Breaking and Interior Decorating

Now that we had a team, it was time to get more work. In this case, our next run came form an odd source. That was okay in a way because the run itself was rather odd in nature. In this case, the source of the job was a Government Agent that VBas knows, one who’s exact job and agency they work for remains pretty enigmatic (as does the reason why he's talking with a hobo Technomancer, but that's by the by). At any rate, he put us into contact with Mister Macquarie, who gave us the details.

As you can imagine, they were odd. We met Mister Macquarie in a private Matrix host. He wanted us to place a mirror that was at least half a meter square in a specific spot in a specific conference room inside the headquarters of the Sydney Fire Brigade. And we needed to do it before 9:30 AM on Thursday, but do it as close to time as possible.

See? Odd.

Sydney Fire Brigades, actually serving the people

Armed with these rather exacting instructions, we swung into action getting ready and getting what we needed. The first thing that was worth noting was that the Sydney Fire Department was not yet privatized and was, in fact, still a government service. Given how Corp controlled Sydney is, it's an odd feature to say the least, running counter to ninety-odd percent of cities in the world. That made us immediately think there was something bigger going on.

We figured that the best way to get in would be to create a fake work order for the mirror's installation, and then simply walk in the front door early on Thursday Morning to put it into place. That way we could do it with the minimum of fuss and the least chances of being caught out doing something that, if not illegal, was definitely odd (Is breaking and redecorating a crime?) while making everything seem legitimate. After all, the Fire Brigade weren't going to remove a mirror that they ordered themselves, right? We booked the delivery for early Thursday morning so that even if somebody did object, they'd have little time to do anything about it.

VBas ran all that though his Technomancy, which turned up one salient point. As we suspected, the meeting room was indeed booked for 9:30 AM Thursday for a meeting with Wuxing. This made Orca think that the mirror was a Feng Shui thing, and somebody was trying to influence the outcome of the meeting. Of course, who and to what end was another matter. Regardless, he managed to

Delivery Van, sort of like this

In the meantime, I'd rented a Holden Hermes Delivery van (with full Rigger adaptation, because you never know) and managed to fake up some appropriate logo decals. Mo had procured us uniforms so that the four of us could simply rock on up and walk in the front door, armed with our work order and put the mirror in place. Then we’d walk out before the Wuxing execs arrived, and nobody would be any the wiser.

Oh, and finally Orca bought us a mirror. That was kind of important to the plan.

So Thursday morning we piled into the van and headed to Fire Brigade headquarters in the CBD. The plan was pretty solid. Mo and Orca would go in to deliver and install the Mirror; Mo because of his charming personality and Orca because she can easily punch her way put of any problems that she runs into. I would be waiting in the van in case we needed a fast getaway, while VBas would be with me, half because it could be useful to have him hack the Matrix with his brain If things went bad and half because the paranoid hobo doesn't make the beset infiltrator.

And it almost worked too.

We were halfway there when our AROs flashed up with massive Mana Storm warnings, telling us to drop whatever we were doing and get to shelter immediately, This was a problem because if we did that, we'd miss the deadline for the delivery, but at the same time driving under such conditions would be dangerous to say the least. Me, I did the only logical thing I could do which was fully jack in and put the pedal to the metal.

This was useful because the Mana Storm hit hard. Besides all the physical issues of driving torrential rain, gale force winds, random lighting strikes and the like, there’s also the magical side-effects. The world around us turned into one massive psychotropic trip of swirling chaotic colours that left everyone, especially Orca, reeling. Me, being jacked in, was largely perceiving the world off the data feeds from the Van's systems. And while they were full of interference, at least they weren't reporting that the road was full of giant pink numbats or we were driving into a giant mouth or whatever else.

I engaged in some pretty spectacular diving to get us there on time while the world was going crazy around us. I took a number of rather risky shortcuts, including across at least one large public park in the process, but in the end we were barreling towards fire brigade headquarters like our bums were on fire. Which to anyone watching they might have seemed to be because of the Mana Storm and all that.

Mo got on the comm to the Fire Brigade and politely asked them to open the doors for us so we weren't caught in the Mana Storm. And, because he's so nice, they did just that, with me bringing the van to a full stop safely inside the main bay alongside the fire engines.

Having dealt with that unexpected obstacle, the rest of it actually went rather smoothly. Mo and Orca were in and out with ease, installing the mirror in the appointed place in the appointed room before the appointed time. At the same time, VB decided to do a bit of Matrix snooping and recovered a lot of information about what was going on. It turned out that Wuxing was indeed looking to buy the Fire Brigade, and were indeed meeting in that room. And now we had the details of their offer, both financial and services.

Wuxing, using Feng Shui
 for economic gain

We were out of there with plenty to spare (even accounting for the storm) and well before the Wuxing reps arrived. I returned the van while we arranged a second meeting with Mister Macquarie. We still had the paydata, but weren’t sure what we wanted to do with it. Our provisional plan was to have VBas sniff out Macquarie’s host and use that as a basis for a final decision.

Mister Macquarie was rather happy with the outcome of the run, saying that things had gone perfectly. VB reported that his host belonged to a Tanamyre exec called Hartman; furthermore, a bit of poking told us that Tanamyre was also bidding for the Sydney Fire Brigade. So we offered him the data of Wuxing’s bid, figuring that he'd sent us to sabotage it but would like to know what they were offering no less. He agreed and was rather happy with the result.

So that's another one in the win coloumn. I think we're beginning to get the hang of this 'team' thing