Brainscan - Breakthrough

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Brainscan - Revelations

 

 

 

Brainscan – My Name is Legion

 

Runners: Fingers, Barger, Neo, Sister Bodycount, Running Wolf, Iceface

 

Neo, while out driving suddenly and mysteriously gets the urge for popcorn and a movie. Stopping his car, he went to the pictures, where he met a very odd fellow behind the kiosk and inside Brisbie, the Raven shaman who traded a second SENSE device for a box of popcorn.

Three weeks later Sister Bodycount got a call from someone called "Louie", who claimed to have worked with her in the past. Louie said that if they were looking for work go to the airport at 11 and ask for Toshi. Oh and be ready to run  !

Rounding up the troops at Joe's they headed out to the airport were ushered past security to a private hangar where a very expensive looking Lear jet was waiting. Some hired muscle asked them to check in their ordnance, before boarding the plane. Sister Bodycount, ever suspicious refused, and was driven back to the terminal. The others boarded the plane, and after a smooth
takeoff, met Toshi Akimura. Akimura was obviously a fixer, but a very high-class one, he was wearing a suit that would probably have bought half the Redmond Barrens and the Lear was obviously his, not loaned out from a corp. The runners were moving in rarefied circles indeed. He advised that the team had been recommended to him from a previous employer. The job was a simple extraction - a scientist working on a highly classified project for Cross Applied Technologies - Olivia Marchand -  wanted out, the Runners were to assist and deliver her to a specified location. The target was currently on vacation in New Orleans enjoying a cruise on the Mississippi and thus outside her normal protective envelope in Montreal - one hitch, she was being protected by the Seraphim, CAT's security special ops team. The mission was time-constrained as Marchand was due to return to Montreal in 3 days. For this simple extraction a flat fee of 200,000 nuyen was offered. Neo, down to his last month's rent accepted immediately and Fingers, Iceface and Running Wolf (after some reflection) agreed. Akamuri allowed them to put in a call to Sister Bodycount to meet them in New Orleans. As she'd have to come on a scheduled flight, Neo agreed to arrange additional weaponry for her at the other end.

On arrival in the New Orleans the plane was met and Akamuri received some bad news, the decker he's employed to source security data on the target had been compromised. The decker was dead, but she'd apparently passed the paydata on to her boyfriend Remy Duchamps.

Neo put in a call to his old buddy Monty Boudreax and asked for a local contact in  New Orleans to source supplies from and while he did that the others decided to check out the boyfriend's apartment after stowing their gear at the safehouse Akimura had provided.

Duchamps's pad had been turned over, but Neo found a stash of BTL chips that were tagged with the words "The Brain Disco". After some research they discovered the "Brain Disco" was in the street  next to the safe house provided by Akimura. Checking out the Brain Disco they quickly tracked down Duchamps and were in  the process of getting the pay data from him when a Seraphim special ops team burst into the place. A short fire fight ensued, with the Seraphim crew swiftly dispatched, as the runners made their exit (taking a wounded Seraphim to interrogate) they ran into the Seraphim's backup - an urban assault helicopter - which opened up with a minigun. As Running Wolf went down in a hail of bullets and other runners dived for cover, Fingers managed to get off a lightning bolt before a second hail of fire from the Seraphim chopper cut her down. Iceface managed to get off a few shots before, it's computer systems damaged by the electrical discharge the chopper swung away. To the all-too-familiar sound of sirens in the distance the runners made their way back to the safe house to lick their wounds and plan. While holing up in the safehouse the Runners began the meticulous planning for their extraction of Marchand. Fingers and Running Wolf headed up river to recce the boats and set up a regroup position should things go wrong. Neo contacted Louie to obtain a couple of boats and various other equipment and then did some work on accessing the Cross Applied Technology PLTG.

Once all the plans were in place the Runners headed up river and a mile or two ahead of the Queen of Babylon and laid their ambush. Neo started  by trying to infiltrate the Queen's comp system and shut down their satellite uplink. Although interrupted by a Seraphim decker he managed to do so successfully although before he did so (and was dumped out) he noticed there was someone else in the node - a small black child with a cloak of swirling stars.

Unfortunately this alerted the Seraphim guards as Red Hammer and Iceface moved their boats towards the Queen, the guard boats moved to intercept. Running Wolf went over the side and began to swim for shore. Suddenly, to the obvious consternation of the Seraphim in the guard boats the Queen of Babylon's engines burst into life and she roared away at top speed. One of the guard boats immediately turned and began to follow. Barger hit the other guard boat with a lightning bolt which did little damage and Sister Bodycount sprayed them with a couple of three round bursts and eventually Fingers took out the Seraphim with a stunball.

As Iceface manoeuvred his boat round to pick up Running Wolf, who went astral, Red Hammer began to follow the second Seraphim guard boat and the Queen of Babylon, closing on the pursuing guard boat Sister Bodycount managed to fire a neurostun grenade into it and it began to career off wildly to wards the far shore. Rounding a bend in the river they found the Queen stopped in a small cove apparently under attack by a third party.  Thinking to use this as a distraction Red Hammer silently manoeuvred the boat to the far side and Neo, Barger and Sister Bodycount managed to sneak on board. Iceface's boat arriving at the scene stopped a   couple of hundred yards upstream and dropped off Fingers who began to sneak down the shoreline towards the combat. Running Wolf flitted through the boat astrally and identified three figures on the starboard side (engaged in combat) and two others at least one of whom was magically active on the port side. Moving stealthily into the lower area of the cruiser Neo, Sister Bodycount and Barger discovered three seraphim guards who were swiftly dispatched.  In one of the cabins, Neo found two women taking cover - one was Marchand and the other was her aunt Meme Flora. After convincing Marchand she had been slated for termination by Cross and hustling the women out the room Neo led them towards the stairway to the upper deck. Meanwhile Red Hammer was busy setting charges on the side of the Queen, and Fingers had got herself into a position to observe the other team attacking the boat from the shoreline. As the women got to the doorway, Marchand collapsed and began babbling in French in a strange child-like voice. Sister Bodycount hustled Meme Flora out onto the deck and Neo attempted to calm Marchand down. After briefly considering punching her lights out Neo eventually decided to half-carry her out onto the deck. Unfortunately this somewhat compromised his sneaking attempt and they were spotted by the party on the shoreline, two of whom moved position to get a better line of sight. They also called in their helicopter support, as Red Hammer discovered as it opened up on the pleasure craft with it's vindicator minigun -  fortunately he managed to dive overboard and escape serious injury.

As Barger  joined Neo, Sister Bodycount and the women on the deck one of the team on the shore cast a manaball - Barger, Sister Bodycount and Marchand dropped as if pole axed. Neo, reacting swiftly lobbed a grenade at the enemy mage to devastating effect as the fuel drums on the dock exploded. As half of their team went down in a fireball, Fingers heard the enemy team leader calling for immediate evacuation and the copter swung down to pick them up. Neo then went and dealt with the surviving Seraphim by the simple expedient of lobbing a grenade into the control cabin. Fingers and Red Hammer boarded the boat to help with their unconscious colleagues and called up Iceface and Running Wolf in the other boat to evacuate up shore a piece to the standby camp prepared earlier.

Neo called Akimura who informed him that the heat was on big time and there was little he could do to help them. He gave them a contact in the New Orleans and advised he'd make arrangements to advance them half of the money, the rest on delivery of the package in Seattle. While Neo went into town the others drove round in the camper van heading vaguely toward Baton Rouge and discussed various options for getting home ranging from a road trip across the continental united states, trying to get to the treaty city of Denver to just abandoning the mission and settling down in the CAS. Neo, after picking up the certified credstick for 100,000 nuyen, got in touch with Monty to arrange for some fake ID.

After driving around discussing options ( during which time they discovered that Mrachand was apparently suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder) they eventually decided on heading for the Caribbean League and trying to get a flight back to Seattle from there. They headed to the coast and got a boat to Jamaica dropping all their hardware overboard as it approached the
coast. Using their fake ID they easily managed to get a flight back to Seattle.

Once back in Seattle they discovered a message waiting for them at Joe's with a number to call and after a brief misunderstanding between Neo and the contact a meeting in the Barrens was arranged. Red Hammer and Sister Bodycount tooled up and off they went to deliver the package.

The meet was in an abandoned lot deep in the Barrens, and sure enough at the appointed hour a black van pulled up. Five men got out and as the leader spoke to Neo and handed over another credstick, the other escorted Marchand and her aunt to the van. Suddenly however Marchand started struggling violently and attempting to free herself. Meme Flora, equally suddenly, started summoning, using a voodoo ritual to invoke a Loa to aid her niece. Something however seemed to go wrong as Marchand's twisted psyche and rage turned the possessing spirit into something terrible -  and possessed of superhuman strength and speed she literally tore the four men guarding her apart. - swiftly followed by punching her fist through their leader's face !

Flora, realising something had gone terribly wrong attempted to intervene, but was casually backhanded across the lot. Sister Bodycount moved to check out Flora but only succeeded in drawing Marchand's attention to herself! As Marchand proceeded to beat the crap out of Sister Bodycount, Red Hammer tried to help her comrade by shooting Marchand in the back.. to no effect other than drawing Marchand's attention to him!  Discarding Sister Bodycount's battered body, Marchand backhanded Red Hammer against the wall with such force as to nearly kill her. Marchand then turned her attention to Neo, moving purposefully towards him as he desperately tried to calm her.


Barger moved out of the van to help and Fingers launched a manaball - to no effect! As  Marchand moved ever closer to Neo to beat him to a bloody pulp, Fingers desperately tried a powerball! This time the spell seemed to work and Marchand crumpled. Barger cracked Sister Bodycount and Red Hammer's Doc Wagonä cards and the runners turned Marchand (now catatonic) over to her aunt.

 

Friends:   Toshi Akimura

 

Foes:   Cross Applied Technologies, The Seraphim, Meme Flora

 

World events: