IC: SRM04-02 Extraction, Artifact Rush, Part 1 Options

[Slacker]

Friday night: Somewhere under Downtown Seattle

Everything had gone to HELL in the a drekking handbasket. Still dazed from the events at Kobe Terrace, the team tried to make good their escape through the sewers. They couldn't even remember how they got out of there. All they knew was that no body was shooting at them for the moment.

TundraWolf shove their bastard Johnson once more to keep him move. The desire to slowly torture the fragger to death was seriously warring with the need to get paid. If the whining started up again, the decision would definitely tip over to the other side.

Mr. White brush at the blood threatening to blind him yet again. "Your spirits still up there, Gardner?"

The giant sadly shook his head in the negative. "Watcher spirit checking if we're being followed, but the others were all dealt with long ago. They were already losing to Horizon's spirits when Knight Errant's Rapid Response team showed up. Ghost knows how lucky we were to get out of there before they noticed us limping away."

Silas could only trudge away and nod agreement. 10k was seriously nowhere near enough for what happened back there. It had looked like they were going to be able to handle the guys in the truck, even with KE on the scene. But then, that armored Citymaster came rolling around the corner, and those helis, where the fuck had they come from. Silas was certain they were did then, but somehow they made it out. One moment he'd been kneeling down to just give up from all the pain, the next Gardner was picking him out of the rubble of a massive explosion, and then they were suddenly slogging through this nasty sludge with the sounds of battle fading away.

They all knew they wouldn't be safe until they'd unloaded Parker Acson into somebody elses hands, maybe not even then, so they kept stumbling along as best they can.

Needle far and away in the worst shape of all of them piped up. "Ok, I've got the message ready to send to Moreau. It's encrypted on so many levels I'm not even sure Moreau will get anything from it. But it should be enough to prevent Horizon from catching on to our plans until it's too late." She paused to rest her head against the slimy wall, at least it felt cool against the pain.

Gardner rested a large hand on on her shoulder to steady her. "You ok?"

She winced as she shook her head. "Are we sure we want to even try again? I'm really fragged after that crash. I could have made a mistake."

"I needs to get paid if only to get us out of town," Silas said heatedly. "We can't just give up."

"He's right," chimed in TundraWolf

"But look at us. We are in no shape to handle any..."

Mr. White quieted her with a calming gesture. "Look, Do you think it's likely that you made a mistake? Or is this just fear?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's good. I just..."

"Your good is enough for me. And I think we all agree that we want this piece of drek out of hair permanently. Let Horizon face off against Moreau if they want him so bad. We don't want them hunting us if Acson just vanished."

Needle looked like she wanted to say more, but finally just nodded. Mr. White was right. They didn't want Horizon following them. And Silas was right too. They needed the money from Moreau to fade into the shadows in case Horizon a grudge and comes after them anyway. "Ok, Do you think we can make it to our drop point in time?"

Mr. White flipped his commlink on briefly to check their GPS coordinates and the current time, then flipped it off just as quickly to make sure it couldn't be traced. Who knows what kind of uber-techno-drek the likes of Horizon could be throwing at finding them. "Send it."

With that, Needle sent a mental command through her deck and the message was away. There was no turning back now.

Fourty-five minutes later found the team in a secured location within the barrens. TundraWolf had called in an aged favor from the local gangers who had cleared a fairly sizable section of the Barrens from all traffic. Should anything larger than a nano-drone enter the area they'd no about it and bug out long before it reached the building.

With TundraWolf and Silas set for an ambush, Needle providing digital overwatch, and Gardner being the heavy backup; Mr. White sat with Acson bound and gagged in a chair. His commlink configure to only receive short range signals from the very short list of the trusted devices of his fellow teammates. It beeped twice with the signal from Needle saying Moreau's vehicle was inbound.

It was a long two minutes as the car pulled up and three figures emerged, everybody's body was pumping full of adrenaline from the anxiety. Video feeds allowed the team to positively identify Moreau carrying an oversized briefcase. They also recognized the troll from earlier in the evening, the one with duffle bag at You Should Not Eat So Much. The duffle bag was gone now and he was openly carrying a very large, and possibly mono-etched battleaxe that rested on one shoulder. The third figure was the ork driver who stepped out of the car, said a few words to Moreau, before reaching back in to pull out a Panther Cannon.

Silas who had eyes on the situation quickly started messaging the other team that it looked like a double cross.

TundraWolf tried his best to move to a better position without compromising his stealth. He wasn't going to just lay down and let Moreau take Acson for free.

Mr. White and Gardner exchanged looks. Should they just bugger out?

Needle finally called across their private comms. "Wait. The driver's staying with the car. I think we're ok."

"You sure?" Mr. White messaged back.

"Yes, He's definitely staying."

"She's right," Silas agreed. "And he seems to be more concerned with the streets and skies than our little building."

Mr. White sighed loudly and wiped at the sweat on his brow. What? It was hot inside the building. He wasn't letting his nerves get to him. "Focus everybody. Stay calm and focus. We're almost through this drek. Silas keep an eye on that guy. TW get back in position. I want the troll covered."

"Consider it done. You just do the talking thing, White. I'll handle the shooting things."

In another moment the axe weilding troll led the way into the large open room where Mr. White, Gardner, and Acson waiting. He looked at the scene with Mr. White's gun sitting on the table in front of him. It's not like White thought it would be of much use if the drek hit the fan, but it set the atmosphere for this transaction quite appropriately. The troll's gravelling voice could be heard 'whispering' something to his boss though none of the team could make out the words.

"Enough. We are here for business." Moreau's assertive voice could clearly be heard as he told the troll they were still going through with this. Moreau took the lead to self-assuredly stride forward, leaving the troll to follow in his footsteps.

As they approached the small table, Moreau pulled out the chair to sit down, resting his large briefcase on the floor beside him. Gardner stepped closer behind Mr. White when the troll hefted his axe just behind his boss. Moreau rolled his eyes at the gesture. Then held up a hand to wave his bodyguard back a couple steps. The troll stepped back with an almost inaudible rumble of a growl. Gardner did likewise.

For a minute of complete silence, Moreau looked over the shadowrunners and their goods. He looked up at the long since collapse ceiling where he had to assume at least one team member was watching with readied weapon. Finally, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers before him. "So, you are ready hand over this man?"

Mr. White answered with a single, monotone "yes."

Gesturing towards Parker's condition off handedly, Moreau asked "I take it you no longer care about his future within our employee?"

Again in a monotone voice, "No."

"I see." Moreau paused for another moment. "Very well then." He reached into his coat in an over slow and cautious manner to make sure nobody jumped to the wrong conclusions. He pulled out 5 onyx colored cred sticks. "I understand one of your number went missing. So, I've added a small bonus for the 5 of you."

Mr. White coolly reached out and pulled the credsticks across the table. Moreau waited patiently, ignoring the poor ettiquette, as Mr. White pressed each of the individual credsticks to his commlink to verify their contents. Each contained 11000 nuyen. Small bonus indeed, but at this point it wasn't worth another fight. He slipped them into his own suit jacket and nodded. "Thank you for your business. He's your problem now"

He waited for Moreau or his pet troll to move to grab the Acson. When neither budged a muscle, he started getting worried. Had something gone wrong? They had the money now, but Moreau wasn't taking his new employee away. What the hell was about to happen. Mr. White quickly glance back over his should at Gardner to see if the Giant had caught something he hadn't. But Gardner only looked confused too.

When Mr. White turned back, Moreau spoke up. "You and your team may leave now."

What? Why does this guy want the team to leave rather than just taking Acson away. It didn't make since. Mr. White was running every possible scenario through his mind trying to understand what could be going on here, but every single one ended with more questions. Finally, he decided he just didn't care any more. Moreau could betray them or not. He just wanted to leave all of this behind them. At least with credsticks in his pocket, there was a fairly good chance they were going to make it through this.

He slowly picked up his pistol and slid it back into its holster. He stood up and speaking to Moreau as well as the team across their comms. "It's been a pleasure. We're gone." The pressure and anxiety weighed heavily as he turn his back on Moreau in a gesture of trust. If something was going to happen, it would happen then. He tensed up, but nothing happened. He took a step. And still nothing happened. He took another step more sure of himself, and still nothing. By the time his few steps took him past Acson's bound form, he was feeling kind of cocky. He couldn't help himself, he kicked the shithead as he went by.

Gardner quietly lumbered behind Mr. White glancing confusedly at Moreau as he went. Neither businessman nor body guard moved a muscle as the two runners exited the door at the back of the room.

Mr. White signal the team confirmation that they had the money. Gardner and he were leaving by way of escape plan alpha.

Silas whooped with excitement across the comms. He held position for another minute to make sure White and Gardner had gotten sufficiently far along in the exit plan. Then he crawled deeper into the shadows and made his own exit.

TundraWolf who was still watching Moreau from the ruins of the second floor just sat. He didn't trust Moreau, not one bit. But both the troll and Moreau just stayed there. Neither moved towards Acson. Neither moved to follow White and Gardner. Another minute passed. Then two. Then three.

Finally the troll started to move, but Moreau held up a hand that halted him instead. Moreau very distinctly looked up towards the second floor, though TundraWolf couldn't tell where the eyes were focusing. The guy couldn't have seen him up there, could he?

Moreau's voice called up to the second floor. "You can leave now too."

Shaken by the thought he had been made, TundraWolf made just enough sound to make it seem like he was being stealthy as he backed away from the opening that gave him such a view from below.

The rest of the team started messaging him wondering if he was ok, but TW muted them. He couldn't see Moreau any more, but he could still hear him. A full 5 minutes of silence passed before he finally gave up. He unmuted the others and quickly messaged that he was fine. Just being overly cautious. He would meet them out exit gamma (yes, the team had thoroughly planned out their exodus from this building).

As he was just reaching the limits of his hearing, he thought he heard Moreau say something to the troll. At this distance it was only the smallest murmur and may have just been his imagination, but he swore he heard something. As he paused trying to pick up anything else, he heard a wet knocking sound he couldn't identify, followed by a small thud and a larger thud; some more murmurred words he couldn't make out; then the click of something sealing shut. Finally the sounds of Moreau leaving.

"We're at gamma. Where are you?" came the urgent call from the others."If you're not here in 30 seconds, you're on your own."

Still questioning what could have just happened back in that room, TundraWolf gave up the thought of going back to find out. "Screw it. Not my problem anymore," he said to the empty hallway. He rushed the rest of the way through the building, barely making it to his exit before he was left behind.


"What took you so long, brother?" called out the releaved Silasp.

"Nothing. Just..." TundraWolf still had so many questions. "It was nothing. Let's get the frag out of here." Needle/ accellerated their newly borrowed SUV into the night even before TW had closed the door behind him.

An hour later, Mr. White handed each of them the hard earned credsticks. "I don't know about you guys. But I am getting out of Seattle for a while. I don't think I have to tell you to do the same."

They all agreed. They each went their separate ways to fade away in the shadows by the best means available to them. Their exploits had finally hit the news channels when even Horizon was unable to cover up the full scale war that ended up tearing through the streets of downtown Seattle near Kobe Terrace Park. Horizon was at least able to disguise their involvement however. So KE was simply looking for the usual suspects with claims of terrorism striking out at the fair city.

Later, Needle did come across a newsfeed that mentioned the death of one Parker Acson as a bystander in the chaos. According to an obituary she eventually located, Horizon held a closed casket funeral for their fallen comrade. They actually turned him into some kind of martyr that had been trying to save a group of school children from the terrible terrorist (still at large). Those sick bastards were able to twist the whole thing into a major PR boost showing how much they care for even their newest employees and how they are the megacorp that inspires 'heroes like Parker Acson' to join them.