Awakening Apocalypse - Chapter 2: The End of the Beginning

Saint is the first to speak he extends his hand to anyone wanting to take it.

"Saint, weapons expert, I'm glad to have you guys aboard. Hopefully you found some intriguing things in those files. Only things I found were vantage points to make people dead.

Casper shrugs at that. "It seems simple enough on the surface. I suggest a two-prong approach for best odds. First...those doberman drones only have one operator per five drones. That means it should be pretty easy to mess them up. They're loaded with nonlethal rounds, so I'm thinking our hacker can maybe sneak in and change their target priorities. Get them to fire riot bullets into the crowd."

She glanced at Heartbreak to see if he reacted to that, then went on.

"Meanwhile, I can gain access to the building and find where they're storing the product before the grand unveilling. We can then go one of two ways...either we spike the drinks with some suitably amusing laxative or tranquilizer, or we just blow up the stash so they've got nothing to show on their big day. I figure that would be our fallback plan if we hit too many speed bumps."

"After that, it's just timing. Ideally we have half the crowd having accidents or falling asleep while the security drones nail the rest with rubber bullets. Mass chaos. Terrible press. A thoroughly wrecked product introduction and it looks like pure incompetence on their part."

Saint looks to be contemplating the idea and nods,

"I like it. Make rich snobs s**t themselves on live TV."

He says it with a laugh.

Heartbreak

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Casper nodded approvingly. That would make things run MUCH more smoothly.

"Don't brick the drones unless you have to," she suggested. "Brick the operators. They must have some kind of machine that takes the input from the five drones and makes it accessible to them. Brick those. Then the drones will be completely on their own, and vulnerable to any kind of input you can give them."

"Between that and the intel about the drink location, I'd say we have a good shot at the ideal result." She looked at Saint and the other man...the one who didn't look well. Her eyebrow lifted a little, but she didn't say anything. "You two would be giving us backup and cover. One with me, one staying with Heartbreak. Insurance for when and if things go horribly wrong."

The Poseidon image on the O-K-Coffee menu board cuts in. "I know I said 'pretend I'm not here,' but I am afraid I must now make it official. Goodbye my friends. You seem to have the planning of this felony well in hand. Call if you need me."

A moment later, and Aleksander's icon is gone, replaced by the regular coffee menu again. The Runners get the impression that this particular run is small potatoes for him, barely worth his time and energy.

All the better, as that means he probably won't be interfering with their plan.

The next GM narrative post will be the day of the Run, 12th December, 2011. I'll give everyone some time to finalize the plan for this Run. If everyone is satisfied with the plan before tomorrow evening, I'll put up the update post tomorrow, around 6pm PST. If anyone needs clarification or more info from Aleksander, feel free to send him a text.

12th December, 2011 - Crash Test Industries, Denver campus

The Shadowrunners have split into two groups. Skinny and Casper make up the first group. It occurs to both of them that a stranger would have assumed she was protecting him, not the other way around. Heartbreak and Saint make up the second group. Both tattooed men would have stood out among ordinary folk, but here among thousands of rowdy sports fans they blend in just fine. A few people do a double-take when they notice Heartbreak's deformed ears, but after catching a glimpse of Saint's overly-muscled figure, they wisely keep their mouths shut.

For now, the Shadowrunners can blend in among the throng of shoppers and low-level CTI employees. As long as they stay in publicly accessible areas, they will not be challenged by CTI Security.

Heartbreak can see many hundreds of icons in and around the building. All of these icons belong to various devices (some of which people carry), such as comlinks, video game systems, televisions, a few of the more high-tech vehicles, appliances, fire-suppression systems, security cameras, etc. He can stay in Augmented Reality mode for now, where he is mostly unable to hack these systems. At any time he may switch to Virtual Reality, where he will choose either "cold sim" (safe) mode, or "hot sim" (the only way to fly!) mode. If he accesses either VR mode, his perception of reality will change, and he will be mostly helpless in the real world. He will need to rely on Saint for help with even the simplest tasks, like not bumping into things while he walks.

At this time, Runners should describe what gear they brought with them, where their vehicles are, which of the two public entrances (the northwest bridge closest to the Pow! showroom and other restricted areas, or the west "main" entrance past the public open-air market) or the service/delivery (east) entrance they approach from. Keep in mind that obvious weaponry will probably be investigated by CTI security! Anything that can be reasonably concealed will probably not be detected for now.

Saint is still sporting his leather trench coat, along with sports shades. The trench itself is dark brown in color, double breasted, and stops just below his knees. The coat is lined with ballistic armor, undetectable to the eye. Not only does the coat provide protection but allow him to conceal multiple weapons. Underneath the jacket he is wearing a black shirt and blue jeans both also lined with ballistic fiber, and even under his shirt there is a armored vest.

Concealed under his coat in the pit of his back is his most treasured weapon, a Ruger Super Warhawk, the weapon nestled in a concealed holster. His love for this gun outweighs anything else in his life, except for maybe his sister... It was a toss up really. Also concealed were a silenced Colt America and a combat knife. The knife strapped to the inside of his coat and the Colt in a concealed holster in the 'appendix' position inside his waistband. Spare ammunition for his guns can be found throughout the inside of his jacket pockets.

For now he follows Heartbreak's lead, until told otherwise.