Just Enough Rope

## The Meet

The meet was arranged to be online at a tea shop, with all four runners meeting Miss Johnson and Switch taking the lead dealing with the social interactions required. Within minutes it became clear that the Johnson was not hugely experienced with employing runners as she swiftly transitioned to using her real name.

The job was loosely described for the runners, possibly something that could be completed remotely, but if required in person access would be provided. The Johnsons kept the details close to chest, preferring for the team to see what was happening themselves.

## Legwork

The Runners went ahead with a matrix based investigation of the host, having been given access by Miss Johnson, finding that multiple files had data that had been altered irreparably. Switch dealt with conversing with Miss Johnson, helping divide up work and assisting other runners where required. Whilst searching, Cream found resonance traces on the damaged files and one in a pile that they were not allowed access to; this led the group to suspect either a technomancer or some form of technocritter. Whilst this was happening Judge had began to study the number of clients running on the host at the time, finding around 30.

The groups search then widened with Judge bringing up background information on Miss Johnson(Alice), finding her to be a single mother who was an unlikely candidate to have recently awakened. Both Bureau and Judge then studied the clients finding two of them worthy of a closer look, though further studying found these two clients silently to not be related to the resonance issue. Discussions with Miss Johnson revealed that beyond the damage there had been no signs of intrusion, with this in mind the decision was made for the team to investigate the situation in person and a high fee was negotiated with this in mind.

## Run

Upon arriving at the building the team were escorted around by the head of security, after handing in a range of illegal weapons and items. As they were led throughout the building they found a resonance trail that matched the signature that Cream had found in their initial matrix search. Switch performed some impressive mental mathematics and the runners began tracking the trail, finding that it had hopped from camera to camera leading to a processing plant. Upon reaching the processing plant Cream further searched for the resonance signature on the host and it's related devices, whilst Judge piloted a fly-spy into the building to search for the source. The final obvious resonance signatures in the plant were a drone and a camera, further manual investigation would be required and as such Switch then shot out the camera through the wall.

A further drone search found a small hideaway tucked around the side of the plant, in amongst the discarded items. Within this hideaway was an 8 year old child who it was discovered had been creating devices under the instructions of eGhosts that were communicating with her. Cream was able to identify the child as the 8 year old daughter of Miss Johnson, Lucy. Switch took the lead in chatting with her and convinced her that her mother had sent them to find her, though Lucy did not want to leave as she felt that she need to complete giving the eGhosts bodies. The team then aided her in placing them within a range of devices found within the scrap before calling her mother to collect her, with Switch collecting the eGhost devices.

## Aftermath

Miss Johnson was surprised by the reveal that her daughter was related to the data corruption, however the team concealed that she was a technomancer and instead claimed that she had been manipulated by rogue AI who had taken advantage of a natural skill with computers. Switch then suggested that Lucy move school to another accredited school that could work with her gifts, not revealing that this was a school for technomancers and that any accreditation they had was certainly fake. As happy as she could be with the conclusion of the job, Miss Johnson released their payment from escrow, with an offer of possible future training from her.

## Rewards

* 8k Nuyen
* 2 Karma
* 4 CDP
* A bag full of E-ghosts and Protosapients

Either:

* The Speed Reading quality for free
* The Team Player quality at Chargen price (5 karma)

## Player After-Action Reports

*In Character* accounts of events, general impressions, or memorable moments

**Cream**

"*When was the last time four computer nerds took a job, ended up all being technomancers and then found themselves tracking down another techno? That was some seriously wild luck, that's for sure, worked out great for the kid though as that could have gone worse if we weren't in the same boat. It was an interesting one dealing with this Johnson, she was as new to hiring runners as I am to being in the shadows, not a great one for tech either since it took Judge to teach her how to change from the default image.*

*It was interesting getting to meet the others on the team, an eclectic group for sure, though I'm not going to say that any of us were blessed with social skills. Switch was probably the most socially skilled out of us all, but honestly a reasonably strong Soykaf has more social skills than all of us. Lacking social skills or not, they all seemed like good folk to have around when your back is against the wall. Everyone at least had the social skills to find it funny when we found the newest VibroMaster 8000 'Pleasure Device' connected to the host, though since the Johnson was around we were polite enough to not start firing it up.*

*Fortunately it all came up good, the kid is going to get the help she needs and the Johnson has a resolution to the problem, so I suppose we call that a win. I should definitely call it a win as I didn't screw anything up early in my career in the shadows*."