Rigger: Aslin D'Farren, His Journey Into The Shadows Options

[Graushwein]

Aslin Character Background (Work in progress)

Aslin is 29 and used to work for an AA company as a Rigger in the Advanced Mechanical Drones R&D department. He was pretty much the test pilot as well as the semi-charismatic demonstration pilot when showing off the products to buyers. Because of the nature of his job he often participated some at the Drone R&D Think-Tank. He met his wife through the advertising department and they had a son that was 4 years old.

His company was unveiling a new type of combat attack drone and was showcased in a war-game exercise versus a privately contracted rigger to control the defending drones. The exercise used paint-pellets and a damage calculation system to deactivate drones because of simulated damage. The arena was in a high security building in order to keep the project and the company suits safe. All went very well and the demonstration was a great success, leaving the prospective buyers and the contracted rigger very impressed. Just like at the end of every demonstration the Riggers and Drones walked out in front of the crowd to take a bow. He smiled at his wife and child standing to the side of the cameraman.

As the crowd began to clap enthusiastically Aslin thought he heard "Clicks" coming from his drones for some unknown reason. This was immediately followed by the deafening roar of live gunfire that poured from his drones into the audience of suits. The horror of what he saw paralyzed him for a few unforgettable seconds. Then his eyes immediately sought out his wife and child and was relieved to find them running for cover off to the side of the crowd. Then his combat training kicked in and he dove behind a low bunker. This turned out to be his saving grace because the numerous bodyguards started unloading at the drones and him in an effort to stop the massacre. As bullets kept him pinned behind his cover he confirmed his fears, his drones had been hacked. He traced the culprit's datatrail back to the privately contracted Rigger's persona. The drones were still unloading into the businessmen and bodyguards even after they were clearly dead. Although Aslin didn't have any offensive programs on his commlink he remembered that there were 2 additional attack drones they had brought in case any main ones malfunctioned, and brought them online. The drones weren't loaded with ammunition, but then again he didn't want them armed. He needed to clear his name so he needed this Rigger alive.

Thankfully his Arial MCT Fly-Spy was still feeding him information. He used it's feeds to find the Rigger as he ordered the two backup drones to rush the enemy Rigger. By this time the Rigger had already ran halfway to the emergency exit. The enemy Rigger must have noticed the two drones coming or been tipped off because he dove just in time to avoid being tackled by the first backup drone. But Aslin switched into full VR mode and jumped into the second backup drone and used the superior control to easily tackle the Rigger at hip height and heard a satisfying CRUNCH as the drone shattered the enemy's pelvis. Perched over the enemy Rigger he sent a message saying "Deactivate the drones and surrender!" and drove one of the drone's talons into the shoulder to press the point home.

Then all of a sudden he was painfully dumped back into the matrix. After a few moments were lost recovering his remaining drone feeds showed two armed "Security Personnel" were rushing to the rescue of the enemy rigger and pushing past the people trying to escape. Aslin knew that he was a goner if the enemy rigger managed to escape so he had the remaining backup attack drone rush the closest of the two attackers in hopes of incapacitating him as well. It was a one in a million shot, but it didn't pay off. The fake security guards unloaded at the backup drone and he watched helplessly as it's camera feed spun from the impacts of the impacts. The drone's image feeds came to a rest facing away from the attackers.

The unmoving image of his wife and child lay before his eyes as communicated through the downed drone. Aslin watched as his wife with their child in arms fell to the ground in slow motion, bodies riddled with holes. Fixated as he was on the last living moments of his family he didn't care to notice the remaining bodyguards jump is cover and knock him unconscious.

He woke up, chained to the bed, in the corporate hospital recovering from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by the bodyguards. He didn't care. Days came and went, he didn't care. Police and lawyers came and went. He tried to convince them of the truth but it didn't matter. They told him that his family had been buried while he was in a recuperative coma.

The lawyers told him his life was over. The corporation had lost an enormous amount of face and had to pin it on someone concrete. He was the fall guy. He still didn't care. He couldn't get past the massacre. He kept seeing it again and again. His mind tormented him even when he was awake. Weeks passed and he was soon to leave the hospital bed for prison. He had been allowed no visitors except lawyers and had resigned his fate, to die in prison.

"Hey Aslin wake up! . . Wake up Dammit!" Through the speaker in the wall behind him he recognized his childhood friend (MUXE's character)'s voice. His childhood friend, now a technomancer, had hacked into the room communication system to find out what had happened. As Aslin relayed the story one more time a plan began forming in his mind.

(MUXE's Character) quickly sold off all of Aslin's worldly possessions in the few days before he was to get transferred from the hospital to the prison. Everyone thought the money was to pay for a high powered lawyer that wouldn't have done much good. Most of the money went to paying shadowrunners to break him out during the transfer. Once he was free he realized he didn't have enough NuYen to pay for the second part of the plan, finding the bastards that killed his family. (MUXE's Character) recommended becoming a shadowrunner to make the connection and credits he'd need to find the bastards. Aslin spent his remaining credits on his new shadowrunning gear and set his sights on avenging his family.

While he is still a true professional in the field, the rest of the time he tries to relive his past through liquor.

(I will try to update this thread after games.)

[Graushwein]

This shadowrun is being read from a book or something so you may have run or read it. Please don't spoil it!

During the jail break Aslin found out that his technomancer friend had become a shadowrunner and it was his own team that broke him out. His technomancer friend had asked if he wanted in on a job they were doing and he agreed. Once he was done shopping he got filled in on the job so far.

Mr. Johnson's client is a collector of music, specifically the kind that can make a lot of money. Recently music star had passed away from self induced unnatural causes just after he finished his latest album. The pay is (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 10,000 (I wasn't there and they didn't negotiate) up front and that much more afterwards to get the data and make sure there were no copies. Mr. Johnson was also willing to pay for the disk but didn't specify how much. The target's online name is Zipper, which is likely a middleman, and s/he is selling the data through a silent email auction. Mr. Johnson also told the team that he had been able to track down one of the prospective buyers. Kabo is a rising star in the "Goblin Rock" scene and has expressed interest in the dead musician's album.

The team Aslin was to join on the next day consisted of a street samarai, ex-navy seal sniper, and his technomancer friend. They tracked Kabo the rocker to a concert he was having in the warehouse district that night and showed up a an hour early. Unfortunately Kabo was already inside the warehouse. As they surveyed the surroundings it became clear that Kabo's agent had paid off a lot of government officials to pull this off. There was no parking, cars just parked on the roads and the warehouse was overly packed.

The plan was to grab Kabo's commlink so that the TM could put a sniffer and some other software on it. This would be used to track down the seller, Zipper. With all of the people in the warehouse it was impossible for the TM to find Kabo's commlink signal so they had to do it the hard way. Both the sniper and the sami had chameleon suits and gained entry without much trouble, the concert had started. At the back corner they found an office door that had a sign with a gold star on it that said Kabo, bingo. The door was locked and the sami quickly began picking the lock. Well it took about a minute but it finally unlocked. By this the the TM had tapped into the concert security network and was ready to keep things quiet in the security voice chat.

As the sami opened the door he was suprised to see a troll swinging a large club at him. It seems that they had neglected to check the room and the troll had been listening to the lock being messed with. Thankfully the swing missed and combat ensued in the doorway. Thankfully for the runners the room was secluded and the TM was editing out the troll's cries of alarm. After 3 combat rounds the troll was dropped by gunfire and the sami had been shot once but wasn't very injured. They were fortunate that the concert's music easily covered the sound of the firearms.

The sami went in to find the commlink, turned it on, and plugged it into his own so the TM could use the link. The sniper wanted to keep things quiet and avoid Kabo knowing his room had been broken into, so he and the sami put the troll body through a nearby roof access hatch. The TM wanted to make sure that other security didn't pass by the room so he mimicked an alert at the front of a concert. All of the security rushed that way. The sami wanted to make it look real so he went onto the roof and threw a flash-bang grenade near the crowd. A gang fight broke out. This gave the time needed to clean up the blood and leave everything looking untouched. The commlink was left where found and the team left.

The next day the TM traced the seller's datatrail back to an old bar that turned out to be an archaic hacker hangout. The sniper gave some lame excuse and didn't show up. Furtunately Aslin was ready and the team went to the bar that was more like a hacker's cybercafe and archaic eletronics graveyard. The bar was quiet because most of the clientelle was chatting in VR. Aslin and the sami walked in and the bartender questioned them suspiciously. Aslin gave a lame excuse that was definately not believed and jumped into the wifi node for the bar, as did the TM. Aslin traced down Zipper and relayed the information to the TM. As suspected Zipper was just the middleman. The actual seller was quickly traced and the team left for yet another bar.

On the way there the TM searched out information on the bar and manager/seller. It was in a bad part of town and is a BTL abuser hangout. They pulled past the bar and parked at a nearby corner. The sami got out to scout the back of the bar while Aslin sent his fly-spy into the air and his microdrone infiltrated the bar with chipheads passed out everywhere. In the back office there was a balding man that fit the description of the target. There was no time to snoop around because out front there was a conspicuous black van. We verified that the van didn't have a red stripe or spoiler, thank god.

A man got out dressed in black with a mask on, holding a gun. The fat balding man saw a security feed with the man walking in, grabbed a gun in his desk, and left through a secret door in the back wall. The street sami happened to be in the back at the time and tried to tackle the balding man but somehow missed and fell flat on his face. Aslin opened the back doors and "Let loose the [Dobermans] of war!" The drones moved into position with 2 covering the secret back exit and the other moved towards the front. The sami managed to tackle the target this time and the man in black emerged out of the back door. The two Doberman attack drones were waiting for him and unloaded, dropping him before he knew what had happened.

Four metahumans got out of the van now, three humans and a troll. Two humans ran down the alley towards the back, one into the front door and the troll went towards the corner that our vehicles were parked on. My two drones moved past the sami to draw fire from the approaching men and the other drone stepped out to unleash hot lead and tracer rounds into the troll with a full auto burst, barely dropping him. Of the two men in the alleyway only one was able to get a shot off at a drone, but did no damage. Now it was the Aslin's turn again.

Assuming remote control over a drone he unloaded a long focused burst into the one enemy visible around the corner, but he sayed up. Then he noticed that the alley was only about 2 meters wide and sent a fragmentation grenade on target. This produced what Aslin likes to call "The chunky salsa effect." There wasn't much of them left. By this time our TM had managed to hack into the enemy network and started toying with the remaining guy in the bar. The hacker's alias is Demigorgon, a demon.

Demon voice: [Hideous Laughter] Your friends are dead. Throw down your weapons and step out front if you want to keep your life.
Lone guy: Jones, Grok, Scram? Anyone there?
Demon voice: [Demonic chuckling] Dead [Demonic chuckling]
[Aslin brings his microdone into the bar room and posts the visual feed on the tactical network, which the TM relays into the enemy's HUD. The microdrone is too small to see from accross the room]
Lone guy: No way, you'll kill me. I won't bother you. You guys can leave and I won't bother you.
Demon voice: Wrong answer.
[A grenade bounces off the wall and lands next to the lone guy's feet and puffs out tear-gas. (The sami didn't throw a frag grenade because there were passed out chip-heads in the room.)
Lone guy: [Begins coughing uncontrollably and runs out the front door with weapons still in hand. The two Doberman drones unload into him, leaving little left.
Demon voice: You chose. . . Poorly. [Demonic Laughter]

The team loots the guns and commlinks and gets out of there. They take the target to an abandoned warehouse and he says he has the disk stashed away. He said he'd sell it for 10k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . We contact Mr. Johnson and ask if that amount is acceptable, yes it was. We get off with Mr. Johnson and tell the guy OK. The target pulls a CD out of his pocket. The sami had neglected to search the damn guy. We look at the CD. "Seriously?" We'd never seen one of them. The TM leaves to get a CD player to verify the data and shortly thereafter the target makes a break for it.

The sami is barely missed buy gunfire as he pursues. Aslin said, "Dude I thought you took his gun!". The sami replied "I did dammit!" No one ever searched the man. A doberman drone spots him hiding outside and shoots him with one bullet, and the target surrenders. Aslin patches him up with a medkit before he bleeds out. Just in case he's lied to us. We go back to waiting for the TM to get the CD player.

The GM calls that the end of the session. He won't sum up or say anything more. He definately doesn't "fast forward" or tell us whether we have what we are looking for!

Please comment if you guys want.