Historia shakes her head, "For now, I think the best way for us to secure this intel is for you to locate the hacker in person. There may be some opportunity for you to apply your skills later, but for now, I think a diplomatic approach may serve you best.
"With that in mind, here," the android gestures in the air, and a notification pops up on your comm units. "This is the address where I was able to track the IP of the hacker. It appears to be a flat in Drifter’s End, a district in the station’s Ring known for providing cheap housing to vagabonds of all sorts. Keep a careful eye out, Starfinders. Now, if you have no further questions, you are dismissed."
As Diralynn hands over Star Sugar Heartlove!, Historia-7 gives the group a long, unreadable stare before calmly respoding, "Very well, I...will enter it into the archives. Anything else?"
The coordinates that Historia-7 gives the PCs point to an apartment that resembles a cement cube, with several tomato plants in plastic barrels sitting on an otherwise barren porch. As you approach, the plants are being hand-pollinated by a young man with a headset hooked over his ear. As he moves from plant to plant doing his work, he seems to be singing quietly to himself.
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Zapp would feel tempted to join in the music if he knew the song and what instrument he should imitate. Instead, he strides forward. "You there, lad. There's little time to explain; besides, you already know who I am. It is in everyone's best interest for you to turn over the criminal sequestered here. If they are you, there will be no punishment for stepping forward. They're not in trouble, but we must keep them out of other people's harm's way!"
The young man stands straight as the crowd of heavily armed strangers steps into his yard and his eyes immediately go wide. He quickly pulls off his headset so he can hear properly, but appears not to like what he's hearing.
"Wh-wh-what are you talking about?! There's some criminal here? I don't know anything about people getting into stuff they're not supposed to. Wait, did you say someone could be in harm's way?! Oh gods! I gotta tell my gran! GRAAAAANNN!!" The young man turns away from your group and begins walking toward the door of the flat, calling out loudly.
A moment later, a wizened old woman in a blue-and-white abaya steps out through the front door with a confused and irritated expression on her face, "What what what? Quiet down, Jubair! Settle down and tell me what's going on? Who're your friends here?" The elder woman looks the group over with narrowed eyes and stays close to the door.
"I dunno, Gran! They just walked into the yard and said there was a criminal here and someone could be in harm's way and someone got into stuff they shouldn't have and..."
The old woman motions for Jubair to quiet down, "Okay, it's oookay, Jubair. Settle down now. Come on up on the porch here with me and we'll just see what this is all about."
Jubair's Gran takes a beat to look the group over again with her glasses on and hums to herself, "Hmmm, now let's see here! Ah, you're Starfinders! I can see that emblem on some of your hands there. And...well my stars! If that isn't Zapp Brannigan himself! Why, what's a big shot like you doing here in Drifter's End?! There's no criminals here, least, not unless it just became a crime to grow the ripest tomatoes this end of the Ring!"
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"Some would say it was fate that brought me here," Zapp says winningly. He is, as always, completely oblivious. "Others might attribute it to the butterfly effect stemming from a head injury, however. I see no reason to quibble."
He lowers his voice slightly, enough so Guli may not hear but the elderly woman still can. "My companion speaks true, if without the requisite tact. We're looking for any leads based on the traced location, that being somewhere around here. Have you seen anything suspicious lately?"
As Guli lays out the reason for their visit plainly for the old woman, her eyes go wide just like her grandson's had. She recovers quickly, though, and looks up and down the street as she nods back toward the door. "You better come inside," she tells you, "I need to check a few things quickly, but I think I might be able to help you."
The old woman turns to head back inside and calls back over her shoulder, "I'm Ceren by the way, and this is my grandson Jubair."
Once she gets you all inside and seated, she has Jubair bring you some tea, then plugs a line from her comm unit into a well-concealed port behind one of her ears. She runs some diagnostics then gasps. "Gods, you're right! I do have the files! I swear I had no idea, though."
Jubair looks at his grandmother, horrified, and begs for an explanation. After helping the young man settle down, Ceren explains to the group, "I used to be a hacker in my earlier years—one of the best of the best in my field if I do say so myself. Heh heh! All that came to an end though, when my old age brought on a degenerative brain disease, that forced me into retirement.
"I got some augments in my brain that halted the damage and kept me functional, but I still have lapses in memory sometimes, and I'm no longer as capable as I once was. I must've slipped into a younger mindset, performed the hack, and forgotten about it.
"Listen, I honestly don't remember anything about doing this hack, so I'm happy to give you the files, but you gotta help us out in exchange. Since I'm guilty of stealing from Bluerise Tower, it's only a matter of time before corporate security hunts me down, and I have no realistic hope of evading agents in my current state. If you help me fake my death to get me out of the hot water I've landed myself in, though, and if you place Jubair under Society protection, everyone should walk away happy! Well, everyone except the folks at Bluerise. Heh!"
Ceren suddenly stands and begins throwing some things in a knapsack, then pauses to laugh to herself a moment, "I gotta say, despite the circumstances, all this is kind of exciting! Reminds me of my younger days.”
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Al waves with both hands. "Al is Al! Al understands. She has hacked hacked things things in her sleep sleep. Al hopes she's still a cool hacker lady when she's old, too!"
Al pats her cheeks idly as she thinks. "Al can change records to cover your tracks! She did it for herself, so she's very good at it."
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Zapp looks nonplussed for a moment, but it eventually falls into place. "Understandable. The mind is a sadly fickle thing. If the gods saw fit to restore my memories of a great escape from the Scoured Stars, the Society would be better off. All we can for that is hope, but helping you is in our mortal reach!"
With your agreement to help her and Jubair, Ceren smiles and takes a seat beside the coffee table you are all sitting around, "Alright, here's what we'll need to do..."
"If we're gonna fake my death, we can't just rely on word of mouth, we'll need some records to back it up. Dr. Houndstooth--you said you've worked with the coroner's office before? That's a great place to start! In fact, if you're willing, you could shortcut a lot of this by filing a false report of my death!"
"Otherwise, we'll need to either find a corpse that looks somewhat like me and make the resemblance as close as possible. I'm sure you could alter the body in some way to make it more like me. Otherwise, you could just alter the records or pay someone to do it for you so my description matches the corpse."
"Now, once you've established that "Ceren" is dead, you'll need to give me a new identity of some kind so I can, you know, go on living. You should start by setting up a new alias for me..."
"After that, you'll need to establish some allies and contacts for this new person. Nobody exists in a vacuum! Well, unless you're sarcesian or something..."
"I'll need a new job too. Sorry, Jubair, I know you love tending the tomatoes, but we're gonna have to find a new trade if we don't want the folks at Blue Rise Tower coming down on our heads. Let's make sure this new job isn't too dangerous though, alright? After all, I'm still an old lady!"
"Last thing should just be some different identification papers. Al, you should be able to hack into some of the station's systems to gin those up, right?"
"Well, that should be about it! If you can get at least a few things done out of all that, Jubair and I should be just fine. Tell you what, I'll get Jubair somewhere safe--I still have a few contacts that could help us out for a bit--then I'll meet you lot to make sure everything is wrapped up. Let's say we meet at the bridge in Jatembe Park in about...6 hours? Perfect! Thank you all so much!"
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"She wants us to have a new identity prepared in six hours?" Zapp says incredulously as Ceren leaves. "Foolish. I'll - We'll have it done in far less, leaving room to scour this hovel for snacks."
Soon enough, he's on the line with an agency he's had some contact with. "Hello, you know who this is. What? No, you have the wrong number! Oh, Mr. Manager. If you'd be so kind, I have a friend who's settling in here, in need of some networking..." His prattle continues on. He has found that others tend to yield favors following exposure to him, but then promptly terminate the conversation.
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"I'll help!"
Only, Xeeter has no idea what to do here. Then he realizes.... He has contacts via his old life with the crime family that he used to work for, back on the Casino.
"Um... I'm no doctor. And I'm lousy with computers... BUT I do know a place where a lot of corpses are buried, and they have the best veggies in town! Have you guys been to the Vat Garden? I bet they'd give us a convincing looking body!"
"You seem like the observant sort." Xeeter says to Ceren. "I bet you would make a pretty good card dealer. Have you ever tried it?"
Click. Whirr.
"Card sharking? Nay, lad, this is a lady who can work with tools. Want to try it, Ceren?"
Diralynn, Al, and Xeeter work together seamlessly to procure a feasible corpse that could stand in for Ceren, file a death report for Ceren, matching that corpse's description, and create digital records that back up the report. All in all, they manage to perfectly fake Ceren's death.
With that done, all that remains is for our heroes to establish a whole new life for the ex-hacker. It turns out, many of you have ideas for a new job she could move into, and you feel confident that, based on that, everything else will fall into place!
Despite Zapp's boast, it ended up taking you almost the full six hours to make the necessary arrangements for Ceren's new life, and you arrive in Jatembe Park almost exactly on time.
Open to all citizens, Jatembe Park occupies a wide portion of the Eye of Absalom Station. Filled with lush trees and open grass fields, the park offers some natural terrain to the otherwise metal-clad station. Ceren’s meeting point is one such forested portion of the park, specifically a spot often ignored by citizens due to the winding path required to reach it.
Just as you are rounding the last of the twists in the path, you catch sight of Ceren, standing alone on a bridge crossing over a quiet stream in the park. She sees you and smiles, then suddenly looks alarmed as she appears to hear something behind her. She turns around and all of you notice a group of rough looking people wearing tattered jackets over their armor emerging from the trees.
"A'right, lady, time fer you ta come wid us," one of the gangers calls out. "Ya messed wit da wrong people, and now dey wanna have a little talk!"
The men walk down the path on the opposite side of the bridge, moving toward Ceren as she stands frozen on the bridge.
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Zapp follows suit, though without the speed. On the off chance the thugs don't want to play cards, he interjects. The heroic speech is dampened somewhat by the fact he hasn't yet made it past Ceren.
"There'll be no talking to this winsome lady! As you can see, she is under the protection of me! Among other members of the Starfinder Society. And as per our motto, we do the following: Explore! Report! Concentrate fire!"
The lead ganger's face darkens as you all rush forward to insert yourselves between them and their target, "You jus lost your chance ta leave in one piece, chubana! Take dem out, boys!"
Al skips forward merrily, singing a little tune, while Zwei trots ahead at her side. "Root, boot, shoot the bad guys!"
As the verthani and her drone take up positions on either side of Ceren, Zwei opens its mouth and sends an icy pellet at the blue ganger.
Both the yellow and green gangers draw their pistols and fire shots at the Starfinders who have gotten between them and the target of their contract.
For some reason, both gangers focus their fire on Diralynn. Only one of the shots connects, however, and her medical expertise helps her realize after the initial shock, that the damage is not lethal.
Korl's solar weapon hums with energy as it strikes the yellow-bespectacled attacker, who growls with pain and fury as the weapon comes home.
With equal fury, the ganger suffering a bit of frostbite from Zwei's shot turns his attention to Korl, who seems to be the most immediate threat, and fires a shot.
The bolt of electrical energy catches Korl in the side, causing some significant discomfort, but nothing the vesk can't handle.
Both Zapp and Diralynn land solid hits on their targets. With the power behind her swing, the flames of Diralynn's doshko incapacitate the yellow ganger!
Though Xeeter misses with her rifle, both Al and Zwei are able to find their target.
The remaining gangers don't take the attack lying down, though, and the green-jacketed thug turns his weapon once again on Korl.
The vesk easily dodges the pitiful shot, and stands ready to advance!
Though the jacketed thug had appeared human, when Korl's solar fist smashes into him, the vesk quickly discovers that he must've actually been an astrozoan. Otherwise the spongy pink chunks that splattered all across the trees in this part of Jatembe Park would be quite unusual!
With his compatriots down, the remaining ganger shows a remarkable degree of stupidity bravery as he raises his weapon and, screaming for vengeance, fires twice at Korl!
Though the first shot is way off target, the surviving thug gets lucky with his second attack, and Korl finds himself almost feeling like that actually hurt.