already in the process of disassembling the car - you could just wait for a flat stretch of road and put a round through the engine block if you really need a way out, or you could play this a different way and see how it goes. What do you do?

[rooster707]

Peregrine considers his options. Much as he'd like to just leave, Scissorhands is still in there - not to mention one of their targets. Still, it wouldn't hurt to set up an extraction. Or superior firepower, for that matter. He reaches out through cyberspace and contacts the Illuminatus, signaling the helicopter to fly to his position and await further commands.

That done, he edges closer to the door and draws his pistol. Better try diplomacy first; he has no desire to get shot again unless he absolutely has to. He pushes the door ajar and calls to the kid, "Gordon, I'm not sure you know what you're getting into here. Let me make it clear to you. I have backup on the way. Highly trained, heavily armed people, some of which are more than willing to chop you up for parts. And now you've shot me, and they're not going to be happy. I wanted to offer you a better deal, that's why I'm here, but you shot the doctor before she could tell me anything. So the best I can offer you is: surrender now, and you stay alive. Take it or leave it."

Pretty sure this is Fast Talking. Rolling: [roll0]

Edit: This is gonna hurt, isn't it? :smalleek:

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham didn't have many options, sure he could try to duck out of the Psotnik, his armor jacket would protect him from the worst of the impact, however, in so doing he'd lose any information he could gain from confronting his captors. So he decided to wait, of course he'd have preferred to be packing his Gungnir, but it was at the office, so to speak, so he'd need to rely on speed and precision.

He opened his comm channel set it to text, knowing it would come over their respective display links;

@peregrine; @tyler: Responding to 'grine's back up request. Psotnik bricked. Nav-system compromised. Final destination unknown. Likely rival team, or primaries. Update with location when possible.

He thought about laying down across the rear bench, but then he wouldn't he eyes on any hostiles approaching the vehicle, though sitting upright did present a clear target for any snipers. He assumed that who ever had bricked the Psotnik, and overrode the Nav-system, could be linked into the vehicle's interior monitoring systems, video and comm, so he spoke.

"So," he paused, reached into his jacket pulled out a battered pack of Sokolof's, lit one with the micro unit in the pack and inhaled deeply, letting the carcinogenic smoke curl around his brow like a halo. "I'm a captive audience, tell me. What's your story, and why do I care?"

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00

Taylor grits her teeth, and starts spouting bull. "Phillip, right? Gonna be honest, not the worst reception to a cold call I've had. Had a job offer for you, you *******. You wanna talk it out, or do you want to keep shooting somebody with a better bloody offer than what you got right now?"

Fast Talk [roll0]

She has one fleeting thought for how much hot water they're already in with Transcendance, and then gives a professional grin, only tinged with a little bit of pain. "So, we gonna talk?"

[Thanqol]

Peregrine considers his options. Much as he'd like to just leave, Scissorhands is still in there - not to mention one of their targets. Still, it wouldn't hurt to set up an extraction. Or superior firepower, for that matter. He reaches out through cyberspace and contacts the Illuminatus, signaling the helicopter to fly to his position and await further commands.

That done, he edges closer to the door and draws his pistol. Better try diplomacy first; he has no desire to get shot again unless he absolutely has to. He pushes the door ajar and calls to the kid, "Gordon, I'm not sure you know what you're getting into here. Let me make it clear to you. I have backup on the way. Highly trained, heavily armed people, some of which are more than willing to chop you up for parts. And now you've shot me, and they're not going to be happy. I wanted to offer you a better deal, that's why I'm here, but you shot the doctor before she could tell me anything. So the best I can offer you is: surrender now, and you stay alive. Take it or leave it."

Pretty sure this is Fast Talking. Rolling: [roll0]

Edit: This is gonna hurt, isn't it? :smalleek:

Kid has a grenade.

Kid answers with the grenade.

You're in a pretty small storage room with your buddy the doc and the grenade. The grenade is not your buddy.

What do you do?


He thought about laying down across the rear bench, but then he wouldn't he eyes on any hostiles approaching the vehicle, though sitting upright did present a clear target for any snipers. He assumed that who ever had bricked the Psotnik, and overrode the Nav-system, could be linked into the vehicle's interior monitoring systems, video and comm, so he spoke.

"So," he paused, reached into his jacket pulled out a battered pack of Sokolof's, lit one with the micro unit in the pack and inhaled deeply, letting the carcinogenic smoke curl around his brow like a halo. "I'm a captive audience, tell me. What's your story, and why do I care?"

The dash flickers and overrides:
> Don't ask me buddy, I'm just a contractor on this one :)
> Also if you survive my contact number is [Hexdata]
> I don't offer that to just anyone btws ;)
> Only dudes hardcore enough to survive things like I'm driving you into

It looks like the car is starting to pull into an old factoryplex, interior laden with unproductive machinery; twisted and complex architecture, bound to the desires of the assembly line rather than for human habitation.

> Oh yeah, that reminds me. While you got a sec check this out:

She broadcasts a standard template contract to your phone display. Essentially it's offering you a little money in exchange for streaming rights for the coming firefight. If you A) Keep your AR goggles on throughout and B) survive you stand to make 2-Cred!


Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00

Taylor grits her teeth, and starts spouting bull. "Phillip, right? Gonna be honest, not the worst reception to a cold call I've had. Had a job offer for you, you *******. You wanna talk it out, or do you want to keep shooting somebody with a better bloody offer than what you got right now?"

Fast Talk [roll0]

She has one fleeting thought for how much hot water they're already in with Transcendance, and then gives a professional grin, only tinged with a little bit of pain. "So, we gonna talk?"

Just to be certain, is your goal here to stall him until the law gets the bead on him, or get him to seriously consider your offer? Whichever one you pick you'll get for sure with that roll so it's just a question of your priorities.

Legwork Clock: 15:00

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

A grim smile flashed across Ibraham's face, "It's almost go time, and you flash a contract in front of me?" He paused, "You are seriously ****in' with my zen." However, a glimmer of hope ran through his head as he assessed the kill zone he was being transported to. "So tell me doll, your contract is a standard acquire and deliver, correct? Once goods have been transported, some corp script is wired to your account?"

He paused, readying his 92Z, ensuring he had adequate clips at the ready. "Assuming they needed it done quick, and there's not a non-compete clause? What say I agree to your contract, but waive my royalties so that upon completion of your contract for these mother ****ers, you brick their comlinks, and ping their location on my GPS."

"I'll throw in future consideration for employment," he pressed his thumb against the screen, rendering a virtua-signature to her contract, "some net savvy drives up our net worth, which means more options." Another smile as he pocketed the phone and clicked the AR upload on his mirror shades, "That's good for both of us."

[rooster707]

Right. **** this. Peregrine scoops up the grenade, lobs it through the door and is about to follow guns blazing when he gets an alert from the chopper. This changes things a little. He maneuvers it over to a window, somewhere it'll be clearly visible from inside, and puts it into attack mode, its twin machine guns unfolding into position and spinning up. The Erebus-class may have been built for stealth, but when things get loud, it pays to have a backup plan - something its XTOC designers obviously understood. Peregrine shouts through the door again. "Backup's here, ***hole. Last chance."

Correct me if I'm wrong (believe me, if I can do something without rolling for it I will :smalltongue:) but I think this is Acting Under Pressure and then Playing Hardball, with a bonus to the latter since I'm using my vehicle. So:

[roll0]

[roll1]

[Thanqol]

Just to be certain, is your goal here to stall him until the law gets the bead on him, or get him to seriously consider your offer? Whichever one you pick you'll get for sure with that roll so it's just a question of your priorities.

Legwork Clock: 15:00

So the kid hesitates. He's trying to be stone-cold but the motivating force here is basically money and you might be offering more of it. A few awkward questions mixed with threats and enough haphazard attempts at independent thought stalls long enough for a stomper to draw a bead on him and then, bang bang, he's down to the sniper and the uniforms are running in for the collar. Not dead, at least not till the corp works him over.

But the situation's leaving your hands rapidly and while civilians might be inclined to stand back and trust the system to handle it from here, you know better. Want to make an Assess?


Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

A grim smile flashed across Ibraham's face, "It's almost go time, and you flash a contract in front of me?" He paused, "You are seriously ****in' with my zen." However, a glimmer of hope ran through his head as he assessed the kill zone he was being transported to. "So tell me doll, your contract is a standard acquire and deliver, correct? Once goods have been transported, some corp script is wired to your account?"

He paused, readying his 92Z, ensuring he had adequate clips at the ready. "Assuming they needed it done quick, and there's not a non-compete clause? What say I agree to your contract, but waive my royalties so that upon completion of your contract for these mother ****ers, you brick their comlinks, and ping their location on my GPS."

"I'll throw in future consideration for employment," he pressed his thumb against the screen, rendering a virtua-signature to her contract, "some net savvy drives up our net worth, which means more options." Another smile as he pocketed the phone and clicked the AR upload on his mirror shades, "That's good for both of us."

> Sure - on the condition that you make sure no one walks out to rat on me.
> It's not strictly speaking against contract for me to do this but it's still not the kind of rep I need, amiright?

The contract updates with the relevant information just as the car begins to slow down. It's an ugly spot she's putting you in - the middle of an old factory floor, lot of bad lines of sight, catwalks and gantries for a crew to conceal themselves in. If they weren't all haloed in glowing red on your goggles you'd be in serious off-brand sh*t. Assault rifles, balaclavas and handkerchiefs, augs, at least ten bodies - this is serious muscle they've sent after you. It's kind of flattering, actually. All your targets, too, nice of them to gather in one place.

You've got the initiative, but not for long before your car starts getting bullets. What do you do?


Right. **** this. Peregrine scoops up the grenade, lobs it through the door and is about to follow guns blazing when he gets an alert from the chopper. This changes things a little. He maneuvers it over to a window, somewhere it'll be clearly visible from inside, and puts it into attack mode, its twin machine guns unfolding into position and spinning up. The Erebus-class may have been built for stealth, but when things get loud, it pays to have a backup plan - something its XTOC designers obviously understood. Peregrine shouts through the door again. "Backup's here, ***hole. Last chance."

Correct me if I'm wrong (believe me, if I can do something without rolling for it I will :smalltongue:) but I think this is Acting Under Pressure and then Playing Hardball, with a bonus to the latter since I'm using my vehicle. So:

[roll0]

[roll1]

Small problem with juggling two different forms of backup - the grenade sails out the window just as your chopper pulls down. You wince as a bunch of red icons come up on your AR display - it caught a bunch of shrapnel from the blast. It hasn't trashed your ride but you probably want to have that looked at at some point.

But hey, a giant chopper coming down amidst sound and explosions is a hell of a case for putting down a smg. Kid freaks, freezes, drops the gun. Sitch is yours - at least until the stompers get down here, which is soon. What do you do?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham took careful note of the gang's positioning, cross referencing that information with his visual data, and their positioning amongst the rusted out skeleton of late 21st century industrialism. He noted blind spots, cover, and overlapping kill zones, their positioning was good, but not perfect, there were areas and weakness he could exploit. He was under fire, somewhere in the back of his mind he was grateful, this is where he felt alive, when death was close enough to reach across and caress his cheek, he smiled.

"Zero sweat," he secured his 92Z, pulled the optic cord from the weapons I/O port, plugged it into the interface on the inside of his wrist, making a tight cord that wouldn't get caught on armored clothing, or cover. He flipped up his collar, pulled the zipper up, protecting his lower face and throat, it was time to go to work. He swung the pistol across the gantry, the dim green reticle flaring to life on his field of vision, along with ammo count, barrel temperature, wind conditions, and humidity.

He felt the hardfire race along his spine, the entire scene slowed down to a crawl, the adrenaline mixed with carbon fiber implants, and suddenly he was out of the taxi moving to cover, at augmented speed. He'd picked a moment of dim light to do so, not because he expected to go unseen, these guys would have night vision, either aug's or goggles. But because he wanted them *to* see him. With his left hand he swung his back up piece, the heavier S&W revolver, it fired 11mm High X rounds, more than enough to penetrate a derelict barrel's fuel drum, flaring their night vision while he made it to cover.


OOC: Acting under Pressure, to cause an explosion that will **** with any active night vision the gang is using, my Synthetic Nerves give me a +1 in any action where reaction time is critical, and I think this qualifies. Rolling Cool, +1, with the bonus from Synthetic Nerves. [roll0]. Hopefully this works out for the good guy. Namely me.

[Eldest]

Taylor grunts and nods her thanks to the stompers: they might have their differences... okay, a lot of differences. Usually on the opposite side from each other, actually. But hey, they came through. But something seems off...

[roll0]

Spending my one remaining hold from the previous assess (if that's not okay, just skip this question)
What potential complication (with regards to Phillup) do I need to be wary of?
Spending all three hold from the new one immediately.
What potential complications (with regards to the stompers) do I need to be wary of?
What do I notice in spite of an attempt to conceal it?
Who is really in control here?

[Thanqol]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham took careful note of the gang's positioning, cross referencing that information with his visual data, and their positioning amongst the rusted out skeleton of late 21st century industrialism. He noted blind spots, cover, and overlapping kill zones, their positioning was good, but not perfect, there were areas and weakness he could exploit. He was under fire, somewhere in the back of his mind he was grateful, this is where he felt alive, when death was close enough to reach across and caress his cheek, he smiled.

"Zero sweat," he secured his 92Z, pulled the optic cord from the weapons I/O port, plugged it into the interface on the inside of his wrist, making a tight cord that wouldn't get caught on armored clothing, or cover. He flipped up his collar, pulled the zipper up, protecting his lower face and throat, it was time to go to work. He swung the pistol across the gantry, the dim green reticle flaring to life on his field of vision, along with ammo count, barrel temperature, wind conditions, and humidity.

He felt the hardfire race along his spine, the entire scene slowed down to a crawl, the adrenaline mixed with carbon fiber implants, and suddenly he was out of the taxi moving to cover, at augmented speed. He'd picked a moment of dim light to do so, not because he expected to go unseen, these guys would have night vision, either aug's or goggles. But because he wanted them *to* see him. With his left hand he swung his back up piece, the heavier S&W revolver, it fired 11mm High X rounds, more than enough to penetrate a derelict barrel's fuel drum, flaring their night vision while he made it to cover.

Fwoosh? Fwoosh. One of the plusses of a corporate dystopia is that, with the gutting of OH&S legislation, explosive barrels are the kind of thing you can find lying around factory complexes. Small catch, not that you'd notice till you have some time to think it through: even though these guys all have their comms jammed there's an entire secondary layer of cameras here. Enough to notice you spring the counter ambush and start analysing your moves and training.

Legwork Clock: 18:00

But that's a puzzle for another time. Right now you've got a clear run in any direction - away, towards, or into cover. If you're not bailing and running your next move is probably going to be Mixing It Up.


Taylor grunts and nods her thanks to the stompers: they might have their differences... okay, a lot of differences. Usually on the opposite side from each other, actually. But hey, they came through. But something seems off...

[roll0]

Spending my one remaining hold from the previous assess (if that's not okay, just skip this question)
What potential complication (with regards to Phillup) do I need to be wary of?
Spending all three hold from the new one immediately.
What potential complications (with regards to the stompers) do I need to be wary of?
What do I notice in spite of an attempt to conceal it?
Who is really in control here?

Potential complication from the kid, sure I'll allow it. He didn't find you randomly. He's got backup, serious backup, serious surveillance backup. Resources some escapee soldier wouldn't have. Watch out for Matrix enabled threats and trackers.

Potential complication from the stompers, well, their first instinct is to take you into custody and figure out what to do with you later. That's not great. That means in practical terms they'll hold you there until they can figure out if anyone's willing to pay money for your location. Maybe that's no one, you don't seem to have any current vendettas. Maybe it's not.

What you notice despite attempts to conceal it is that all the sec cams on this floor were pointing right at you during the attempted murder. They're all turning back to their regular rotations but someone was paying real close attention to everything about that fight. You also note that those cameras aren't crap either, they're better quality than a place like this calls for - all kinds of information was being channelled.

Cybered kids, non-legit mission handler, detailed cameras, matrix overwatch, you personally being jumped, Zero's notice from corps running weapons test... pretty clear picture shaping up. OIB is doing a field test of their new cyberware and they're in control here. You can guess at the shape of this - they've armed up a gang with some new tech and are crashing it against some professionals Transcendence Inc has reason to be rid of.

See, think of this from some corporate middle manager's perspective. You need to run a weapons test, but weapons tests are expensive, and elite military badasses to hold the weapons are also expensive. So let's give the weapons to gangsters; they're disposable and dumb. But let's test those gunned up kids against some actual badasses who are, coincidentally, on the corp's sh*t list. If the badasses die, hey, look, our new augs let some random idiots take out badasses - stick that on the f*cking brochure. If the gang dies then the badasses are contractually obliged to bring the cyberware right back home, and also we can probably ambush and murder them properly at the drop site instead of paying them. End result is a lot of people we don't care about are dead and we still have the kit we started with. No way this can go wrong. Awesome. This'll sound great when I pitch it to the VP.

So yeah, at this point I'll mention that the switch to the Action Clock happens if/when you target OIB directly. You can probably technically accomplish the job without going after them, that's fine if that's your play. But so long as you're walking around the streets getting ambushed by chromed bruisers we're still in Legwork.

[rooster707]

Peregrine springs into action, grabbing the gun before ziptying the kid and shoving him into the chopper. After making sure Scissorhands is still okay, he hops in and takes them into the air.

Once they're safely away, he pulls up an AR display in his helmet and starts multitasking. Send the bike back home, run some diagnostics on the chopper - most importantly, message the rest of the team: Bagged a target - one with the eyeballs. We got anywhere to put these guys?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

An icon in the upper left of his field of vision, an incoming message from Peregrine, he silenced it, not able to afford the distraction. The explosion had succeeded to burn through his opposition's flare compensation, the shift from night vision to polarization was too long, and the bleed got through to their visual receptors. It bought him some time, but not enough, he needed to work carefully, isolate and eliminate, he crept forward keeping a careful eye on the gantry overhead, his tactical feed highlighting the spotter's position, he quietly moved into position, sighting his 92Z, and pulled the trigger.

A short burst of flechette ammunition flew towards the base of his target's spine, it would sever the cranial nerve, he wouldn't be able to make a sound.


[b]OOC:[bold] Mix it Up, due to my Neural Link and the +link with my 92Z, I am able to use Synth rather than Meat, and due to my Synthetic Nerves, if my target doesn't have them I add an additional +1. With a Synth of +2, here goes. [roll0]. My silenced machine pistol is Dmg 2, but with the link, I can add my Synth to the damage, so it comes to 4, and it is +autofire, however, I just want to silently eliminate one. I'll work on the rest as we move along.

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00

Taylor finally has a moment to check those pinging messages, and grunts. Of course they'd all been chased.

I was ambushed as well. Cops did their job for a change. Took a bullet. She feels the rib and winces: certainly bruised, but the coat caught most of it. Think I caught on to what's going on. Y'all still need backup? I'll do what I can, but the cops might want me for questioning. How's your lawyer act these days?

[rooster707]

Nah, I'm good here. Feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder, Dante glances down, suddenly realizing what he was forgetting. Well, mostly. Love to help, but I've got a hole that needs patching.

[Thanqol]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

An icon in the upper left of his field of vision, an incoming message from Peregrine, he silenced it, not able to afford the distraction. The explosion had succeeded to burn through his opposition's flare compensation, the shift from night vision to polarization was too long, and the bleed got through to their visual receptors. It bought him some time, but not enough, he needed to work carefully, isolate and eliminate, he crept forward keeping a careful eye on the gantry overhead, his tactical feed highlighting the spotter's position, he quietly moved into position, sighting his 92Z, and pulled the trigger.

A short burst of flechette ammunition flew towards the base of his target's spine, it would sever the cranial nerve, he wouldn't be able to make a sound.

It's short and messy work, unravelling an ambush. It all comes down to information and emotion. If you have the data and the willingness to plug that data into the program it all just sorts itself out. Bang bang bang. Compiled. Copacetic.

But these guys have at least a few pieces of cyberware on their side and they're working their way through information and emotion at roughly the same speed. You've herded them back over a body or three, got them cornered and clustered, but one of them has something hooked up to his brain and is laying down scary accurate fire even through the dark. They'll soon figure this sitch out and try advancing, but at the moment you've got them contained and clustered. You've got the initiative, you're in their OODA loop, what's the next play?


Nah, I'm good here. Feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder, Dante glances down, suddenly realizing what he was forgetting. Well, mostly. Love to help, but I've got a hole that needs patching.

You've got enough chems and stims and things, either grabbed from the lab side or on Sciz's person, to wake her up. Since you did a decent job on the first aid she can probably start doing some actual doctoring once brought to.

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

He opened a channel an encrypted comm channel to his team so they could hear his conversation with his assailants. "I've been hired for retirement and retrieval, and you were kind enough to set up this ambush for me" He called out to them from behind cover, observing their movements and their reaction. "My employer want's the chrome that someone grafted to your nerves, your implants, your augments." He paused, letting that sink in, while he watched their positioning, his display link showing statistical data over his field of vision, he could determine how they were using their cover, their level of preparedness, he needed to overcome their tactical software if he wanted to walk out of here.

"My employer isn't who he says he is," he began to circle from his position, he didn't want them triangulating. "Which means this whole thing is a set up, so you need to ask yourself if you're willing to choke on your own blood for the promise of a paycheck." He sneered as he spoke, promise, he knew how much the promise of the corporations was worth. "One man, and you had the drop on him. One man, and what, over a third of your unit had been neutralized, and I have back up moving in as we speak."

He checked his ammo, checked their position, reloaded, prepared for the end play.

"You don't need to check out today!"

His next two words punctuated the atmosphere with the precision and clarity of sniper fire.

"Stand. Down."


OOC: Alright, here goes, we're Playing Hardball with what remains of this unit; I want them to lay down their weapons and talk. Otherwise the engagement ensues. Rolling Edge, +1, [roll0]. All the while I am streaming audio to my team & hopefully hitting them with GPS location, so they can back me up, if need be.

[rooster707]

Peregrine has just finished waking up Scissorhands when he gets Null's message. After considering his options for a moment, he sets course for Ibraham's location and returns to the doctor - they both need medical attention, and he'd rather get it done before they arrive if at all possible.

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00

Taylor winces as the new call comes in. She speaks, quietly so the cops can't overhear her. "I'm about to be detained, if I can't talk my way out of it. I know what's going on, saving that particular conversation till we're face to face." With that she starts to walk towards her car. She expects to get intercepted, mind, but hey, might as well get the stompers to start the argument.

[Thanqol]

"My employer isn't who he says he is," he began to circle from his position, he didn't want them triangulating. "Which means this whole thing is a set up, so you need to ask yourself if you're willing to choke on your own blood for the promise of a paycheck." He sneered as he spoke, promise, he knew how much the promise of the corporations was worth. "One man, and you had the drop on him. One man, and what, over a third of your unit had been neutralized, and I have back up moving in as we speak."

He checked his ammo, checked their position, reloaded, prepared for the end play.

"You don't need to check out today!"

His next two words punctuated the atmosphere with the precision and clarity of sniper fire.

"Stand. Down."

One of the gangers has glass eyes - you only see the glint for a second before there's a crack of return fire. Blink once. You're not dead. Bullet went straight through the optics of your gun - there's a wreck of wire and circuitry that's eerily parallel to what your head might have been like if that shot had gone an inch to the left.

It'll still shoot though, maybe. Hard to make a gun too dumb to shoot. Remove +linked and add +unreliable to your weapon.

You take the invitation to get into cover as more gunfire starts coming in, Eyes is pointing your location out. They're not professional enough to risk moving out even though they've pinned you back a bit but one of them with an augmetic arm stands up and starts punching down the wall behind him. In a couple of secs he'll have made a hole. What do you do?


Peregrine has just finished waking up Scissorhands when he gets Null's message. After considering his options for a moment, he sets course for Ibraham's location and returns to the doctor - they both need medical attention, and he'd rather get it done before they arrive if at all possible.

Scissorhands jerks awake but adopts an eerie chill about the whole thing - some cranial aug of hers is pumping coolness into a head that might freak out at the sight of blood, gore, pain, screaming, various doctor-distracting things. She gets to work patching up holes without much talk above grunts. Don't clear any harm just yet, but it feels much better, won't distract you, and you'll be able to wipe it with a few hours rest.

You come in over a the warehouse complex Null is pinging from. He's got some sort of tactical lock on the bad guys that lets you mark your targets even through walls - handy, you didn't know that was Zero's thing. Still there's some amount of concrete between you and your prey, unless you can flush them out into the open somehow. There are various breaks in the building, big windows, some areas large enough to fly your ride into if you're really bold so you do have options here. What do you do?


Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00

Taylor winces as the new call comes in. She speaks, quietly so the cops can't overhear her. "I'm about to be detained, if I can't talk my way out of it. I know what's going on, saving that particular conversation till we're face to face." With that she starts to walk towards her car. She expects to get intercepted, mind, but hey, might as well get the stompers to start the argument.

Stomper walks over with that big ponderous bootfall that's gone from insult to branding. Cheeky little stormcloud grins derpily out at you from his lapel pin. "Ma'am," he read off his script in the checked-out voice of well-armed minimum wage. "I need to take a statement from you regarding the assault. Would you like to do this before or after receiving medical treatment?"

I will mention that just extracting yourself from this clean is one way you could go - but you might also want to get on the inside of the legal process here; after all that is your target, cuffed and helpless, being put in someone else's box right now.

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

He dropped the ruined wreck of his 92Z, he'd need to field strip and repair it's link before it was of any value to him, and he didn't have the time currently, not with the air buzzing with 10mm rounds. Instead he drew the large, clumsy S&W SAC, Thunderstruck, named after some pre-millennial musical group, it was an appropriate name however. If it was pulled on you and you had to look down it's 12.7mm bore, it was like looking into the abyss, and sometimes, he smiled as the thought rolled through his brain, sometimes it gazed back.

Using the feed, he surveyed their position, he had a better idea of their firepower now, and their return fire confirmed their position, allowed him to run an analysis, accuracy, rate of fire, and coverage. Their tac-net seemed to be operating at close to peak efficiency, it was wired with the best training that money could buy, however, that's the thing about hardwired tactics and combat chips, experience allowed you to improvise, synthetic skills did not.

He dropped back to one of the bodies he'd neutralized earlier, likely tagged with an RFID chip that tagged him as a 'friendly', allowed his unit's smart weapons to cut out if on a specific trajectory for their ally. He ran a scanner over the corpse, even as he moved under cover, searching for the chip, hoping he could use it to buy him the fraction of a second he would need to put the crew back on to the defensive.


OOC: Throwing out some techno babble that hopefully makes sense, but in essence I am looking to use Trained Eye; rolling Cool, +1. [roll0]. When you evaluate a person, vehicle, drone or gang, roll Cool. 7+: ask the target “How are you vulnerable to me?” Take +1 forward when acting on the answer. 10+: gain +1 ongoing when acting against that target.

[rooster707]

Dante slips back into the cockpit and pulls on the safety harness. A cable extends from the headrest; he plugs it into his skull and flicks a switch on the dashboard. The display says 75% SYNC, and he can feel the chopper all around him, changing from a simple vehicle into an extension of his own body. No more negotiation or tense standoffs - he's in his element now. Dante flashes an adrenaline-fueled grin over his shoulder at his passengers. "Buckle up, kids, this might get rough."

The Illuminatus hovers for a brief moment over the warehouses as Peregrine assesses the situation. He takes them down to ground level as quietly as possible, simultaneously bringing the guns online and locking onto Zero's marks. Once the chopper is in position, he begins strafing the building, firing in precise bursts through the windows.

Mixing it Up (Synth plus the chopper's Power): [roll0]

[Thanqol]

Dante slips back into the cockpit and pulls on the safety harness. A cable extends from the headrest; he plugs it into his skull and flicks a switch on the dashboard. The display says 75% SYNC, and he can feel the chopper all around him, changing from a simple vehicle into an extension of his own body. No more negotiation or tense standoffs - he's in his element now. Dante flashes an adrenaline-fueled grin over his shoulder at his passengers. "Buckle up, kids, this might get rough."

The Illuminatus hovers for a brief moment over the warehouses as Peregrine assesses the situation. He takes them down to ground level as quietly as possible, simultaneously bringing the guns online and locking onto Zero's marks. Once the chopper is in position, he begins strafing the building, firing in precise bursts through the windows.

Mixing it Up (Synth plus the chopper's Power): [roll0]

The damage you inflict is fairly incidental - shooting through walls and into armoured targets does a lot to send accuracy to sh*t. It does cause a panic as the crew realizes a goddamn chopper is shooting at them. Their heads are most certainly kept down by your fire giving Zero a free hand to move where he wants.


Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

He dropped the ruined wreck of his 92Z, he'd need to field strip and repair it's link before it was of any value to him, and he didn't have the time currently, not with the air buzzing with 10mm rounds. Instead he drew the large, clumsy S&W SAC, Thunderstruck, named after some pre-millennial musical group, it was an appropriate name however. If it was pulled on you and you had to look down it's 12.7mm bore, it was like looking into the abyss, and sometimes, he smiled as the thought rolled through his brain, sometimes it gazed back.

Using the feed, he surveyed their position, he had a better idea of their firepower now, and their return fire confirmed their position, allowed him to run an analysis, accuracy, rate of fire, and coverage. Their tac-net seemed to be operating at close to peak efficiency, it was wired with the best training that money could buy, however, that's the thing about hardwired tactics and combat chips, experience allowed you to improvise, synthetic skills did not.

He dropped back to one of the bodies he'd neutralized earlier, likely tagged with an RFID chip that tagged him as a 'friendly', allowed his unit's smart weapons to cut out if on a specific trajectory for their ally. He ran a scanner over the corpse, even as he moved under cover, searching for the chip, hoping he could use it to buy him the fraction of a second he would need to put the crew back on to the defensive.

They're armed and armoured well, with some extremely classy cyberware. Not corp-elite but definitely better than street roughs. Where they are still street roughs is in the psychology. They're undisciplined, panicky, unused to sustained firefights - this should be over by now and instead they've got a goddamn chopper shooting machine guns at them. Shh - don't tell them how fragile that thing is, or that with a little dedicated gunfire they might blow it out of the sky.

That's their weakness - training and psychology. You know how in the latest Batman remake he said that criminals were a cowardly and superstitious lot? Totally the case. Get them to lose what coherency they have and they'll be easy prey. Give them a minute to get their blood up and really trust in their augs to carry this fight for them? Then you're in serious trouble. Right now they're pinned so you can go where you want without counterfire. What do you do?

[Eldest]

Stomper walks over with that big ponderous bootfall that's gone from insult to branding. Cheeky little stormcloud grins derpily out at you from his lapel pin. "Ma'am," he read off his script in the checked-out voice of well-armed minimum wage. "I need to take a statement from you regarding the assault. Would you like to do this before or after receiving medical treatment?"

I will mention that just extracting yourself from this clean is one way you could go - but you might also want to get on the inside of the legal process here; after all that is your target, cuffed and helpless, being put in someone else's box right now.

Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00


Taylor shrugs. "I'll go with after. Easier to talk that way." She quickly texts the others that she's going to make a statement in order to follow the guy getting arrested, then goes after the stomper.

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

The gang whirled on Dante's chopper, ignoring the fact they had Zero pinned in a crossfire, the air becoming thick with ferro-concrete dust as the large bore assault cannon chewed their cover to powder. However, this allowed Ibraham to move to one of the wounded corp equipped soldiers, he armed himself with the Arisaka BAR-54, a compact bullpup designed assault rifle, with a shortened barrel, and shoulder stock for urban combat.

He ripped the subvocal patch from the dying soldier's throat, adhered it to his own mastoid, and spoke through their comm. "Your positions are painted on our tac-net, and we have four more inbound aerial support vehicles. Lay down your weapons before our sniper team starts painting you with your buddies brain matter."

To punctuate his statement, he fired his S&W TAC revolver through the dying soldier's brain pan.

"That's one. I'm not going to have to count to three am I? LAY DOWN YOUR F**KING WEAPONS!"


OOC: I think this is Fast Talk, since I am bluffing about additional air support & sniper teams, so rolling Style, +0, but using my +1 Forward from Trained Eye, [roll0]. Lets see how this goes!

[Thanqol]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 15:00

Taylor shrugs. "I'll go with after. Easier to talk that way." She quickly texts the others that she's going to make a statement in order to follow the guy getting arrested, then goes after the stomper.

So you're put in the back of a car and rolled down towards the station. One of the stompers is actually a pretty nice guy and gives you a duller to take the edge off the pain and a handmade sandwich. He then starts nattering about stuff while his partner tunes out.

Here's how this is going to go: You'll be taken down to the station, put in a witness box, asked a bunch of questions, sign a bunch of papers, and then be cut loose. This is all pretty boring, bureaucratic and predictable - which means security is lax, you're under no suspicion, and so long as you play along with the routine things'll go fine. As far as they're concerned you're just some civvy.

However, your target is being held down the hall from you in a secure cell. Also he may have backup, Matrix or financial or whatever. If you dally too long the opfor will figure out what their play is - you can either wait to see what that is and be ready to counter it, or you can take the initiative while you have it. What do you do?


Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

The gang whirled on Dante's chopper, ignoring the fact they had Zero pinned in a crossfire, the air becoming thick with ferro-concrete dust as the large bore assault cannon chewed their cover to powder. However, this allowed Ibraham to move to one of the wounded corp equipped soldiers, he armed himself with the Arisaka BAR-54, a compact bullpup designed assault rifle, with a shortened barrel, and shoulder stock for urban combat.

He ripped the subvocal patch from the dying soldier's throat, adhered it to his own mastoid, and spoke through their comm. "Your positions are painted on our tac-net, and we have four more inbound aerial support vehicles. Lay down your weapons before our sniper team starts painting you with your buddies brain matter."

To punctuate his statement, he fired his S&W TAC revolver through the dying soldier's brain pan.

"That's one. I'm not going to have to count to three am I? LAY DOWN YOUR F**KING WEAPONS!"

These jokers aren't exactly savvy but even they can tell when a mission's gone FUBAR. For them this was meant to be a brief donation of bullets and then on to the strip club but instead they're being shot at by a chopper and an auged up lunatic. People under that kind of unexpected pressure can break and you've just given them a direction to break in that doesn't feel like immediately dying.

There's a clatter as guns get thrown down. "Are you a cop?" someone asks, that being the first org that comes to mind for bringing that kind of force to bear that fast.

LEGWORK 18:00

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham tried not to laugh, "No, we're ****ing professionals." He proceeded disarm, and zip tie his captives, "Don't even try it, it's plastic coated razor wire, if you flex your chrome, the razor wire will cut through your meat wrist, and you'll bleed out before I have the chance to shoot you."

He opened a comm to Dante, "Ground support required, need to maintain control of the hostages. What's Taylor's status?"

[rooster707]

"Taken in for questioning, last I heard. Said she had everything figured out, too, but I guess that'll have to wait." Dante sets the chopper down, pops the side hatch, and steps out to survey the scene. "So... what's the plan?"

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 14:59
Precinct House 157

Taylor takes the duller gratefully, and hopes to not have to shoot that one down the line. She listens to the patter from the cop, texting as she does.

A-hole robber arrested by cops. Headed here. [location data]. Mind bringing a-hole a sandwich? I left all the ingredients in the third drawer on the left, in the office. But don't make it yet, I just need the ingredients. Plus I gotta talk to you before.

That drawer actually has the hostage rescue plans. Hey, go big or go home right?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

"What's the plan?" Ibraham shook his head as he looked at Dante, "We renegotiate the ****ing terms of our contract." He tapped his comm, connecting him to the feed given him by the netrunner who'd he'd contracted, informing his anonymous benefactor he'd need a copy of the feed in a drop box, for future download.

He turned to their captives, "Alright, here's the deal. You and your crew were implanted with synth and chrome, given some targets, thing is, you were double crossed. We were contracted to take you out, remove your grafts and drop your bodies at the local chop shop for reclamation." He paused, staring down his captives, "We were hired by the same company, trying to cut their losses with a win-win situation.

"Your crew of what, eight? Ten? Got taken down by a pair of guys and a drone. You're ****ing amateurs, so here's whats doing to happen. We're renegotiating, but you need to disappear, what happens in combat," he looked to the dead ganger, "happens, but I'm not murdering children. So we need you to disappear, and I have some friends enroute, you are ****ing idiots, and they are ****ing idealists. Cut from the same cloth. You go with them, you get a second chance."

He shrugged, "Or you can risk my partner's hunter seeker drones cutting you down if you try to leave."

Ibraham turned to Dante, and spoke quietly, "We're going to need to get out of here, give Tyler some back up." He then fired Oda a message, including GPS co-ordinates.


@Oda: Twice Blessed, got some new recruits for you at the co-ords.
May be hostile, but I hear you folks got chems for that. I'm trying to keep them breathing, and it'll give you some muscle when your friends decide to take a tilt at another windmill.


OOC: Going to try to Fast Talk the crew into going with Oda's cult to stay out of the coming confrontation with our employer. Rolling Style, +0, [roll0].

[rooster707]

He shrugged, "Or you can risk my partner's hunter seeker drones cutting you down if you try to leave."

Dante says nothing, busy typing out a message to Taylor, but at this he slowly spins up the machine guns again to emphasize Ibraham's point. You are way out of your league. Don't **** with us.


@Taylor: Got it. Be there ASAP.

Assisting Zero (or links + the chopper's Power). [roll0]

[Thanqol]

You know, back in the day 'cult' was considered a bit of a dirty word. Nowadays, though, a cult is one of the few legit competitors to a corp in terms of influencing folks. Sure you may be answering to a power mad despot but at least he cares, right?

You make the handover, sweet and clean. As favours go, it's a good one. You could get a payday of kinds from this alone. But ending an op like this isn't that smooth - you've still got an employer, and as bad as they may be trying to screw you, you can't just bail on a contract like this. Word of that gets out. That damages your rep. Also because they're going to keep sending kill teams at you.

By handing off the goods to your own friends the nature of the Op has changed. Now it's 'how do we get out of our current contract clean?' The answer to that is usually by getting some sort of leverage on the people running this game - the corp will happily throw some middle manager with a bright idea under the bus if the alternative is cost-inefficient. How are you going to go about doing that?

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 14:59
Precinct House 157

Taylor sets up watching from the office she's stashed in, and sets DEMENTER to page through the stock reports, chatter on different augmentation enthusiasts sites, and Popular Science issues to figure out what she can about who's running this show.

Let's roll the dice one more time! :smallbiggrin:
Research
Who owns OIB? Who's the bigwig we need to work through?
[roll0]

[Thanqol]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 14:59
Precinct House 157

Taylor sets up watching from the office she's stashed in, and sets DEMENTER to page through the stock reports, chatter on different augmentation enthusiasts sites, and Popular Science issues to figure out what she can about who's running this show.

Let's roll the dice one more time! :smallbiggrin:
Research
Who owns OIB? Who's the bigwig we need to work through?
[roll0]

OIB is run by Bellis McFerson, renowned for his short temper and dictatorial manager style. The vibe you get is that he's a techie who's been promoted out of his competence zone and expects people to behave like hardware. He's the kind who'll shut down a whole area if it annoys him - but if he feels like he's being manipulated he'll turn his ire on that instead.

Make sure he does not see you as people with an agenda is my advice. Don't appeal to his humanity, don't get on his radar at all. Just make sure that the right information comes to him and he'll make the decision.

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham turned to Peregrine, "Let's move, pick up Taylor, see if we can end this thing." As they moved from their captives, he nodded towards them, "Oda's P.P. throwbacks will be here to round those guys up, once they are shipped to the boat, we'll get the debrief. OIB is going to have to renegotiate our contract, we just f**ked their Op." He kept moving toward's the assault vehicle that his partner had maneuvered in on, "Now let's get Taylor up to speed."

As they readied to move to downtown, Ibraham sent a quick message to his network savior;


@<hexcode>: Thanks for the save, your cut increases if you can hack the feeds on OIB camera's and data feeds that were tracking that engagement.

[Thanqol]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham turned to Peregrine, "Let's move, pick up Taylor, see if we can end this thing." As they moved from their captives, he nodded towards them, "Oda's P.P. throwbacks will be here to round those guys up, once they are shipped to the boat, we'll get the debrief. OIB is going to have to renegotiate our contract, we just f**ked their Op." He kept moving toward's the assault vehicle that his partner had maneuvered in on, "Now let's get Taylor up to speed."

As they readied to move to downtown, Ibraham sent a quick message to his network savior;

> They've got a network admin on that now and red ICE is moving around. I could wreck my Deck hitting those feeds.
> Also I flagged a trace while messing with their comms so that is a RISKY run
> Price for that is p astronomical [6 cred]
> but
> Get me a cabled login in their server room and its much easier

[rooster707]

Peregrine grabs the last kid and, after a brief explanation, shoves him out to wait with the others. Then he shuts the hatch and heads for the office. “We’ll leave this at the office and take the truck; I’d rather not fly any more with this damage and the cops wouldn’t like it anyway.” He looks back over his shoulder. “Hey Scissorhands, you doing okay? Want me to drop you off somewhere?”

[Thanqol]

Peregrine grabs the last kid and, after a brief explanation, shoved him out to wait with the others. Then he shuts the hatch and heads for the office. “We’ll leave this at the office and take the truck; I’d rather not fly any more with this damage and the cops wouldn’t like it anyway.” He looks back over his shoulder. “Hey Scissorhands, you doing okay? Want me to drop you off somewhere?”

"Y-yeah," she's rummaging through her pockets until she finds a bottle of Clarify - a focusing drug - and pops one. Her jitters cool a little. "This is about you, right? I'm just collateral damage?" she says somewhat more cooly. "If that's the case you can drop me off back at my office. I'm mad that you dragged me into your crap, but you then saved my life so I'm not too mad."

[rooster707]

“Yeah... sorry about that. Things don’t usually go to **** this fast. You need anything else, let me know, okay?”

[Thanqol]

“Yeah... sorry about that. Things don’t usually go to **** this fast. You need anything else, let me know, okay?”

"No problem," she said. "Thanks,"


As much as I'd like to cause problems right now, you guys are the ones with the helicopter and the initiative. What do you do?

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Once they were in the cockpit Ibraham turned to Peregrine, "Alright, so I think this is going to have to be our play," he paused, his finger tips massaging his temples, "we've taken OIB's team out of play, they were contracted to eliminate us, we were contracted to eliminate them. A win-win for OIB, thing is their team got decimated by two guys and a drone, but we spin this right, we kill whatever new initiative they had on the books."

"We need to bring Taylor up to speed, but OIB was counting on their team taking down the three of us, so they had data packets, tracking performance, tactical nets, we get that data, we tank their next gen implants. And that's our pay day, yeah?"

[Thanqol]

The pickup of Taylor is a no-stress operation; we can now transition into discussing the nature of your op.

Now, thing about blueprint-and-maps phases is that they're best done retroactively - in fact, this system is built around the idea of doing it that way rather than spending half a session calculating patrol routes or anything. That said, it is important to figure out the broad strokes of your play before you start cracking the facility, so I'll give you a few starting points.

OIB is in a commercial skyscraper, covering about five floors with unrelated corporate offices above and below. The building is in a notoriously economically unviable district, though, and as a consequence ground level security is particularly heavy. The overall vibe you get is that OIB is cutting literally any corner they can get away with, even by corporate standards - but the stuff that's mission critical will be incredibly well guarded. Comes down to the boss, you reckon - he'd as soon lose all his staff so long as the hardware remains un-jacked. Engineer thinking on defence.

You only need to decide on some broad strokes details of your plan together; don't sweat details.

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 14:55

Taylor outright glares at Ibraham. "No firebombing. It's noisy, it attracts the wrong type of attention, and it gets us remembered. All of those are bad. A distraction is fine. Hm." She blinks. "Think we can get one of the cybered kids inserted instead? Pick them up on the way out, if we can, arm him with something painful and nonlethal. Cause a ruckus, we slip in up top." She racks her brain for what DEMETER had found out about the internal surveillance of the OIB section: you'd be shocked what some of those hobby sites had on them.


Spending [intel] to know the surveillance. Is a covert insertion possible, with or without a distraction or hacking?
Also, a note: Taylor is Compassionate. She is against extra casualties, it's both inhumane and unprofessional.

[Thanqol]

Transcendence Inc doesn't go much for camera networks, thinking them vulnerable to hacking. Their preferred surveillance technique is to give all their staff augmentic eyes and review the footage from them later. Upside, if no one sees you then you won't be seen - downside is that if you make eye contact then your image will be reviewed by damage control teams. Bad for bluffing your way in, good for late night assaults.

[rooster707]

Taylor outright glares at Ibraham. "No firebombing. It's noisy, it attracts the wrong type of attention, and it gets us remembered. All of those are bad. A distraction is fine. Hm." She blinks. "Think we can get one of the cybered kids inserted instead? Pick them up on the way out, if we can, arm him with something painful and nonlethal. Cause a ruckus, we slip in up top.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dante says, nodding. “Two firefights are more than enough for one job, in my opinion. Let’s not start any more unless we have to.”


Transcendence Inc doesn't go much for camera networks, thinking them vulnerable to hacking. Their preferred surveillance technique is to give all their staff augmentic eyes and review the footage from them later. Upside, if no one sees you then you won't be seen - downside is that if you make eye contact then your image will be reviewed by damage control teams. Bad for bluffing your way in, good for late night assaults.

“If this is all they have, I should be able to get us in at the top pretty easy. Just need to get the chopper fixed up first.”

[Zero Prime]

Ibraham St-Onge, Zero Null (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22433507&postcount=8)
Harm Clock: 12:00

Ibraham shook his head, "An insertion during office hours would be counter productive, so incendiary devices present no danger to either desk jockeys, or wage slaves. It's their internal security we need to distract, sending them down a couple floors and then locking the elevator system would buy us the time we need for a roof insertion." As Taylor talks about bringing the kids back in, his eyes hardened.

"We just risked exposing my friend's organization to get those guys off the street and to better lives, I'd rather not bring them back into the life if we can avoid it." He shrugged, "I still think a distraction for their security team is our best option, this is going to come down to timing, and fire power, because either way the extraction isn't going to go smoothly."

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 14:55

"I was thinking the one that got arrested, actually. Pay off the coppers a bit to put him in my custody, tell him he's gotta do something for us and we'll give him back to his mates, and then set him loose."

[rooster707]

Peregrine shrugs. “Honestly, I’m finding it difficult to give a damn about these guys after they all tried to kill us. Besides, incendiaries would be messy - too many ways that could go wrong. Can’t exactly hack their stuff while the whole building burns down around us.”

[Eldest]

Taylor
Harm Clock: 14:55

Taylor nods. "Yeah, no explosives. Just an augged-up street ganger making a hell of a ruckus down a floor or two. Should work out, no?"

Was waiting on Zero to post, initially, and then this slipped my mind.