DNA / DOA
Runners: Fingers, Barger,
Running Wolf, Mouse, Iceface, Chiqua, Sister Bodycount & Uruk -Hai
The Runners
were hired by Mr Johnson for a run
against their old chums Aztechnology.
One
of their bio-facilities in Tacoma has developed something that Mr
Johnson is very interested in and the Runners are required to obtain a sample
and copies of any files on their computer relating to the project.
Some
arrangements have already been made for the run – access is via a
semi-abandoned section of the sewer system that runs adjacent to the
facility. Based on information supplied by Mr J, a ventilation/heating duct
runs only a meter from the sewer wall – there is the small issue of the
Plastisteel wall in-between but Mr J thoughtfully supplied an instability
catalyst that should weaken the material sufficiently for you to get through.
Mr J has also thoughtfully supplied chemsuits.
Once
the run is completed– which must take place that night – the Runners are to
make for the docks and rendezvous with the SS Misha at Wharf
Number 14. Your contact will be there before daybreak – when he asks you if
the sky is blue tell him that “it hasn’t been since you were a child”. He
will pay you 120,000 nuyen on return of the sample and data files.
After
some minimal legwork into the facility in Tacoma, the Runners set of in
convoy. They drove past the Aztechnology Research Park noting that lights
were still on in the buildings and there was activity ongoing. After some
brief confusion, Mr Johnson contacted them to advise the route into the
sewers was about a block away behind an old Federated Boeing building. And
led by Chiqua the Runners descended. It was far worse down there than
they’d hoped and only a little worse than they’d expected. Small animals
scurried violently about in their rush to avoid the invading Runners, the
walls were damp from various kinds of evil muck. Underfoot the going went
from dry to wading knee-deep in something vaguely passing for water, but
didn’t bear too much thinking about. The odour was foul and those Runners
with respirators put them on.
Following
the sketch map provided by Mr Johnson, Chiqua and Sister Bodycount
led the party through the abandoned sewer complex almost without incident –
just as they’d almost reached the designated point they were ambushed by a party of ghouls who emerged from
concealment in the muck water the Runners were wading through. At the front
of the party Chiqua and Sister Bodycount took attacks from two
ghouls each while bringing up the rear the unfortunate Barger had
three all to himself. The last ghoul made the mistake of attacking Running
Wolf!
Overcoming
the surprise of the ghoul’s sudden attack, the Runner’s launched into action,
Chiqua fired shotgun blasts at close range into the two ghouls on her dropping them instantly, Sister
Bodycount reacted similarly. Fingers fired off a powerbolt
at one of the ghouls but it seemed to have little effect; Running Wolf
casually ripped out the throat of the ghoul attacking her; Iceface
fired off a 3 round burst and Mouse
too opened up on one of the foul creatures still frenziedly assaulting Barger
who finally managed to get some space to cast a manabolt at the last
remaining ghoul.
Having
despatched the creatures the Runners rounded the corner to suddenly realise
they hadn’t brought explosives to breach the sewer wall, still being
inventive types, a combination of grenades, claymores, sledgehammers and
finally Iceface firing off a clip of anti-vehicle ammo proved enough
to carve a half-metre gap in the concrete.
Using
the destabilisation compound on the plastisteel wall beyond the sewer the
Runners clambered into the crawlspace of the ventilation duct – again led by Chiqua.
As they crawled slowly through the refreshingly clean duct ahead Chiqua
saw a pulsing red light they had
reached a grating! Confusingly the grating had been burst open from this side.
The
room beyond was a shambles, lit by the continuously flashing amber light
panels positioned around the room, it looked as if a miniature whirlwind of
destruction had passed through. Debris littered the floor and an ominous red
stain splattered the far wall. There were two exits to the room- which
judging by the shattered furniture had been a recreation lounge. The first
exit was a normal door, the other a heavy steel pressure hatch marked with
Biohazard signs. Moving cautiously to
the doorway, Chiqua, backed up by Iceface and Sister
Bodycount, peeked out into the hallway beyond. Mouse went to
examine the maglock on the pressure hatch, but swiftly decided it was beyond
her capabilities. Barger, Running Wolf and Fingers
examined a cupboard at the far end of the room – even a cursory examination
of which showed that someone had met a messy end there.
Chiqua moved cautiously into the
room beyond, eerily lit by the flashing amber lights, she saw another
pressure door to the north was marked as “Alpha Section” and two corridors
led off from this room. As Chiqua moved to the eastern corridor
followed by Sister Bodycount, Iceface swiftly moved to a
position to cover the southern hallway. Moving down the eastern corridor, Chiqua
found herself in the entrance to what had once been a small lecture theatre
or presentation room. She barely had time to take in the devastation in this
room, when from under a nearby pile of debris two cockroaches, each the size
of a dog burst out and attacked her. Calling out a warning, she lashed out
with her boot before opening up on the creatures. Hearing the shots, Barger
and the others left the rec. lounge and joined their colleagues. Not knowing
how many of the mutant insects might lie in the debris strewn room and
feeling there was little of interest to be found there, Chiqua backed
off.
The
runners decided to investigate the southern hallway, and led by Iceface moved
cautiously down the corridor to the first door. Barger checked his
watch, it was just after midnight, it would take them 40 minutes to get to
the docks from here so they had about 4 hours if they were to make the
rendezvous. As Iceface
motioned his colleagues to move closer, he opened the door and scanning what
looked like a meeting room beyond, and it looked like there was an undamaged
computer terminal on the desk ! As he moved in to the room a ferocious figure
launched itself at him from beneath the table. Iceface had just time to take
in a blur of orange and black fur
when the creature was upon him, he was somewhat surprised not to feel the
slashing of claws however the creature’s blows still knocked him. In
retaliation, Iceface’s finger tightened on the trigger of his assault
rifle and fired a burst into the creature – a second later he watched in
horror as the creature’s wounds started to close – it was some kind of
were-tiger! The creature attacked again as Running Wolf, in the
corridor behind, recoiled at the sight of the creatures aura - not only
twisted by pain and madness but somehow unnaturally corrupted and tainted.
This was no natural were-tiger !
As
Chiqua, Sister Bodycount and Mouse moved up in support, Iceface
pulled back into the corridor, Chiqua took advantage of this and,
lobbing a grenade at the creature, dragged the door shut. As the grenade’s
explosion subsided, Mouse opened the door again to find the creature
sprawled across the meeting room table badly wounded, but still alive, she
fired at the were-tiger with her narcojet pistol. Chiqua, also seeing
the were-tiger was still alive, impetuously lobbed another grenade onto the
sprawled creature – as the grenade went off the explosion blew back through
the opened door hitting Mouse, Iceface and Chiqua
herself. Sister Bodycount stepped forward and changing her clip
started firing gel rounds into the creature. As Chiqua picked
fragments of shrapnel from her face, blithely ignoring the glares from those
of her colleagues doing likewise, she was horrified to see the creature’s
horrific wounds healing up! Suddenly she
recalled a long ago learnt piece of lore from her time in Japan, if you
didn’t have silver bullets; shots to the head were sometimes effective
against were-creatures! Stepping forward she fired a three round burst into
the creature’s forehead. To her relief the creature slumped again across the
table and finally, this time, died.
Battered
and bruised by their encounter, the Runners moved on to the next door, while
Mouse disconsolately searched the meeting room and attempted to coax some
life out of the terminal that had been too close to the grenades. Discovering
this door too was maglocked and lacking the necessary expertise, they moved
down to the end of the corridor – where the heavy door at the end had been
blasted open and the corridor beyond was partially filled with rubble from
the collapsed ceiling and debris from the floor above. As Sister Bodycount
and Barger began clearing a path through the rubble - Running Wolf
decided to scout astrally, switching to human form and guarded over by Iceface
as she did so.
As
Sister Bodycount moved a large piece of ceiling from their path, from
the darkness beneath a large sinuous form struck out and bit her, similarly a
second creature struck at Barger. As these large flesh worms struck
again – Barger suddenly slumped to the ground as the worm’s venom
raged through his already battered body. Fingers retaliated by casting
a Powerbolt at the creature, obliterating it. As Sister Bodycount
slashed viciously at the remaining flesh worm with her katana, Chiqua fired
a couple of rounds into it from distance and the creature was slain. Fingers
swiftly moved forward to Treat Barger. Running Wolf meanwhile
was moving swiftly down the corridor astrally, noting with distaste the taint
of astral corruption in the background. She stuck her head through the wall
to her right where she could see 3 metahuman auras – she assensed that
although the auras showed signs of extreme fear and panic they also appeared
to be uncorrupted …
Running
Wolf
informed Fingers telepathically and headed off to scout the other two
rooms of this corridor. One appeared to be empty although the astral
corruption was strong here the other room contained three metahumans whose
auras were twisted and rotting.
Chiqua moved forward to the room
that Running Wolf had assensed first and began working on the maglock
keypad. After she’d cracked the lock fingers went in speaking gently as she
did so. Within the room were three Aztechnology guards wounded and half
crazed with fear. Cautiously as Fingers
attempted to calm the guards the other entered the room. Calming the guards
down a little they Runners were able to find out that something had happened
24 hours previously “the troll” had escaped and ran amuck causing most of the
damage and freeing other experimental specimens. The guard’s comrades, part
of a containment team sent in, had been slaughtered along with the scientists
they’d been sent to rescue. The survivors had locked themselves in here to
wait further rescue, which had failed to materialise.
Advising
the guards to lock themselves in again the Runners moved on across the
corridor, Running Wolf projected astrally again to check out this room
but found herself under attack by two fire elementals, which engulfed her in
flame. As the fires consumed her astral body and she sank into
unconsciousness she snapped back to her normal body. Iceface and Barger
watching incredulously as she transformed back to wolf-form as hideous burns
first appeared then disappeared on her body. Fingers rushed forward to
check her comrade out but quickly ascertained she was unconscious.
Breaching
the maglock on the door, Chiqua led the way into a room where the
stench of death was overpowering evidenced by the remains of a man embedded
in one of the walls. Moving forward, backed up by Fingers and Sister
Bodycount, Chiqua was not surprised when a large troll bust out of
one of the holding cells and attacked her! However she was surprised when the
three-round burst she fired into the troll as it charged her had little
effect. As the troll crashed into Chiqua claws rending and teeth tearing, Sister
Bodycount called out to the others firing at the troll to little avail.
As Chiqua’s body fell a pulpy mess to the floor Iceface too
fired at the troll again to little effect. At this point Fingers cast a spell
– the Troll looked puzzled for a moment and then slumped to the floor. As Fingers rushed forward to Treat
Chiqua (with remarkable results) - Iceface came forward and
despatched the troll by the simple expedient of opening the troll’s mouth
inserting the muzzle of his weapon and emptying the clip! A search of this
room revealed the remains of some of the missing scientists working in Beta
Section and an optical disk that contained some background on the Metavirus
IV experiments.
Deciding
to forgo the room with the rotting auras – the party moved on to the west
wing of Beta Section, here too the stench of death was apparent and the air
conditioning ducts smashed in! The Runners quickly made their way past more
holding cells, to the Analysis/Experimentation Area where Chiqua went
to work on the maglock!
In the room
beyond was a very well equipped lab although much of the gear was trashed.
Beyond that room was an Examination room where the partially dissected
remains of an ork was strapped to a stainless steel table – also in this room
was what looked like a secure storage vault!
As
Chiqua looked dubiously at the high-rating maglock on the vault, Fingers
suddenly heard a sound from the air conditioning. Hiding there they found Dr Peterhoff the last surviving member
of the medical staff. Terrified and furious that Aztechnology had failed to
rescue him, he readily agreed to open the vault. There they discovered a
package labelled as “Metavirus I sample” and a slew of data disks relating to
the project. Pausing only to pick up the three security guards, the Runners
left - accompanied by the grateful Dr Peterhoff.
Leaving
Peterhoff and the guards, and driving breakneck for 40 minutes through the
fortunately near empty streets the Runners headed for the rendezvous at the
Tacoma docks. Chiqua parked up near one of the burned out warehouses that was
a relic of the Night of Rage back in
‘39. Moving through the deserted docks on foot the runners made their
way towards the SS Misha a rusty old container ship. Peering up into the
gloom, Chiqua could see the silhouette of the Johnson’s contact
waiting and headed up the gangplank. As she got closer and was just about to
give the pass-phrase, she suddenly noticed that the contact, although tall and
skinny, wasn’t an elf as had been promised. Stopping suddenly, she whispered
into her throat-mike warning the others on the dockside that this could be a
trap.
A
second later all hell broke loose, as at the far end of the dock, four
Armoured Personnel Carriers screeched round the corner and began disgorging
Aztechnology security and security drones out on to the dockside. On board
the Misha two shadowy figures emerged from behind the Johnson’s contact, one
of them speaking into a handset. As he did so a group of shady figures
dressed in combat fatigues charged out of one of the nearby warehouses.
The
Runners, somewhat nonplussed by all this sudden activity, but ever ready for
the drek to hit the fan – reacted. Iceface, checking out to sea was
horrified to see two assault choppers coming in low over the bay and even
more horrified as two streaks of fire began arcing towards the Misha immediately
he began legging it towards the cover of a nearby warehouse, followed by Barger,
Mouse, Sister Bodycount and Fingers. Chiqa,
somewhat stranded two-thirds of the way un the gangplank decided to take direct action and charged upwards. As
she did so, firing three-round bursts at two of the shadowy figures she
noticed the body of an elf lying near the top of the gangplank.
The
rest of the runners dashed across the dockside through a hail of bullets as
the group who’d dashed out of the other warehouse opened up, the Aztechnology
goons returned fire. As Chiqua dropped two of the mercs on the boat
she just had time to note the Alamos 20000 armbands they were wearing before
three more of them opened up on her. The hail of bullets tore through her
body as she slumped on the deck - the last thing she saw was the sightless
eyes of the Johnson’s contact staring accusingly at her.
On
the dockside her colleagues fared somewhat better, as despite the hail of
bullets they managed one by one to reach the relative safety of the
burned-out warehouse – just as the two missiles struck the Misha. Against the
backdrop of a huge fireball as the Misha’s fuel tanks went up, the Runners
managed to heave the rusting door to the warehouse closed, just as one of the
Aztechnology drones, ignoring the crossfire, reached them.
Inside
the relative calm of the warehouse, ignoring the occasion round that
penetrated the walls and ricocheted around, Barger and Iceface led the
group to the rear of the warehouse looking for an exit – round about the same
time they discovered there wasn’t one, Iceface was startled by two
small forms dating past him in the darkness. Investigation revealed two ork
children heading for a sewer access in the far corner of the room partially
hidden by some rubble. A second later an ork female, introducing her self as
Jenny arrived and scooping up the children, offered to lead the runners out.
The
group agreed and followed Jenny through the twisting maze of tunnels till
they arrived at what had once obviously been the subterranean levels of a
huge shopping mall but now appeared to be a thriving community. Jenny led them
to the community’s leader Allan Bronstein and elderly ork who it turned out
had been a bio-geneticist prior to gobinization and appeared to know both Mr
Johnson at Biogene and some of the scientists at Aztechnology. After
listening to Runner’s story he offered them food, medical supplies and a
place to rest to which the Runners readily agreed.
Several
hours later somewhat rested and refreshed with the wounds tended to the
Runners met with Bronstein again, he was in conversation with a young ork
Physical Adept he introduced as Uruk-Hai but kept referring to as
“young Willard”. Bronstein offered them a deal. The sewers and the streets
above were absolutely full of Aztechnology security, Alamos 20000 goons and
Lone Star trying to keep both apart. He offered to arrange for the runners to
be led safely through the sewers out of Tacoma and also to broker a deal with
Biogene if the Runners would break out any surviving ork “subjects” from
Alpha Sector in the Aztechnology complex – he reckoned that was the last
place either of the other interested parties would expect the Runners to go.
He also suggested that the Runners recover the chief scientist – Dr Carol
Owens - that Peterhoff had told them about as a sweetener for Biogene after
missing the delivery deadline.
The
Runners agreed and led by Uruk-Hai, they manoeuvred their way through
the sewers avoiding occasional groups of Aztecnolgy and Alamos 20000 goons.
Using some satchel charges supplied by the orks they blew their way into the
ventilation ducts – taking out the security subsystem as they did so.
Sneaking through the ducts they quickly located a restroom for the guards and
after a stunball from Fingers put the guards to sleep, Uruk-Hai kicked
in the vent. Quickly dressing in the uniforms of the unconscious guards, Sister
Bodycount, Fingers and Mouse swept through the complex with
their patented approach. Sister
Bodycount would open the door, salute whoever was there while Fingers
cast a stunball and Mouse used a narcojet pistol on anyone left
standing. Sister Bodycount then tasered them for good measure! Those
not in Aztechnology uniform hauled the unconscious forms back to the restroom
and tied them up. Using this approach, they swiftly secured this level of
Alpha complex including the Aztechnology suit – Jorge Sanchez - who was in
charge and his elite bodyguards – they didn’t even get a shot off!
Locating
and freeing the orks remaining they also rescued Dr Susan, who explained that
the corp had sent in a young executive to take over running the facility a
couple of months ago who, in order to make his name in the company had
persuaded Peterhoff to use her work on the Metagene I virus and mutate it to
the much more virulent Metagene II strain. It was this one that caused the
adverse reaction in metahumans which we was hoping to exploit as a bioweapon.
When she’d protested about Peterhoff’s work and threatened to report it to
the authorities, she’d been held in a detention cell.
The
Runners led everyone out through the ducts and back to the ork underground.
Bronstein’s men got them out through the sewers from Tacoma and Biogene paid
handsomely for the samples and even more handsomely for Dr Owens. To add
insult to injury after releasing a particularly nasty virus into Alpha
Sector’s matrix host, Mouse and Fingers stole Sanchez’s company
credstick and bought shares in Biogene in his name – essentially framing the
poor sap!
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