Shadowrun 3e Sandbox: Seattle

[thamolas]

Red (new players scroll down to where you are mentioned):

Seattle. Friday, January 2nd, 2054. It is cold outside with a steady wind. On New Year's, there was a light snow. There was less violence on New Year's than there had been in a decade and the calm in the air is a little unsettling.

Red Carbon:

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What area is your apartment in?

Red　wakes up in her apartment at the usual time...

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You can go from here.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon - Red Carbon's Apartment

When the Treaty of Denver was first signed vast populations of Caucasian men and women were displaced. For the most part these people went into what remained of Canada and the United States of America, and for a great deal of people that meant entering the metroplex. It was, and still is, the last American city on the west coast. The city was overwhelmed at the time, prompting a rash of new construction, consolidation, and an all-round adaptation to its new status.

Red Carbon wasn't even born back then, but that doesn't mean she can't now reap the benefit of low-cost housing produced to put a roof over the head of millions of refugees. One such development was a brutal hack job of a complex of roughly two-hundred apartments into five-hundred. The original apartments were quite spacious, but the new ones were barely larger than the increasingly common shoe box style apartment coming over from Japan. Red's apartment used to be the living room/kitchen - with a balcony that used to overlook downtown, but now downtown overlooked the balcony - of one of the buildings four room living spaces; she shares the bathroom with the tenant of the apartments former spare room while the inhabitant of the ex-master bedroom gets his own little bathroom.

Her apartment isn't palatial by any definition of the word, but as she slowly wakes up, feeling comfortable and refreshed, she finds she quite likes the cozy atmosphere. Then she panics. Quickly she checks the clock stamped into the video feed from her cybereyes. It read 9:34 AM, and that was wrong. She knew it was wrong because if it was right that meant she'd slept for almost twenty-five hours, and if that was right.

With all the speed and grace of a cat startled awake from a nap she scrambled her way over to the mass of electronics shoved up against the opposite wall from her fold-down bed. Little lights flashes in reds, greens, and blues; cooling equipment hummed as it pushed cool air against warming electronics; wires tangled as they snaked from component to component; and the retro green display of the monitor showcased the words SYSTEM ERROR like a naturalist in the park with a fresh pile of discarded clothes.

"Grraaargh!" The feral roar of rage punched through the thin walls of her apartment, and the apartments surrounding, as she pounded on the thick glass of the display. "No!" She screeched and she begin twisting and tweaking wires, fondling components, and just in general tried to make the monstrous claptrap creation of hers work. It had been - "Work you infernal machine!" - the beginnings of a new and improved cyberdeck, but without cannibalizing the CMT Avatar (and other assorted goodies) sitting in a locked chest along the balcony window it was hard work. The problem was that she didn't have the money for all the components she needed, unless they were second-hand, stolen, or scrap.

It was as she was on her hands and knees half-nakedly trying just to get the heap of electronics to work that two of her immediate neighbors decided to get vocal. The first one, above, was a man called John with a face like a bent can, and the second one, in the spare room apartment, was Sofie, a woman with all the social grace of a wet teabag. Sofie was the only one Red could hear, her unpatriotic British accent shining through as she screeched like a banshee. Poor John could only be partially heard between the bangs they were both making.

Red knew that they would calm down and stop the noise if she just kept quiet, so she gave up on the frustrating, and noisy, task of saving her project and swapped out her socks and shirt for new ones out of her luggage. Not that she traveled much. In fact, she'd never been on a trip with this luggage before. Well, except from the trip from the airport where she'd found them half-filled with close-enough fitting clothes - urban survival at its finest, or its worst depending on how you see it. Once she had a clean shirt on, well, semi-clean, she dug out a pair of jeans too and quickly put them on just as Sofie finally shut her face.

Breathing a sigh of relief for the relative peace and quiet that now reigned Red sat back down in her electronic mess. She only got as far as checking the wiring on one piece of the puzzle before she realized something. She was very, very hungry. Twenty five hours of sleep does that to a person, especially when they try to suddenly be very energetic afterward. Patting her stomach she got up and started on her breakfast. Nothing fancy, just some Eggs(tm), Bacon(tm), and Toast(tm). Not that any of it was actually what it claimed to be, but it tasted near enough the same to fool her on a good day.

OOC:

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Right-o! There we have her apartment described, two of her neighbors fleshed out, and the location stated (the edge of downtown).

[thamolas]

Two bites into her eggs, Red hears screechy Sophie in the hall yelling at some poor person: "Blooody screamin' 'ell! No! This ISN'T 'er apartment! THA's 'er apartment!" to which an eldery voice replies with: "I'm a' sorry. Thank you very much."

Before Red can put another bite into her mouth, whichever device she uses to receive commcalls from Shadow contacts starts to go off while, simultaneously, there is a knock at the door.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

Dropping her plastic knife and fork onto her plate forcefully she called out to the whoever knocking on the door. "Hold on." Standing up she picked the plate up off her lap and slide it onto a free space on the kitchen counter. The counter was cluttered with knifes of varying sizes, forks, cooking tools, and dishes - for the most part not hers since she put together a deal with her two snug neighbors for shared use of the sink. Hopping off her chair and making a few quick steps from her stool in the kitchen to the door, unlatching, unbolting, and unlocking the door as she called out again. "Just a second - there." The final bolt slid out and impatiently she pulled it open, but already she was heading over to answer her commcall.

"I need to take this." Red called back as she punched in the eleven digit code to the locker and retrieved the device as surreptitiously as she could. "Wait in the, er, well, kitchen. I'll only be a minute." Slamming the locker shut again it automatically locked itself. "Shut the door, and don't steal anything." Not that there was anything worth stealing. The scattered electronic components put together had to be the most expensive thing outside her keypad locked chest, and no way anybody was getting in there without her noticing. Confidant in the pathetic aspect of her home she slid out onto the balcony to answer the call - luckily there was no Smog Alert, just some fairly generic Seattle rain.

[thamolas]

As she scurries about, Red notices that the man enteing her apartment is the little old fellow who owns Verducci's, the corner store built into the bottom floor of her building on the... well... on the corner. He's an old Italian man, maybe 70-ish, with thin gray hair and a green apron that says "Verducci's" on it in an old-fashioned 'round' font. He apologizes, but Red doesn't hear him. He walks into the kitchen and sits.

On the call is Mr. Green in a cheerily oblivious voice: "Come to the greenhouse. There's a lot I want to discuss with you. Around sunset would be perfect." Before Red can answer, he disconnects from the call.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

Cut off before she could make a sound Red started at the device. "Bakebrain." She mouthed derisively as she turned on her heel and headed back inside, slamming the screen door to the balcony as she did. "Hang on Mr. Verducci, I just need to put this away." Red called to the old Italian man apologetically as she put the little device away in her keypad locked chest. "I, erm, that is your name, right?" She asked as she dropped the lid of the chest to the sound of a ratcheting clunk and a little soft beep of the keypad confirming it was sealed again.

[thamolas]

"Eh... Yes. Vito Verducci, from the a' corner store... If a' this is a bad time, I can... ah..."

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

"No, I - it's fine. Just a, well, friend, being a pain in the ass. I mean, calling somebody creates this expectation of a conversation, but then he just hangs up after he says his bit without giving me a second to respond. If he just wanted to drop me a message he could have... well, I don't know, maybe drop me a message somewhere rather than... I'm sorry, I'm... I..." Thirty-two minutes - 10:06 AM - and she still wasn't functioning right. "I'm sorry for ranting, I guess I'm just tired." She was lying of course. She was quite awake. She was quite awake and well aware of missing twenty-five hours of her life. That was twenty-five hours where anything could have happened on the Matrix, in her haunts, and she hadn't a clue. Maybe Drip had replied to her message, but maybe others had too. She could have been fragged by somebody, and maybe they were right, or maybe they were just some nerdling blowing smoke. One thing she knew was that she needed to get online soon or she'd end up killing herself about what she's missing.

"It's actually a good time. If you'd come a bit earlier I would've been alseep." She motioned to her cooling breakfast. "Do you mind if I continue eating?" She asked quickly. "While you..." She left her sentence open for Mr. Verducci to take the reigns of the conversation while she finished her breakfast simulacrum.

[thamolas]

"I wanted to a' thank you.... for last night... I'm a' sorry it's not more."

The old man hands you a cred stick with 250 on it.

"Those Goddamn Jap kids will think a' twice now!"

Red has a hazy recollection of a young gang of Japanese teenagers trying to rob the corner store with knives and a sword. She doesn't remember much else, except for a different old man dragging a bloody mess of a kid out onto the sidewalk.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

"Wha'?" Red said surprised with a mouth full of breakfast. Her mouth hanging open didn't make for a pretty sight, but quickly she realized she still had food in her mouth. With some effort and a small amount of gagging she swallowed the contents of her mouth in one gulp. The thought that was going through her mind was: 'wasn't I asleep then?'

She remembered going to sleep at about 8 AM on Thursday after working on her new deck this week with only six hours of sleep intending to get up after a few minutes rest - the length of time it would take the diagnostic she had started to finish.

"I'm... thank you?"

[thamolas]

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This bit:

Thirty-two minutes - 10:06 AM - and she still wasn't functioning right.... She was quite awake and well aware of missing twenty-five hours of her life. That was twenty-five hours where anything could have happened on the Matrix, in her haunts, and she hadn't a clue.

is non-specific enough that I took it for blacking out, maybe New Years' partying. But if it was sleep depping, enough to blank out for 25 hours, that would work, too. Tech-obsessed people have a nasty habit of forgetting to eat (a few Korean kids die from it every year, in fact). Maybe she got so zonked after a week of sleep-depping, she robotically popped down for a snack .

"Please don' a' mention it. An' my family would be grateful if you could show your face in the store from time-to-time... at night.... if it wouldn't inconven-ience you." He smiles, nods, and starts to waddle toward the door. Red gets the feeling that old Vito has a lot on his mind.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

Red was, in a word, confused, and in two words, immensely confused. It didn't take long then for her to decide to figure out just what the hell is going on by doing a little hacking into the buildings poor network and see if any maltreated cameras had caught just what the hell the old man was talking about. Of course she couldn't just jack in right here. Well, she could, but she also wanted to ride her bike, so she figured she could kill two birds with one stone by locking up her apartment and heading to a little coffin hotel she knew of nearby. It also had the advantage of getting her away from the pile of electronic failure sitting opposite her bed.

So, gathering up her cyberdeck, machine pistol (just in case), and sleek concealable holster, she carefully, almost ritually, retrieved her bike leathers from their place hanging on a metal railing on the only two hangers she owned. They were both deep blue, real leather, and blissfully free of corporate logos or other such bull****. They were even part of the same set, and the black, white, and orange design, which itself was tastefully done, continued from the jacket to the trousers seamlessly. It wasn't one of those ridiculous skin-tight pieces of crap that made it impossible to realistically walk either. No, this was a perfect example of the ethic that when she was on her bike, jacket zipped up, you paid attention to the bike or you paid with your life - when the jacket was unzipped though you could feel free to gawk discreetly at her. It did make the concealable holster a tad uncomfortable to wear, the extra padding meant that sweat became a serious issue of long-term comfort and, on one occasion, long-term health. Still, that was the price you paid to carry around a concealed deadly weapon while wearing bike leathers.

So attired - and with her cyberdeck secured in its protective case (a necessity when you regularly drove over a hundred miles an hour without a safety belt in what was, in truth, a supercharged bicycle) that was itself hanging on to her by a strap made of the same material as a seat belt - she left her apartment, grabbed the nearby freight elevator down to the basement garage, and hopped onto her motorcycle. It was, like her leathers, above and beyond the usual dross of her meat life. Sleek, black. Just sitting there it already looked like it was going one-third the speed of sound. Revving the deep, powerful engine it became more than a fantastic optical effect, but a very real possibility. Of course, she didn't need to go one-third the speed of sound just to get to a coffin motel, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility if she hit a long stretch of light-traffic road. Kicking up the stand she drove up and out of the basement garage and out into downtown Seattle.

[thamolas]

The streets are quiet. Red arrives at the coffin hotel (and an park her bike) without issue.

Red accesses the footage from the exterior cameras from her own building with ease. She has certainly done so before and the laughable security measures hadn't changed at all. When she isolates the footage from the evening in question, the file gives no indication of the exact time and she notices that the file had been accessed and modified by someone else entering from the local public grid. The doctored footage shows Red entering the store, looking a little wobbly and loopy. There is no footage of the Japanese kids nor is there footage of Red leaving. Red then looks for the corner store, but it has no presence/connection on/to the local public grid. It practically doesn't exist.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

Laying face up in one of the 'rooms' of the coffin motel Red felt a familiar pain welling up in the sides of her head; things didn't make sense, and the only way to make the pain go away was to figure out what was going on. Unfortunately the only way to get at the truth and stop the headache that was building was to find the original footage. Having just woken up, properly, from a week of almost non-stop work on her failed new cyberdeck though she didn't fancy the idea of diving right into what could end up being another two or three days of sleep deprivation. She couldn't ignore it, but she could put it off until she'd had at least one more nights sleep plus however long Greenie's whatever took.

That wasn't until later though, so she had from now 'till then to surf the 'Trix, check the vids, and just generally catch up with reality. Issuing commands at the speed of thought to her on-board electronics she set herself up a little timer - well, three little timers: the first two were to make sure she ate and drank something to replenish her body, and the third was to make sure she had plenty of time to get to the meet with the green meanie Mr. Green.

[thamolas]

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Considering that she has most of the day to spare and that she's really just looking for a lead at this point, I'm going to treat this like "taking 20" in D&D.

After spending six hours searching with no results, Red does stumble onto an icon-trideoblog for a character named "Don Corleone". On his blog (with a Vito Corleone icon and his voice masked with Marlon Brando's), he blah blah blah's about how his life is lousy because he has to live with his uncle Vito. Near the end he whines about a "mopjob" involving his "uncle's store". He's bragging about his decking skills, but says nothing more specific than that.

[The Blue Guard]

Red Carbon

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It was actually a "X hours later..." and then she's at the meet, but I'm going to roll with it. I'm without access to my books right now, so I have no actual idea how to go about doing what I intend to do - I mean, I do, but I don't. Not in a game mechanics sense.

Red stared blankly for a moment as her mind registered the fact she'd just spent six hours hunting down a lead. It wasn't awful until you realized she had intended to just relax and kill time. Still, the time was killed dead, and she had a little lead to show for it - and some poor schmuck who's going to find out, first hand, the kind of sea he's swimming in. But not now. Now she needed to actually relax. To actually just kill time for the sake of murdering time.

Oh, who was she kidding? She was following up on this lead right now. Step one was to find his blog, and then step two was to obtain access to it. From there she could find a good place to trap and question him - with a little custom avatar she was going to make to scare the **** out of, maybe a G-man outfit.

[thamolas]

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There's a couple of hours to spare before the meet. Mechanics-wise, we can get more involved if you really want to try something dangerous.

Red spends a few minutes snooping around, finds the blog, and gains access to both the public and the lightly protected bits without much difficulty. Red guesses that the protection is intended to keep away snoopers, but welcome fellow hack-minded individuals to network a bit. While the public blogs are basically a young man whining and trying to sound witty, the lightly protected parts are also pretty mundane with local deckers basically bragging about their exploits without actually stating anything directly and telling stories about various programs and such, swapping some matrix myths, etc. One thing that Red does notice is that the other deckers treat the postings of "Don Corleone" with kid-gloves respect, as though they fear him in the real world. She brushes by some other icons - a porpoise, a hummingbird, a 1950's-styled robot, and King Kong; she gets a few detached, polite nod-like greetings and is politely ignored after.

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Feel free to chat if you like - Red did set alarms to ensure she wouldn't be late.

The Trid-responses don't seem to be protected or encrypted in any way, and all of them appear inert enough. It looks eerily similar to a corp decker's playground, where he/she blows off a little steam. And, like a corp decker's playground on a public grid, Red guesses that anything sensitive is very unlikely to be kept there.

[thamolas]

Brian:

Seattle. Friday, January 2nd, 2054. It is cold outside with a steady wind. On New Year's, there was a light snow. There was less violence on New Year's than there had been in a decade and the calm in the air is a little unsettling.

When Brian wakes, there is a commcall from Mr. Green.

[galenbd]

Brian: Seattle. Friday, January 2nd, 2054.

Brian's eyes crack open dry as usual. The light on the side of the curtain's says it's daylight. A quick check of his Math SPU shows the time at 11:46 am. He gets up and rolls out of bed. He takes a leak but doesn't flush to save water. I'll shower later if I bother going out.

He flashes some drinking water in the nuker. 15 seconds later, the nuker beeps and wakes him up again. Brian adds Morning Glory soy-kaf crystals. It's as good as the real thing ^TM One sip later, the caffeine hits his blood stream and Brian finally starts to look around his doss. Then he notices the new message on his cellphone.

Mr. Green's message is breif as usual. "Please call me." I don't know why I even bothered to check the message.

Brian sets up his deck and checks the microphone. Then he jacks in. His samurai icon materializes inside his deck. He retrieves a spoofed MSP account and uses that to login. The account lets him breeze easily to the UCAS Seattle RTG. Once there, he digs down in his icon's pouch and pulls out a grappling hook. He swings it round and round before hurling it toward the Seattle LTG.

OOC

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Make Commcall
Subsystem : Files
Utility : Commlink 2
Reference : Core 3rd p.218

[thamolas]

Brian:

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Hold on, cowboy. I control the NPCs. Please don't fill in NPC actions or dialogue. Just tell me what Brian does and says.

Mr. Green doesn't leave a message.

I assume Brian would still call him back. Placing a commcall to Mr. Green is pretty automatic by now, so there's no need to roll for it. Brian has the option of calling the private line or the greenhouse's public number.

[galenbd]

OOC : Brian would call the private line.

[thamolas]

A man's voice that Brian doesn't recognize answers. "Hello?"

[galenbd]

Brian: Seattle. Friday, January 2nd, 2054.

Samurai squints in suspicion. If I speak, my voice will be known. Samurai flicks the rope and disconnects the commcall.

He coils the rope back up and flings it out again trying to connect to Mr. Green's public line.

[thamolas]

A woman's voice answers; it is probably one of the part time girls who works the counter and basically runs the front. "You've reached the Greenhouse, Seattle's finest private source of exotic plants and flowers. May I help you?"

[galenbd]

Samurai's synthesized voice responds, "I'm returning a call to Mr. Green. Can you connect me please?"

[thamolas]

"Sure thing, hon. He should be in his office."

She transfers the call.

"It's your dime, spill it," Mr. Green says in a twentieth century movie voice.

[galenbd]

Without preamble, the Samurai entones, "This is Brian. You called me for something?"

[thamolas]

"Good... I have that Juniper you ordered. Drop by around sunset so we can talk more about it. Forgive me, but I have to drop this call. See you then."

Mr. Green speaks quickly and drops the call immediately after.

[galenbd]

Brian isn't surprised that Mr. Green drops the call fast. I guess I have meet tonight. Best start considering that.

A quick jog over to the Pacific Rim weather monitoring host gives him the exact time of sunset for Seattle a little after 4:30 pm. Then he jacks out.

The rest of his day is uneventful until about 2:30 pm. Brian gathers his gear and heads out for a quick jaunt around the city. Mr. Green didn't tell him anything about watchers, but it was better to keep a look out just in case.

OOC

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For a meet where we discuss whether I'm going to take a job, Brian would not take heavy weaponry. Based on his past dealings, does Mr. Green expect him to show up ready to rumble?

[thamolas]

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Mr. Green prefers a meet with him at his place of business to be (somewhat) casual and low-key.

So what is Brian up to next?