The Job

Darius is asked to personally, subtly, recruit a scientist from Aztek Systems, Dr. Sean Chen

the cast
Darius, Huang Xiaojin, Johan Jacob Jameson IV, Sean Chen, Xean Chen, Mikael Jackson, Dommon

• Darius and Huang set up a surveillance net and determine Sean’s regular patterns
• Darius and Huang add a vehicle intercept device to Chen’s car
• Darius prepares a dinner and serenade; directs the Dr’s car to his abandoned warehouse.
  • They don’t notice her bodyguard; when he gets out of the car, he is eventually tranquilized
  • Dr. Chen reveals that she will not leave at the moment; her husband is held prisoner on a prison barge in the harbor.
• Huang and Darius recruit help to break the prisoner from the barge. Dommon signs on to engage in the distraction, while Mikael Jackson will perform the actual extraction — once he has completed his own mission.
• Darius breaks into Sean’s penthouse apartment via zipline. Huang provides sniper cover, taking out several of the bodyguards that have burst into her room. Darius and Sean base-jump from the room down to the van waiting below, Huang joins them
• Once the assault is underway, the the barge is attacked.
  • Dommon blows a hole the side of the barge, and it immediately starts sinking. Gleefully shooting guards, he and his men release the cell doors, and thousands of prisoners start evening scores.
  • Mikael tracks down his target, shiving the recently escaped prisoner. His primary mission complete, he searches for Xean Chen.
• A getaway car chase ensues, with Darius trying desperately to shed their pursuers — every trick in the book is attempted. He hacks the traffic signals, he attempts to blind them with his used parachute … eventually, he manages to shoot out their tires, and the pursuit vehicle careens into a fire hydrant.
• They meet at a rendevous point, pick up the barge escapees, then split up. Darius takes the Chens to a safehouse for the evening.
• The next day, he delivers them to a concealed departure site; a Raytheon helicopter takes off into the harbor, bearing the two Chens … and explodes halfway across the harbor.
• In his debrief with Johan Jacob Jameson IV, Darius expresses stunned shock, remorse, anger … and 3J4 seems to be entirely too smug about the entire incident. Annoyed and disappointed, Darius sets about settling accounts.

three weeks later
Darius receives a voice-only message at the contact address he provided to Sean Chen. She thanks him for his help, and says that she and Xean are safe, though she cannot say where.

(This is actually the writeup for several sessions — essentially a full scenario — condensed)

Setup

Sabrina is called to the office of Johan Jacob Jameson IV, her handler at Amazon-Martin. He wants her to retrieve a stolen satellite access code. Rumor has it that someone on the street is trying to sell, but everyone clams up when the corporation attempts to chase it down.

After a couple of rounds of “why should I help you” haggling, Jameson agrees to allow Sabrina access to the Amazon black-site. He’s not happy about it.

It’s about who you know

Sabrina heads into town to find Darius, who is networking at the Bit Buzz. Between the two of them, they determine that someone calling himself Archangel had been looking for the same satellite codes with a particularly intense interest … until suddenly falling quiet a few days ago. They arrange a meeting with Archangel.

When they talk to him, he seems alternately nervous and desperate. He has not acquired the codes, but has found someone who has it: A mid-level street smuggler named Weasel. He had talked to Weasel, but was unable to meet his price; as an alternative, Weasel demanded the head of Darius.

Tracking it down

Confused, Darius contacts a hacker, Long Wangluo. Meeting up at the BitBuzz, they work to try to figure out why Weasel wants vengeance. As near as Darius has been able to determine, Weasel is angry because he believes that Darius leaked data entrusted to the data smuggler. Details about a thrown cricket championship game, intended to go to some Triad bookies, instead made it into the public sphere, throwing the sport into scandal. Weasel blames Darius. Offended, Darius begins trying to gather evidence to prove his innocence, and defend his reputation.

Some clandestine digging around the life-logs of the sports reporter reveals that she and Darius had no contact, and would not have been present in the same locations while Darius had the information in question.

Vindication?

Armed with evidence he feels exonerates him, Darius leads his companions to Weasel’s hangout. While Darius and Sabrina attempt to entreat with Weasel, Long attempts to hack into the bulding’s internal network. Eventually he finds the satelite codes they are after, but the download triggers an alarm.

During the ensuing gunfight, Darius takes a bullet, shattering his upper arm. Long, meanwhile, manages to hijack a number of the automated defense drones, ultimately gunning down most of Weasel’s companions. Sabrina drags Long’s access terminal through a rooftop escape, and gets the drop on a guard covering the front door. Weasel escapes from a rear entrance, while Darius struggles out the front door.

Long programs an autocab to drop Darius off at a hospital, then he and Sabrina return to safe ground to regroup.

What did we steal, anyway?

Curious about what they’ve gotten their hands on, Long helps Sabrina engage the services of Huang Xiaojin. They meet at Huang’s lab in the steel mill, and after some study, and several false starts, they eventually determine that the code is a decryption key … a very, very long decryption key. Unfortunately, they are unable to determine exactly what satellite signal it decrypts, as everything comes out like garbled noise.

Before turning it over, the group decides to see what Archangel can tell them about the key they’ve aquired. They set up a meeting with him in a public place, a Chuck-e-Cheese in a downtown mall.

Archangel reveals that he knows very little about the code; he was blackmailed into pursuing it. A group has taken his sister hostage, and he felt that he had no choice but to follow up on their demands. As evidence, he produces a data chip, containing the ransom video. Before anyone can stop him, the Long’s drone jams the data chip into an access port. He reveals that the chip does contain a video of a woman being held hostage, but claims that her behavior is … off. Moments later, the virus contained in the datachip breaks through his firewalls, and the drone begins speaking erratically.

Moments later, a detonation triggers in front of Archangel, and the group is blasted clear of the table. A number of goons move in to grab the group, but they recover quickly. Sabrina takes cover, then fires at a child foolish enough to point an arcade gun in the middle of an actual firefight. Huang, monitoring via drone from outside the room, swoops down and pulls the data chip from the remains of Long’s ’droid. All other exits blocked, Sabrina shoots out a window, scoops up the wounded child, and leaps down to the floor below.

Aftermath

Huang sets about moving his formerly hidden facility. He sells a copy of the codes to the Triad. Sabrina turns in her copy of the codes to Amazon, fulfilling her contract. After a single visit to a delirious Darius in the hospital, she drops off the grid. Neither Long nor Archangel have been heard from since the incident.

Characters: Huang Xiaojin, Long Wangluo

the Bit Buzz

Xiaojin is sitting at the Bit Buzz, relaxing and enjoying his afternoon, when Mao Ki-Lu a contact from the Triad shows up to speak with him. Xiaojin and Mao retreat to a private booth, and begin to discuss business.

Mao wants a certain package intercepted while in delivery. He knows that the package will be shipped via Fed-HL, but he is uncertain as to the destination or dimensions of the package. The only thing that he is sure of is that it’s actual nature will be concealed in some way.

Mao offers to extend a “recruitment” bonus for anyone that Xiaojin brings on for the task; the Triad is interested in cultivating whatever assets it can.

Xiaojin’s workshop

Xiaojin returns his workshop, a shipping container within the abandoned Draton Industrial Steel Mill. He sets to work programming a number of drones to begin an aerial monitoring of the area, in the hopes of being able to observe the Fed-HL traffic patterns. Situation Aspect: Partial Surveillance Net

The activity attracts the attention of Long, who commandeers one of Xiaojin’s drones, and inquires as to the game at hand. Xaiojin fills him in on the job. Intrigued by the possibilitiess, Long declares that he is helping, and immedately sets about hacking into the Fed-HL systems. After a few moments, he provides access to the shipping companies manifests, and the pair set about trying to narrow down the number of shipments.

Eventually, they determine that it will be one of three shipments:

• to the Aztek Systems
• to what is supposed to be an abandoned military facility
• to Yuan Medical

Long reroutes the shipments to different locations, and sets up a number of temporary “dummy” front offices to receive the packages. Unfortunately, in doing so, he managed to leave an audit trail in Fed-HL’s systems … nothing that will interfere in the immediate task, however.

The first pickup – Yuan Medical

Xiaojin mans the desk at their temporary offices, while Long monitors from a drone hovering outside. A quick — forged — signature later, and the package is wheeled out the back of the office. Investigation determines that it is a photo-copier (present-day) sized machine, incorporating a 3d printer and an electron microscope — potentially useful for crafting things at a very fine scale. Xiaojin takes a liking to it, and brings it to his workshop.

The second pickup – Aztek Systems

This time, Long mans the desk, playing the part of a bored holo-worker manning the front desk. The Fed-HL delivery man expresses some suspicion at the delivery — he knows that Aztek deliveries normally go to a location much further up his route. A call to the main dispatcher (Intercepted and imitated by Long, of course) mollifies him, and the delivery is made.

It appears to be an antique, Vietnam era HAM radio … which raises suspicions in Xiaojin; what a would high-technology company would want in a hundred year old antique? He examines the device under his augmented vision, and finds it to be a convincingly crafted fake. The metals, though they look scuffed and faded, are simply not distressed enough, and are too consistantly formed, for a hundred year old device. He examines further, and finds that there is a region in the center of the box that is impenetrable to x-ray. Long hijacks an auto-cab, and they begin to move towards their dropoff point, when Xioajin notices that there is a tracking device in the unit. In a delicate bit of surgery, he managed to disable the tracker while still mired in traffic; Long then veers off in a different direction, hopefully leaving a very cold trail for any retrieval efforts.

dropoff

A number of days after dropping the device at his dead-drop, Mao again approaches Xiaojin at the Bit Buzz. He is pleased with the results of the interception, and offers to wire payment to any collaborators Xiaojin may have used …. Xaiojin elects to keep Long’s participation secret, and Mao departs, “We’ll be in touch”