GURPS Shadowrun [IC] Under the Dragon's Tooth

Beowulf was leaning against the wall, burning down a cigarette. While the others were calling in fixers, he was going through his own contacts for aid of a different sort. He doubted Crazy Wulfgang could find him anything useful the other's guys couldn't, but he did give thought to magical aid in keeping things quiet.

"I can try to get some...additional aid in keeping our doings on the quiet. I'm fine with either place, but Puyallup sounds safer. A few low gangers don't worry me as much as professional security. Private security you might catch an honest one by mistake, gangers never turn their nose at nuyen."

GreenKarl said:

Juice answers Juno's comlink within a few minutes and says, give me a second...

GM: Juice's Skill and Reliability 10 and 11

His smiling imagine snaps back in your peripheral view. "Well yer in luck chummer. I just had an opening on a place in Tacoma. It on the first floor of an semi-abandoned apartment complex. The local gangs keep the place fairly squatter free for me so that we can use some of the other rooms for... short term safe places.

This one is a two bedroom, 1 bath. Furnished, but nothing fancy. Water filter for the building was recently changed. Ha. Anyway for you and three days how about 2,000 nuyen."

Click to expand...

Juno nodded and replied, "Hold on one second."

Then she addressed the other runners. "Got a place for two grand in Tacoma. It's an apartment, but mostly abandoned. Gang's on the payroll already, sounds like. Two bedrooms, has some furniture and new water filters."

She grins at that. You'd almost think he was trying to sell the place.

"Seems like a good middle-road deal to me. What do you guys think?"

~ " Hm."

The Elf mulled it over, rolling his neck back and forth while considering. They all had a point, and the points were quite sharp. Tacoma wasn't the worst neighborhood either. They could probably make do with this.

" Jawhol, that sounds good to me. Beowulf is right; gangers can be 'convinced' to look the other way, and the setup doesn't sound so bad."

He smiled. The plans were coming together.

" Nice work, Juno. Let me tell me Fixer here."

Fredrick walked away from the group ... well, as far as one could walk in such a tiny place, before unfreezing his communicator.

" Danke schön, Crown, but I think we're going to go with a different option. You know how it is with teams: but keep me informed on that Renton place, ja? All goes well, I may be house hunting myself soon," he laughed, finishing up the conversation with Black Crown and closing up his communicator before rejoining the group. ~

Juice comlinks the address and security code to Juno once he receives payment (although he did mention that if you didn't want it he would refund... most of your cred) and you all head back down to the Comet and pile back in to drive over to Tacoma.

The neighborhood is a bit run down and Master-Blaster mentions that it has a Lone Star Security rating of B. There are still a fairly large number of street folk and low-end wage-slaves making this area home. The apartment is indeed at least 50 years old, and six stories tall. Cinder-blocks appear to be the universal decorative style of the exterior of such buildings. There are a few gangers hanging out on the corner, wearing synthaleathers that is green on the shoulders with a stylized dog motif - the Emerald Dogs.

They show little interest as you head into the building from a side entrance near where the apartment is located. Down the hall you find it quick enough and inside is a fairly typical low-rent two bedroom apartment. The living-room and kitchenette are open to each other, the single bathroom in between the two bedrooms. There is cheap plastic furniture throughout, although there are a couple of heavy set chair that look to be able to hold a troll without shattering. There is a wall mounted Trid that is at least twenty years old, a empty but functioning refrigerator, sink and microwave. Both bedrooms have two twin beds with older but relatively clean mats on them. One room has a fairly large window out while the second one has a much smaller one. Both are barred with old paddle locks on the inside.

Juno takes the grand tour, noting the bars on the windows with a nod to herself. Two beds in each room were good too. Enough space that people could take shifts. And a troll chair to boot. That was a nice touch.

"So we put her in the room with the smaller window," she says when the casing's done. "We block the windows in both rooms...no looking out or in. Probably pretty common for people living around here too. We keep at least two people here awake at all times. We can have others sleep on site if they have to."

She checks the trid to see if it actually works, or if it's just wall dressing.

"I think we're ready to start the actual legwork."

~ " Not bad, Juno ... Not bad," Fredrick appraised the new apartment, though he also knew that just about anything may have been a step up from the last drekhole.

" Though not much in the way of entertainment ... I sure hope Miss Pop Queen doesn't get bored too easily, ja?"

The elf chuckled at his own statement, nodding when the call came for Legwork. Something he was actually good at.

" I have a few ins-and-outs with some fellows I think may be handy here. May also be able to get us in good with the local gangers so we don't have too many problems."

He thought about it. Rubbed the hair on his chin.

" I may also try and figure out who, precisely, hired us. May be some useful info to have on the back burner."


[sblock=Rolls]
Current Affairs (Corporate) 15 - [roll0] To try and find out who would have an interest in having Euphoria not make her appearance
Savoir-Faire (Gangs) 16 - [roll1] To feel out the Emerald Dogs and try and smooth things over with them before we really set up camp here
Savoir-Faire (Media) 16 - [roll2] To get any info I can on Euphoria's schedule and things like security detail, as well as some info on her likes, dislikes, interests, anything that might be handy in getting her attention and getting her to this apartment
Savoir-Faire (Police) 16 - [roll3] to see what Lone Star / Knight Errant has planned for security for Euphoria, as well as a better idea of their detail in this area.[/sblock]

Tharg decides to go and call up an old war buddy of his (Skill 15, Unusually Reliable). "Hey man, it's Tharg. Yeah, things are just swell, man. How's the girlfriend? Sweetness. Hey, got a quick question for you. I'm wondering if you can check on the kind of security that a certain building has. And I'm not talking about what every day standards and practices are formed for the security company running the place, but more of the hush-hush surprises the security has in place, along with the amount of dudes and hardware one could expect at any given time. Yeah, hold on a sec as I tell you the address."

Contact Skill Check
[roll0]

Jaeger scans over some media sites and from his prior knowledge about such things has a pretty idea who might be financing the kidnapping. It would either be a corporation by the name of Ludivenko, the owners of the ShufferSnack's™ chain of food fast places found all around the UCAS and Europe, or Jolly-Star™, an Asian fast food chain that has recently started making inroads in the Seattle Metroplex and was big in Free California.

He had heard that the Emerald Dogs were mostly into BTL smuggling but also run the local protection racket for one of the secondary Yakuza gangs in Seattle. Jaeger was not 100% which one.

Euphoria herself is very reclusive and rarely does public appearances. She has an executive contract with Mega-Media, one of the top tier worldwide simsense/trid production and distribution Corps out there that is still independent of the big-six Corps. He also knew that Mega-Media had an exclusive contract with Lone Star to provide all of their security needs although they don’t always provide it for their individual stars (some like their independence's, like Euphoria, in which case the Corp only provide peripheral security).

As for Euphoria herself, no one really knows that much about her except for wild rumors and that her real name is Amanda Lockhart, the daughter of two trid stars from the 30’s and 40’s (mostly dramas but her father did do some action trids early in his career). They both retired before simsense really hit the markets.

He is not sure what other security Lone Star might provide, expect simply a great police presence at any of Euphoria’s events.

Tharg’s war buddy said that he could for a small “working fee” of 500 nuyen, as he had a friend of a friend who was working that details. Assuming Tharg ponied up the cred, his buddy* got back too him in about an hour and told him that Knight Errant had the security contract for the building. They took this pretty seriously and they were getting paid a goodly amount to provide at least a score of mid-range security personal for the whole building along with a Spider overwatcher. Nothing surprising about that. But he also knew that Euphoria had two private security personal that she hired on herself. He was confident, from what his Knight Errant chummer had told him, that one was a razorboy of some caliber called Osprey and the other was a spellslinger with a fire fetish going by the handle Stone. Both were Human.



Master-Blaster also mentioned that from his digging that the security was pretty tight at the Pacific Towers but he was confident he could hack it and at the very least blank out any vids or security protocols for the building. Also, while the residences were all linked into the building's wireless PainButton™ system, again he was confident that he could disable and spoof it at least for ten or twenty minutes, depending on how fast the system's Spider and watchdog systems where.

There were rumors on the Matrix buzzing about Euphoria's upcoming events and Strice Foods new Amber Gel product. Lot of people were raving about just how good it was... almost magical.

OOC: Buddy's name is Goldry Bluszco. And I'll pay the 500 nuyen.