[This session happened on June 8th. It could easily be subtitled: “Ethics-schmethics – what we need is a patsy!”]
Player Characters
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
NPC’d Characters
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Tuesday, December 31, 2075
1:00 AM to 7:00 AM
Void and Bookie spent the time since the midnight meeting making copies of all the car keys they had access to for Sam’s car collection. Several members of the team have expectations that soon many of those cars would belong to them. [For reasons that will become apparent, this is not likely to happen.]
8:00 AM
Preparing for the end of the job, The Pleiades Group started sanitizing the suites they had taken over in the client’s home, doing their best to remove all traces of their presence. Personal gear was packed up and moved into Sin’s GMC Bulldog while Prometheus, still awake due to Long Haul, kept watch on the video monitors.
After all the packing was over, Sin “innocently” checked which cars in Sam’s collection were equipped for rigging. Sam's mechanic noticed part way through, but Sin was able to out-argue him. Sin used this opportunity to test the keys Void and Bookie had made.
11:00 AM
The protection job ended. The Fin met with Sam to confirm this and get sign-off on the work from Sam (knowing what kind of person Sam is). Sam agreed that the main contract and both bonus contracts were satisfactorily completed and authorized payment.
The Group decamped, taking with them the bodies of the two dead runners (preserved since Saturday in the walk-in freezer). The Fin made arrangements with Svetlana, her wetworks fixer to harvest the bodies for cyberware. The payoff for the Group would be minimal (10% value), but it would build some business rapport between The Fin and Svetlana. Sin and Prometheus dropped the bodies off at the location Svetlana specified while the rest of the Group returned to their homes.
4:00 PM
Prometheus arrived at his Uncle’s home and retrieved the Christmas present from his sister. It was a gun rack for storing rifles. Prometheus contemplated where he will put it in his apartment and what to put in it.
6:00 PM
Back at his apartment, the Long Haul wore off and Prometheus slept. For 26 hours.
7:00 PM
The Fin paid Sin 1000¥ out of the company fund to have Susan watch over Prometheus while he sleeps. This caused some minor drama at the apartment building, but Prometheus’s uncle owns the building and solves the problem by having a potted plant put on top of Susan and claiming the drone is a planter. No one wants to argue the point.
The Fin set up a meeting Friday at 2:00 PM with Shek Wei Zhe to discuss how soon the arrangement between the Triads and Sam will become a problem for Sam’s descendants. The delay in the meeting is because she wanted Prometheus on overwatch for her if things get awkward with the Triad underboss.
Wednesday, January 1, 2076
8:00 PM
Prometheus awakened. After smoothing things over with his uncle regarding the drone tank with the machinegun parked in the hall, Prometheus called The Fin to find out the status of the hit on Sam. She updated Prometheus about when the meeting with Shek Wei Zhe will happen. Prometheus suggested that the hit should happen the next day, if at all possible, and he would start the planning. This is what The Fin had been hoping for as hits are not part of her repertoire.
The Next Several Hours
Prometheus called Bookie to get Sam’s schedule for the rest of the week, particularly Saturday, and asked Bookie to look through Sam’s records for a convenient scapegoat for the hit, preferably a recent business deal not associated with the Triad building. Bookie still had access to Sam’s calendar and the only time Sam would be out of his home was for a dinner meeting with a representative of FHM. After spending some time searching through Sam’s records (from a convenient copy Bookie had made while he had access), Bookie came up empty for a likely patsy. Prometheus decided that Sam’s mechanic would have to do as several necessary elements are already in place (motive and access).
Prometheus had Bookie hack Sam’s system anew to get the mechanic’s schedule for Saturday. The mechanic would be visiting family in Everett, about an hour and a half away from Sam’s home. Perfect.
Thursday, January 2, 2076
Prometheus had Murdoc physically mask The Fin to look like Sam’s mechanic. At the same time, Prometheus had Void sneak into Sam’s home and steal the mechanic’s ID and then give it to The Fin. The Fin, impersonating the mechanic, went to a hunting goods store and purchased a Remington 950 hunting rifle and some ammunition. Using the mechanics real ID, this is not a problem and the license paperwork was quickly handled. Afterward, The Fin gave the ID back to Void, who returned it, the mechanic completely unaware it had gone wandering.
Prometheus spent a couple hours scouting the surroundings of the restaurant Sam would be eating at on Saturday. He was looking for a position that could see the entrance but not be easily observed from nearby buildings, that has a good muddy patch for Sin to leave a tire tread imprint in, and multiple exit routes, one of which is easily viewable from the entrance to the restaurant. He found the perfect spot across the street and half a block down. Prometheus then arranged with Sin where to put the car he would be “borrowing” from Sam’s collection. The car being one of Sam’s is important as it will have fresh fingerprints belonging to the mechanic on them, particularly the driver’s door and the trunk lid. [When Prometheus was searching the vehicles for hidden runners, he didn’t bother closing any of the doors or trunks. The mechanic had complained bitterly about it the next day as he had to close all 50-60 of them himself.]
In the afternoon, Prometheus took the recently purchased Remington 950 hunting rifle into the Redmond Barrens to shoot a box of ammunition through it. After the box of regular ammunition, Prometheus fired a single APDS shot through the rifle and left the empty cartridge in the gun. That night he had Void lift one of the mechanic’s thumbprints and place it on the end of the spent cartridge in the rifle. The rifle was now an excellent prop with which to frame the mechanic.
Friday, January 3, 2076
The Fin met with Shek Wei Zhe (with Killroy as her bodyguard and Prometheus providing sniper overwatch). The meeting went quickly, with the Triad underboss agreeing to pay 45,000¥ for the “issue transference”.
After the meeting, when The Fin explained that the Triad’s only needed a photo to prove Sam was dead, Prometheus suddenly remembered that the Mafia wanted the ring on Sam’s right index finger and the current plan had no way to get the ring. Whoops! Some quick brainstorming led to an addition to the plan: Killroy would be nearby, disguised as a homeless person, and step in right after the shots to clip Sam’s finger (and the ring) off and hustle out of there while the witnesses were still cowering. Not optimal, but it would get the job done.
Saturday, January 4, 2076
Bookie hacked the necessary street cameras to find out what color of coat the mechanic was wearing when he left to visit his family. Prometheus found the electrochromic settings on his armored jacket to match the color and saved them for later. Two hours before the shooting, Prometheus went to the site and hid. He had the prop rifle with him, so it would pick up traces of the rooftop for Knight Errant to find later.
An hour before the shooting, The Fin called the mechanic, posing as Sam, and ordered the mechanic back to the garage immediately or he was fired. Bookie spoofed the caller ID so it looked like the call was actually from Sam. Used to these types of tantrums, the mechanic got into his car and started the drive back to Sam’s house. To keep the mechanic from actually arriving, Bookie hacked the controls of a vehicle ahead of the mechanic and attempted to cause a traffic slow down. This was the first time he’d ever tried this and failed spectacularly [critical glitch]. Instead of just causing a traffic slow down, Bookie plowed the vehicle into two others, causing all three to wreck. This brought traffic to an instant stand-still – so, yea?
Sin remotely accessed one of the distinctive vehicles in Sam’s garage and, with Bookie controlling the automated garage systems, drove the car out of the house and to the agreed parking spot near Prometheus’s sniper nest. Prometheus came down, waited a moment for Sin to pop the trunk, laid the prop rifle down in the trunk, and closed the trunk [wearing gloves, naturally]. Prometheus then returned to his sniper position, where his own rifle waited. Prometheus removed the sound suppressor from the rifle and resumed waiting.
Killroy, having been disguised by The Fin and given a Lone Star tattoo on his face to cover his scar, arrived in the vicinity about 30 minutes before the shooting was to happen. He did his best to stay out of sight down a nearby alley so no one would call Knight Errant on him before the shooting.
Sin put one of his Lockheed Optic-X2 drones shadowing Sam house so the Group would know when to expect Sam’s arrival at the restaurant.
The Shooting
Sam arrived at the restaurant precisely on time, his driver dropping him off at the front door. Sam took two steps before Prometheus fired. The first two rounds of APDS ammunition hit Sam in the left torso, just under the arm, and in the head. After that, Prometheus fired another eight rounds as fast as his synaptic boosters let him, not worried about accuracy but to avoid the impression that this was a professional hit. The rapid sounds of the rifle firing caused all of the civilians within hearing distance to drop for cover.
Twelve seconds later, Prometheus stopped firing and left the sniper’s nest, sliding down a ladder on the backside of the building, landing right next to the “borrowed” car. Sin popped the door open and Prometheus slapped the door closed with his gloved hand, providing an audio illusion of someone getting into the car. Sin then floored the gas, zipping out the alley in full view of anyone near the restaurant’s entrance. Sin let the car fishtail a bit on purpose and then drove away as fast as the car could go, driving directly back to Sam’s home to return the car to its proper parking spot. Prometheus left the alley the other way, completely hidden from the restaurant witnesses and changing the color of his clothing to blend in.
In the meantime, Killroy stepped out of the alley adjacent to the restaurant, walked up to Sam’s body, and used a pair of pruning shears to remove Sam’s right index finger, along with the needed ring. He then bellowed incoherently at the people nearby and ran off. At the same time, The Fin was calling the mechanic as Sam, telling the mechanic that Sam had worked out the problem and he better not show up and claim pay on a day off. Sighing, the mechanic worked his way out of the traffic jam and started driving back to his family’s home.
Later that night on the news was a small story about a local lawyer being gunned down by a homeless man who then drove off in an expensive roadster. Knight Errant was investigating and had no comment at this time.
End of Session
[So, Prometheus’s thoughts were to provide Knight Errant with a trail of bread crumbs that led to a plausible suspect for Sam’s murder. The mechanic was very distantly related to someone Sam had ruined in the past, but the PCs had eliminated him as a suspect when looking into Sam’s enemies. This would be enough to satisfy Knight Errant and allow The Pleiades Group to fade back into the shadows.]
[Knight Errant would likely investigate Sam’s employees as suspects and learn that one of them had recently purchased a hunting rifle of the approximate caliber that Sam had been shot by. Witnesses, or more likely traffic cameras, would describe the vehicle speeding away from the scene of the crime, leading Knight Errant to find the same vehicle in Sam’s garage with mud on the under carriage matching mud in the alley. Knight Errant would also be able to find a tire print in the alley that matched one of the car’s tires. One warrant later they’d find the prop rifle, recently fired, grit from the shooting location on it, and the cartridge of a single APDS shell still in it with the mechanic’s thumb print on it.]
[The mechanic’s alibi would be he was stuck in traffic, having been called back to work. At this point Knight Errant might notice some discrepancies. The mechanic’s car does register in the traffic control system as having been stuck in the traffic at the time of the shooting. Also, third cousin, twice removed, is not a very close familial relation, bringing motive into question. In the real world, a good lawyer could get the mechanic cleared. In the Shadowrun world…not so much. As the first and only suspect (not counting the homeless man angle), it is quite likely that Knight Errant will latch onto the mechanic as a quick victory against crime, suppress contrary evidence, and put him away for decades. Shadowrun is a harsh realm.]
[Incidentally, pay for the run worked out to 20,000¥ per runner from Sam, with 15,000¥ (the expense account) going into the Pleiades Group kitty. The money from the Mafia and the Triad for killing Sam came out to 12,000¥ ] per runner, with 1000¥ going into the Pleiades Group kitty.]
Session 1
Session 5
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