[Trespassers IC] Shadowrun: Seattle By Sundown: Breaking Point

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun was immediately set on edge by the man's appearance, though she did her best to cover her response. Maybe not the exact type she was accustomed to - Midgar was rather short on senators - but the general type was something she'd seen before. The ones with the money that bankrolled the scientists. The carefully curated presence, the faux friendliness, they were all too familiar. She would have vastly preferred rough unfriendliness to this. "Ah, yes, I believe so. Though, um, I probably shouldn't speak for the group." It occurred to her that she didn't know who, exactly, she should be deferring to, or if there was a leader at all. 

[Hal Henderics]

"Indeed."  Mar says, looking around.  The food here sure smells bland.

 

Hopefully he won't need to stay long.

[Strider]

"Yeah, that should be us. And if it's not us, well it could be us, for suitable compensation, if you know what I mean." Liliya gave her best friendly smile, which, well, it would suffice, but it certainly wasn't great. Then after the briefest of reconsiderations, she said hesitantly. "Or you know, it could not be us, if you wanted it to not be us. For suitable compensation."

 

"Still, that's no manner of greeting! What's up? How're you doing, all that? And what can we do for you?"

[DragonRage]

"I would comment on the rudeness of such a description...  But it is not as inaccurate as I might wish," Alexandria muses, "Against our better judgement, yes, we have been recruited by Solomon and his acquaintances of dubious repute to deal with a megalomaniacal artificial intelligence ensconced inside the stock exchange.  And since the stock exchange building is valuable, we're doing this the hard way.  I just know I'm going to end up on land mine duty again.  And there's no way to know when I'll next find a place to get my finish touched up..."

[Yours Truly]

The senator took a moment to scan the room in search of...someone in particular as everyone else spoke, waiting for but a moment before he smiled a little (or at least curled the sides of his lips upwards) and adopted a slightly more genuine sounding 'friendly' tone of voice to state, "

Ah, well I hope that you'll excuse my lack of pleasantly Miss Adventure, but lately I seem to be having a great deal of trouble with finding competent help lately, ever since someone tried to shoot me dead in fact," his smile remained there, unchanging as he continued with, "But don't worry, other than a minor mishap that should hopefully be resolved soon, I have been just fine."

 

For a moment his eyes focused on the entrance of the establishment before he quickly flitted them back to look towards the group, "

But just where is the librarian of dubious repute hiding at the moment? I was looking forward to meeting him tonight."

 

He let out a slight laugh before he cracked his knuckles and said, "Especially since we have very important business matters to discuss tonight, concerning that clownish acquaintance of yours and that snafu down in Boston, I believe that your clown said that discreet transportation was required?."

[Powder Miner]

Navin kept a fairly formal stance, standing with one palm crossed over the other at his stomach, and he nodded simply when the senator spoke about them needing transportation. "Yes. We have been told that we need to make a flight to deal with the issue in Boston, and evidently our situation right now means that doing so through normal means would be difficult, though I am afraid I am not familiar with the particular reasons that is. It should be in the interests of all involved, I trust, given what we are dealing with, and what it intends to do."

[Chevaleresse]

"Solomon decided to, um, take care of something else, while we talked. He thought another meeting might be. . . awkward." She wasn't entirely certain that volunteering this information was actually making matters better, but Heidrun was already speaking. "W-We're not here to hurt you, or anything, though; I couldn't if I wanted to! Er, if you're still feeling unwell, though, I could try to help; I am a healer and while you don't really seem to be under the effects of a life-threatening illness - which is usually my specialty - I could try, um, if you wanted!" It was proving to be an impossible task to keep the nerves out of her voice, especially as she babbled in the direction of the senator.

[Strider]

"Hey, ya know, sometimes it's just a little hard. You get swept off your world on a grand big ole mission where no one really knows the rules, and then suddenly, BAM! You're in a world that hates you 'cause you're wearing the wrong color hat or something. I'd say shooting someone as pleasant as you is a bit. . . more of a problem, but still! You can't expect us to really know what we're doing on a world for a while. Sometimes people just need a little guidance!"

 

It occurred to Liliya here, that this might very well be a problem on some world. For at least the first bit of time on any world, they'd be in the dark. And if someone with bad intentions moved quick enough, any of these small groups could probably be used for undesireable ends.

[Yours Truly]

The sides of his mouth curved upwards a little more, turning a bit to give Heidrun a sidelong glance before he let out a slight sigh, and dropped his pretenses, "In that case let's not beat around the bush anymore, the last time I dealt with more than one of you at a time I was almost shot to death, so I hope that you'll understand that I honestly just want to get all of this over with as quickly as possible."

He pixed a briefcase up from under the table and slid it over to the other side for the party to examine, "Ares has two things that pertain to your group at the moment, a missing shipment, and a prototype super heavy cargoplane scheduled on a test flight from the Sea-Tac Airport to the Logan International Airport tomorrow morning, they are expecting eight passengers, rich and nameless investors that have paid for this privilege." A couple of moments of silence passes before he remembers something, and he lets out a slight cough before he continued with, "It is needless to say that the miscyng shipment, and those eight passengers are linked."

He takes out a laser pointer and fires off a beam at the briefcase itself, causing it to slide a small datastick out of a previously hidden compartment, "This briefcase contains all of the information you need to know about our missing shipment, it's current approximate location, the name of the group of runners that currently has it in their possession, and eight Ares VIP passes. We will need your 'expertise' with retrieving said shipment and bringing it directly to the airport, and only upon it's retrieval will the test flight go underway."

He pockets the laser pointer and sits back down on his seat before he finished with, "That is the deal your clown agreed upon, whether the eight of you will choose to honor it is up to your group. Any questions about the shipment's nature can be answered by the documents inside of that briefcase, but I will state that it is light, fragile, and absolutely harmless to the majority of the population even when inhaled or digested."

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun liked this less and less as it went on. She tried to assuage her doubts by going over the situation, though. The man dropping the pretense of friendliness was actually much less unnerving, and there was apparently information on the package that they could look at to confirm that it wasn't dangerous. The healer tried not to think about the trustworthiness of the source of said documents too hard. The people in possession were also probably criminals, so it wasn't that bad to take it back from them, right? "Well, umm, there's no time to lose then, right?" She glanced about at the party. "We'll go over these and get that shipment back as soon as possible. Um, assuming everyone here is okay with that. . ." She shrank back slightly; Heidrun was fairly sure she wouldn't be able to relax for the next week at this rate.

[Strider]

"Yeah, sure, that's fine by me, why not?" Liliya pulled the briefcase over, and checked to see what sort of latching mechanism it had, whether it was something they'd just be able to open at their leisure.

[DragonRage]

"It should not be a significant problem," Alexandria asserts, "Let us go hunting for... runners?  Ah, colloquialisms can be so interesting."

[Powder Miner]

Navin's mouth quirked into a small frown at the senator's words -- he was trying to make the package appear non-suspicious, but to be rank the way he was doing so was in about the most suspicious way possible. It really looked like the sort of way that those occasional squads of superheroes funded by a corporate mogul or government official tended to act. Oh, we're harmless and just fighting for the safety and justice of the populace, they'd say, we're just superheroes like the rest of you, they'd say, and then they would brutally destroy a city square halfway by accident or do some sort of shady covert assassination operation, or something. The memories made Navin close his eyes and rub his temples lightly, for a moment. Those had always been... pains. This reminded Navin of that sort of thing, and he hoped that he was not getting involved in something secretly morally grey and destructive, but of course, he almost certainly was, that was how exchanging covert operations with powerful and mysterious government agents tended to work.

 

Navin sighed. He supposed that the best they could do was to mitigate that factor to the best extent. "...right. Well, I suppose that we are ready."

[Yours Truly]

On 4/4/2019 at 2:32 AM, Strider said:

"Yeah, sure, that's fine by me, why not?" Liliya pulled the briefcase over, and checked to see what sort of latching mechanism it had, whether it was something they'd just be able to open at their leisure.

Liliya would find the briefcase itself to be...relatively standard, it was certainly impressive and durable looking for sure, but a seemingly simplistic four tumbler number lock seemed to be the only thing that kept it from just, falling open. "The combination for that lock is 9011, and don't worry, it's not set to self destruct or violently murder anyone entering the wrong code. Although it will dispose of it's contents once it is closed I'm afraid, we've had some...issues lately with our freelancers failing to dispose of documents properly."

He then leaned a little forward as he said, "And yes, there is no time to waste, I believe that they are already looking for prospective buyers as we speak, Ares products are always in high demand you see, especially one of such a...special nature as this, so if you have any further questions about this errand, perhaps to inquire about the legality of it, then feel free to ask them now, as we will not be meeting with each other again, and until Ares gets it's shipment back, the seven of you are at best, random strangers to politely direct to the nearest store."

He started to stand up as he finished speaking, giving a bit of a pause and signalling that the meeting was basically about to close before he continued with, "Otherwise all there is left to do is to wish you good luck, mention that high quality weapons and armor are still available for sale below, and hope that I haven't made yet another mistake by trusting the seven of you."

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun nodded, then started to move towards the exit regardless of whether anyone followed. "Alright, then, well, we should be going now!" She tried, and largely failed, to make it look like she was actually in a hurry to get the task done and wasn't simply fleeing a stressful situation piled on top of another stressful situation. It was probably illegal, but someone else could figure that out - and if it wasn't, what choice did they have?

[StormLord]

Friedhold stood at the back of the group for most of the conversation with an irritated look at Heidrun and Lilliya's almost assuredly counter productive efforts and frustration with his own lack of contextual knowledge.  This wasn't the first time he'd done questionably legal work for a shady company, hell most of his time in Rapture was just that.  Rapture was just that.  What he did lack was how half the things flying around their heads worked, or what they were called, or what they even did and he didn't like the idea of the man standing over there somehow figuring that out.

 

Needless to say once the man finished speaking he made sure someone grabbed the brief case before politely making his way out.  Nothing more to say.  Once he was down stairs he did in fact head over to the counter to look for some armor or something else to keep him from dying.  After all he had some money left from last time.

[Yours Truly]

The Entire Party (Minus stragglers), Americana
The councilor simply continued to stand to attention as he heard the others respond, putting on his plastic smile once more before he finished off the meeting with a curt, "In that case I wish you all good luck, I'll look forward to hearing of your success soon. Good night." He then started to walk away, gesturing at an unseen man just before crowds of men and women of varied nationalities and race filtered in from a waiting room in the side of the building.

It was clear that the councilor at least, was done with the seven of you by this point, and responding in turn, you all promptly vacate the premises to escape the uncomfortable glares of suspicious adults and get all of this over with as soon as possible;, Except for Alexandria, who walked much slower than the rest, and had to deal with a small kid who excitedly asked her if she was friends with Optimus Prime.

 

Friedhold, Big Iron

You head on over to the sales counter as soon as you got back down, and while the rest of the party got in touch with Solomon over their commlinks, idly browsed the store, or received some very awkward stares while waddling to the entrance, you sat down with an ex military sales rep named Dave, who was very happy to answer any questions you had about Ares or it's subsidiaries's products.

Over the span of several minutes of seemingly casual conversation, Dave innocuously scanned the SIN your commlink was registered to and compared it to the identity listed in the ID card while they were still in your pocket, read up on your credit rating, the contents of the faked social media page made in your SIN's name, and compared the questions you were asking here with your faked internet search history, and shifted gears to start shilling what all indications suggested you were really looking for, and a few demonstrations and videos later....

 

(28 v 23, Good Success!)
You are now wearing a catsuit, well technically it's a type of 'ultra light Form Fitting Body Armor that's easily concealed and worn under other types of clothing', but a catsuit's still a catsuit, admittedly one that no one ever needs to know you're wearing. The fact it was a bullet resistant catsuit was something of note as well, you didn't expect something so light and flimsy seeming to hold up after a direct blast from your shotgun, never mind coming off as being somewhat pristine after two, and you're now feeling 1,750 nuyen more confident about your chances of surviving a gunfight. 

 

Form Fitting Body Armor: Easily concealable armor capable of being worn under basically anything, it's light enough that it practically feels like you're wearing nothing at all underneath the rest of your clothing.
Level 1: +12% physical damage resistance against ballistic and piercing weaponry
Level 2: Does not take an action slot

 

 

---

Everyone, Hole in the wall

The seven of you ponder if Solomon was just broke or something as you stepped out of the cold Seattle rain, and stepped into the warmer, grimier interior of 'Hole in the wall', a coffin hotel of ill repute located deep within the alleyways of Union street. Intending to meet the librarian in the cafe, you all caught a whiff of surprisingly fresh smelling soycaf when you entered, and a few moments of questioning led to a strange sounding private booth at the back, where Solomon was waiting for you with a cup of soycaf in one hand, and a book about...writing inheritances held in the other.

He turned slightly to acknowledge your presence, gesturing at one of the plush black seats present in the room with one hand as he simply asked, "So uh, how was the councilor?."

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun sort of bumbled her way over to the seat, depositing herself in it and trying not to look like she was still spooked from the earlier meeting. The briefcase, which she'd acquired earlier by dint of being one of the only ones without a weapon she needed to access at a moment's notice,  was fairly hastily slapped down on a table in front of her, and she began to move to unlatch it. "Ah, he was. . . okay? He didn't seem angry. I think. You never really know, with those types." She paused partway through fiddling with the case, partially just to fiddle with her skirts and partially because she just remembered that it was apparently set to destroy its contents once viewed. "Everything we need to know is supposedly in this case."

[DragonRage]

"Let's see it then," Alexandria leans forward eagerly, "These spy games are so exciting!"

[Powder Miner]

"Oh, I suspect that the councillor was fairly angry," Navin mentioned as he watched Heidrun fiddle with the case, "he did make a point of reminding us about how he was shot the last time he interacted with our group, and how he wanted to get matters finished quickly. I cannot blame him, really." Navin shrugged. "He did get shot. It is just that he seems to understand that dealing with greater threats is in his interest. That is a good quality to have - the International Union of Heroes provides a strong force to unite the superhero community of my Earth, but even then these sorts of disagreements or conflicts in the face of large problems are frustratingly common. We should be grateful that he made this process smooth for us when he could have done the opposite."

[Chevaleresse]

Navin's words did not seem to reassure Heidrun in the slightest; the aura of tension radiating off the woman was almost palatable. The process being smooth likely just meant the man would expect some sort of favor out of them later, as payment for his graciousness; that was how these corporate types seemed to behave. At Alexandria's insistence, though, she gave a quick glance about the room, then gingerly finished unlatching the briefcase. Her hands darted back to her chest as if it there was a viper in the case, or as if she expected it to detonate on prolonged contact.

[Yours Truly]

Solomon shifted slightly to a seat nearer to the exit as he heard Navin speak, the brief and tenuous sensation of reassurance he got from Heidrun's reply disappearing as quickly as it came, "Well...right then, I guess that is the best we could have hoped for considering...." He trailed off when he noticed the absolute unit put the case on the table, moved to unfasten it's latch causing seemingly nothing to happen. And a little more nothing happened when she slowly opened it and...revealed a perfectly normal looking series of faux paper documents bound in manila folders. "Well that's, depressingly mundane, I'd ask if he just said that the case'd explode to fuck with us, but uh, he probably wasn't, anyone here got a bomb detector?."

[StormLord]

"Bah.  People get shot all the time, and obviously he survived.  So as long as we are useful to him and he is useful to us business can continue."

With that Friedhold took a step closer to the table to examine the papers and noticed that Heidrun was still visibly nervous.

"You look like frog about to be dissected.  Calm yourself.  If the case does explode it is very suddenly no longer your problem."

[Powder Miner]

"I am afraid I do not. Then again, he was saying that it would, if it does explode, explode to get rid of its contents after we read it. So, for now, we should be looking at these documents, so we do not miss our chance." Navin scooped the folders out of the briefcase, opening them up to facilitate the group being able to read the documents. "This is our chance to at least start to find out if what he wants us to do is moral, after all. There might be a catch, though --there often is-- so we should keep paying attention to that after we actually embark on the mission." He then began to read some of the documents himself.

[DragonRage]

"I am bomb proof," Alexandria states, before moving up to have a look.