Difference between revisions of "Where Is Jackie Chan"

Latest revision as of 12:46, 17 October 2008

Where is Jackie Chan?

Back to Shadowrun: Hong Kong

GM: Stuart
Real Date: Saturday 1st October 2005
Game Date: Tuesday 28.01.2070 (Chinese New Year 29.01.2070 - Year of the Tiger]]
Venue: Stuart's

Prelude

Where is Jackie Chan? Two days before the Chinese New Year and the premier of "Jackie Chan, Who Am I?" a new biographical SIM, Jackie Chan has gone missing. Jackie Chan is infact the real great grandson of the legendary Hong Kong idol who died in 2040. Five years in the making (and put back by Crash 2.0) this new SIM was do to be the relaunch of the troubled actors career, but everybody is asking "Where is Jackie Chan?". In an attempt to keep the media at bay the talent agency Caprcorn One has no choice but to hire a different sort of talent, this time from the shadows.

Sammy Lee has always been a people person (or a peoples dwarf) but now he has less that 24 hours to put together a team to track down Jackie Chan.

Cast of Players

• TNO [ Stephen ]
• Danny [ Ivo ]
• Rez [ Foz ]
• Wey [ Alex ]
• Carrera [ Helen ]

Events by TNO

I got a call, early.. or at least earlier than I would have liked.. saying to meet Sammy Lee at some bar named Siskos. I ask where that is, but the line is already dead. I grumble to myself as I finish up lunch.. or is it technically breakfast? I don't care.. it's too god damned early. The spoon almost cracks the cereal bowl as I furiously dig the last of it to stuff in my mouth.

I find the place.. eventually.. who the hell runs a bar without any signs and a door that looks like any other regular door in the same street? When I get in I get the vibe straight away.. this is one of the sorts of places I've been looking for.. a place where runners hang out. I can tell by the lack of a metal detector, and the obvious signs of weapons on pretty much everyone in here. I'll need to remember this place and come back later, when there isn't a job to do, see if anyone recognises the picture of dear old dad - maybe I can sort out this business once and for all and leave cess pits like this behind.. my proper life's there waiting for me to pick it back up. But no.. I have to ignore it until I sort out this bastard.

But back to the job at hand.. I head on over to the table Sammy Lee is sitting at and he introduces me to four people I've never seen before. This is getting to be a regular habit. Last time I met Sammy.. the first time I met him in fact.. he introduced me to some new faces.. but I haven't seen them since.. maybe they're dead.. maybe they didn't want to work with me.. maybe that's why I'm getting thrown in with these low-lifes. Still, grin and bear it - I need the cred if I'm going to find out what I need to know.. and this is the fastest way to get it.. so I'll deal with it.

The stunted bastard can't even tell us what the run is, we have to meet a Johnson in 'The SIMS' VR environment, but he has a room out back already set up with trodes and AR kits. I guess if I was back at home I'd be visiting this VR world with my friends, and enjoying it.. but right now I'm not in the right frame of mind, this pathetic game world sticks in my craw.. I just want the run details.. get it all over with and get the cred owed me.

I'm not going in VR.. AR is good enough for me.. and we finally meet up with some woman, she says Jackie Chan is missing.. no.. not that old flat-screen actor.. he's long dead.. but his grand-son.. milking his legacy with crappie trid shows.. well good riddance to him.. I couldn't care less. She wants him back by tomorrow, there's some premiere he has to be seen at, his latest movie.. boring! Except.. if there's cred in it for me I guess I can care! 5k she offers.. it sounds good.. but that's not 5k each - WHAT THE FRAG?? 5k to split between 5? She's taking the proverbial! But cred is cred.. and I neet it bad. One of the new faces.. some girl.. manages to negotiate it up to 8k.. I think I'm going to like her. If we want more info, we need to meet in the flesh, that suits me, and we all get out of that mind-numbing insane SIM world asap - I guess the random suicide exit is a neat gimmick.. but I'm still not in the mood.

I head up town (no weaons, don't want to get caught with them in such a classy place) with the others.. and I guess I give them a first proper looking over. Two blokes, and two ladies. One of the guys - Wey - is a hacker, he has that weedy look to him, and tech sticking out of every pocket. The other guy, Danny, seems like a bullet head. I've seen his kind around, think they can take anything, only to crumble into nothing under pressure. We'll see how he holds out. I can't get a handle on Rez, she seems like a nice girl, but I know that can be deceiving. Carrera, the other girl, she's the social sort - no.. not in that way! She's got a mouth on her, doesn't stop talking much, but knows how to do it, puts everyone at ease. She's a sweet-talker allright, she'll come in useful.

We get to the high-end of town at last, heading to Jackie Chan's crib to meet his agent - the lady that's paying to get him back. There's almost trouble getting in the front door, but Wey does something to the droid concierge and we get in no fuss. It's when we're almost at the door of the apartment that he tells us someone's in there. He's been checking the security footage - god it creeps me out how hackers can be all over the place without you knowing. He freaks out about white rabbits - just our luck, stuck with some brain-fried hacker.

Two guys burst out of Jackie Chan's apartment carrying what looks lke a bundled up person, and make a break for it. Danny drags me and Carrera off after them, but they make it into the lift before we can get to them. Luckily Rez and Wey headed down a faster way, cutting them off at their car, by the time I get to them the fight's already started. I turn on my shock-frills and leap at one guy, he grabs at me and gets more than he can handle. Down he goes, and gets a boot in the head from Danny for good measure. One on five, good odds if you can get them, bad odds if they're the other way around, the other guy legs it, but doesn't get far. Into their car with the pair of them, some dents in their head just so they don't forget not to mess with us.

We untie the woman, it's Jackie Chan's agent - Miss Jaina Jenson. She opens her ungrateful mouth and I'm inclined to zip the bag back up and leave her to it. Still, there's cred on the table.. so I play good and listen with the guys to what she's got to say. The story starts off more convoluted than it needs to be, but when the fat gets trimmed off, it's quite simple. She's not just his agent, she's sleeping with him, none of our business, but maybe the gossip will come in useful some day. Jackie Chan's gone missing. He's done it before, but never with his commlink turned off - so she's worried. She says he has gambling habits - that's one clue to start with. As we go through the stuff the kidnappers were stealing, we find Jackie Chan's commlink - it wasn't in the place earlier she says.. they brought it with them, it has more clues to offer says the hacker. Well, that's what they told me - I was left downstairs watching over the tiger gang boys. They try to wake up, but Mr Spanner sends them back to sleep. Rez and Danny come down eventually, we're to interrogate them. We kick three colours of shit out of them, just what I need to work out the frustration of this miserable lifestyle. We don't get much, but by the time Carrera sweet-talker (I think I like that nickname for her) gets down and speaks nice.. they want to play ball just so Mr Spanner doesn't play with theirs - if you take my meaning.

The boss of this Tigers gang sent them here. Seems the tigers are a gang the Black Chrysanthemums use now and then. I pray this run doesn't involve them, these fuckers are getting under my skin! Seems Jackie Chan ran up some gambling debts, so they grabbed him, swiped his commlink, and headed here to see what they could nick. We get a name of a bar, we know where to find their boss - Iron Clad. We give Sammy Lee a call and he says he'll go with us. So we all meet up, with our weapons once more - hallelujah.

We go to the gang's pub - and OH MY GOD - there's another stunted midget.. looks just like Sammy Lee. I know they all look the same, but this guy's got to be his brother or something. Sammy calls him Jonny - but Jonny wants to be called Iron Clad. I don't care what his name is, we want info, and we want it now. He tosses a ring onto the table. Is that supposed to mean something? I'm twitching to take his face off, I swear that in the mood I was in I could do it with my bare fingernails. Sweet-talker knows what it is though, her and Sammy. We leave and she explains that it's a sign of respect, that the Black Chrysanthemums boss wants to meet up and is guaranteeing safe passage. Sounds dubious to me, and when Sammy Lee suggests some of us go meet a Black Chrysanthemums guy who happily sells their information - I leap at the chance - better than walking smack-bang into BC HQ and putting my own head on a platter.

Wey goes with me to some 'entertainment house' called Peoni Palace, and the proprietor, a Ziyi Zhang sets us up with a room in which the BC guy is waiting. He goes by the name of Dan Dan Song, and the second I lay eyes on him I know I hate him. Maybe it's because he's BC, or maybe it's the way he looks at me, half as if I'm scum, half as if he knows just what he wants to do with me. There's no way he can know who I am, no way at all he can know I'm not scum like the rest of these guys, but I can't help wanting to rip his arms off. But I smile, I try to play nice, but sweet-talker's ways don't seem to have rubbed off on me much, he's on the floor with my hand in his face and my shock-frills making him dance a jig under me. Wey has backed off, typical hacker, no stomach for the real stuff. I ram my Ruger in Dan Dan Song's mouth, and by the look in my eye he knows I want to waste him, hell I bet he can tell I want it more than the info.. but to give him credit he didn't break, and the way Wey looked at me.. I could see he needed the cred more than me, and didn't want the run falling apart. So I back off - we pay the bastard more than the info was worth, but we get good info, we find out where Jackie Chan is being held.

We head back to meet the others, seems the BC boss offered them a deal, he'd hand over Jackie, if we headed on over the the Zau Lin film studio and swipe their baseline sim recordings of the new film. Seems they want to make BTLs of it, and they see this as a good way to get the job done without getting their own hands too dirty. Doesn't take long to discuss it, we know where Jackie Chan is, and rescue is our best bet.

Jackie's in a cargo container, in some ship docked off Kowloon. We know the ship name, but not which container. Needle in the proverbial, but we have a plan. Wey says he can hack a drone and use it to scan the containers and find out which one we want, then we can open it up and waltz right on out. Sammy Lee says that it might work, but Jackie's still in shit unless he can get protection. Sammy Lee says he'll arrange a meet with the Red Dragons, if Jackie signs up with them, the BCs will back off. Sounds good... I wonder to myself if I can get some of that.. but that's for another day. We'll need to get Jackie there fast, so Sammy hires us a driver.

We head on over to the docks, snip our way through a chain-link fence and wait for Wey to do his stuff. After a few minutes it seems that 'his stuff' involves screaming like a girl and running for his life with a drone chasing him. We're there thinking the whole run has gone to shit, when we spot security heading over to the ship, we realise they need to check if Jackie is still there, so sweet-talker and me follow them, they lead us right to it. I break out the lockpicks and after a couple of nerve-wrecking minutes the container is open, and we liberate one hell of a stench.. oh yeah, and Jackie too.

We're dragging him off the ship, then a bunch of triad goons scream at us to freeze. Like hell we do! We scatter and they start shooting. It's close, but I push Jackie to safety, and into the hands of sweet-talker, and she tries to get him out of there while I lob a flash-bang at the goons. I suppose I could have used a frag, but I didn't want things getting too loud and nasty.. but I don't know what I'm going to do to follow-up the flash bang. Still, I don't need to think of something, Danny is right behind them, he opens up with his MMG and slices them all in half with a single burst. That's some piece of work, I'm impressed! I gues he came through better than I expected. We group up to pat backs, wipe brows, then get the hell out of dodge, home run, surely? Yeah, like I'm getting away with good luck.. I should know better. Jonny.. Iron Clad.. whatever the hell he wants to be called, he appears out of nowhere with some freaky martial art shit. I've got no time.. no patience for this crap, I pull the Ruger and show him the nasty end of it. It hits, and it surprises the hell out of him, surprises the hell out of me too as he stays up. Danny and I lay into him with everything we've got, punching, kicking, shooting, hell even sweet-talker lays into him with us, and finally he goes down. That was some scary shit, and wide-eyed and panting we're relieved to have put the rabid dog down.. even if we will have to explain it to Sammy Lee after.

We drag Jackie out and to the car.. which returns in the nick of time after having driven Wey out to escape the drone. We head on over to the Red Dragon house - and Jackie gets signed up, just as some more BC goons arrive.. but they know they've lost this round and turn back around. It's time, I face Sammy and break the bad news to him, I tell him Jonny bought the farm, but all he does is point and say 'that Jonny?'. I turn, and would you believe it? Jonny's getting out of a car and eyeballing us. The mother fucker!! We must have put ten tons of lead into him, and there he is with nothing more than a slight limp to show for it. I guess it's true what they say about dwarves.. they take some killing! Well that's fine by me, I got no problem giving them all the killing they need.. and next time, if Jonny and those BC bastards cross out paths, I'll make sure we put him down so hard his grandkids won't even be getting up.

I close my eyes, back in bed once more. Another 24 hours has gone by in which it seems like someone has tried to kill me every ten minutes, and barely over 1k nuyen to show for it! This is no sort of life for me, no life at all. The sooner I find that bastard who screwed up my life, when I find him.. I'll make him pay for what he did to my mother, to my family.. he'll pay, then I can go back home.. go back home and wash out the stink of this life that showers alone can't wash out.

Cast of Shadows

• Sammy Lee
• Iron Clad (aka Johnny Lee, Triad Soldier)
• The Tiger Claws Gang
• Ziyi Zhang (Proprietor of the Peoni Palace)
• Dan Dan Song (Black Chrysanthemums member)
• Jaina Jenson (Jackie Chan's "Agent" and employee for Capricorn One)
• Jackie Chan
• Lo Cheung (Black Chrysanthemums Elder Brother)
• White Rabbit

Karma Award and Post Game Notes

6 Karma per character +2 Karma In Character Fiction Award for TNO

All characters gain the follwing contacts:

• Jackie Chan (Simsense Star, Connection 2
  Loyalty 2)
• Jaina Jenson (Simsense Star Agent, Connection 2
  Loyalty 2)

Comments about the System

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>>>>>[Cool write-up, interesting (v.angry) perspective. Tweaked the names: changed Way to Wey as its more Chinese- it can still be short for Wayland- my character was originally going to be called 'Denny', but I think I'll go with your version ]<<<<< -Echo

>>>>>[I was aiming at the angry perspective - an.. 'I am above you all' attitude which may or may not mellow as time passes. Easier to reflect in the prose rather than in the RP - but I think I'll need to warm up to how the character thinks and feels before I can get it right every time :)]<<<<< -Azrael

>>>>>[You missed angry and hit hard boiled pulp fiction film noir styleee! And perfectly too. You did sound like a man though... Maybe you should just do the write ups in that style and forget about trying to play that. You'd be breaking into VO every two minutes.]<<<<< - Foz

>>>>>[Awww... thanks Foz - positive feedback is very gratifying.. thanks to Echo too for your comments - I wasn't exactly aiming for any specific style.. and I'm not sure I could hit the same style every time.. still.. time will tell]<<<<< - Azrael

>>>>>[It does read REALLY well. I would like to see that sort of thing all the time. Maybe not always yours, Az (unless you think you can) but in that style... less detail, more personality]<<<< - Foz

>>>>>[Rules for firing handguns in melee might need tweaking, you should be able to counter with unarmed...unless GM has found more rules about that?]<<<<< -Echo

>>>>>[perhaps dodging a firearm in melle combat using the melee dodge pool rather than ranged dice pool? heck, I'll check the rules and see what it says]<<<<< -Azrael

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