Emergence - Cause for Distraction

Emergence - Cause For Distraction

Runners: Kitsune, Polo, Sirius, El Torro, Spirit, Blackout, Ghost

Welcome to Hong Kong

The Runners were contacted by Smiley, who in light of the difficulties Polo and zipCode were in following the last Run, offered them an out-of-town gig. zipCode was lying low and passed, so Ghost was called in for hacking support.

The Runners met the Johnson, a Mr Lee, at the Space Needle that evening at 8 o’clock. Lee turned out to be a Chinese, who spoke in perfect, though heavily accented. English. He told them the gig was in Hong Kong, he needed them to track down an man called Kenny Tan and pass across a data-package to him. Lee went on to explain that he needed to use out-of-towners as he believed their local assets had been compromised. Tan could be found in Kowloon City , but was likely to be lying low.

Once the Runners accepted the job, he offered them a medallion with a Chinese inscription on it to use as proof of identity. Polo translated the inscription as “Gau Fong” which she recognised as the name of a radical group operating in Hong Kong, though wisely kept quiet in front of Lee. Lee offered them fake SINs if they wished and agreed an upfront fee of 140k with 20k expenses money. Lee told them if the needed to re-supply they should visit Kai Tak After leaving the meet Ghost ran some checks on the Matrix, discovering Mr Tan was pretty high up on the Hong Kong police Most Wanted list. He also discovered that Kai Tak was the old Hong Kong airport and discovered a something called the Night Market ran there. To give time for Polo to pick up the fake SINs from Lee, he then booked tickets for everyone on the morning flight in two days time.

After clearing security at Seattle Airport, most choosing not to use the fake SINS supplied by Lee, they touched down at Chek Lap Kok Airport five hours later. After clearing security, though Sirius had a little trouble they took the airport bus into Kowloon. On the way there, Ghost booked rooms at the Joyful Rest Inn. They arrived just after lunchtime and took care to arrive at the hotel and book-in separately. After checking out the rooms Polo and Sirius went on a tour of the crowded streets, eventually finding themselves in a slum area known as the Walled City. Ghost began browsing the local matrix sites, trying to locate local Runner hangouts, to get some info – unfortunately his street rep from Seattle didn’t seem to count for much here in the orient and he didn’t get very far. Spirit meanwhile used her contacts in The Sisterhood to see if anyone had worked with the Gau Fong previously and found someone who told her they operated out of the Walled City. That evening, feeling naked without their ordnance, they decided to visit the Night Market. Spirit hit it off with a Portuguese smuggler called Paulo Mendez and ended up buying an unfeasibly large amount of C4 from him . After shopping for a while and managing to tool-up to their satisfaction, they returned to the hotel for a well-earned rest.

Late that night, Ghost was woken by a knock on the door, he got up and peered through the spy-hole – he couldn’t see anyone out there but repeated queries as to who was there was met by silence other than another knock. Feeling concerned, he retreated behind the bed, levelling his gun. Suddenly however, he felt a gun barrel pressed against the back of his head. The door op his room opened and two Chinese men in sharp suits and sunglasses entered. In British accented English one of the men instructed Ghost that if they located Mr Tan they should call this number and squirted a number across to his comlink.

Ghost, typically belligerent, refused to co-operate and last thing he heard was a hammer cocking as the trigger was pulled.

Kowloon

Next morning at breakfast Sirius noticed that Ghost was absent and went up to check on him. She found the hacker sprawled across his bed in a pool of blood. Checking him out she found that despite tall the blood, he was unconscious, not dead. He did have a nasty looking head wound and she called up Blackout and Kitsune on the comm - telling Blackout to bring his medikit. Blackout fortunately had enough first aid to patch him up and while the hacker rested, he and Kitsune began clearing up the evidence of whatever had happened.
Kowloon

Polo Sirius and LT decided to hit the streets of the Walled City and they set out early. As soon as they arrived Polo began - speaking to street vendors, shop owners and random passers-by in the crowded street, when she felt she might be on to someone who might know something she flashed the medallion given to her by Lee. LT and Sirius hung back, keeping a watchful eye, and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible and not stand out too much as westerners in the crowded streets. A few of hours later, Sirius noticed that Polo was being followed by two men in suits and squirted a warning to Polo and LT. As her shadowers didn't seem to be doing anything offensive, Polo was happy to lead them around the streets for the next few hours until suddenly she felt something brush against the pocket of her jeans - but rather than trying to steal anything, a piece of paper was thrust in. The message read "Drop the tail and meet me at the Golden Moon, 18:00."

Polo immediately took to her heels, dashing down a side alleyway, and into a laundry where after the offer of 50 nuyen the laundress hid her in a storeroom. The two men following barged through the crowd trying to catch her, but LT and Sirius moved to intercept them. In the ensuing fracas one of the men was shot dead and the other clubbed into unconsciousness. When they arrived back at the hotel, late that afternoon Ghost informed them that according to the newsfeeds the two men had been Hong Kong Police - one was dead and the other in hospital with suspected brain damage. Polo meanwhile, after things calmed down, headed towards the Golden Moon. She was met by a man who asked her to explain why she was looking for Kenny Tan. After explaining, and showing the medallion, the man nodded and told her to meet at the Huang Import Export Warehouse at midnight.

That night Kitsune set out early for the warehouse to scope things out - he could see some obvious security, but nothing more than he would expect for such a meeting and commed back to the others telling them to come in. The meeting went smoothly, and after Ghost squirted the paydata across, Tan told them he might have a job for them if they were interested. He would call to confirm by 18:00 tomorrow.

Promptly at 18:00, the call came in to meet at the Golden Moon, where Tan offered them 140,000 nuyenplus expenses to take the Lamma Island power station off the grid at 21:00 three days from now.

Lamma Island

The Runners set about planning how to disable the power-station, first deciding to pay the site a visit. They took the ferry from Central Hong Kong to Yung Shu Wan on the north of the island. Somewhat amazingly, for those raised in the metroplex, there were no cars on the island and none of the buildings was higher than 3 stories! The began hiking south towards the power station, discovering a pleasant beach next to it where they loitered with the tourists while scoping the joint. Ghost tried to follow the activity in the station and scope out security - which seemed minimal. Polo, meanwhile, hiked round the northern perimeter and found a likely entry point that seemed shielded from view. Sirius meanwhile wandered over to the local police station about half a km away, but found nothing out of the ordinary - there seemed to be only three cops and the joint apparently closed for the night at seven.

After a brief get-together to share the intel-take they decided that Blackout and Polo would head back to Kowloon and visit the Night Market to equip, while the others would pick up some camping gear and set up base in a local campsite. While at the Night Market, Blackout tracked down Paulo Mendez and, for the knockdown price of 1000 nuyen and a date with Spirit, arranged with the smuggler for an extraction on Friday night at ten. They also picked-up the bad news that the cop LT had hospitalised had regained consciousness and given fairly creditable descriptions of LT, Sirius and Polo to his colleagues.

Polo and Blackout returned to Lamma next morning and joined the others at the campsite - on the site of an old wind farm the local sprits had taken exception to for some reason. The spent most of Thursday confirming their observations and refining their plan of action.

Friday evening round about dusk they headed down off the mountain towards the power station. They skirted round the woods to the north and carefully made their way down to the fence. As they did Iceface and Sirius spotted movement on the far side of the perimeter road and called on the others to hide - unfortunately Polo, busy trying to fit a silencer to her gun in the dark didn't quite manage it!

They anxiously scanned the far side of the fence with whatever image enhancements each of them had, and spotted two barghests prowling the area . One of them had obviously spotted Polo and began to howl. Quickly the runners leaped into action and in a flurry of silenced rounds and spells, both were taken-out with minimal fuss. Blackout cut through the fence and they made their way past the massive coal-bunkers to the first control room. Despite a minor altercation with an elderly night-watchman, the quickly gained access and Ghost was able to insert a programme instructing the system to shut down at 21:00. The other three controls rooms were dealt with equally efficiently by Blackout and Ghost.

Polo and Sirius meanwhile headed to the administration block to deal with the on-site engineers - to ensure the station could not be brought back online quickly. They easily gained entry to the building and headed for the rest-room - following the echoing sound of a loud TV set in an otherwise silent building. As they neared the partially open door, Polo suddenly held up her hand. The engineers were listening to the news - which was reporting a major police crackdown against the Gau Fong - most of whom had apparently been rounded-up - and their leadership , including Kenny Tan, was in custody!

Escape from Hong Kong

A manaball from Sirius soon put paid to the two engineers and while she and Kitsune swept the building for any stragglers Polo relayed the latest from the local news channels to the others.

Blackout and LT briefly considered whether they should take out the two security guards in the gatehouse, but eventually deciding there was not much those two could do anyway, gave the call to bug-out. They exited the facility with 20 minutes to go before Ghost’s virus kicked-in. It took them most of that time to get back to the campsite and begin dismantling their tents. As they did so the lights went out - across the island and also Honk Kong Island across the water. They headed down the mountainside to the cove north of Lo Tik Wan, where after a short wait, Mendez, accompanied by Spirit arrived in his luxury yacht.

As they crossed the water they could only imagine the chaos in Hong Kong, as police helicopters circled the area shedding what light they could on the darkened city. Reports coming across the newsfeed from those agencies located in Kowloon were reporting, riots fires breaking out and general chaos and confusion – all of which was being laid at the door of the Gau Fong. As Mendez rounded the north of the island, they suddenly saw a couple of explosions in Kowloon. As the explosions flared into the night, all of the Runners received pings on their comlinks and a somehow familiar icon breezed past all the security on their comlinks - Blackout recognised Sebastian Grumm first.

Grumm explained that he was being held on the 17th floor of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and was willing to pay each of the Runners

100,000 nuyen to get him out and to safety. Given the chance of being paid by Kenny Tan was remote as he was currently incarcerated, they accepted the mission. After a fond farewell to Spirit, Mendez dropped them off at the Tsim Sha Tsui East promenade. The area was in complete chaos - roads were gridlocked, accidents all over the place, fires and rioting breaking out all over as the less civic minded citizens of Hong Kong too advantage. As they headed up the Chatham Road towards King park Polo was monitoring the newsfeed for any information about what they were walking into . The police had established a loose perimeter around the hospital and set up an incident centre in the nearby King’s Park sports ground, fire-fighters were fighting a massive blaze in the eater wing of the hospital and doctors and nurses were struggling to evacuate patients. According to the reporters on the site , after the power failed, number of dangerous inmates had escaped from a secure psychiatric unit and police were warning everyone to avoid them. Polo suggested that they swing round the Gascoigne Road and approach the hospital from the West – avoiding the greatest concentration of police and fireman – not to mention news-crews.

The others readily agreed. It took them a little while to get to the perimeter fence of the hospital, due to a 30-vehicle pile-up on the Gascoigne Road, but eventually they got there. When they arrived, Kitsune spotted that the fence had been cut . They took advantage of this and moved across to the nearest fire escape. The fire-doors were open and on the far side Kitsune found the body of an orderly and a patient – both shot. Polo meanwhile, still monitoring the news reported that someone had uploaded footage of one of the escaped patients killing one of the doctors – apparently having taken exception to the treatment regime he was undergoing. According to the reporter the dead man was a Dr Shalbermat who headed up the specialist psychiatric unit on the 17th floor. The reporter also advised police armed response units had been sent into the building to secure the escapees.

As they made their way up the stairs, they found the body of a dead policeman, and proceeded with caution. Opening the fire-doors on the 17th they wandered straight into a fire-fight. Sirius took out the two surviving policeman with a manaball. LT and Polo discovered that the SWAT team had been engaged with another team of Runners, the last survivor of which introduced himself as Catseye – he said they had been sent to extract Dr Shalbermat but everything had gone to hell in a handcat when the power failed and the inmates escaped. Suddenly all their electronic gear went on the fritz, and their comms systems were compromised to cap it all, their hacker had collapsed screaming as all his headwear fried itself. Unable to contact Shalbermat, they were just about to pull out when the SWAT team hit them. Conscious that it wouldn’t be long before backup for the SWAT team arrived, they pinged Grumm asking where he was hiding – he told them he had taken refuge in a storeroom on the 18th . They quickly recovered Grumm and bugged out.

After a quick call to Mendez, he agreed to pick them up and transport them to Macau, where they easily picked up a flight to Seattle.

Friends:

Foes: Ten Thousand Lions

World events: Rumors of the more widespread existence of Technomancers spread through the shadows. Medical report emrge of Artificially Induced Psychotropic Schizophenia Syndrome (AIPS) affecting some people following hte Crash.

Further research identified Augmented Virtual Sensory Perception (AVSP) as one of the side-effects affecting a small number of sufferers.