A Long Night

Runners: Fingers, Albion, Running Wolf,Uruk-hai , Iceface, Barger

Special Guest appearance; Mouse

The Runners were contacted out of the blue by their old friend Ronin, leader of the Overwatch Otaku group whom they’d helped battle the AI Deus some years ago. After arranging to meet them in the offices of Novatech that evening, Ronin explained that in the final battle in the Argology matrix, Deus when it appeared he was being defeated, downloaded his source code into the specially prepared brains of a thousand of the Arcology residents. Maegera, Dodger’s AI companion realised what Deus was doing and downloaded herself as well. At the time noe of those involved knew what had happened, however after the Arcology survivors were released by the UCAS military those containing portions of the code, followed their conditioning and plugged into the Matrix – each one becoming a node in a bio-electronic network. Deus immediately began re-assembling his code – as did Megaera, for the last few years the two AI’s have been battling it out for control of the various “nodes” on the Network - Megaera attempting to stop Deus from fully assembling his source code. To make matters worse some of the nodes were unable to take what was happening to them and had gone mad!

One of those nodes, Kira had been identified by Megaera’s as containing some key elements of Deus’s source code. Maegera contacted the only other known Ai – Mirage who arranged to have Kira treated in a private clinic owned and run by Novatech. Mirage had just informed Overwatch that he now believed that Novatech’s security had been compromised by Deus – as agents of Deus seemed to be taking a great interest in the company since the announcement of the IPO. Ronin wanted the Runners to extract Kira and turn her over to him so she could be secured.

After accepting the mission, the Runners assembled in Joe’s Bar to consider various options. While they discussed things Fingers contacted her decker mate George to see what he could find out. An hour later, as options were still being discussed, George called back to tell them that while he’s been making his run into the systems at the clinic, their LTG Host had suddenly gone off the Matrix as if there had been a catastrophic power failure. Fearing something had gone terribly wrong the Runners piled into their transport and headed off. Fortunately the clinic wasn’t too far, but when they arrived it was a scene of carnage that met them.

They moved cautiously into the darkened building, past the dead security guards and nurses. Running Wolf scouted ahead in the astral but apart from small pools of corruption where someone had died a violent death she couldn’t detect any auras.Iceface and Uruk-hai led the way forward, guns at the ready. Down the darkened main corridor Uruk-hai spotted a figure in a long leather armoured coat stepping over the body of an orderly and squeezed off a three round burst. As the bullets thudded into him, the figure wheeled and fired a three round burst back – badly wounding the ork. Iceface too squeezed off a three round burst – but the figure seemed to ignore the fact that he’d been shot again and turned the corner at the end of the corridor.

While Fingers cast Treat on Uruk-hai – Iceface switched to APDS ammo, which Uruk-hai followed suit and the two moved down the corridor, followed by Running Wolf – now back in her material form – and Fingers. At the end of the corridor another passageway led off to the east some way down it they could see their opponent apparently working on a maglock standing over the body of another nurse.Uruk-hai fired off another burst of fire – this time fully auto. The target staggered for a second, then - without appearing to look - raised his gun and slammed a single shot directly into Uruk-hai!

Iceface, as his colleague staggered from the hit, stepped round the corridor and fired off another burst of fully auto fire. As the bullets slammed into the target, knocking him off his feet and slamming him into the far wall, glints of chrome could be seen beneath his skin – the target was some kind of drone!

Moving swiftly they went into the room – Kira was in her bed asleep and plugged into a bio-monitor. Attempts to wake her proved fruitless – she was obviously sedated, so Uruk-hai picked her up and the party began to withdraw. As they did so the power suddenly came up in the building and all kinds of alarms started going off!

Speeding their exit, the group got to their transport and tried to leave, however the automatic barrier at the end of the car park wouldn’t lift - so Fingers drove straight through it and into the traffic, Uruk-hai following on his bike. As they got to the intersection at the end of the road the lights went to red – and stayed there! Eventually realising the lights weren’t going to change – Uruk-hai darted out into a small gap in traffic – causing enough of a chaos for Fingers to get her van across the intersection. A hair-raising drive commenced as every traffic light they came to went red and stayed there and the Runners drove through anyway causing traffic chaos and cars piled into each other to avoid them!

Suddenly three bullets crashed through the rear of the van – fortunately missing everyone. In her rear view mirror, Fingers could see the drone, gobbets of synthi-flesh hanging from its face revealing its true nature an a bike about 100m behind them - Uruk hai swung his bike round!As he did so, Fingers continued to weave the minivan through the stalled traffic ahead of her. The drone, seeing Uruk-hai fired-off a three-round burst at the half orc, fortunately missing. Uruk-hai responded by unloading his twin Ingram valiants into the drone, the drone was slammed across the rod into the building opposite, his bike a twisted wreck. For good measure Uruk-hai unloaded another twin full-round burst, the APDS ammo slamming into the drone.

Fingers was having increasing difficulty negotiating through the slowed traffic, realising that the road was jammed all the way to the freeway, she turned off the main road into a side street heading into the back streets of Queen Anne’s Hill . Coming up the street towards her, she could see three Lone Star cruisers headed towards the main road – sirens blaring! Slowing her speed as they passed her, she attempted to stare unconcernedly ahead and drove slowly down the street. Her relief was short lived however, as with a sense of deja-vu, ahead of her she could suddenly see all the traffic lights turning red – Deus was still tracking them somehow! Things got even worse as Iceface calmly informed her that the three Lone Star cruisers had suddenly done a u-turn and were now heading back in their direction.

Uruk-hai too realised that he was not going to get far on the main roads with the traffic snarl-up and began to turn off a nearby exit, As he did he paused the bike to look back at the wreckage of the drone to ensure it was really dead. As he did so he has rocked by a ferocious explosion as the drone’s fuel cell detonated, throwing nearby cars into the air and blowing the ork off his bike into a nearby building.

Running Wolf suddenly had a flash of brilliance and called out “he’s tracking us through the Matrix – what tech are you all carrying?” Immediately everyone looked at Mouse, jacked-in to her cyberdeck in the back of the vehicle, however as Mouse attempted to shut her deck down a cracking surge of electricity from her deck stunned the decker into unconsciousness. Swiftly, Albion picked up the deck and dropped it out the window – but it proved too late as the mini-van’s engine suddenly cut out – jumping from Mouse’s deck Deus had managed to get control of the car’s autonav system – and the Lone Star cruisers’ were getting closer, delayed only by the weight of traffic attempting to use the side street to get away from the snarl-up on the main road.

Everyone began piling out of the van, divesting themselves of mobile phones, PDAs and comms systems as they did so. Fingers and Iceface picked up the unconscious Mouse and began heading east – back in the general direction of the main road. Barger picked up the unconscious Kira and accompanied by Running Wolf (back in human form again - obviously believing a naked female was less conspicuous than a wolf on the streets of Queen Anne’s Hill) and headed west.Albion, meanwhile, took to his toes heading northwards - after picking up Mouse’s deck.

Uruk-hai managing to get to his feet and recovering his bike headed down the road and spotted Albion running towards him. Stopping to pick him up, he sped off into the night, heading through the back streets towards the freeway and their usual meet-up point. Iceface and Fingers dropped Mouse off with one of the many Doc Wagon vans attending the scene of the explosion and began the long walk towards Redmond.

Barger and Running Wolf meanwhile began duckling through the back streets, swapping Kira between them as they went. Passing a bar, Barger ducked inside and quickly nicked a long coat off the coat-rack for Running Wolf. After threading deeper through the streets for a while, they decided to rest up in Murphy’s bar – passing off the comatose Kira as having had a “bit too much”. Elsewhere, heading along the freeway at speed, Uruk-hai suddenly realised that perhaps Deus could track Kira through the electronics packed into her skull! Unable to contact anyone as they’d dumped their comms. gear, he swung the bike round, almost casing Albion to come off and began a hair-raising 275 kph against-the-traffic race back the way he’d come. As he did, his mind raced – where could they take Kira in Seattle where the all-pervasive Matrix didn’t reach – suddenly it hit him – the Ork Underground!

Back in Murphy’s Running Wolf and Barger had finished their drinks and having rested for a while and were just preparing to leave - when suddenly the door burst open and another “terminator” drone entered, firing indiscriminately with a machine gun. As the other patrons in the bar dived for cover, Running Wolf grabbed Kira and headed for the back door, sending out a frantic telepathic cry for help to Fingers. Barger just had time to launch a lightning bolt at the drone – knocking it back through the doors – before he followed!

As they headed through the maze of back alleys, in the street outside Murphy’s the drone righted itself and began to follow them relentlessly. As they headed through the alleyways Running Wolf kept up a running mental dialogue with Fingers., trying to co-ordinate their approach, Barger in an attempt to slow the drone down, shape-changed into an eagle and flying to a nearby alleyway ambushed the drone with another lightning bolt -this time seriously damaging the drone.

Running Wolf stopped suddenly – another drone had dropped into the street in front of her! This time it was one of the fearsome medusa drones they’d met in the Arcology which regarded her with steely eyes from the far end of the street. Rapidly Running Wolf backed up, relieved to see Iceface and Fingers arrive breathless at the scene. As she held Kira, the medusa began to move forwards - like a cheetah stalking its prey.

Suddenly roaring up the street on his bike came Uruk-hai, he dropped off Albion at the corner and shouted to Running Wolf to give him Kira as Deus was tracking her headware through the Matrix depositing the still unconscious ork over Uruk-hai’s bike,. Running Wolf stepped back warily regarding the approaching medusa, which had now switched it’s attention to the biker. As Uruk-hai screeched off down the street the drone accelerated – following him! As the others watched them speed off into the night, suddenly the damaged terminator drone emerged from the alleyway nearby – straight into two lightning bolts and a hail of bullets from Iceface.

Uruk-hai’s bike was much faster than the medusa which rapidly fell of in it’s pursuit. Heading for the ork underground, he arranged to leave Kira in safety there, before meeting the others at Joe’s. A message was left for Ronin on Shadowland and a safe handover arranged

Friends: Overwatch

Foes: Deus

World events: While Corp maneuvering over the impending Novatech IPO reaches frenzied proporions, the East Coast Stock Exchange begins major upgrades of its hardware to cope with the expected matrix traffic once the shares are floated.