Session 18: The Honeypot

Shadowrun
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Chapter 2
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F.A.T.E. PCs
Anastasia Ellison - CS Dmitri - CS Eric Black - CS Gideon Wexler - CS Hector Radcliffe Kumiko Nakamura - CS Oni - CS

The Situation

Team 1

Team 1 (Eric, Doc, Anna) have just enter one of MIT&T's office buildings, primarily used for professor and student offices separate from their research labs. While it's likely that Eve spends a minimal amount of time here, away from her research, her posted office hours reveal she spends an hour here every morning before class or lab time. The office building is under a minimal amount of security in comparison to the rest of the school, MAD detectors and a single security guard man the main entrance which is only there to stop any weapons from entering the facility. Its safe to assume the building has a more notable security system featuring cameras and a control room where it could dispatch back-up if necessary, this security control room may be a part of a larger MIT&T security network and be located in another building.

The FATE agents had just knocked on the door to Eve Ballentine's office, disguised as California CIA agents here to investigate the Platform Harvest Incident.

• Team 1 Disguises:
  • Anna: 2 successes
  • Eric: 2 successes
  • Doc: 3 successes.
• Team 1 Fake Badges:
  • Anna: 2 successes + glitch
  • Eric: 2 successes
  • Doc: 3 successes
• Eric casts Detect Truth on Doc who will do most of the questioning.

Team 2

Team 2 (Oni, Hector, Dimitri, Wex) have been investigating a break in at the Coast Guards network along with an increase in reported street activity from government informants. Contact with Krista Lively revealed that a group of shadowrunners was digging for information, FATE wants to put a quick and decisive stop to it. Team 2 used FATE's footage of the Platform Harvest incident, heavily edited, to lure the shadowrunners out of hiding and into a trap. Unfortunately they did too good of a job, and instead of only luring in the particularly interested parties they got requests from anyone who caught sight of the virally popular video. After several attempts and an interesting trip to the coffee shop the group found who it believes to be the shadowrunners, though they need to be sure before springing the ambush. The anonymous contact is supposed to meet them at the coffee shop, Dimitri drew the short straw and will be the honey pot inside the shop who meets with the contact first and evaluates if this is our target.

Oni, Hector, and Wex are hidden nearby inside the van.

• Dmitri has taken 3 stun damage from fading and has spent 2 points of edge.

---

Team B drew straws to determine which agent would be running the honeypot. Of the four, it was only Dmitri who actually wanted to draw the short straw; and to his delight, he did. Hector patted him on the back. "J.P. wanted you to get some field experience. Here's your shot, kid." Dmitri was pleased, but his facial expression remained serious as he contemplated the scenarios that could emerge. Oni reached over to the gun rack and pulled a Defiance EX Shocker off the shelf and handed it to Dmitri.

Hector continued, "Keep your AV feed alive, we'll be watching. Remember, your goal is to determine if these are the guys that have been snooping around. Try to find out if this is the same team that hacked the Coast Guard. Once you confirm it's them, we'll bring them in."

Dmitri nodded, tucking the taser into his pocket. Without saying anything more, the group watched as he left the van and walked confidently to the coffee shop's entrance. He entered the now empty coffee shop and approached the counter, ordering a Siberian tea. It was not on the menu, but he knew most places in San Francisco carried it. The attendant served him in a minute or so, and Dmitri used the stipend to pay for it (5¥). He sat down at a round table at the center of the store, and sipped his tea quietly. He set his holoprojector down at the center of the table, and had it project a set of chess pieces on the checkered table. He stared forward, quite awkwardly, and waited.

Notes

• Anastasia and Wex have the potential of suffering -1 dice pool penalty if symptoms of radiation poisoning recur.
• JP has secured the agents a safe house to use in Boston through a former CIA contact, the safe house is theirs for the entire month of April should they need it.
• Tyrone Chausse is a local fixer in Boston who should be relatively friendly to our cause should the agents need additional supplies or equipment.

Session Synopsis

Team 1 entered the office of Professor Eve Ballentine and flashed their forged California Intelligence Agency badges, introducing themselves as CIA agents investigating the Platform Harvest Incident. Doc scored a critical success on his con roll and she cooperated fully with the three agents, to the best of her ability. They started off by finding out the device was stolen from McNaughten Hall, a research facility at MIT&T, by an unidentified group using grab and bag tactics. Lone Star is handling the investigation from MIT&T's end, she has little detail on the actual event of the theft. She mentions that plenty of Oricalcum research is ongoing across the globe, especially with the recent discovery of being capable of producing duel-natured light; however she only names Dr. Clayton Osmun of Harvard as a direct peer in the field of Alchemy. Mentions that Dr. Osmun was displeased at being left out of the partnership between MIT&T, DIMR, and Manadyne on the project. Eve gives us details of the research group, including names, 3 researchers along with 5 graduate students from MIT&T, 2 researchers from DIMR, and 2 researchers from Manadyne. Towards the end of their conversion Eve began to recognize Anna though her disguise as the president's daughter, however the agents ended the conversation before giving Eve a chance to confirm her suspicions.

Team 1 has limited number of leads, but feel their best prospects are Clayton Osmun and contacting Lone Star through Eric's contact back in CFS. Eric contacts his contact, Bastien Aristide, but he is unavailable. Team 1 heads back to the safehouse to plan their strategy for investigating Clayton Osmun, who has no reason to cooperate with them guilty or not.

Team 2 is waiting for their meeting with the suspected shadowrunning crew who they discussed selling Platform Harvest details to. Dimitri, who joyfully drew the short straw, was sitting inside the coffee shop to execute the meeting drinking a Siberian Tea and playing chess over the matrix. Meanwhile Oni, Hector, and Wex were hiding in the van outside with an eye on the coffee shop and Dimitri. Unfortunately they didn't know who they were looking for and were forced to wait for someone to bite on the generalized Coast Guard message in Dimitri's avatar. Eventually someone did.

A well dressed human male, who had approached in a darkly tinted sports car, approached Dimitri confidently. The man's avatar reads as Max Litten, but gives no specific detail and is almost certainly nothing more than a fake ID. Max is clearly the more experienced socialite, and the conversation starts out roughly for Dimitri, but he holds his own and doesn't expose anything. Eventually it turns on Dimitri who ends up offering to buy information from Max, rather than the other way around. Dimitri begins hacking Max's comlink on the fly, while stalling in the conversation for more time. Unaware of their technomancer's actions the rest of Team 1 notices Max draw a pistol under the table, Dimitri though is unaware a weapon has been drawn on him. Just as Dimitri gets access to Max's comlink, Max opens fire on Dimitri in the coffee shop, likely realizing that Dimitri had hacked his comlink.

Team 2, except for Dimitri, was ready to react and Oni immediately opened fire as Dimitri went falling back in his chair as he took two shots in the chest. A combination of Oni's assault rifle barrage and Wex's Manabolt took out Max in a matter of seconds, leaving him bloodied and dead on the floor next to Dimitri. Street traffic and coffee shop patrons immediately scattered for cover as Hector pulled the van forward to box Max's sports car in place, hoping to find the rest of the team inside.

Instead Hector spotted a grenade being rolled under the van from the other side of the street, Hector stepped on it to avoid the explosion and saved the van some damage but shook those inside. Oni spotted two figures on the other side of the street who looked responsible for tossing the grenade, Oni and the Orc Street Samurai exchanged assault rifle fire from cover. Unfortunately for Hector he was the most visible target of Team 2 and took a majority of incoming fire. Hector thought he would be alright as he climbed towards safety in the back of the van when two more grenades rolled under the van and another burst through the shattered glass of the driver's side window. The two grenades under the van shook the can badly and cause some minor damage, while the explosion inside the van damaged the FATE agents inside. Oni made use of the gun port to return fire while Hector had fallen unconscious and Wex hid in the back, eventually jacking into the van to take over driving.

Oni had seriously injured the human female tossing grenades when he turned his attention back to the Orc street samurai, Oni and the troll both opened fire. Oni sunk 6 bullets into the Orc in center mass dropped him to the ground in a bloody mess, but the Orc squeezed off a full auto burst at the armored portion of the van as he fell to the ground. The burst punctured holes in the van's armor and damaged the agents inside. Oni was knocked out and Hector was almost killed, Wex was heavily wounded but conscious and screamed for Dimitri to get in the van as he peaked out the window to get line of site on the last shadowrunner. Damaged from Oni's earlier assault a single manabolt was enough to finish up the human female before she could throw any more grenades in their direction. Dimitri looted the body of Max Litten, taking his comlink and Ares Predator heavy pistol with him as he hopped through the broken store front and ran into the cover of the van as Wex was driving it away.

Aftermath

F.A.T.E.'s Team 2 was loitering around the medical facility recovering from the shoot out in the street near the coffee shop, though actual medical care was more difficult to come by. Doc was in Boston and hadn't yet had time to remotely log in to the facility, JP had applied first aid to get Dimitri up and running again but was called away before he could attend to the rest of his agents. At least they were all conscious now.

---

JP was absent from the facility for about an hour before returning with a notably more stern expression across his face. "Do we have anything yet Dimitri?"

Dimitri took a moment to respond, he was fully in augmented reality as he sorted through the comlink he'd recovered from Max Litten. "...uh... not yet."

"Let me know when you have it. I need to attend to Lone Star. And Sacramento is already calling about our collateral damage."

"...Da..." Dimitri was already back deeply into his work.

JP turned and left the room without another word, there was already another message flashing on his comlink to deal with the bureaucratic red tape behind keeping F.A.T.E. secret and in operation.

---

"He seems a bit tense lately." Wex mentions offhandedly to no one in particular.

There was no response from any of the agents and Wex sat up from the bed, propping himself up on his elbow to glance around the room. Oni was in a deep state of meditation and totally unresponsive, Dimitri was still fully immersed in AR, and Hector was cutting the pain by snorting a line of betameth.

Hector gave a shake of his head as tilted his head back, the rush of the high flowing into his veins almost immediately. "What'd you say?"

"Nothing..." Wex tucked his hands behind his head and laid back down on the bed staring up at the ceiling.

Had Dmitri heard the comment, he may have had something to say. He had done some exploring on F.A.T.E.'s network since his access level was elevated and found some pieces of information that worried him. He wanted to run his findings by another member, but he hadn't yet decided who he could trust the most. As a follower of the paragon Cryptome, the decision wasn't one he was taking lightly.

Results

Status: Ongoing.
Dates: April 2nd, 2073
Quote of the night: "Hello Ms. Valentine."..."Ballentine."..."That's what I said."... -Doc
Nuyen: N/A
Stipend: 6,495¥ Remaining.
Karma Awarded: 7
Additional Awards: +1 Street Cred for Dimitri, Hector, Oni, and Wex for taking down a shadowrunning crew on the streets.