A day (or two) at the races

We'd settled down in our Melbourne house (well, save for Bas who was living in his van somewhere else because reasons) but we also had a number of matters that we needed to attend to. The first and most important was that out housing was provided by Big Zam in return for doing him a favour, and he needed it done fast. And yes, it was a favour of the distinctly illegal kind as well, because when you're a Shadowrunner that's what happens.

Bas in the meantime was buy farting around with the case we'd salvaged from the Impulse we'd fought on the way down here. He'd managed to open it, only to find three vials of unidentified liquid inside. They’d been padded enough to survive falling of an exploding truck at high speeds intact, which suggested they were either incredibly valuable, incredibly lethal or both. Interrogating the case yielded that it had a back to base alarm that was triggered to go off if it wasn't accounted for after a certain period of time, which meant that he only had so long to fart around with it until he drew unwanted attention.

So he improvised. After extracting the vials (and getting Orca to assense them and determine that they weren't magical) he replaced them with bricks and then chucked it in the Yarra River. He also had a sprite watching over it to check if anyone tried to call its alarm and try and trace them.

(Also Bas tried to find a new source of Psyche, because an obviously homeless man walking into a chemist and buying 6,000 Yens worth of drugs at once does look a tad suspicious)

With all that pisssfarting around out of the way, we got to the favour we owed Big Zam. One of his interests was in professional Drone Racing for whatever reason (Gambling, probably). There was one competitor that he was finding was winning too often for his tastes, and wanted taken down a peg. The competitor in question was a Dwarf going by the name of Metatron who had amassed quite a winning streak of late. Zam was rather nebulous on what he wanted done with him, but at the very least he wanted him not to reach the finals of the current competition. There was also a very unsubtle implication that if he was caught in some sort of scandal (eg cheating) that got him banned for life, that would also be nice.

Metatron: Note, not like this

We did some research on the guy through media, asking around, watching matches and the like, and came to the conclusion that Metatron was actually a decent enough guy and, more to the point, surprisingly clean. It got to the point here we decided we'd feel bad about wrecking his career for good, and instead opted for a compromise. We'd sabotage him enough to knock him out of the competition, but not enough so that, say, he couldn't bounce back next season.

So we went for simple mechanical sabotage as our first option. We spied on one of his practice sessions to get some idea of how he raced. Metatron preferred maneuverability and handling over speed, and liked to pull off risky maneuvers that would get him past his opponents or through tight spaces. This gave us something to work with.

Some snooping identified his home address, which was also where he had his Drone Workshop. On the night before the next race, I snuck in there and engaged in a little bit of re-engineering of his drone; I tweaked the responsiveness of the servomotors and actuators so they'd be more sluggish then usual, decreasing the Drone's maneuverability and responsiveness enough so that his usual racing style would be compromised. After I left the place, I kept Baxter (my new Fly Spy) there just to watch over things and warn us if, say, he decided to completely retune his drone the morning before the big race.

Quadcopter Racing Drone

Fortunately, he didn't, and instead headed off to the location of the next race. It was an obstacle course in an arena, where Metratron would be competing with three others in this round. We took up spots in a pub to watch the race unfold and make sure everything went right. Or wrong, but in the right way. Anyway, it did seem that my sabotage had done its job, as Metatron’s drone blew the very first corner it took, Instead it flew straight into a wall and smashed itself to bits, knocking him out of the race for a zero-point Did Not Finish.

On analysis, it meant that if he came last or didn't finish the next race, he'd be out of the championship for the year. Unfortunately, we couldn't just do the same thing again, as Metatron would definitely be double checking his drones after that accident (Which he probably wrote up to simple mechanical failure or the like). Instead we formulated a new plan based on Bas hacking into the Drone and screwing it up during the race.

The next race was being held in a forest trail, with weaving in and out of the trees being a key part of the challenge. We’d gotten ourselves seats near the starting line, and Bas was going to make hack attempts on each lap. Or, at least that was the plan. On the first lap, he reached out with all his Technomancer stuff and... nothing happened. Nor did it on the second lap, or the third, with Metatron's Drone continuing ion its way largely unharmed

On the fourth lap whatever he was doing did seem to work, however. His Drone went all over the shop and was overtaken by everyone, eventually spluttering across the line in a very desultory last place. And thus because he came last and earned no points, he was out of the competition.

Big Zam seemed to be... okay with what we did, which I suppose is a good thing. Definitely want to keep on the good side of the guy who a) is an obviously a crime boss b) is a Cyclops and c) is providing you with housing. I guess it’s a win?

The only other thing to note was that Bas got a signal from his Sprite. Somebody had tried to locate the case, and it had been able to trace the source. The person who was expecting the case was at the same Tanamyre warehouse that we'd delivered the truck to.