We all Run in a Yellow Submarine

While we were looking for ways to get around the Mister Johnson from Lone Star job series, we had another one to attend to. It was one that I'd been looking forward to for some time, actually, simply because of the sort of stuff we'd be dealing with. The premise of the run was simple and intended to be stealthy; we had to break into a manufacturing facility and sabotage the production of a new product. However, we had to do it in a subtle way so that it wasn't immediately obvious. What the Macquarie wanted was for the product to fail at launch in a very public and embarrassing way.

So that would be simple enough in and of itself, but there was a catch. Although the catch was what made the job so interesting, so maybe it wasn't as big a problem as it seemed. Anyway, the problem was that the target was a Proteus AG Arkoblock in the middle of Bass Straight, so it wasn't the most easily accessible place in the world. Fortunately, we'd rented a minisub which covered half of the accessibility issues.

Gang politics, conspicuous cars and aggressive statuary

All our moral quandaries over what we were going to do regarding Mister Johnson's job offer were nicely put aside when we got a request for a meeting from Big Zam. Given that he was the one providing our housing (Oh and that he was a mob boss and a Cyclops and had several Minotaurs on call...) Orca and I pretty much dropped everything and headed to his restaurant where he wanted to meet. And after a nice light lunch we got down to business.

This was a follow through of sorts to our previous job we'd done for him where we sabotaged Metatron, a drone racer. It seemed that Big Zam was not the only one interested in fixing drone racing, as one of the other racers, an adept by the name of Bok-Bok had disappeared. Mister Zam wasn't happy with this, because with her disappearance, there was every chance that Metatron could get a shot at the finals again, which was not what he wanted. Added to that, the next race was in two days, so we needed to find her fast. He offered us a generous amount of pay, so we agreed to locate her for him. That and, again, housing and Cyclops mob boss.

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.

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.

Highway to Hell (And by that, I mean Melbourne)

As mentioned, thanks to our being implicated in the assassination of a high-ranking Renraku exec and three Red Sam Guards (Yes, I did kill one of them, but that was in self-defense) we had decided that it was probably for the best if we got out of Sydney for a while. The good news was that Orca's Kebab Vendor/Fixer had gotten us a job to escort a refrigerated truck down to Melbourne, which would both get us out of town and get us paid along the way. This is a plan.

After getting something that resembled a good night's sleep I prepped for the trip by doing a round of repairs on Flavio, Ollie and Dickhead after how badly they got banged in the Renraku raid, With the aid of Adam and Jamie, I was able to get them all back into shape in a couple of hours, leaving enough time for me to pack my travelling stuff and do some last minute lawn care (ha!) before heading down to the pub for some Pub Nachos.

Denial of service attack

After the little adventure on the boat, things had settled down a bit and allowed us some breathing time. Collectively, the team had been working on improving various skills; for example, Orca is getting better at picking locks, while I'm learning how to act like a Drone when I’m jumped into one. I asked Orca to spot the difference between me controlling Adam and Jamie running autonomously, and she couldn't, which means I must be doing something right.

Unfortunately, we also need money because drones, arrows, car parts and such don't pay for themselves. Fortunately, Orca's Fixer (a Kebab stand owner called Lenny), was able to come up with one that needed doing urgently and that he felt we were suited for. It was rather simple; the client needed us to break into the Sydney CBD HQ of Baird Communications and destroy a bunch of their servers. They were paying a flat fee for the first two server rooms we killed, and then were offering a bonus for each server room we took down after that, It seemed straightforward enough, even if he needed it done in the next couple of days.

In a drone, on a boat

Things have been going pretty okay for the last week since our first run. Orca's settled in here and doing pretty nicely for herself. She says that my place is a Huge upgrade from her old place which, from what I could tell, seemed to be a hovel that was about to fall down. So better living conditions, a better suburb and she still has access to a Surf beach, so what more could she want?

But then we got another job offer, which we all leaped at. I guess the need for more drones/arrows/keeping your brother out of jail/whatever it is VBas spends his money on (Not sure I want to know) was a good enough incentive to get us all going even if everything seemed a bit strange from the get go. Mister Macquarie wanted to meet us at a seedy, run-down, dockside pub in Botany of all places, which was far from what you assume to be a typical meet.

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.

A Run that actually was a Run

My second run with this team was the first one that actually had a team. And added to that, it actually happened, which was a bit leg-up over the first one. Okay, that was probably a bit confusing. Let me start again.

It steered off when Orca's fixer (And the guy she gets her take-away Kebabs from) set her up with a job, so she got in contact with me. The pair of us were to meet at a new-age shop of all places down south, which struck me as the most Earth shatteringly bizarre spot to get a job from a Macquarie. So with a combination of piqued curiosity and a need to get a job and make some money, I agreed to meet her there and see what the hell was going on.

The Run that Wasn't

Now that we have a frame of reference for me, Orca, Sydney and a few other things, it's time to start talking runs themselves. Only my career got off to a rather inglorious start with a Run that never actually happened.

To get the ball rolling, one of Orca's contacts put her in contact with me as a way of building up a team. So we arranged a meet at a pub near where I live and things went rather well there. We discovered a mutual love of hot chips made form actual potatoes which was a great icebreaker, and as a bonus she figured that I had access to a good surf beach so obviously she could spend time up here working on runner stuff while also indulging in her favourite pastime. She also had a quick tour of the house so she knew where I was working form with an eye to using it as a base of operations. Apparently my place beats her fall down tenement any day, so she's cool with that too. All in all the foundations of a good team.

Sadly, that wound up being the only thing that went right all day.