Topic: RECAPS: SD Shadowrun: Shadowhawk's Story
Session 7: Enter Shadowhawk
So, out of the blue I get contacted by my old friend Whisper, if by friend you mean some guy from a crew you used to do jobs for who you haven't heard from for years and that you thought was dead along with all of said crew.
So, out of the blue I get contacted by some guy I was aware of once for a job. I'm not really clear what these guys have been getting themselves into, but they probably could have used an effective hacker a long time ago. Doesn't matter, a job is a job and my funds are starting to dwindle. It seems they're looking for someone and they're opting for a go where you've been and backtrack from there objective. I probably could have spent some time investigating this guy before hand, but that's neither here nor there. They wanted to go into the subway and beyond. I'll admit, I wasn't super keen on this, but that's only because hundreds of feet of concrete and rock between me and the Matrix puts me on edge. It's alright, there was a happy ending, of sorts.
The first thing that happens, though, is these shlubs make me chip in for the crapped up run down motor boat they need to bring along for the final leg of the trip. I'm not answering the call for three minutes and already they're rifling through my pockets. That's messed up. I'm not saying it's a new experience, just that it rubs me the wrong way any time it happens. But fine, whatever, we're going into a dank unused tunnel, which might as well be a cave, with no networks and no access to the Matrix, with a boat. I still really don't know what these guys are into, just that if we're about to get shot I'm making sure they get it first, so I drag the cart with the boat while they inspect the walls.
Whisper seems to be very interested in every random bullet shell and subsequent hole he finds on our way. Me, it all just looks like a Thursday, or Friday, whichever day. Yeah, uneventful was definitely the descriptor, but uneventful is usually a good day. I will say, this is some weird ass subway. I don't think I've heard of them coming with serious lab space, even collapsed as it was. Anyway, along the way the elf... the other elf, says his drone spotted a drone. They started getting into how do get around it and deal with it and I'm all, like, raising my hand and saying, "Isn't this where I come in?" I have to be fair here and say I didn't make the greatest first impression here, but it's not my fault the thing wasn't broadcasting, I just thought I'd done something wrong.
Turns out the thing was left behind by someone who is not someone named Michael. He comes up a lot, but I really don't think he matters cause, spoiler alert, he's dead. It was just an automated motion capture unit. Someone was hoping to catch someone coming through here, evidently. This one succeeded, too. It got a video of yet another elf named Nightshade. She was kind of hot, too. They had me wipe the video and then I stuck a delay into the drone so it wouldn't start recording again until we left. At this point I really wish I'd scrapped the motion capture code all together, but whatever.
I'm just going to skip ahead, there are basically no people in this story. Everyone is either dead or not there. There is a lot of sneaking and tracking, but as far as I can tell it did a whole lot of nothing. That isn't to say there aren't a handful of juicy bits.
Our next stop is the end of the tracks, literally. There is a messed up train car right on the edge of some kind of underground river, with a waterfall and everything. Elf #2, not the chick, the one that's with us, has me wipe another drone watchdog. This one had no juicy videos, and then I burned out its operations so it wouldn't record anything new. Well, I thought I had. On third thought, we really might as well have just taken them, or smashed them. Whisper is really interested in the waterfall, but we didn't bring any equipment for getting through some underwater tunnel, so no one is super jived about taking a dip. Instead the boat gets blown up, which is to say it is inflated with air because it's made of rubber. As I understand it the qualification needed to be made because these guys have a history of blowing things up with fire. Pretty sure I'm supposed to curb that tendency.
We have another uneventful trip, this time down a bit of a quick moving river with the loudest motor they could possibly have found in the city. But like I said, no one is around to hear it. Did I mention this place is a war zone? So yeah, the gist of it is that there are two groups: Michael's guys, and I'll call them Black Over-Alls. Black Over-Alls pursued Michael's guys through the tunnels, into cave, down the river and just shot up everyone. They also brought some serious artillery as indicated by the auto-turrets we found minus the turrets, plus gaping craters. On the other end of the river, before it goes back under ground in a nontraversible sort of way, we found a dock and a fairly nice wetworks operation. Military grade shit, and also bodies, old bodies, old dead bodies. Whisper has been in the shit for a little too long, I think, because he had no problem going full carrion diver looking for "goodies." Me, I went to work to do what I'm here for. This was a live network, well off the grid. Three computers with what I would not be surprised to find out is basically Michael's, whatever he was about, whole operation. One computer, the shitty one, was mostly video capture, we took that one with us when we left. I did get a pretty good shot of that Michael guy off it, though, before moving on. One computer was a Rating 6, that's pretty good by anyone's standards, but we left it behind. I did nab some data off it before we left, though. Got a list of names with some people that got them all excited, and I don't actually know what the other thing is cause it was coded. Computer number three, though, that's a shiny gem. That's the one that gets me excited. I wish we could move it, but we were woefully ill equipped, she's a monster. I got one file off her and it's coded just like the last but if we can break the code I'm very certain it will be worth everyone's while.
So this is where I have to make some confessions. I kinda halfassed the work on the drones. I wasn't feeling it, ok, but after playing with those databases, I was in the groove. On our way back I rewiped the second drone and actually turned the stupid thing off. The first drone, that was a problem. Seems that while we were out and about, doing our thing, some punk kids, most likely spurred on by the pig face kid, started snooping about and stole it. Not only did they steal it, they hung about trying to do some excavation. Honestly, we should have just shot them, but then we'd need to dispose of the bodies, and it was easier to just not shoot them and let them do whatever they were going to do on their own.
Things get a little more touchy from here, though. Seems my "partners" are occasional Bliss dealers. I'm not judging, exactly, but when some junky starts stalking you trying to get her fix it can be bad for an ongoing operation. It's just unprofessional is what it is, ok? She didn't even have useful information. She was a waste of space, time and breath, and once again everything would have been so much easier if we'd just shot her. So of course what we did is bring her to some clinic so Whisper can get chewed out by the nurse.
I don't really care, ultimately, it was an easy start to a caper, or whatever, hopefully there are some real credits involved and I'll eventually get some proper alone time with that server cluster. For now I'll content myself with breaking down the video storage for all its secrets.
Last edited by Kal Spiro (2015-08-05 20:44:42)