The Humanis Run

2006-01-25T16:16:00-06:00

Here's the deal. A certain someone wanted our team to convince MCT to lay off them. I'm not telling who so don't ask. The idea is maybe MCT decides that Humanis is a bigger threat to them than some charity. I say charity cause we're not getting paid for this run. Charity says that there's probably money to be made along the way. That doesn't exactly count as pay but I don't care. Messing with Corps and Humanis is like my favorite hobby. You think I run for the money? I'm not so greedy and the path is dangerous, but maybe I'm a force for change in the world, n'est-ce pas?So the Jerk trawls the intertron for info on MCT and also Humanis. I like it when he's texting subvocal because he's not unintelligible then. He found some reports saying that Humanis had been jumping kids in Orkland so we go and see if we can find a trail. (We took a bus!)

We meet some kids at this place. One kid is a leader or something so he talks to us. Jerk and I did the talking because we're not smoothies. Actually I think I did most of the talking because talking to me doesn't require a 3 second delay while your brain translates. (That was a metaphor, I don't have babelfish or anything. Try to stay with me here.) The kid knows a troll who was beat up pretty bad by some Humanis thugs with bats. He wants to know why we want to know so I tell him what he wants to hear. I said that we heard about the random attacks and it irked us so we were gonna send the message that it wasn't okay to be attacking orks and trolls just for being. It's gonna be a real blood tornado. That's what I said. People don't question you when you mix euphemism and hyperbole like that.

Right so, the troll kid shows up with a broken everything. He's been hurt too long for magic to help him. One of these kids should find a totem, you know? He gives us a location of the beat-down and description of the beaters. One's a middle-aged corporate-type Nipponese. The rest are just punk kids. (All human, obviously) They were dressed like shirt ninjas. The kids used bats while the suit mostly watched. I guess the suit got some kicks in when our friend here was already down. One thing he said was that the suit was wearing a t-shirt with a logo on it. (It is *not* a contradiction, you know a suit when you see one cause they are dead inside. Got it?) The logo was a bird with wings folded around a sun. It's the future so Jerk was able to search the logo and display it on my monacle. I showed the kid and he confirmed it. Phoenix Technologies — formally a subsidiary of Pueblo Corporate Council and recently purchased by MCT.

So there's the bell that Plan A isn't going to work so it's a good thing we didn't come up with one. MCT owns Pheonix owns Humanis, in this case at least.

We took a robocab to the spot the troll was attacked. The astral wounds were already healing, but I could see the exact location of the violence. Here's where they jumped him, here's where they dragged him. In meatspace you could see the blood, but it was just the troll's. I know cause I asked him if he got any hits in and he whispered that no, he didn't. I'm not exactly set up to do ritual right now anyway, so no big loss.

Jerk poked around the matrix and found out that Pheonix used to do stuff, but after the buyout there's no one who knows what it does now. MCT's tendrils are in the local Government too, but that's not a shock. We only have a "Government" nowadays to make it look like the corps don't run everything. I know they don't count votes in Quebec anymore too, cause I voted like 50 times in the last election.

So yeah. No leads really. Time to get lucky, which we did while walking back to the bus stop. I group of four kids with bats gives us the "Oi", and wants to know what "fraggers" like Jerk and myself are doing in their neighborhood.

So here you got Fox and Tomi bored out of their skulls with all the community outreach and no ultraviolence. Del gives the kids a chance to run away because "We're all heavily armed and trained to kill." The kids don't care. I'm about to make a quip about bringing a bat to a gun fight only two of them are dead before I open my mouth.
Tomi was sitting on my shoulders. She hadn't bothered to get off, she just blew one of the guys legs off. I know because my right ear stopped working. We need to get her a silencer. Fox blurred up and one-inch-punced a dude's chest inside-out. Then she got a bat to the leg.

Oh hey, I should do something, right? I threw a manabolt at kid #4's face and blood came out. Tomi shot Mr. Let's-hit-fox-with-a-bat, but he dove to the ground. Then Fox stepped on his face using the secret powers of the mystic arcane plus stiletto heels and he stopped being alive.

After we calmed down we realised that we had killed them too hard. 50% Mortality, about to become 75%. At least one of them had a commlink. Jerk opened it up and drank all the sweet-sweet data. We dragged them into the ruins of an ancient cafe and I magicked my way into the least-dead guy's brain while the girls questioned him. I gave him a bit of first aid too, but mundane-like.

The mook's name is Daren Kestrel. He was contacted through Pheonix through Humanis. That kinda game. Humanis gives him Trog names and pays him to encourage them to move out with beatings.

Delta triggered the neuron that fired off the Humanis Chapterhouse address. 3166 Seventh Street. The webtermotron says that's South of Halferville and North of Silicon Valley. That's all we need from Kestrel. We txt the kids at the place and let them know where we're leaving him. They can come by and chat if they like, but we go take a nap in a coffin hotel. Me and the little woman got a double.

After a break from the airwaves, Tomi and I caught up with what the team was chatting about. Jerk had found the name of the guy the punks were gunning for. They got the guys number from the ork kid. He's some grumpy old codger that they knew. We called him, and he hung up on us a lot until we convinced him we were here to help him against Humanis. They guy didn't even have vid, but like, sometimes I wish I didn't too, you know?

They'd been harrassing him for a while now. There was a hood put on his mailbox, burning dog doo, and lots of harassing phone calls. They told him to get out cause he was meta, basically. We checked the records to see if anyone was trying to buy up his property. His place was worth money, but no offers on the table right now. This stinks of a "let's clean up the neighborhood so we can develop it for rich-bitches" kind of a deal, but I don't need to tell you that.

In the morning we took a robocab past the chapterhouse. Jerk pulled down some data. The place is owned by one B. Omegu, and it claims to be some kind of a Boy's Club. A "multicultural learning center dedicated to bring together troubled youths. We are all one race, and we all have something to contribute." Sentence two is code, right? Sentence one is a hook. Like bait for parents. Bring your troubled kids here, we'll straighten them out. But really they want troubled kids looking for a fight, looking for something to hate to blame all their anger on.

We drove by to case. Tomi spots some likely gunports, and I spot a watcher. The watcher spots me back, but no harm done. Jerk finds the guns on the wireless. We've got a foot in the door.

So here's where I end up being the plan guy. If you know me, you know I'm no plan guy. I'm the guy who gives the plan guy more options than he knows what to do with. My plans tend to have a sort of specific area at the beginning, and then sort of a wide open area, and then they basically just end up in "then we wing it". I like a little chaos.

So here's the Good Part of the plan. I turn Fox into a Wolfhound. The breed was Tomi's idea. Del takes Fox for a walk round the back and zooms in on the house to case it without being suspicious. Del disguises herself to not look like a runner, obviously.

I hadn't done a shapeshifting in a while. I think I overcompensated, or maybe it had something to do with Fox being an adept, but her aura said she was a supernaturally bad-ass dog. I got a bit of a headache from that spell, but nothing to worry about. I relaxed and concentrated on sustaining the effect.

Del and Fox/Hound did the walk round as described two paragraphs up. They spot a suit that could be our Omegu, cause he's no club boy. Finally we got a mission type. Extraction.

We go eat soy and talk through the plan. I keep Fox a dog cause it's just easier than dropping it and doing it again. That means we eat in the parking lot with a hijacked cab. Tomi thinks this is a brute-force job. She would, but I think she's right. I suggest the girls knock on the door with the thinnest of pretenses. Tomi is disguised as a boy who needs clubbing, Del is the concerned human parent, and OH NO! Our dog got loose in your house! Wow that's wacky! In the chaos you don't have time to notice we're in your house stealing your boss!

So that's what we do, only panic replaces wackyness pretty soon on account of Tomi opening a kid's shoulder with her Raecor. I got my ghost in there quick to watch the proceddings and squick their watcher. The boys dove for cover behind a couch while superdog uses her puppy-adept powers to knock Hopefully-This-Guy-Is-Omegu out in a pounce. Tomi blurs up to the limp target, picks him up, and makes for the outside with Fox guarding her rear. By the time a couple of armed mooks make it down stairs, the girls are gone and there's just me trying to assense what this one kid's got on his lapel. Some kinda protection talisman, looks like. Would be nice to have but we're already gone.

I drop the spell on Fox and we go find a similar spot to where we intterrogated Kestrel. Just inside a whole in the wireless so's his comm can't call for help while Jerk pokes at it.

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2005-11-17T21:48:00-06:00

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2005-11-17T21:48:00-06:00

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Introduction

2005-11-17T11:41:00-06:00

This blog will contain the session notes from Michael Zenke's 2005/2006 Shadowrun 4th ed Game. This entry is mostly a test. I wonder if I can go back and edit old entries. That would be a good thing.

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The Humanis Run

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Introduction