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.

Life on the Coathanger

I’ve mentioned the Bridge before and it's already factored into one of our runs, so I might as well talk a bit more about it. It's a key part of the Sydney Shadow Community landscape while also being the city council's single biggest sticking point. It's definitely not the sort of thing you see on the tourist ads either, and for a good reason.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge copped it pretty bad in the first mana Storm. it suffered severe structural damage and had to be closed for a long-term repair project. Unfortunately, the resulting abandonment of Sydney and the entire country turning feral resulted in a massive influx of poor and desperate refugees from not just the country but even the outer parts of the city. They wound up funneling through the 'controlled areas of North Sydney and the CBD and squatting en-masse on the then abandoned bridge. Sure it was a creaky mess that could have fallen down at any moment, but it wasn’t like they had anywhere else to go.

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.

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,