The runners speed through the Seattle Downtown roads with ease, leaving the mangled shadow storage bank behind them. The violent and quick escape to the neighboring office building combined with the deckers’ ability to delay and reroute Knight Errant response enable a successful heist.
While cruising along the fluorescently lit highways, heading south towards the Fort Lewis safehouse, the team reviews the haul and exchanges adrenaline-laced congratulations. Cheshire comments that Greco’s decker, Aragorn, was slick and cut through IC like a pro. She was very impressed. Mason holds on to the small pouch of diamonds, the Ares Predator V, and the bug-out backpack. Danny keeps the fake IDs and the canister of nerve gas; the former to provide to Stefano Greco and his deckers the latter for her own arsenal. In reviewing the fake IDs, there is not just one for Colonel White (under the false name of Gerard Lemieux) but also a fake ID for a middle aged attractive Latina woman (false name Maria Lemieux) and one for a dark haired boy around age six (false name Orlando Lemieux). The boy has a notable family resemblance to Col. White. Danny seems genuinely surprised and rather amused/delighted at this piece of information. Cheshire thinks the fake IDs were created about two years ago. She admits to Mason of assuming Col. Mason was part reptile and incapable of human emotions.
The team returns to the safehouse (around 2am) and decompresses from the run. Stefano’s face appears in the larger trideo and he congratulates the team on a successful run and listens to a rundown and debrief of how things went. He is pleased he found the right team with both the skills and mutual dedication to bringing down the Colonel. He pauses with a blank stare when told about the woman and boy, as if calculating and processing the new information, but then comments that there seems to be something Col. White cares for more than money and misery. He adds that it doesn’t change anything (although Mason is not sure he entire believes him). He says that the Pride Mercenaries are in the middle of their assault and it is going well from he knows. They should return within an hour or two.
Greco says a call has been made with the diamond fence, Hornier, and a meet setup for later today at 5pm at the Renton Galaxy Suites hotel, the room number will be sent at 5pm and he will only wait ten minutes. Greco says the fence is cautious and does not like working with large groups or people he doesn’t know. Greco wants Danny and Mason to meet with him for muscle and social aptitude. Greco says that since half of the job still remains (capturing Col. White) he would feel more comfortable if the diamond proceeds are placed on certified credsticks that require two passcodes to unlock – one from Greco and one from the PCs. Once White is captured, the money will be released to both sides (Greco is getting half the payout too). He mentions he has an incentive to access the funds since his part will also be used to compensate Kgosi and his men. The remaining 20k that was agreed upon will also be paid after the kidnapping. Mason tries to negotiate this but it is clear that Greco wants some level of guarantee of continued participation, although Mason thinks he’d be open to some alternate arrangement.
Danny steps out and confers with Greco after the call ends to communicate in private. Cheshire has a flurry of muted activity with her decker, but leaves frustrated a mere second or two before Danny returns. From outside smoking a cigarette, she zings a private communique to Ghost Dog and Shade, saying that she tried to hack Danny and Greco’s communications but got stymied by some high end smart agents protecting the connection. She says to keep this from Mason since the she-devil has her hooks in him.
A couple hours later, a helicopter passes overhead, lingers for a couple minutes a couple blocks away, and then departs. Kgosi and his men arrive back with a mixture of battle fatigue and excitement. They are speaking rapidly in French with each other and two are seriously wounded with a couple others lightly wounded. Of the original twelve men (including Kgosi), three did not make it back. Kgosi uses healing magic to treat the wounded men. Kgosi gives a report to Greco (which the team overhear). The mission was a success with casualties. The ghetto shadow bank was well defended, including the surrounding blocks. A strong attack was made, penetrating into the lower vault floor of the sunken derelict bank before they withdrew as planned. The mortar team was lost to a Fire Elemental summoned by one of the mage gangers. One of the heavy weapon fire base mercs took a stray hunting rifle round to the throat. A pair of gangers was captured before the assault went down to interrogate them about security, but also drop Col. White’s name as the target. They were left alive at the scene. The men seem used to losing friends and comrades and mourn them with only way they know how, with a big bonfire outside and drinking.
The tentative plan for the next stage of the run is laid out by Greco. His deckers are watching for White’s return to Seattle, by both legitimate and covert means. He anticipates the earliest he would arrive is 24 hrs because of the delay in information reaching him in Thailand and then travels. Until tomorrow morning, the teams have leave to catchup and rest. Tomorrow morning, the tentative plan is for the two teams to swap sites and stake them out for his eventual return. The PCs will watch the ghetto bank and Kgosi’s men the storage facility. The deckers should know when he arrives or is about to. At that point whichever team is present takes him and takes out any security he might have. As before, this is default plan, but Greco is more than willing to defer to the PCs’ expertise and modify the plan.
During the day off Ghost Dog called the private eye that she hired to gather info on the Yakuza and make sure she understands her life is in danger and that she needs to leave town ASAP. She promised to make contact with her as soon as it’s safe. She next called up Amy little cloud and told her she has a pro bono job Ghost Dog wanted her to do. She wanted her to kill that child molesting gang leader, Rocko, that was promised that she’d off to Caleb Redding. No collateral damage. It’s a personal favor for her.
Neither of the two shadow banks that the teams hit is the place that Mason knows about. A small shadow bank in Fort Lewis that use a middle class end relaxation spa as a cover wasn’t on the list. He discovered this while working with Col. White and kept it quiet. The place’s “clients” go into private massage rooms where secret cabinets, safety deposit boxes, or chests are concealed in the walls. It is run by a brother/sister pair of former UCAS green berets (physical adept and mage). From his own investigations into White when Mason got out of prison recon from about a year ago. Mason has done a little bit of surveillance of the place about a year ago. Assuming nothing has changed, he has a rough idea of the external layout. Also, he believes that the place is primarily run by the physical adept ex-soldier (Marty Crensit) with his sister (LaShonda Akigawa) providing sporadic security and doubling as an off/on shadowrunner. The place employs a handful of ex-soldiers as security. This was Mason’s intel from about a year ago. He was thinking of hitting the place when he got back to Seattle (the sting of Col. White still fresh) but decided to back away and go into shadowrunning instead.
Cheshire grumbles something about, “More datahunts, eh. I guess that’s why you keep me around. Besides I’m already doing this for Shade so come to me when you have something original and interesting.” She does get back to work on it though.
Back at the strip mall safehouse, the group finds time to talk in private and Mason relays some additional information.
He knows of a third stash that Col. White has setup. There is a small shadow bank in Fort Lewis (only a couple minutes from the staging strip mall they are at right now) that use a middle class end relaxation spa as a cover. Mason is vague about how he knows, only that he came upon it from his days with the Colonel. The place’s “clients” go into private massage rooms where secret cabinets, safety deposit boxes, or chests are concealed in the walls. It is run by a brother/sister pair of former UCAS green berets (physical adept and mage). Mason has done a little bit of surveillance of the place about a year ago. Assuming nothing has changed, he has a rough idea of the external layout. Also, he believes that the place is primarily run by the physical adept ex-soldier (Marty Crensit) with his sister (LaShonda Akigawa) providing sporadic security and doubling as an off/on shadowrunner. The place employs a handful of ex-soldiers as security. This was Mason’s intel from about a year ago.
The team after some discussion agrees to tell Greco about the intel even if it’s a year old since Mason believes it to be White’s primary objective. The issue with the preview plan now is that they have 3 locations and two teams. Mason doesn’t feel Kgosi’s team is equipped to handle Shadowrunners in general. Danny offers that Kgosi’s team does have access to a helicopter and the rest of the team stare at her. The plan changes with Greco and Kgosi being brought up to speed. Using two pairs of spotters on the recently hit locations most of Kgosi’s team is on standby in the chopper to assault and kidnap White if he shows up at either location leaving the team plus Danny free to monitor the third location.
The exchange for the diamonds was uneventful for violence for most except for Mason. After the exchange before they get to the elevator Danny pinned Mason against the wall and said they should probably get a room at the hotel her treat. Discussions of preparations for tomorrow fell on deaf ear. Mason asked the team to come up and get the cred sticks since he really wasn’t getting out of this literally. Danny was in truth abnormally strong for a lady he thought but Ghost Dog had broken him of that mindset some time ago.
Ghost Dog and Shade opt to get a room as well in the hotel since the last few days living in military conditions had been rough even for Ghost Dog. Danny and Mason seemed to have a lively night reminiscing about when they were together. She asked why they got divorced out of the blue as they lay together and Mason felt a loss for words just mentioning Cairo. Danny starts laugh popping up and lets Mason know they weren’t really working for Greco. They were working for Mason. Mason looked at Danny suspiciously reminding her he died, they picked up pieces left from his body in the safe house. Supposedly he had managed to digitally imprint himself in the matrix. Stranger things had happened and Mason had seen his fair share of them. He asked if Greco was actually still alive to which she stated she didn’t think so. Mason sighed a bit of relief and reminded her they had ruined that man’s life. When she said she knew he flopped onto the bed and sighed. Danny explained she had wanted to tell him from the start but Mason wasn’t really sure about his former teammate turned Shadow runner using his name as a handle in the shadows. Mason kept the hope up that the paranoia in the back of his mind was wrong and that this was just another mind gouging trick by White. The next morning after a rather active shower session Mason and Danny meet up with the rest of the team. Chestshire wondered where they had all been since after the pickup everyone went radio silent and never came back. Ghost Dog simply just showed her the cut she was getting. It wasn’t mentioned what Mason and Danny had been doing or that Shade and Ghost Dog had relaxed and recouped in a swanky hotel room overnight. The team headed out for the Shadow Bank Spa to see if they could get White in the act. Worst case scenario they’d site on the location for two days and it’d be a bust.
The outside exterior seemed peaceful enough on the initial pass by of the Foxhole Day Spa. Slipping out of his clothes revealed a chameleon steath suit underneath, Shade opted to put a spell on him as he slipped out reporting in as he moved through the area unnoticed. Mason opted to scout out the area while Ghost Dog patrolled. As a camera feed showed up on everyone’s hud Mason had opted to just text the group what he was doing remaining unseen for the most part and silent. Shade wanted to get a camera on the inside to which a soft bob to the vehicle got a button camera tossed in the driver’s side window by an unseen. A text popped up asking for a small amount of explosives for a manhole cover Mason had spotted in the back alley. Once she pulled something out and texted back she had it ready he immediately texted back 10 kilos was too much. She sighed grumbling about they wouldn’t be able to flip an armored transport with just a kilo she rigged the device. A hand picked up the device before going back to being unseen before Chestshire said something brushed past her and out the driver’s side window. With a few more cameras in place and a possible contingency plan with a rigged man hole cover. Mason dug into monitoring from a nearby rooftop. Mason opted to tell Shade to drop the spell on him since he was going to minimal movement for the next few hours unless something happened.
Shade went inside to try and plant a camera but found very little in the way of areas to plant the camera. Realizing he didn’t have a way to get the camera in a good spot he aborted and left. As the day shifted to evening and night the team from the multiple cameras and Mason’s rooftop reports had everyone aware when both of the guard shift changes occurred.
Everyone was caught off guard by the calm simple text to the group from Mason. ‘Have eyes on White entering East side of the building through front. Mission is a go. Moving to monitor the back entrance.’ Ghost Dog opted to run back to the van quickly getting her submachine gun slung and her sword out before she jumped on the roof. She let the group know someone had a floating orb in the sky over the building.
White punched open the backdoor muttering something and bolted down the way. Ghost Dog noticed a elemental manifest next to her as she bolted after White. Mason jumped from his hideaway on the roof to the Spa/Shadow Bank below. Danny jumped out of the vehicle and started making her way to White as Chestshire revved the van’s engine. Shade was already casting a spell. Ghost Dog spent her time defending between a water elemental covered in ice and White as he shot at her repeatedly. Mason started shooting with knockout darts from the roof once he was in position. As Ghost Dog continued to try and advance on White he saw Chestshire fishtail from the street and start flying down the alley with Danny on the side laying down fire as well. A well placed grenade as the front end of the van off the ground. Danny crumbled flying to the opposite side of the alley from the explosion that sent the van up in the air before it came crashing down. Ghost dog hugged a corner trying to get closer to White using suppressing fire. Mason had shimmied down from the roof out in the open to shoot at White drawing his fire since Ghost Dog had already taken a hit she called out. The water elemental she saw attack White explained why the water elemental had stopped attacking her. White’s element tried to take on White’s attack as a grenade bounced out from White’s hand landing at Mason’s feet. Ghost Dog probably didn’t realize what was happening as Mason yelled out grenade shoving her out of the way from the immediate blast before he took the initial blast shielding her. As the team came around after the second shock of the blast a series of broken texts went out to the team chat channel:
Got the sonavubitch
Call Kgosi for emergency evac
Trauma patch Danny…
White
Under…
My…
bo…
Mason never finished the text he either passed out or flatlined. The team wasn’t sure.