A Kidnapping By Any Other Name

## Background

The team met up at The Shadowed Alcove. Marta had a job for them, she commented that she was sure she'd picked the right people for the job. She greeted Ophis, glad to see the unlikely Runner again. She had gotten a job from a corp family to track down their son, Gregory Gantz. Greg had gone missing 3 days ago, after his bank account was drained completely. Over 200K Nuyen and the lad himself were gone. Marta found the best Runners she could on a short schedule. Expert investigators and infiltrators, all.

## The Meet

Marta gave the Team a good starting ground. The last time Greg's ID had been tagged was an ATM in Puyallup, when the NuYen was drained. He was a student at Seattle University, and had just graduated with honours from his medical program. This gave the Runners two good leads to start with. The Johnson also had a copy of the student ID/keycard for Greg. Lastly, a note was retrieved fro the room, old-school style, with letters cut out of a magazine and glued to a paper. "Don't come looking for him, you won't find him. We got the NuYen already, what the fuck we need him for?"

## Legwork

Blue Lemonade was instrumental in the legwork portion. She hacked into the Host of Seattle University and gathered intel on the subject. She filtered through several days of footage quickly on the trid feed outside Greg's room, eventually finding what she needed. A man going inside, and a few minutes later coming out with a box. A pant leg could be seen hanging out of the box. The man was wearing a plain black leather armor jacket, and a bike helmet. A similar man could be seen later when she hacked the camera of the ATM the money was taken from. The man had an insignia painted on his Yamaha motorcycle. It was a syringe, with two rusty-bladed swords crossing in front of it.

She continued to hack through the Host, and gathered more information. The financial records of the university were obtained, along with the transcript of the target. It showed he was an incredibly good student with all his assignments coming in over 90%.

Finally, it was time to go and look around the room.

## Run

Run part 1: checking out Greg's room; Enigma waltzed into the front entrance of Seattle University. He had his detective identity advertised on his Commlink, and used Greg's student ID to open the front door. The receptionist asked who he was, and if she could help with anything. There was some confusion as Enigma stumbled over his reason for being there a little bit. But he managed to explain that he was here to get some of Greg's stuff and take it to him. The receptionist called up Bob the security guard. The muscular little dwarf walked up, wearing a Steyr TMP on his hip. "Right, come with me then," he said.

Getting into the elevator with Enigma was his first mistake. Not noticing Ophis, crawling along the ceiling invisibly, was his second. Ophis found that the dwarf was cybered up, with wired reflexes and muscle toner, using his assensing. Enigma used a mind control spell to take control of Bob. He took the data from his keycard for later use. Meanwhile Blue hacked the camera and put it on a loop, and Ophis used Rewind to wipe the memory the dwarf may have had of the situation. Enigma counted it off with "3, 2, 1, snake!" Poor Bob was very confused when he snapped out of the mind control a couple minutes later.

In the room Ophis and Enigma found that the place had been ransacked. Cupboards and drawers left open, but not very much had been left behind. Using magic to search the room, Ophis found that behind a poster on the wall, there was an old safe. And on the balcony, a garbage can. A stethoscope was also resting on the table. He also managed to find, under the bed, a slightly crusty old sock.

Enigma summoned a little water demon, asking him to look in the safe. "No good boss, can't see shit in there" he said. Ophis decided to attempt to unlock the safe using classic safe-cracking techniques. The demon held the stethoscope on Ophis' head while he used his invisible tail to rotate the dial. After a few minutes, the safe popped open, revealing a plaque reading, "Honor Student, Gregory Gantz. From Seattle University, in medical studies and biotechnical studies."

Meanwhile, Enigma checked the trashcan. In a pile of ash, he found a mostly-burned strip of pictures from a photo booth. The heads were cut off, but the bodies, wearing black synthleather jackets, had the same insignia as the bike from earlier. The team reconvened. Putting together the clues, they were beginning to think this guy just faked his kidnapping or something.

Run part 2; Search and Retrieve: The team bounced out of the university, Ophis simply crawling down the wall. The team reconvened at Trample's tank. (seriously who has an ares roadmaster with an assault cannon on it???) they decided to use the "biological material" on the sock to get a spirit to hunt Greg down. Enigma trained Ophis in the technique to summon spirits, and together they summoned a massive watery minotaur. "What ya need, boss?" Asked the demon politely. "Find this guy," said Enigma, as Ophis used magic fingers to float the sock up to the spirit.

About 2 hours later, Enigma received a message from the demon, showing where he was. The ping was in the Barrens. But during that time, Blue had been gathering matrix data about the symbol they'd seen. It was the insignia of a small gang from the Barrens called Adrenaline Rust. He managed to find two vids on the Matrix about them. The first, and older video, was of a gang-fight in the street.

\*the camera was shaky, in the hands of someone in a high-rise stories above the brutal fight in the streets. Bullets flew from either side, putting holes in cars. One gang was dressed in red armor jackets, the other in black. All wore helmets or head protection of some manner, so their faces weren't visible. One man from the black-jacketed gang was lying on the ground in the street, and as another black-jacket attempted to drag him to safety, he, too, caught a bullet, and went down. Two black-jackets popped up from behind cars, and started spraying the enemy's position with full-auto fire. Despite the hail of bullets, the two gunmen maintained good accuracy. Their bursts always landing just where people were popping their heads up. Under that cover, a massive black-jacketed troll charged at the enemy's cars from a nearby alleyway. He ran up to one of the cars the gangers were hiding behind, and simply flipped it over on top of them. He then unsheathed a massive claymore from his back, and began laying into the gang. He cut two guys completely in half. One bisected, the other cut cross-wise near the waist. Their armor jackets might as well have been made of paper. This flushed out the remaining group, and the two black-jacketed gunmen took them down with precise gunfire. A short, stocky woman ran over to the two men and laid hands on them, attempting to stem the bleeding. The video cuts.\*

A second video was found, posted much more recently. About a month ago...

\*Another shaky phone cam trid, a couple humans are yelling obscenities at a massive troll in a black leather jacket, with the insignia of the gang on the back. He suddenly punches the guy, real quick, just a jab, but the dude's face explodes, and he falls to the ground, twitching, bits of brain and bone falling to the ground. The troll takes 2 steps back, then runs over to a bike nearby. A harley scorpion with a sidecar, which another man in a similar jacket hops into. Two people, one tall and skinny, the other short and stocky, run towards a Ford Americar, and quickly hop into it. The tires screech as the little souped up car roars out of the drive-in parking lot. In the background can be seen a large billboard sign, reading "The Screen."\*

"Oh ya, this." Said Ophis, showing the little ticket stub they'd found in the apartment, with a matching "The Screen" printed along the sides of the ticket. "Who wants to bet our boy went there with them?"

But then the demon just told the Team where they were, so they didn't need to investigate the cool retro drive-in. With gangers. And booze. And fight pits.

They drove to the warehouse in Redmond, and were stopped at the border because well... They're in an Ares Roadmaster. But the party managed to pass without issue after their SINs passed inspection.

They drove through the dingy, dangerous streets of Redmond. Cracks of gunfire in the distance a regular occurrence. Prostitutes waved from street corners, people lay passed out on the sidewalk strung out. The group made their way to a large, old warehouse. They discovered there was a rear entrance, and that the large garage door in the front was closed. Sitting at a table playing cards were 2 humans and a troll. The same troll from the video. There was also a dwarf woman and a young man talking next to the Ford Americar from the video. And sure enough, there was the Harley Scorpion with the side car, except it had an AK-97 with a drum magazine mounted to it. The sidecar had a rail which the gun rested on an apparatus to move it around the entire radius of the sidecar. There was also the bike that the man from the Seattle University video used parked in the corner.

The warehouse was large, and Ophis was the first one in. The windows had several broken panes each. He slithered up through one, and spied on the situation, giving a vid feed to the team. The young man next to the dwarf was their target, Greg. Shortly, Greg hopped on a little car creeper and rolled under the Ford. Ophis took the opportunity to slither over to the car and sneak up next to the target. He cued Enigma to cause a distraction, and he kicked in the back door dressed as some kind of weird carnie, and he just starts juggling. The gang are all on guard, and raise their weapons, but Enigma's pure charisma causes them to lower their guard. He started juggling, as Ophis whispered into Greg's ear.

"Is this a hostage situation, are you ok?" The disembodied voice caused Greg to freak out a little bit, and he called out. Ophis quickly subdued the young man, coiling him up. "We're here to rescue you, but it doesn't look like you need rescuing."

"of course not, I just... Didn't want to have to deal with the pressure of becoming a doctor, and dealing with my family... There's so many people here in the Barrens that need help. I can do more good here than I ever could in a hospital."

Meanwhile, the cry from Greg put the gang on guard again, so Enigma cast Mob Control, and placed them all under his influence. They began to clap mechanically, as their eyes opened wide in terror. Ophis pushed the car creeper over to the front entrance, and using magic fingers, pushed the button to open it. The team grabbed a bunch of medical supplies, and haled Greg into the van, while Enigma kept up his performance to his captive audience. Ophis then used Rewind on all the members of the gang to think that Greg just went out for a coffee.

The team hauled Greg back to The Shadowed Alcove, and handed Greg over to his parents, who were waiting there after the Team informed Marta of the success of their mission. They managed to get back through the checkpoint and out of the Barrens without incident. The Johnson, who could be recognized as Mr. and Mrs. Gantz. It was a teary reunion, and Greg had to come clean about the whole thing. His parents were so happy to see him that they agreed to help on the spot with his ambition for a charity clinic. His father, Gabriel, even reached out to EVO and got them to pledge support for the charity project.

## Aftermath

Greg opened his charity clinic in the Barrens, now with backing from his rich corper parents. EVO has offered backing for one year as a publicity stunt.

**New clinic opening in the Redmond Barrens today**; Gregory Gantz, medical honor student, and recent graduate of Seattle University, has opened a charity clinic in the Redmond Barrens today. EVO has pledged one year of support for the charity. Public PR rep for EVO, Jocelyn Nartaka, had this to say;

"Well it's just great to see the youth working to better these less fortunate areas of Seattle. Really gives you hope for a better future you know? I can say wholeheartedly that EVO is thrilled to support this endeavor, and we hope to participate in more charitable acts in the future."

*The camera cuts partway through Nartaka's statement to show Greg and the members of Adrenaline Rust dressed in doctor's scrubs and long white lab-coats that shift with the weight of armored clothing. The troll muscle can be seen reading a clip-board whilst wearing comically small pair of spectacles. As Nartaka's statement finishes, the camera cuts again to show Greg and his dwarven street-shaman girlfriend sitting together on an examination table.*

"We just want to give people a safe place to go and get medical care." Says the young dwarven woman. Beneath her tanned face, painted with streaks of blue, text reads 'Helena Barilla, shaman healer,' "I've lived on these streets my whole life, an-"

A quick edit/cut abruptly ends the young woman's sentence. Greg is speaking now, clearly mid-sentence. "It's really rewarding work, and I hope we can get enough donations to keep it up. We're doing important work here. These people have no other option, and I'm so happy to help them out." *The camera cuts back to the anchor* Signing off for Horizon News Network, stay safe out there folks.

*the screen goes dark very briefly, and then an add for a new gene therapy treatment from EVO plays*

## Rewards

* 18,750 Nuyen
* 6 Karma
* 2 CDP
* Half Price on up to 4K worth of medical supplies(IE if you take medical supplies from the above amount, you could have up to 22,750 Nuyen)
* Key Card for level 2(1 above student access) security passes for Seattle University. The Keycard is registered to a dwarf security guard named Robert(Bob) Carter
* For Blue, financial record data of Seattle University, and the transcript of one Gregory Gantz, honour student
* For Ophis, 1 bronze plaque stating "Honor Student, Gregory Gantz. From Seattle University, in medical studies and biotechnical studies."("oh, I forgot I put this in my pocket")
* A suspiciously crusty sock
* A clean, good feeling inside for completing a Run where noone had to get geeked.
* The gratitude (and above Nuyen) of the Gantz family.

## Player After-Action Reports

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