Power Politics
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Contents
The One Where Shade finds out he is a dad
GM: Stuart
Game Date: 21st November 2062
Held at Stuart's on the 21st November 2004
Back to Seattle Campaign
Cast of Characters
Prologue
Satoshi Nakamura (Wanatabee Matrix Services) invites Pins to Seattle Space Needle.
Satoshi Nakamura gives 2 credsticks - 1 certified (20K) as a retainer (for on call) and another with an ID giving limited access and permits for stuff we'd use and an ID of Mr John Snip with dual coroprate Wanatabee Matrix Services/UCAS citizenship.
Satoshi Nakamura is a fool and deluded about my abilities and control over party members.
weeks pass 21st November 2063
David Matsumi calls at 5am - meet in 1 hour at Hill View Gunclub. Man at door tells me David's usual daily routine.
A Wanatabee Matrix Services operative Reko been doing work needing backup, mole in corporation trading off info. Not too sensitive, but is a leak non the less. Wants me to bag the Mr Johnson who is pumping the mole (Jason Heinemann) for information - a mid level admin chappie - acces to some sensitive info. Take the mole into custody, Johnson too (alive), others, can kill. Don't let info get free. Paying us 15K in total.
Meet with their man on the scene, Reko, for breakfast at Breakfast at Tiffany's 8am.
Ring The Mole and arrange meet at Apple And Pears at midday. Ditto for Mark.
Meet Reko - handshake, then head to Apple And Pears.
Team (Pins, Shade, Mark, Mole, Reko) all meet up at Apple And Pears - Reko briefs us, he has photo of Mr Johnson, the meet is Metropolis nightclub at 10pm. Reko has a tap on Jason's phone to keep track of him.
Shade gets blueprints of the nightclub. Mark astrally scouts the place.
The Plan
Mark and Pins snatch spy, and Mark disguises himself as spy.
Shade and The Mole go into club.
Mark enters club and meets Johnson.
Pins parks a disposable car blocking Johnson's car.
Pins gets into get-away car and waits.
Shade sets nightclub internal systems to shutdown for distraction.
Mark, Shade, The Mole snatch Johnson and deal with bodyguards.
Reko watching all.
Johnson extracted to car, Pins drives off.
Carrying Out The Plan
Pay Mr Sommers 2K for a fake taxi.
Mark arrives in Taxi - Jason gets in, Mark drives off using autopilot, then stuns Jason.
Shade and The Mole already in club.
Mark gets 12 successes to physically mask him.
Mark mindprobes Jason for info, including his credstick PIN number.
Rape Jason's credstick for 40K.
Mark enters the club.
Shade and The Mole can't rig any shutdown.
Shade, Mole, and Mark hang around in the 'quiet' bar.
Mark gets jostled. Physical Adept has stunned him, and is leading off his slumped and paralysed body.
Mark dragged outside. The Mole narcojets the physad twice. Another guy draws a gun, Shade shoots him twice.
Second man shoots. Shade kills that man, and physad taken down by Mole.
Johnson drives off with chauffer.
Pins tries to ram car, then dives out and shoots tyhe driver. Johnson leaps out with a gun,Pins jumps him, Johnson tries to shoot, Pins cuts off Johnson's hand with dikote cyber spur.
Team treat Johnson, and drive off with him.
Meet David, and hand over crystal, spy and Johnson.
Team get 11.75K (Reko only gets 8K).
early hours of 22nd
Shade talks to Pins - says Wendy has had false IDs made by Makepeace woman, Shade busy for the night, so can Pins do something. Pins asks rest of team + Reko to find out info from her.
Reko checks her out, and gets rest into room next door and drills a camera into her room. She gets back, and reviews security footage, and is about to leave flat with shotgun. The Mole narcojets her. Take her next door and interrogate her. We get info on Wendy's IDs, and 20K certified credstick under the floor. Mark wants to kill her, but Pins persuades that it is best to let her live, as she works for Mr Sommers. Team leaves, Pins remains behind to wake her up, explains to her how she was allowed to live, then leaves.
Shade is meanwhile running security for a Wanatabee Matrix Services 'going online' ceremony of their new server. Shade trashes the decks of some kiddy-wannabe-hackers.
It suffers a DDOS attack, and crashes. Seems a defence mechanism wasn't turned on, and should have been.
All MXP addresses of the attacking decks are sequential - and a K1 Dyaki standard home issue deck, manufactured by Dyamo computer systems (owned by Mr Nakamuro), all produced in the year before the takeover (Wanatabee Matrix Services bought up Dyamo in April 2060).
(Mr Nakamuro owned Dyamo, it suffered a takeover by Wanatabee Matrix Services, Mr Nakamuro sold shares in Dyamo and bought a controlling share in Wanatabee Matrix Services - slick corporate move)
Shade goes to visit the address (Mr A Jones) of a random attacking deck - Mole, Mark and Pins meet him there as backup.
He takes the deck, but it has wiped itself.
He buys a brand new one, same model, and finds nothing wrong.
He tracks down one that had autoupdated,, but not been switched on at the time, and finds rogue code on it. DDOS program, and a virus to self-wipe. Received this via an auto-update 1 week ago. But not from official address, from another address - an apartment in Japan.
Shade gets word back from police contact re false ID of Wendy. Payment and issue of two 50K certified credstick 2 weeks ago. ID emptied and not used since. Appointment at medical clinic, medical reports show she is 2 months pregnant.
Shade goes back to analysing deck code.
Shade tries to work out which team worked on the original code, 5 not working for the company any more. The specific sub routines were written by Jason Zabowski - who since got a job with Tekana Inc.
Shade asks police contact to run a background check on JZ.
Pins convinces Shade that Wendy must die, and that the pregnancy is rigged to weaken his will, or is the mafia bloke's, not his, and her sleeping with him was deliberate as she knew she was pregnant.
Team then assemble to move against Jason Zabowski.
Hire Reko to go do recon at JZ's place.
4pm on 22nd
Mole goes to JZ's front door to jimmy maglock. Enters, and finds jason, shot to the head, dead. The Mole reckons shooter shot from the front, and not much blood splatter on wall, bullet probably lodged in wall.
Police get anonymous tip off, man going into JZ's place at 12. Police investigate. Reko tells us Wendy was nearby the building. Shade gets picture of man who went into JZ's house - it was David Matsumi.
Shade decks gun club - Darren Tyler (Ork) - guy in gun club who might be suspect (spotty bloke) - we have his address.
JZ received regular payment of 50k month from Hewitts & Law. Darren Tyler got paid today 5K.
Assumption: Wanatabee Matrix Services wants to discredit Nakamuro to gain advantage over him on the board. Hence Wanatabee Matrix Services is responsible for setting up Matsumi.
Kick in door of Darren's and mindprobe him. Get phone number of guy he sold bullet too. Get him to ring, and say people were asking questions, man says he will send people around.
Assumption: Shagudi Gumi own Hewiit and Law, they are rivals with Mitsumoto Gumi. Former allied with Wanatomi, latter allied with Nakamuro.
People sent around, we ambush them in corridor. Makr stun balls and takes out two. Pins steps out and gives last 2 a burst each, kills them both. Man in van heads up, Shade kills him.
Take 2 unconscious people, and drive them in their van to abandoned warehouse. Dump van in one place, and we interrogate them in another warehouse. Orc doesn't talk, so we kill him. Other gets mind probed, and we find out physical mask was used to set up Darren. Purpose being to discredit Nakamuro. Orders came from a Yak Johnson in Shagida Gumi. Then interrogate him on camera to get a record. Mr Shaw had done some checking, pretty much corroborating our assumptions. Backdoor was put in as a means to drop the share price before the buyout. Price fell before plan put into action, so bought it up, then got bought into by Nakamuro. So backdoor was saved up and used now - Nakamuro wants to expand, Wanatabee Matrix Services wants to stay smaller. We get 60K from him.
Shade got message earlier, he checks phone, and his police have tracked some of Wendy's financial transactions to some small time slum landlord (Jacob Henri).
Shade calls Nakomura and explains all.
Nakomura sends people around, Shade goes off to talk to Mitsumoto while Pins meets Nak's people. Mitsumoto tels Shade he wants Wendy, alive.
David's 2nd in command comes to meet team (Mole, Pins, Mark, Reko) and hands over briefcase in payment. Pins opens, and gas escapes. Pins falls unconscious, The Mole falls. Reko falls. Mark burns a point of team karma to add to his successes to stay up and mana bolts the man, who dies. Mark's air elemental cleans away the toxin. He then medics people to bring them round.
Pins rings Nakamuro, and tell shim what happened, tell him a phone number we found on 2nds mobile, Nak says to get Shade on party line. Pins calls Shade separately, and briefs him, then calls him on party line. Nak gives Shade a code to get into Wanatabee Matrix Services systems to work out where number came from. Nak visits Wanatabee Matrix Services, and witnesses him accepting a call when Shade rings the number. He then tells Wanatabee Matrix Services that all this evidence will be kept against him.
Epilogue
David released. Shade's police contact gets promoted to CSI. Team get paid 150K
Shade visits Jacob Henri - finds out Wedny's flat number. Then goes up and grabs her. She argues, and he argues back rather than snatching her properly. She tries to explain, and Shade just stands there listening. He finally tranqs her, carries her down to his car, and Reko (also after Wendy) arrives.
Reko follows him, Shade calls Pins, all team meet up. Pins gets Shade out of the way and asks Mark to mindprobe Wendy. Mark finds out murder was premeditated - setting up motives aren't clear. Mark tells Pins. Pins tells Mark to tell Shade that the set up was delliberate and premeditated too. He lets Shade assume this when he relates results of mind probe. Pins gets Shade's car keys, gives them to Mark, and sends him away.
Pins gets Shade to get in Land Rover (where he's already got Wendy) then drives to Mitsumoto's place with Reko following.
Mitsumoto people mindprobe her, get the truth, confirm it is Shade's son she is pregnant with. But they say it doesn't matter.
They drive off with her.
Shade tries to talk to Mitsumoto, Pins drags him away and suggests he tries to get baby through Nakomura - as he should owe us.
Meeting arranged between Mitsumoto, Shade and Nakamura. Final decision is she must be handed over to the Mafia.
final final epilogue
Shade gets call from police contact, saying a street doc was found dead (Wendy).
Shade says: oh well
Awards
- Defeatism: Chris [We're all gonna die!! Er... we're all still alive]
- Saviour: Skimble [Burning a point of team karma to stay up and mana bolt bad guy]
- Cunning: Stephen [Pins persuading Shade of Wendy's badness just long enough, using Mark to mislead]
- Dithering: Richard [Kidnapper getting out-argued]
- Eyes and Ears: Mark Hickton [The party actually could see what they were doing for once]
- Sociopathy: Skimble [Pins is SO gonna win this one back next time]
- Ruthlessness Determination: Stephen [Not allowing anything short of a meteor strike stop him from turning Wendy in to save Shade's sanity]
- Parenting: Richard [On finding out his unborn son is dead, says: Oh well]
