The scene opens again on our heroes, sitting around the base as usual. The phone rang: Mara and I leapt on it, desperate for something to break up the monotony of recovering from frostbite and sorting the bullets in the armory. Mara, of course, got to it first.
"Hello?"
"Tom, please"
"Sure, just a second", Mara said into the receiver, as she covered it with her hand and shouted "TOM! PHONE!". As she waited for Tom to pick up from his lab, she turned to A'leia and added, "I think it's Tom's fixer. I hope Tom skewers and grills him for what he did to us last time. I still have dreams of tapping claws. Uugh!" Tom picks up the extension in the lab, and Mara turn on mute and speaker phone, so we all can listen. The fixer apologizes profusely about last time, and swears up and down that he has something simple--that he'd give this to a new team if he had one, but he owes us a favor, so he's giving it to us. "Head to Club Penumbra in Union, and ask for "Nigel." This is a total milk run, I swear -- the Johnson is a loon and they're willing to pay through the nose for what sounds like a simple switch -- they barely need Shadow-runners at all. Your team will have no problem with it." "All right. We'll take it." said Tom, "but this had better be on the up and up, or we're through. Get it?"
"Got it"
"Good. Have a nice night, Jimmy" Given last time, everyone was a little jumpy about taking more jobs, so we all went to meet the Johnson. Of course, I did all the talking... As soon as we walked into the club, we were overwhelmed with the poser atmosphere -- meeting with a Johnson here is the kind of thing you'd see on MTV's "Real Shadow-runners" or something. They even have a Troll bouncer with gold-tipped tusks at the door, collecting weapons. None of us are that stupid, so we walk right in. After scanning the room, I headed over to the bartender and asked for "Nigel". He cleared his throat, and in his best "confidential whisper", said, "Yeah, somebody mentioned that you might be..."
We exchanged a look, and I smiled.
"Sigh. damn posers. He's in the back, third door on the left."
"Thanks. Sorry for the trouble -- gotta love a service industry"
"Yeah. The customer is always right", he said with a sarcastic grin.
I slipped a couple credits into his tip jar, motioned to Tom, and started walking back. A thin man with short cropped red hair nearly jumps out of his skin as we enter. He has one of the silvery round-corner "something important" suitcases, and from his manner I see why the bartender was a little unimpressed. The cut of his suit and his designer sunglasses were high-quality copies of the Johnson from the soap opera "Shadow-runs in Seattle", and even his facial expressions seemed copied and faked. It was enough to make me nervous: nobody can be that incompetent on purpose, can they? He pulled out a map of a company in Allston, then tried to cover the name: "Teklon Industries". Nothing I've ever heard of. He wants us to get into the building, head into the back, and recover a similar silver suitcase, which will have an 8 pointed multicolored starburst logo on the side. When we have it, get out and call speed dial on the phone. It will connect to Mr. Johnson, who will arrange a meeting with a woman to exchange the suitcases, and will then give us another call to arrange payment for the other suitcase. "There won't be any guards, and there won't be anyone watching the cameras. I'll take care of that." Tom asked about damage to the building, and he said "I'd rather not". It's clear that either this man is an insider (which would explain some of his nervousness -- the corps are more vicious than the Yak when it comes to betrayal -- the Yak only kill you...) or has an insider working with him. MAP He explains that 4, 5, 6,7, are the operating theatre, the 10s are electronics. END MAP "All right, we'll do your job." I said. Time to see just how gullible this guy really is.
"But we don't generally take this kind of contract without an advance. We want half now." "Half? But... I don't have it yet. I won't get the money until the cases are switched!" "That's very unfortunate, Mr. Johnson. Sounds like it might cost you more. Perhaps we ought to go the other way? Double fee sounds fair, if we have to trust you to provide it all on delivery." "Um... I don't have that much!" "How much do you have, Mr. Johnson?" I smiled. This one really *is* a sucker, so long as he doesn't get cold feet, or get himself caught. "Hiring help like us isn't cheap -- we're highly trained professionals, not gutter-snipe kids." "Of course, I know that. The man I talked to, the, um, fixer, he said you were his best team -- I can give you $5000 now, and $20,000 each once the exchange is made." "Sure. It's a deal, Mr. Johnson." I reached out and shook his hand, then handed him a credstick. He fumbled with a exchanger for a moment, I watched 5000Y appear on the monitor, and he handed it back. "Nice doing business with you", I said, and we filed out. "There was a name tag on the inside of his briefcase. It said, 'Terwilliger, Priority Clearance to Alpha Wing'. Think that matters to us?" whispered Koori, as we collected our coats and left.
"Confirms my suspicion that it's an inside job. We'll talk about it when we get home, ok?" I replied. As soon as the base door was closed behind us, and the white-noise generators turned on, everyone started talking all at once.
"This is a total set up!"
"Are you *sure* you know what we're getting in to, Tom?"
"I don't think it's a set up, or, at least, not for us. I think this guy's an insider"
"Why do you think that?"
"Because Koori saw his badge in the briefcase"
"Oh." We sent Zance to check the net for info. 
TekLon Industries
A fully-owned subsidiary of Novatech, no real information on their work.

Novatech (MegaCorp)
Formed in the Corp Wars out of the ashes of Fugi.  
Conspiracy Connection: May include remnants of SilverTech
Novatech was scheduled to present at a Magic and Technology conference, but they
didn't appear.  

Nigel Terwilliger 
Net presence: Dork, Troll.
We are so not surprised. Tom assembled everyone in the conference room. "Okay. I've talked to everyone, and I think we have about as much useful information as we're going to get, so here's Da Plan: Zance: you make sure the cameras are really off. Koori, you're going to be in the van, and your drones will come with us and scout. A'leia is in charge of dropping them in useful places. Varen, you're on guns, and will usually be one (but only one) room ahead of the rest of us. Ritsin, Zance and I will all be gathering as much info as we can about this place, while we're here, but nobody is to touch or take *anything* -- this is a no-loot mission: we go in, we take the briefcase, and we get out. Koori, I want drones watching the tunnel, elevator, stairs, and the big door, all equipped with blackout grenades. If we have the security cameras, investigate the 10s, but if the drones report people coming in, go where they aren't. If it looks too easy, stay on your toes -- it almost certainly won't be" We went into the tunnel behind a Chinese restaurant -- even Koori, since any safe parking place would've been too far away, Tom zorped the wall, we all walked through and Zance decked into the corp. network. Zance's avatar chewed through the security camera recording device, and noted that the maglocks have power devices that he can turn off. He turned off lever A, and the door went "thunk" as the magnetic seals release. "Door clear"
"Nice work." Varen pulls his guns and we go through the door. Zance reports that a stupid cron job is locking all the doors and turning on the cameras. Koori stays in the server closet. 
Room 2: A post-op recovery room
5 beds, all with clean sheets and empty
nurses station on the back wall under the camera
the normal lights are out, security lighting on.
The door is double-swinging, no lock (medical doors)

Room 3:  Ritsin investigates: shelves with brand-new electronics components
stuff with moderate resell value

Room 4:  An operating theatre
white walls, doors, etc
5 skeletons of orange rosin, one for each metahuman race on the far wall
the 4 corner cameras have a big cable running to a monitor, which is off.

Room 5:  a presurgery chamber, sinks, surgery gear, gloves, etc
Medical equipment on wheels in dust covers
The elevator door is open: security cameras are still--they should be moving.
Tom put one of the wheeled things in the door of the elevator
Ritsin left the wheeled bed in room 5

Room 6: Dressing room 
clothes hangers on one wall, surgery scrubs on the other
no visible cameras, normal internal doors

Room 7: A stairwell going up
Glass double doors maglocked into place, the security camera swiveling
Zance thunks the door.

Room 8: 	mostly hallway, potted plants, sort of atrium-like
The big door is a floor-to-ceiling loading dock door.
The doors to 9a and 9c are glass and have no handles
We drop the drones and head into 9a


Room 9a --when Zance flips the lock, the door opens.
As Tom breaks the beam, the door starts to close. Varen tries to step through but stops and says "Hey, boss? I think I'm dirty. I want to take a bath before I go through here, okay?" I tried stepping through the door, since Varen couldn't -- I feel like my hands are covered in grime, my body is crawling with dirt and germs -- and this door is warded! I tried going through, anyway, but the wall and door began closing down on me, crushing me, so I stepped back. (The door had not moved.) I thought for a moment, told Tom, "I'll be right back" and ran back to the "dressing room", room 6. I grabbed a set of scrubs, put them on and headed back to 9a. Meanwhile, Varen charged the (open) door. He bounced off the door, falling backwards, and proceeded to run around the room like one of the GodSpoken of Orson Scott Card's world, Path -- convinced that he was dirty beyond imagining. While Tom tried to calm Varen with some wet-wipes, I walked up in my scrubs, walked through the still-open door, put a bunny suit over my scrubs and walked right into 9b. This is a clean room, obviously, with magical enforcement of the clean room procedures. 
Ten workstations, in a clean room, very little light.
1) lights off
2) one of the benches has the Novatech suitcase.
I removed by bunnysuit, grabbed the suitcase, and walked out.
"Tom, I've got it. Let's go, before someone notices."
We start running, locking C behind us, and the invisibility grenades on both drones go off. "That's a bad sign", I said. "What was that about 'before'?", Varen asked.
"Stop talking and run!" reprimanded Tom, as he breathlessly jogged back through the labyrinth of building between us and our exit. "Zance, Koori, jelly the wall. We're coming back, and in a hurry." "Got it, boss. Jell-o wall, coming right up" A chrome cyber arm breaks through the wall, as the blackout grenades on both drones go off. Varen waits until those have blown to throw his fragmentation grenades, taking out our drones in a hail of metal shrapnel. Meanwhile, Ritsin was loading the skeletons onto a wheeled gurney, but Varen swept them off and put the drone on it. Tom took it off, grabbed the other drone and put them in backpacks. Everyone got to A, and Ritsin tried to take the human skeleton through the door. I went through the wall, followed by Koori, Varen, Tom, and finally Ritsin. We bickered all the way out. Varen turned to Tom and asked, "Boss, do you want me to save him?"
"huh?"
"When the thing comes to try to eat him, do you want me to save him?"
"Yes. Not the skeleton, though" Banshee hovercraft low-altitude assault vehicles are hovering over the complex, LoneStar and DocWagon sirens are going off. "So much for subtle" "Yeah, no kidding." "Let's get out of here." As we run through the sewers, Ritsin is lagging, trying to maneuver the skeleton through the tunnel. "Ritsin, leave it. Let's GO" "But" "No buts. Leave it, mark the location, and we'll come back. We can't afford to be caught here" Ritsin left the skeleton and followed, sulking all the way out. As we're driving, LoneStar cars go whizzing by so our car auto-pulls over to let them pass. We drive around the city for awhile, waiting for our Johnson to call.
20 minutes
40 minutes
60 minutes
80 minutes
90 minutes
100 minutes.
"Should we call him, Boss?", Varen asked. "Yeah. A'leia, call him" Tom answered. We got his voice mail. The box is full, so we could not leave a message. About 2 hours later, he calls, sounding nervous as ever. "This is Mr. Johnson. I've arranged ...You're to meet Miss Elizabeth Chaves. Elven woman, photograph being transmitted now, at 100th and Main, Billrica in 2 hours. It's the warehouse district. After you make the switch, contact me and I'll arrange the place for us to meet and I'll pay you." We decided that Ritsin and I would meet her, him holding this case, everyone else holding the guns in secure positions. "Why me?" -Ritsin
"The Marine way, son. Do what you're told, don't ask questions" -Varen
"Screw that!" -Ritsin We drive to the meet location, an hour and a half early. This is, as he said, a warehouse district, intersection of two two-lane streets with not-very recessed doors. All the buildings are entirely dark, no visible people. There are fire escapes half a block down that will let you get on the roof. Varen went up to the warehouse roof and checked it out. He reported back "all clear". Tom handed Ritsin a chemsniffer widget to check out the other suitcase. Ritsin and I stand on the corner with the suitcase. The van parks. We wait. The appointed time comes and goes. 5 minutes late, a headlight appears down the street, speeding towards me, weaving back and forth. It's a toyota with one missing headlight and half a missing windshield. The car is in Really Bad Shape. The driver is driving one-handed. As we stare, unable to do anything, it careens into the intersection and slams into one of the support poles of the intersections. The explosive air-foam cushions the impact and begins dissipating while Tom runs over to deal with first aid. "What do you bet that's our Elizabeth Chavez?" A low-frequency repeating sound starts coming. A helicopter appears.
"A lot"
"This is not a good sign"
"Helicopters are never a good sign" I grab the other case, and her palm pilot. Four ropes came out of the helicopter. We run, with Elizabeth, for the van. A second helicopter appears. 4 ropes come out of the 2nd helicopter and 8 people (4 each) dropped to the ground on rings. I kept running towards the van, case and palm pilot in hand. Tom shoots his tangler at the guys on the ground, as the helicopter pilots gun it and move out of range. One squad is behind the trunk of Chavez' car, the other is in the middle of the intersection. There is a car approaching from the south. (Ritsin notes that it has three arms) The four near the car split around, break the windows of the car and stick their heads inside. Two of them notice Tom and shoot. The other four turn back to back and scan the street, and pour bullets into Ritsin and I. Using my forward momentum to throw myself onto the ground and roll under a bench, I dodged most (but not all) of the 7 shots, and Ritsin just throws his coat out behind him in a flare, confusing the shooters and causing them to miss every shot of their assault rifles. They look disturbed. Varen fires a burst into one of the four middle guys. He doesn't even scream as he clutches his gun to his chest and falls to the ground. He fires at another, who briefly glances skyward and falls to the ground. Koori spins the van around quickly, drives into the combat and towards the guys by the sedan. Both jump out of the way, onto the top of the car, tracking the van with their guns. "Fuck!" -Ritsin
"Boss, they're shooting at us!" -A'leia
"No Shit! A'leia, take it and go!" -Tom
The car keeps coming towards us. It arrives. Varen shoots another of the guys in the head and jumps back up. A guy in the van shouts, "Her! She's the one we want!", indicating me. That was my cue to get out of there, but as I ran, the three-armed thing from the car backflips into the light, brandishes its fully cybered body, brandishes its three assault rifles (one in each hand) and the Taint level goes up by 1. It brandished its metal body in an intimidating manner and fired all three guns at me, knocking me out in a wave of gunfire. As it ran over to me, Tom scored a good solid hit with a tangler on the creature, and Koori spun the van around again to go for the creature as one of the RenRaku guys emptied his gun into her tires. Somehow, Koori causes the van to dodge and hits the creature. It went flying across the street, but the van ran me over in the process, aggravating my already unhappy bullet wounds. Ritsin ran over to me and pulled me out from under the van. Meanwhile, someone (that Tom and Zance recognize) is shouting in Arabic from inside the open van. In English, the van guy who shouted before shouts "The roof! Get the guy on the roof!" Koori is hit by something that abrades outer layers of skin all over her body, which looks painful. The Thing looks up at Varen, stops and tears through the tangler goo, and shoots at Varen, who just sits there and takes it. Varen aimed and shot at it, but the bullets clinked off it and "despite its immobile face, you'd swear it just grinned" Tom tangles the "big f* statues guns to his head" while Zance sends the Thing the ringing migrane of a loud (illusionary) noise. Ritsin, meanwhile, ripped open my armor and put on a (sadly, not mage-safe) trauma patch, thus saving my life. One of the RenRaku guys came over and tried to clinch Ritsin. The second came over and grabbed Ritsin's case. The third one ran over picked up the case I'd been carrying. #4 pulled out his widget and pushed a button, and #5 held a defensive pose over the whole group, as if he expected divine vengeance from the skies for his treatment of us. He was, of course, only wrong about the "divine". Varen shoots RenRaku guys #4,3,2,5 and 1, then falls backward for cover. The Thing tries to aim its guns at Varen and got distracted by Zance's fire bells. It spent the round looking at its elbow. Koori jacks herself out of the car, pulls her laser carbine, and spray the back of the bad-guy van with laser fire. The three RenRaku guys who lived grab the two cases run towards their van and dive into the back. One of the ones with a case didn't make it. Tom grabbed a gun from the dead body, tried to shoot it, and noticed that it was empty. Then, he grabbed me and put me in the van. Ritsin pulled his incendiary grenade, pulled the pin and threw it into the bad guy van before jumping into our van. They mages try to get rid of it and botch. The cyberzombie looks confused and squats down. The incendiary grenade blows up, with all but one RenRaku guy inside. The van explodes, as a few tattered pieces of parchment fly out, followed by a flaming wheel. The party put out the fire, while Varen shot first the burning mage and then the Thing, killing the mage, but causing the Thing to sit down hard and try, over and over, to shoot him with an empty hand. Tom walked over, picked up his dropped gun, aimed it at his head, said "I'm sorry." and blew him away. The party grabbed the cases, Ritsin grabbed the palm pilot, and we booked. "Boss? I think we should hold out for more..." -Varen Tom makes a phone call. Mr. Terwilliger's voicemail box is still full. Ritsin plugs into the Palm Pilot, and Koori puts on some music now that she's nicely wrapped in gauze. Although it is broken, the calendar is still up. It has only a couple days of appointments on it: 
3 pm Accosted N
5 pm Switched N's cases
12:30 am N called about meet
2 am swap cases
3 am payout at 3844 Belmont Ave.  Code number {   }
The party dropped the RenRaku case in a locker at South Station, wrapped in foil, and went to Elizabeth Chavez's meeting. It's a jet black building, 14 stories tall. Tom, Ritsin and (Zance) go into the building, Tom gives the code to the doorman, who says "Go right in. Elevator on the left." The elevator, which has no call button, goes "ding" Upstairs, the elevator opens to a lavishly-decorated penthouse apartment. Within sight of the door, we have: Nigel Terwilliger, our Friendly Mr. Johnson, who looks even more nervous than before.
Richard Villers --Novatech head honcho
Miles Lanier --Villers's bodyguard, who betrayed and took down Fugi, handing power to Mr. Villers.
Mr. Lanier introduces himself, and makes clear to the party that if they should be foolish enough to do anything violent, he will have to kill them. Tom and Ritsin are familiar, at least a little, with Mr. Lanier's reputation, and behave themselves appropriately. Villers leans against the table and asks "So, please explain to us how you came to be here" Tom took the initiative and replied. "We were contacted by Mr. Terwilliger through a contact of mine. We met with Mr. Terwilliger, and he hired us to retrieve a case from a certain building, and then make an exchange of that case with one Miss Chaves would be carrying."
"Nigel, Nigel, did you hire these people? How much were you going to pay them?"
"Well, there were more of them, and..." he trailed off, as he noticed the piercing gaze of Mr. Villers. "20,000 each."
"Generous with my money, aren't you?" Tom explains that we found the code and location of this meeting and decided that the right thing to do for Miss Chavez would be to come here and figure out why RenRaku hovercopters were chasing her. "RenRaku hovercopters. Nigel, can you explain how RenRaku came to be involved in this? Mr. Lanier, my case." Villers removed ten jet-black cred-sticks fromt he case, and handed them to Tom. "I believe this will cover everything that Nigel here promised you in my name. Is there anything else that you have for me?" "There is this" Tom handed him the case, "and if you are interested in the other case, it is in locker #347 at South Street Station." "I believe we would be interested in that, yes. Is there anything else?" Tom tells him about the skeleton, tells him where the other case is, and arranges to meet him in the basement garage in 30 minutes to sell him the other case. He asked again if they had anything else, at which point they remembered that they still had the palm pilot. Tom also handed over the cell phone. "You can return this to our friend", Tom said, indicating Nigel. "Nigel, Nigel Nigel... This isn't a Novatech-issue phone... This is a Sony! And Sony is owned by RenRaku!" Villers took Chavez's palm pilot and, entering an override security code, scrolled through pages of detailed logs in Quebequois French, translating some of them for the company present. "Nigel here was a level 3 operative, reporting to Miles. Miss Chavez was a level 4 employee, reporting directly to me. Unfortunately for Nigel here, and despite the unfortunate demise of Miss Chavez..." There is a quiet "pop", and Nigel slumps over dead. Lanier re-holsters his gun. (Nobody even saw him take it out.) Villers took the credsticks out of Nigel's pocket and said "He won't be needing these anymore. I'd like you to have them, as a good faith deposit on the other case."
A tense moment passed, and he continued. "You can show yourselves out." Tom and Ritson, relieved, did just that. The party zooms over to South Station, where, to their delight, no RenRaku folks are waiting, and returns to the garage. Miles gets out of the car, opens a suitcase with a pile of credsticks inside, and hands it to Tom. Tom hands him the other suitcase, explains that it appears to have a tracking device inside. Miles nods, takes it out, and opens it with the key. Inside are 12 optical disks and a wavefront device (which defeats the foil bag). He steps into the car and says to Villers, "We're going to have trouble. They know where we are." In the other case, inside the car, is a head made out of microelectronics and gems. Lanier's phone rings. "---- How quickly? I see. See you at 9" To Tom, "Our pickup team is going to be delayed. RenRaku's pickup team, on the other hand, is making excellent time." Villers, (who could buy and sell our entire team with the money he uses to buy his coffee) says "I'm going to need to ask you for a favor."
"Yes" says Tom.
Laniers explains that there appear to be three full teams of Red Samurai on the other side of the door. "When we open it, all you need to do is clear a path for our car, and presumably yours. They expect that our team is already inside, so they will be prepared for a firefight, not a quick run.
"I'll have to owe you a favor. Our previous business dealings this evening have left me rather short on cash--I hadn't expected to need to fund an army."
"I think that will be fine. Let me get my team ready."
The party began powering up and preparing: Varen ties himself to the roof of the car and asks Villers' permission to set up a defensive perimeter around both cars, and Zance begins gathering power. When his spell goes off, the cars move 2 meters to the left. Laniers suggests that Varen get down so he does. Then he knocks out the front window of the van. Laniers pushes the "open garage door" button, gives the party a thumbs-up, and gets back in Villler's car.
"Hey!" shouted Koori, "That's my windshield"
"We'll get a new one. Drive!" As the door opens, we notice that there are three vans blocking the road in front of the garage, and there are four Red Samurai and a mage with two fire elementals standing in front of them. Ten other Red Samurai are distributed behind cover. As the garage door is opening, Varen blows away two of the front Samurai. As soon as its open, Koori guns it forward, peeling out, and moves the van through along the sidewalk. The car scrapes, taking down the card-reader, and pulls out onto the driveway, peels up onto two wheels, rolls briefly over the lamppost, as we speed onto the road. The Red Samurai keep shooting while Laniers turns to head the other way. A few of the Samurai's bullets are (accidentally) pinging off the van. Tom shoots backwards at the mage with his stun rifle, knocking him in front of the Assault cannon. He falls to the ground, and the fire elementals go with him. One bursts into flame, while the other freaks out, kills the mage, and starts chomping on the assault cannon. Varen, meanwhile, sets up the defensive barrier of bullets, knocking bullets out of the air with other bullets, and Koori drives defensively, so only one bullet hits us. It, however, takes out the hydraulics, but we make it around the corner. When we get home, there's a message from Laniers saying that they appreciate the help and know how to repay a favor. When A'leia and Koori are checked into the hospital, all their bills are paid. While resting up and recovering, the party gets diverted with the possibilities of buying an island, but decides that it would probably sink, or have a volcano, or something. "We're like Angela Lansbury. If you see us going into a building, leave!" 

The party has two dots of contact for Villers and Laniers.
XP: 7 for a run, this is not the end of an adventure
Cassie 1 2
Ryan     2 0
Tommy 3 8
Ariel 3 2
Andy 3 4
Kat 1 1