"Hoi! nice hit. Still against my help? Someone paid a lot of money to put you back in the tank and someone else paid a lot of money to get you out of the CZ. Which'll it be? My help or the tank? I bet this guy isn't the only one around trying to snatch you."
Max nods back, runs up and tags Liam with the shock glove.
"Great, let's get the f**! outta here before more of them come. I assume you don't have a vehicle, sadly all i have is a bike. Just hold on and try not to freeze. Follow me!"
With that Max takes a few steps, waiting for her to follow along.
3yeZ>> going dark for a bit. head towards our destination, but stay outside. message me when you arrive, I'll message you when I'm back online.
Max drives the motorcycle, clone on the back. He gives her a helmet as well.
"Here, take this helmet. Good to wear anyway, but it'll also hide your face. Good punch back there, didn't know you had it in you."
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There’s that intoxicating smell again. Chicago-style crust and real meat and cheese, baked into pure goodness. When you arrive, the hostess takes you to a table near the window, and a server takes your orders. Then a guy in a trenchcoat and fedora walks in, grabs a chair from another table and sits down with you. As your orders are brought out, the server sets a bourbon, neat, in front of your newcomer. As your server leaves, the new guy in the five-o’clock shadow flashes his Lone Star badge at you.
“I’m Detective Nick Ryder.” He looks at Samantha like a father meeting his long-lost daughter for the first time. “I understand you’ve found Samantha Carroll.”
"Yes." Max says. "My fixer said to hand her over to you."
Max takes a picture of the guy with his cybereyes and messages it to the fixer to confirm Ryder's identity.
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yes it's the guy.
Have fun at Mardi Gras
“Now that you’ve held up your end, I think you’ve earned a small bit of truth in addition to your payment. And Samantha needs to know where she came from.” Ryder pulls out a wrinkled and yellowed folder, labeled CARROLL, SAMANTHA, and bearing an old Lone Star case number.
“I don’t like cold cases, and there are a lot of them in Chicago, cases as cold as the wind off the lake. One such case involves the kidnapping of a six-year-old girl in broad daylight on 6 October 2053. This was my first case, and my first week, as a detective in Chicago. The young girl, Samantha Carroll, was taken right off the street in front of her school.” With each page he turns in the folder, he takes another sip from his glass of bourbon. “There were no witnesses, and the girl was never found. The family left Chicago when the bugs hit in ’55, and I like to think they found a way to move on with their lives.”
He finishes the bourbon as if he’s chasing down a lifetime of troubles. “They say you shouldn’t get so attached to the people in your cases. Just clear ‘em and close ‘em, they say. They also say what happens your first week won’t haunt you for the rest of your career. I say they’re wrong. At this point, clearing one more case won’t set my career right. But if that one more case is finding a kidnapped little girl, it’s worth doing whatever
needs to be done.”
With that, he escorts Sam out the door, leaving you with your payment.
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Power sees Liam fall, and waits a handful of heartbeats, making sure the two are gone from sight. He glides across the distance. If any bystanders are around, he'll just say with his Supervisor voice "Nothing to see here. Training Exercise underway. Move along."
He kneels down and pours all the healing he can into the freshest of the black eyes.
= 6 hits
= 5 hits, 1 Stun.
Power sinks to a grateful knee, waiting for Liam to come around. As soon as the street shaman cracks open so much as a single eye, Power smiles and says to him. "You know we're never gonna let you forget the day you were one-punched by a girl."
He takes out his hip flask and offers Liam a swallow before taking a pull himself.
Then they all pile into the car.
Rankev sleeps the whole way back.
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+12,000 Nuyen
+6 Karma
(working for the man/people)
(2000 Nuyen/1 Karma)
+1 Street Cred
Contacts gained:
Quantum Princess
(Human Johnson Decker)
+1 Loyalty/Connection 4
Simon Andrews
(Changeling Johnson Magician)
+1 Loyalty/Connection 5
Juan Xihuitl
(Troll Aztechnology Johnson Adept)
+1 Loyalty/Connection 5
Nick Ryder
(Human Lone Star Detective)
+1 Loyalty/Connection 3
Samantha Carroll (MAX ONLY)
(Augmented Human Technomancer)
+1 Loyalty/Connection 1
"This has not been th' best o' days. But at th' end o' the day, we at least got paid fer our pain.
Feckin' snipers, feckin' ironfisted girls...if it hadn't been fer mojo, we'd been dead..."
Seeing the man and clone-girl walk out, Max messages the rest of the group.
3yeZ>> Well, gonna get some pizza. Might as well come in if you haven't already. I've got a table.
Mardi Gras was fun, but didn't live up to expectations, which was good and bad. The wife and i bought VIP tickets so we watched the parade from an area separate from the worst of the crowds. People were relatively tame, so there wasn't and flashing going on that i saw, but there also wasn't a bunch of puke everywhere, which was nice. The parade wasn't as crazy as i thought it was gonna be, instead of your typical floats it was basically a car show form local car clubs, but they were just throwing beads out to everyone. There were a few pseudo-floats put on by local gentleman's clubs and radio stations.
GM: regarding the first couple lines of your rewards post, is that 2000 nuyen/1 karma added to the above, or is it separate for some people? Not sure what "working for the man/people" is to designate.
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it means you can speend 2000 of the nuyen earned to gain 1 karma (working for the people) you devote your personal money to helping those around you so you feel better about yourself
alternatively you can spend 1 nuyen to earn an additional 2000 nuyen (working for the man) you work as a cog in the machine earning some money but it eats your soul.
maximum limit of 10000 Nuyen/5 karma can be spent this way.
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Nights like this remind you why Chicago is known as the Windy City and make you wonder why you haven’t found someplace with a more hospitable climate. As you ponder that thought, your commlink chirps with an incoming call.
As you answer the call you are greeted with the sight of a short, squat man with greasy hair slicked back into a ponytail, smoking a cigar. “Hey kid,” he says, “word around the Zone is you’re open for some work. Well, my name’s Sid, and I’m your guy. I know everybody! So why don’t you make your way on over to the Vault so we can have a chat? I have a lead on a choice job that’s perfect for your team, and for your time I will make sure it’s a visit you will never forget. I will be ringside with the champ.”
Well, more nuyen is good...and I feel wiz again, be worth hearin' this Sid character out at least.
Grabbing his coat, shades and assorted magical bric a bracs, he makes ready to go down to the garage.
One look at how badly the windows are rattling in the wind changes his mind, and instead he calls a Johnny Cab.
"I need a cab to the vault, no return fare."
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Rankev stretches, testing out the shoulder. It's still a tad stiff after getting cored through by that sniper...twice. But overall he feels much refreshed.
The call from the dwarf (Wait, was he a fellow Son of Moradin? He looked like a dwarf. But you never can tell. And the hummies got all cranky if you called them by the wrong metarace.) came as no surprise. Aadvark had been hinting at some business yesterday, so it was quite expected.
The whether reminded him why he hated to drive, and caught a Johnny Cab to the Vault. Well, to whatever the Vault was. The name didn't really strike a chord with him, but he'd been kind of insular. But the Cab seemed to know where to go, and wasn't that all that mattered?
"Ah, so ringside seats? Who's gonna win?"
The Vault...got it.
Gunner pulled up a map of the area around the Vault, his trained eye looking for possible choke points, ambush spots and possible exit options. He brass checked his guns, and got his gear bag ready. He scanned the street outside the Vault for a decent parking spot within easy running distance....just in case. He headed out of his crashpad and went down to his car.
Might as well get some soypizza on the way...Chicago is known for the pizza after all.
He then sets off, doing a quick run around the block to check it out first. When he gets to the meet, he walks in confidently
Le Roi gets the message about the meet at the Vault and decides to attend in person. Before doing so, however he checks all the information he can on the place and anything else he can get about the people who run it.
Computer Search: 3 hits
" Sure thing, Sid, I'll be there. "
Whisper shuts off her commlink, Ring side seats... Sounds like fun. Wonder if Gunner will be in on this one? She thinks to herself, throwing her lined trench coat on as she heads out the door and jumping on her Mirage she does a quick map search for The Vault and heads out to the meet.
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Le Roi since you mentioned the place first, that is what I am going to give you, if you wanted to know about Sid or whoever else that will require a separate roll.
Best place in the Zone to get patched up, its got three sections (a clinic, a pit, and an open marker)
....
As you set out for the promise of a good show (and even better pay), there is one constant in the back of your mind: “Never go it alone.” No truer statement was ever uttered, especially in the CZ at night.
About fifteen kilometers from the Vault, you see the road ahead is blocked off by a Land Rover Model 2046, and a rusty old Leyland-Rover Transport is pulled off to the side. There appear to be several dark figures pulling a child from the side of the Transport towards the Land Rover. You can easily recalculate your route to the Vault …
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Power thinks to himself, 'Oh boy THIS is something I shouldn't get involved in.'
Or, at least, he thinks that as he pays the cabbie and says, "Wait here."
Exiting, he pulls his coat about him tighter and gently approaches the figures. He addresses whichever one is nearest to him. "Hoi, chummers. What seems to be going on here?"
It would take a practitioner of the Art to notice that he gave the last sentence a little extra oomph.
= 2 hits
= no drain
I don't like this...last time I wasn't payin' attention, a fockin' sniper shot me in me head...
However, wolves don't leave their cubs in danger, and the wolf is of the opinion that a child is a cub, so Bad Wolf finds himself (not really against his will but maybe against his better judgement) stopping the cabbie.
"Pull over to th' building over there, stay in the cab and keep th' motor running.
"
After that, Bad Wolf gets out, staying to the shadows to observe, first sign of violence he prepares to step in.
What drek is this. Whisper thinks pulling up gently and flicking the stand down on the bike near Powers cab. She reaches inside her coat to put a hand on her Smartgun. Just a fragging kid!
Gunner nods to Whisper as she enters
At least there is one face I recognize....the rest I don't know...great....just frakking great....
Max, having been tailing the others, kills the lights on his bike and pulls up to park it on the side of one of the taxis. He changes his clothing to match that of a pizza company and maintains a low profile, appearing to have a quiet conversation on his cell phone.
Sitting in the cab on the way to The Vault, the vehicle slows, then stops.
Sorry buddy....looks like the way ahead is blocked. Watcha wanna do?"
Le Roi quickly ducks into the matrix to examine the various signals and activity that might show him what is actually going on. He examines the wireless signal of the men trying to drag the girl into the Land Rover.
Computer: 5 hits