Melbourne drivers and other hazards

We've more or less settled in to life in Melbourne now. Our new home in a converted garage is okay, and for Orca and Road Rage it’s even something of a step up. True, Bas continues to sleep outside in his Van, but by this point, we've come to expect that from him. If not for the fact that it's Melbourne, I'd say we're doing pretty okay for ourselves. Hell, I can even make right hand turns, as long as they're those weird hook turns they insist on. Oh, and I can put up with the Melbourne drivers.

Of course, us being Runners meant that we still needed to find work. Fortunately enough, not one but two offers dropped in our laps right away. The first was from a Macquarie that we'd worked for before, being the same slightly stodgy but well playing guy who got us the job with the Wuxing freighter. He arranged another one of his Matrix meets to roll out his newest offer, and I must admit that it was rather fascinating.



The job involved a Proteus AG Arkoblock in the Bass Straight, located under an old oil rig. Inside, Proteus were working on a 'new product' that he wanted to see delayed by about four weeks. There were two caveats however. The first was that he wanted it to be done in a discrete way that didn't make it look like sabotage; thus we couldn't just blow it up. Instead, this had to look embarrassing for Proteus, not like they'd been deliberately targeted.

The corp lab is under here. Now there's
security for you

The second problem was, of course, getting there. Given that it was an underwater facility in the middle of Bass Straight, it wasn’t like we could just drive on up to it or anything to that effect. Added to the geographical problems, we had the additional issue that it was a secure, secretive facility, so it wasn't like they just handed out visitor passes. None the less, I found the job to be intruding, and we all provisionally agreed to it. We'd still need to sort out the details of how we’d actually get there, mind you, but it still was off to a good start.

Our second offer also was a tad unusual as it came from a genuine mister Johnson. He was from Lone Star, and didn't make any effort to hide the fact. His job offer was an odd one all right; he wanted us to stage a quartet of incidents that would embarrass Acheron Security, the firm that handles policing for Melbourne, in a rather public way. This would in turn make them look bad when the contract next came up for renegotiation, and hopefully allow Lone Star to move in. It'd be swapping one set of corrupt cops for another, so really it’s much of muchness.

We agreed to his terms, and got the details of the first of the incidents that he wanted us to set up. It might as well have been planned with me in mind, really. What we had to do was hoon through the streets of Melbourne in a custom Ford Falcon that they provided and engage in a high-speed chase with the Acheron cops. We had to make them look bad, humiliate them and force them to cause unnecessary collateral damage in the name of their pursuit. We would also be filming the whole thing, so I'd have Louie and Baxter following us around all the way. Finally, we were to drop the car off at a specific location where Lone Star would film the finale.

Too easy.

Ford Falcon 2076. Like a Ford Americar, only Australian

Our plan was to have me drive the car in question, with Orca and Bas on board to help screw things up for the other guys. Road Rage would be following nearby in his car, just to help mess with the cops and create some more damage. I'd even figured out a route well in advance that would offer me the best opportunities for public property damage. And sure enough, soon I was on my merry way, weaving in and out of Melbourne traffic at breakneck speed with ease. That got me the right attention, with an Acheron pursuit car soon on my tail.

Acheron Security Patrol Car

I immediately stepped up my game, weaving through traffic, making sharp high-speed turns and edging the footpath. At the same time, Orca and Bas were doing their stuff in the back; she was trying to distract or confuse the driver through magic, while Bas was trying to hack the car's system to screw with it that way. Amazingly, nothing seemed to work; whoever was in that car was either very good or just insanely lucky.

Road Rage entered the chase, doing a good job of taking some of the heat off of me. This only was a temporary relief, as another car joined the chase who proved to be almost as resistant as his partner. A few sideswipes from Road Rage was able to shake him up a bit, while I focused on that first guy and doing my best to make him look bad. That chance came when I managed to pull a way-too-tight turn that he couldn't come close to following, instead ending up going through a glass storefront,

This looks like a great place for a car chase

We had only a short relief as two more joined the fray, doggedly riding the pair of us at close range. Given the situation, I had to step it up a bit. So I took a shortcut through the Queen Victoria Markets, weaving between various stalls and people. The cops couldn’t quite manage to keep on me, plowing through a series of stalls before one of them ended up imbedded in a wall. I managed to lose the other one in a way that was entirely in keeping with Mister Johnson's plans.

After that I headed to the destination, being an automobile scrap yard. I handed over the Falcon to Lone Star Johnson, who was there with a team of goons dressed in (presumably stolen) Acheron security uniforms. They loaded some guy into the car and then filmed it as they crushed it with him inside. Yeah. That was a nasty twist.

Unfortunately, we'd signed on for four tasks, and we were only at number one. The second was to stage a hostage incident which would force Acheron to send a HTR team in reply. Only we'd get out ahead of time, and Acheron would instead end up tear gassing a bunch of innocent hostages and have it splashed all over the media. Johnson had provided us with the time and date of the do, as well as details of a pre-existing escape tunnel. All we had to do was go in there, round up the people and then get out ahead of time.

We'd taken precautions; besides the usual cues to hide our identities, we'd added gasmasks, goggles and antidote injections to our inventory. Our infiltration went perfectly; Bas shut down the security system, and identified all the guns in the building. We stormed the place and very quickly disarmed all those in question, before neatly rounding up the hostages. The media were quickly alerted and we got news that Acheron were on their way. So far so good.

Except that one of the waiters had managed to cut his way free, using one of those memory metal blades that he'd disguised as a belt. We confronted him and he admitted that her was a Runner here at cross purposes to us. There were no hard feelings to be had, and we warned him of what was about to happen. Seeing as his original plan was now no longer feasible, he agreed to join us in the escape. So it was five of us who vanished down the trapdoor as the first of the gas grenades came in. Our preparations worked, but Mister Belt Waiter wasn't so lucky, copping a facefull.

We retreated into the underground passage out of the convention centre, passing by some old service tunnels when things really went sideways. Orca heard some screaming, and she and Road Rage opted to check it out. What she found was a Simsense recording booth where a naked Elf man was being accosted by five other naked men, one of each Metatype. Orca, being the sane and rational person that she is, immediately jumped in and punched the Troll's head off. Road Rage knifed the Dwarf, and it was on.

I joined them, but the key thing as that everyone was trying to be as quiet as possible, given that nobody wanted Acheron to find out what was going on down here. This lead to a lot of Taser shots, stabbings and incredibly violent punches as we tried to finish them off. Meanwhile, Bas and the Waiter were accosted by a pair of gangers who were apparently running the op, and forced into an ugly brawl with them. We eventually took all comers down, the remaining ganger surrendering and then handing his pants over to the poor Elf.

With that distraction out of the way, we managed to get away without being seen, while Acheron was left to explain the mess behind us. Good luck with that.

On the upside, we did get one bit of good news. The Macquarie had managed to wrangle us a minisub, so we now had a way in to the Proteus Arkoblock. Now all we needed to do was figure out everything else.