026b. Preparing for Assault

Patches and Braum both make their final preparations for the assault on Abford Pharma.

## Preparing for Assault

### In-Game Date:

Friday February 2, 2018

Braum returns to The Spark on Rika's back, having seen the final resting place of his old friend Celyan. In heading in to see Kyoko, he passes by Incisor and they come to terms with the redcap wanting to stay behind and defend the freehold while the rest of them are out on the mission. Braum ventures into Kyoko's office and presents her with the compact flash card that he found on Celyan's body: the pooka is taken aback, telling Braum that she and Celyan were quite close many years before, and that he had trained her.

Patches leaves The Spark to head downtown, finding a vantage point from which she can view her apartment building. Having been evicted from The Spark and her apartment (albeit temporarily) has left Patches feeling a bit adrift, until she gets a call from Padraic. After hearing about the attackers at her apartment, he sets off "for a walk", telling her that if she doesn't hear from him in a few hours, to "raise a pint for me".

Braum and Kyoko examine the memory card, which contains five photos from a decade ago: two of them show Braum, Celyan, Kyoko, and Kay, laughing and enjoying themselves. The following three are much darker, showing Kyoko among other animal test subjects at Abford Pharma, a short video of Celyan, mortally wounded, and a series of digits on a computer screen that match Kay's final words. "It must be the code to the rocket!" Kyoko exclaims. Braum makes a note to try to find this old computer, labelled only as "YUNG".

Making her way back to The Spark, Patches spies a red Miata parked out front; Padraic pokes his head out of the window and tells her to get in. He stole the car from some of the goons at Patches' apartment to let her "have a crack at it". Patches is able to pull the car's GPS information and the tracking device inside, which she gives to Kyoko to reverse engineer so that they will be able to track the car. Patches also meets Braum in the Exhaust with Kyoko, using the opportunity to outline their plan of attack on the pharmaceutical company. Essentially, after Sophia and Patches' plan involving James Togot (see Episode 26a), they want Kyoko to intercept outgoing phone calls from the building to allow the motley the opportunity to impersonate a hazardous chemical cleanup team. She also suggests looking into the possibility of an off-site backup for their data… just to be certain that they fully destroy Abford's research.

Patches disdains Braum's offer to mediate her conflict with Zistor and heads down to the workshop. Zistor admits that he may have been too quick to anger earlier, but is floored to learn about the connection between Scythe and the rocket. He tells Patches that he was captured when he tracked Scythe to Abford Pharma, where he had found a single scale. He then asks Patches in earnest: "Can I trust you? I can learn from you, Patches… but you can learn from me too." Patches agrees that their goals align if he intends to destroy the rocket, and he presents her with a small box. The box, he tells her, is for the rocket and will hide its energy signature; Patches also takes the opportunity to craft a small doorjam that she intends to use on Abford's breaker room door. Satisfied that she has all the tools that she will need, Patches gets ready for Saturday's assault on Abford Pharma….