Infiltration Challenge, Examining situation variables Options

[Talia Invierno]

The previous thread

Edit: New link to the previous thread


Repost of initial challenge:


Amazing how much more difficult basic jobs become when only a few assumptions are removed ...


Challenge: to find and retrieve a kidnapped wageslave. Unharmed. The Johnson's information suggests she is unharmed at present, but might not remain so, and almost certainly won’t if there is any sign of an attempt to free her. So far, nothing exceptional.


Location: middling size building (10 floors), classic brick exterior covered with ivy, double-paned windows (bulletproof and reinforced, probably as strong as the walls, and what’s that floating between the panes?), lobby entrance, well-placed cycling security cameras (covering each other's arcs). Two vehicle entrances into the building itself: one into what looks like an underground parking lot, the other a service entrance. Still nothing exceptional.

Exterior: The building, like every other building in this area, occupies its own block, and each building in the area has a similar exterior layout – at least, this one doesn’t look exceptional. A few cars do park on the street outside, but most of them won’t be going anywhere. (Hard to move without wheels, an engine ...) Roughly 30 metres or so on every side of tarmac. (This means that the next building over on any side will be at least an additional road-width plus 30 metres away.) Ten-foot chainlink fence surrounding the whole, topped with barbed wire but probably not monowire: you’ve seen pigeons land on the posts. The gate opens to admit each vehicle by transponder and stays open maybe 5 seconds before closing behind them. There is also an occupied guard shack by the gate. The top strands might be electrified after hours, you’re not sure but you doubt it. (But see “Catches” below before shrugging and thinking it’s a piece of cake.)

Between 6 pm and 7 am security teams patrol the grounds, it's not one of the big companies anyway. Actually, they're mostly inside, probably monitoring the cameras. There's also at least one dog handler: some nasty canines are released to roam the in-between areas during the off-hours. A cleaning team arrives at 6 pm and leaves at 9 pm by the service entrance. They use an unmarked van and you haven’t been able to learn which company they work for. And they don't use a consistent route of arrival or departure. Maybe you could find out more, but you've run out of time, and this is the information you have to plan with.


Catches

1. You're not sure the kidnappee is actually at this location – but so far it’s your only lead. If she's not here, this place itself will hopefully provide you with your next lead(s).

2. You can't leave any traces of your having been here. It’s a condition of the job. If anyone here is harmed, heads will roll: yours. And you can forget about being paid. Besides which, if the kidnappee isn't here and the kidnappers discover you've been here, it's going to make your job a whole lot more difficult. (Don’t forget about spell signatures!)

3. The place has a significant background count (3). For this version of the challenge, "house" rules interpret every point of background count as an extra "1" roll – and any spellcasting rolls which result in more net "1's" than successes are treated as botches. (Some of the later challenge versions won’t allow spellcasting PCs at all: so this is a "nice" variant. Mwaa-ha-ha.)

4. The building computer system is completely isolated from the Matrix. Damn.

5. According to the city planning department and every other source you can tap, this building doesn’t seem to exist. The block is licenced as commercial use, but all those power conduits and sewer maps and so on just show the area in blank gray.


That's just the challenge to kick off the thread. I'll hope that others come up with new challenges and requirements as to how they are to be filled as each one gets solved. The only condition is that each challenge has to in some way limit common assumptions. Some possible examples include that no one can get hurt, that no magic can be cast, that no property damage can occur …

Oh, and you can't custom min-max PCs just to deal with this challenge. You can't change your PC each and every time you are given a job, after all!