The Johnson had promised an easy mission in a po-dunk rural town. A scientist to extract alive or kill, if necessary, provided the PCs could tolerate less money. Little security, the only hard part is finding her.
If you go to Fallen, tell everyone if you've been there before. If you have, you can declare another contact this session, who has to live in Fallen. If you haven't, mark experience. (I originally said if you've been there you can declare a contact or take 2 hold and spend that on social rolls, everyone chose XP or another contact.)
The PCs had spent gear getting out of a quarantine around the Sprawl, impersonating corporate couriers. They had driven to the walled town of Fallen, population 400 or so, farmer-drone operators and weirdos and the Cookers, the gang which monopolizes drugs in the town. The town is walled with stacks of cut-up double-wides filled with concrete and scrap metal. Most of the buildings are repurposed trailers, stacked up a few perilous stories, or shipping containers. A few streets to rub together, one hotel, one bar.
A few years ago, most of the town had been burnt down by Jack, our Killer.
The PCs had finished legwork, our Pusher, Bello, having acquired a flamethrower/guitar. Our Driver, Corsair, had found out his TB-2119 would not be fixed by wide-spectrum antibiotics. A detective or bounty-hunter contact of Jack's had indicated the target, Marstellar Wu, was working under the town's bar, which is the Cookers' HQ. A cousin of our Hacker, Norman, worked as a bouncer there, and would let Norman's family know about his mercenary work. So Norman jacked in from the hotel and did his work from there.
The player of our Infiltrator, Slip, had to leave due to work constraints, but she had left a gel-round filled derringer in case nonlethal work was needed. Between Bello (Pusher), Jack (Killer) and Norman on the building's security cameras, the crew arrived at the top of the underground lab. Jack had to emotionlessly threaten a bar back to keep his identity hidden, and the Pusher acted fast to use his Vision Thing on some basement-level guards. Otherwise, the Cookers were off checking spurious building security alerts.
Jack drops down the last section of ladder, fast enough an automated turret he heard couldn't just shoot him before he could fire back. His rifle shredded the gun-cam, though the noise led the Cookers to summon the rest of their gang, who began driving up to the bar and hustling inside.
Bello and Jack used up some intel to know where to find Wu, as the lab had quite a few rooms. They heard the rumble of an explosive coming from some distant part of the facility, the sound of another team entering. The two headed off to Wu's residential room.
The Pusher tried to talk her into just walking away, and normally would've probably succeeded, but Wu adamantly indicated a cortex bomb would kill her if she left the facility. Jack whispered that they didn't need her alive, while Norman went on a Matrix rampage. He tried to burrow through the bar's matrix node and into the lab's, but was confronted by another hacker, who damaged Norman, but was dispatched. Norman logged into the hidden lab's node and began subverting the black ice laser fencing - behind it, a security node which controlled turrets and Wu's cortex bomb.
Meanwhile, the elevator down a corridor from Wu's residence chimed and descended. Bello and Jack set up at the other end of the corridor, Jack with the Ripper, a huge, high-powered rifle, and Bello with a semi-auto shotgun, just inside it's near range. The doors opened, fluorescent light shined on no one - the elevator appeared empty. Then, a small drone plopped out and began flying swiftly towards the two.
They fired and it exploded - a remote recon/grenade drone. The two took their 0 harm, thanks to armor and distance from the drone, and watched as the elevator descended again. Bello peeled the doors open and began burning everything he could, hoping to dis-temper the steel. Jack hefted a large couch from Wu's residence thanks to his cyber arm and ran back to the shaft, jamming the couch in place such that the elevator could not get to the landing and open. Inside, an assault rifle and grenade drone looked around. Its audio inputs registered someone clomping about atop the elevator.
Norman breezed through the black ice barrier and stood before the laboratory security node. He ruined the data which would allow someone to detonate Wu's cortex bomb, as the controls for it were local, and then accessed the rest of the lab's physical security systems. Down the elevator shaft was a garage full of Cooker vehicles. The garage door had been thermited open, and three runners stood in camera view. One deactivated turret was in range of them: Orval and Celesta, the drone operator, and Breaker, the only person Jack had personally fought and failed to kill. (And who managed to run Jack over with his sports car at the time.)
The turret opened up. Breaker whirled out of the way despite being the primary target - his chipped reflexes saving him. Orval also escaped death, but Celesta was lit up and fell, dead. The drone in the elevator fired its assault rifle through the sofa and then halted, its sensors dimming.
All in all, it was a pretty sweet session. Hopefully Corsair will get to bust out some sweet backroads driving against some hinterlands folk.
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