Charm City II [IC] Options

[sunnyside]

(OoC: Link to post where Monifa drops a bunch of names and numbers

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1370238
)

OOC: (We've discussed it in OOC, but I think everyone wants to move on right now. You can give a quick overview at the start of your next post wrapping things up or describing things you did such as getting drones operational, learning things, Selina inviting Mike over to her new apartment, Bongo playing with Rose in her garage with a variety of college kids. Some things could also be handled retrospectively afterwards. Some discussions and things could be picked up after this run. )

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It's Sunday May 25th in Baltimore. In the afternoon morning showers give way to the more typical dry cloud cover and temperatures climbing into the high seventies. The Boyz have set up something of a first aid station near the rear of the safehouse. With the warmer weather they've been doing crazier stunts without as much clothing to protect them from their poor choices. Also a little road rash can be as impressive to the lady chipheads, alcoholics, and squatters from the places on either side of the safehouse. With free nutripacks arriving daily and electrical connections the city doesn't cut off the boyz have to compete with other vices.

Brester puts in a call to Bongo, Paul, Willie, and Selina, requesting an actual AR link. He waits until each confirms availability before starting.

He looks a little rough, like maybe he didn't sleep much last night. However he also has some extra chrome shining around his right eye socket, so presumably he got something extra put in there.

He starts <<Hopefully you've managed to settle in. You might need some of that for this one. I've got a job for you, or really rather two jobs.

The first is working with a gang leader out of Harlem Tower 3, located here>>

He flips the group an ARO with coordinates
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UQGvKDzc2CQLD9iu6

He then continues

<<I suppose Harlem Tower 3 was supposed to be a nice place, being situated next to Harlem Inner Block Parks K101, Q112, and Za125. However as the level of effort they put into naming may suggest there was a certain lack of foresight.

Since it was a city project, they used eminent domain to level all the buildings there. What they put in is a ferrocrete and plastisteel brick about a hundred meters by a hundred meters on the ground and a hundred stories up, plus a few more stories for a parking garage below.

The key feature of these towers is they're trying to create Jeremy Bentham's panopticon for low cost housing instead of a prison. The apartments are narrow and long, kind of like from the footage you showed me of Frank's place. Except instead of doing it to give everyone a window, they do it to give everyone a visible door to the central maintenance tower.>>

He pauses for a moment and smirks a little before continuing. <<Well, you probably don't want to hear me going on about architecture or pre awakening Utilitarianism philosophy. Feel free to ask, but you'll probably do better getting more detailed information elsewhere. Let me get to the key points.

That monolithic rectangle has a couple tens of thousands of unfortunate SINNERs, probably about as many SINless, and a number of gangs, with Monifa's crew being dominant. She's the one with the problem>>

He sends another ARO with an image of a large black female Ork wearing a tank top to show off her muscles and many scars. Chrome eyes seeming to glow from the sun reflecting off the image, with West Baltimore stretching out in the background. Indicating the picture was taking from very high up.

<< Her problem is she's made an enemy but she doesn't know who. First there was a swarm of gangers that came from outside, rode the elevators up to the top of the building where her crew operates, and tried to take them out. They were noticed very early and that went very poorly for them.

He waves a hand <<Actually, a rather large part of the job description was describing how her gang won these battles. Anyway next a team more like runners tried a stealthy surgical strike using the stairs. Using stairs was also a poor choice. The third attempt involved a team coming in with a helicopter. Despite her descriptions of her gang's martial prowess it sounds like this attack nearly managed to geek her.

The job then is to keep her alive long enough to figure out who is after her and stop the attacks. She didn't explicitly specify bodyguard duty. However as a general rule if a Johnson dies they don't pay you.

You'll have to work out the details with her. If you accept I'll pass on your likenesses, or whatever disguise you'd like to use, and you'll meet her at the top of the tower. I did inform her that you're seasoned Runners who won't be working for less than three thousand. >>


He then pauses, takes a long breath, and a drink of something in a shot glass and continues.

<< However for all that I don't care about that job. I mean my reputation is on the line whenever I'm involved to be sure. But as a matter of priority all of that is secondary.

Monifa shared some images of the dead from her raids, and also of a number of other denizens of the tower that have been killed recently, in case that's related. I have some automated agents running to find certain images, and they took note of these >>

He pulls up a series of three photographs. Two with dead Orks and a third with a dead human. The thing they all have clearly in common is what appears to be a flower growing out of their right eye. They don't obviously have other wounds aside from some blood coming out of their noses or mouths.

<<That odd little feature is something I've only seen from a single spirit. I'm not sure if it was unbound, bound, an ally spirit, or what. In any case it's presumably a free spirit now, as I understand these things>> His visage gets a little clouded and angry (OOC: For anyone that can manage two hits on a social awareness test, which I think all of you can buy) before he gets serious again and continues.

<<This all comes from a run gone bad. An uncommon occurrence with my crews, but they knew this one was a high-risk high-reward scenario. Four team members, this spirit, and a client of sorts went out. Only the spirit and two of the runners got out, I have some camera footage of that, but after that they promptly dropped off the grid. I was worried the runners succumbed to their wounds and the spirit simply vanished into whatever spirits vanish into when their time is up.

Maybe not. >>

He shares a still image. It's of a woman who is clearly a spirit. Her opalescent skin, beautiful face, and hair full of flowers could have been done with cosmetics, but her flowing green dress seems to work like a snake's tail without any legs where legs should be. She's also clearly stronger than a woman of her apparent size and light musculature as she holds up a large dazed looking troll in obvious black body armor with an array of horns growing out of his head that almost makes it look like he has a mane. A little bit behind them a human woman in similar black armor with a katana hilt poking out over her shoulder and a black Mossberg AM-CMDT shotgun in her hands. Her race is a bit hard to pin down. She has a nose that seems to not have healed properly after getting broken and looks like she recently took a nasty slash to her face that lets you see through her right cheek to where some teeth should have been. She isn't that large, but the thick soles on her black boots raise her up to maybe five foot eight. Those boots are leaving splotches of blood behind leading up to a wall, however the photo appears to have been blurred to obscure if those prints lead to a door or entry.

<< I'm very interested in being able to still derive some benefits from that run, and to do that I need the help of that spirit. If they're messing around in that tower presumably they have some business. Business means they care about something. Caring about something means there must be some leverage to get them interested in working with me. Perhaps that won't even be too hard. I don't think they'd have any reason to dislike me. Maybe they'd have called if they'd ever had a comlink or any awareness of myself. The team shaman handled all spirit interactions, but she seems to not have made it back at all.

Before you ask I don't feel at liberty to discuss the nature of the run. In part because I wouldn't want to ...taint any information you might get about what happened should you come across any. Also client privacy and all that. But maybe you'll find out more later if this pans out.

I have teams that I've worked with longer than you. But if any of the runners from that job are still around I don't want them getting hurt, though I'd very much like to talk to them as well, and I don't want any situation with the spirit escalating. You've shown a particular and surprising restraint in your last jobs that I think makes you my best bet for success and not burning bridges.

I'm afraid I don't have a lot more information for you. The troll runner was a big tough razorboy going by Double Barrel, and the female was a physical adept and informal team leader going by Cadillac. She liked to use the first name Camila with her fake IDs so that might be her real name, but not necessarily. I don't know their real names or SINs, or even if they properly have them. I'll send you some aliases from fake IDs, but I haven't gotten any pings on them. I have no idea what the spirit went by.

I'm offering 50k if you can get me some useable info on what the spirit has going on in the tower and get them to share with me about the run. You can get part of that money by finding either of those runners, if they're able to share anything useful. Finding them might pay other dividends as well.

I anticipate working with Monifa will give you a sort of license to investigate in the tower in a way that would usually be very bad for your health. Though don't get my runners or that spirit on their radar. Also, as an advance if you agree, I'm sending over some narcojet pistols to the safehouse. I guess you can sell yours if you want, but I wanted to make very sure you all had a non-lethal option. Careful about overdosing with multiple shots too quickly.


One last matter. You're going to want a hacker for this. Angel has really been working on their athletic skills. Lenny, well, at least he's interested in another run. If you'd rather someone new I have a hacker I trust called Livewire. He can't do some of the amazing things Angel can, lacks some of the sophisticated corporate hacking techniques of Lenny, but he's able to operate on his own initiative, shoots straight, and conserves ammo. Let me know who you'd like to include. >>

Having gotten that long winded speal out he leans back at his desk and waits for the team to reply.