Awakening Apocalypse - Chapter 2: The End of the Beginning

[GlassEye]

Heartbreak

[section]

Heartbreak scrambles to reach the nearest radio transmitter before too much time passes and makes the handler suspicious.

"Team 1, this is Control. Your drones are registering errors and we're bringing them back for a diagnostic test."

​

[/section]

[sblock=OOC]HB has a pool of 6 for the Con skill. If it is possible to use his knowledge of Corporate Culture (pool 7) to get a bonus to the Con I would like to do so.

Current Deck stats: Attack 1, Sleaze 4, Data Processing 3, & Firewall 3. Running Virtual Machine with Exploit and Sneak.[/sblock]

 

[Mosier]

Heartbreak's skill in Corporate Culture (rating 3) will work to counteract negative penalties on his con roll. Heartbreak is able to make his response sound legitimate, but whether the other security personnel will be suspicious is another story.

Heartbreak's dice pool-
Charisma+Con = 6
Subject has time to evaluate the situation -1
Character's desired result is disastrous to the NPC -4
Character has plausible evidence +1
Character's knowledge skills +3

Heartbreak's total dice = 5: Heartbreak scores 3 hits
Team 1 security goon dice = 4: Goon scores 2 hits
Heartbreak successfully convinces the suspicious drone handler on the radio

There is a moment of silence on the radio, following Heartbreak's explanation. Then, a response.

"Good copy, control. It's all quiet here. I'll head back with the team."

The security agent for team 1 is on his way back now. This is the last chance the runners will have to prepare the scene before the security agent (and his drone team) arrives.

 

[Mosier]

Heartbreak watches the drones' progress on the monitor. Soon, he can see the drone team on the camera in the hallway outside of the office. The drones can't operate the door themselves, so they wait obediently until the security agent arrives moments behind them to open the door.

The drones enter the office single file, and now that the runners can see them up close, it seems obvious why their manufacturer encourages the use of the "Doberman" nickname. The drones have four appendages with several points of articulation, allowing for remarkable dexterity. There's a gun turret mounted on the drone's back, which swivels to keep in line with the direction the drone's sensors are pointed. The things are all smooth lines and chrome, and look like something from the future.

The lead drone swivels to see Heartbreak with its sensors, which turn in an almost contemplative way, like a confused dog. Heartbreak knows the Doberman's targeting autosoft is calculating whether Heartbreak is a friend or foe, and will take less than a second to do so. Immediately he shuts the drone down, along with the other drones from team 1. The handler is right on the heels of his drones, and may not yet realize that he is walking into a trap...

Surprise test:
CTI Security agent, REA+INT (threshold 3) = 7 dice - Failure with 0 hits (poor guy!)
In addition, 4 of the agent's dice rolled a 1. Since this is more than half of his dice total, this is a critical glitch (if he had scored at least 1 hit, this would just be a glitch instead, with milder results).

The CTI Security agent hasn't noticed that his drones were shut down. He enters the office and immediately trips over the drone in front of him, landing hard on his side and suffering 1 stun damage. His weapon is jarred loose from its holster, sliding across the floor and just out of his reach, coming to rest under Saint's waiting boot.

"What the fu...ooof," the agent cries as he lands, the breath knocked momentarily from his lungs. Saint can't help but chuckle at the thought that these clowns are basically doing his job for him. It almost feels like he's picking on a group of children.

As the agent looks around, the gravity of his situation begins to dawn on him. The control room operators are bound and prone on the floor, and the runners loom over him.

The runners have two free rounds of combat in which the agent can't react or defend himself from this helpless position, if they want to attack him. Otherwise, he'll be pretty easy to subdue and ziptie like the others. However due to his (only slightly) better training, it will be harder to intimidate him than the other CTI employees.

 

[TillForPie]

"This just isn't your day." Skinny stands over the guard with a gun aimed down at his head. In his other hand a ziptie swings from an extended finger. If the guard resists being bound Skinny opens fire - hopefully his better training doesn't get him killed.

 

[Rubberneck]

Saint lowers himself to a squatting position, still on his feet. He lowers his silenced pistol down to where it is centimetres from the guards forehead and picks up the guards gun with his free hand,

"You are going to have a bad day, but this is where you decide whether it's your last. Your choice. Would you like a bullet as your final meal?"

If the guard so much as flinches or backtalks Saint opens fire.

 

[Shayuri]

"Not the head," Casper points out. "Too much blood on the floor."

She comes over, takes the ziptie from Skinny, and starts binding the guard's wrists behind his back and his ankles together.

 

[Mosier]

"You are going to have a bad day, but this is where you decide whether it's your last. Your choice. Would you like a bullet as your final meal?"

"Christ," the agent swears in almost a whisper, "it's just a job. I don't want to die for it."

Saint sees the agent's eyes flick toward the comlink radio at his belt. The guy can't possibly be thinking of trying to send a warning over the radio, can he? Saint cocks his head, staring the agent in the eye. There's a hint of defiance in the security agent's expression, but it's gone in a flash as the agent surrenders.

Moments later, Casper is zip-tying the security agent like the other CTI employees in the room. Saint and Skinny have taken away all of the agent's tools, including the radio. This drone team has been subdued without a real fight, but there are still two other teams. It'll be harder to sell them on the same lie Heartbreak told the first team, since they all heard the same radio transmissions.

Luckily, Heartbreak can monitor the position of all the security groups from here. He knows that the way to the Pow! preparation room is now clear.

 

[GlassEye]

Heartbreak

[section]

Heartbreak quickly checks the time to see how much longer before the demonstration.

"We're in the clear. We can go but I'd like to work on these first." He motions to the drones. "And then there is something we have to do..."

​

[/section]

[sblock=OOC]Current Deck stats: Attack 1, Sleaze 4, Data Processing 3, & Firewall 3. Running Virtual Machine with Exploit and Sneak.[/sblock]

 

[Mosier]

"We're in the clear. We can go but I'd like to work on these first." He motions to the drones. "And then there is something we have to do..."

Heartbreak's cyberdeck has an extendable micro-thin cord that adapts to any port size, the first truly "universal" plug. The cord links Heartbreak's cyberdeck directly to one of the drones. It will take him some time to reprogram the targeting autosoft on this particular drone, but once he has completed programming one drone, he can use that autosoft template to simply copy the parameters to any other drone he can directly link to.

Reprogramming this autosoft is an average (threshold 12) quick (1 minute interval) test of Heartbreak's Software+Logic. Heartbreak's best estimate is that it will take 3 to 5 minutes to finish the programming, and another minute or so to upload the targeting template to the other drones. Will everyone be staying with Heartbreak during this time, or will any of the Runners be splitting from the group to go infiltrate and sabotage the Pow! drink in the preparation room?

As he works, Heartbreak can see signs of amateur programming in this autosoft. This certainly wasn't the work of the same person who trounced him in the CTI grid, but rather probably just some physical Security manager's idea of "good enough". The drones can't really tell friend from foe in any meaningful way, but instead are simply programmed to fire at anyone showing physical hostility to a CTI employee. The drones won't stop trespassers, saboteurs, or thieves, unless they draw a weapon or attack one of the drones or an employee. Remarkably, the drones won't even fire on a target that the drone handler has attacked, unless that target physically fights back.

Again, Heartbreak smiles at the thought of how many heads are going to roll when CTI leadership does the debriefing for this heist. He can imagine some furious corporate vice-president screaming at the security management staff, demanding to know just how in the holy hell all of their precautions failed. The CTI campus is going to be a pretty miserable place for middle management in the weeks to come...

He pushes this thought aside, however, as more pressing matters take priority. Heartbreak must now decide how he wants these drones to work. Who will they fire on? When, and under what conditions? The simpler and more direct Heartbreak makes the parameters, the less likely the stupid drone brains are to screw it up.

 

[Rubberneck]

Saint sticks around waiting for direction from the others. So far this was going pretty well.