VBas: Hobo with a Shotgun

So I've talked about how unconventional our team are. We have no Sam, for starters. And we have a mage who likes to surf and punch sharks. And we have a Face who is an articulate, well dressed, pacifist troll. It should probably come as no surprise by now that our Matrix support also doesn't follow the stereotypes.

VBas (or VB for short, not to be confused with awful cat-piss tasting beer) is our Matrix support, doing all the things you want out of them. Find data, look for info, mess with enemy security and electronics, shut down cameras, screw with their equipment and all that sort of fancy stuff. (As opposed to me who mainly uses the Matrix for 'run drones' and 'get drones to shoot stuff'). What makes VB so very different is how he does it. Rather than being a Decker, he's a full-blown Technomancer. And, to make it even more crazy, he's of a rather specific type.

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.

Mo: Trollface

So remembering what I was saying about non-traditional teams? Yeah, even when we do have one 'traditional' role, it's filled in a most unexpected way. Not saying it's bad, it's just different, that's all.

Many teams have a 'face', the guy who's job is to be the frontman of the team, He handles the meetings, negotiations and the business end of the job. He's the guy who tries to get the best deal out of Mister Macquarie, while also doing his best to convince the guy not to tool you over. He's a key part of the legwork phase of a run, meeting people, playing nice with them and trying to play them for a bit of key info that could make the difference between life and death. Finally, a good face can talk you out of a bad situation, using their charm and wit and silver tongue to suggest that it's in everyone's best interests if we don’t try to kill each other,

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.

Orca: Punch the Shark

As a runner, you generally only work alone if you're the best thing in the universe or a right burke. Since I’m neither, I have a team of sorts that I run with. They're pretty damned eclectic and don't follow a lot of your standard Runner team "rules" (Everyone had a Sam, a Decker and a Shaman/Mage, right?. We don't have two of those and the third is an interesting case) so we have to do a lot of our stuff through non-traditional means. For example, I’m the team's "big gun" even though I'm not there in person like a Sam would be.

Orca's our magic. How she does that is pretty interesting, even if I don't pretend to have a clue about how it all works. What it means, however, is that she can do a lot of interesting things and definitely is not someone that you can immediately figure how she's going to do it.

Welcome to Post-Apocalyptic Sydney

Flag of the semi-autonomous corporate enclave of Sydney

I figured that while I’m explaining things, I should spill out a few key facts about Sydney and what it's like to Run there. Calling it different would be an understatement.

The first thing you need to understand is that Sydney is sort of kind of but not quite a part of the Republic of Australia, except for those times that it is. Strictly speaking, it's not even a part of the state of New South Wales any more either. That's a rather complicated story, and is a big part of the 'different' that I mentioned above. You see, Sydney is ground zero for a massive, semi-permanent Mana Storm. It fluctuates in strength and intensity, and some days it's almost normal, but the point is that it's there pretty much all time. The storms are massively disruptive and incredibly damaging, and have gone a long way to the city's current state.

Trucks, Drones, Guns and other essentials

So I've mentioned that I am a Rigger. It's a very tech-intensive role, which suits me just fine. I enjoy working with machinery, and have done ever since I was big enough to wave a wrench at something. So there's a lot of tools that I use in my job as a Runner.

I appreciate quality in my equipment. There's no sense in buying something because it's cheap if you know it's going to break down when you need it most. Sure, some piece of Azzie crap drone might be half the price, but you're gonna hate yourself for forking out when it chucks a digital sicko the middle of a fight or begins chundering up parts when you need it most. So I'm willing to pay a little more for something that's reliable and not going to explode just because it bumped a Wombat or something. (Actually that’s a lie. You hit a Wombat and you will notice it, no matter what)