020: Help!

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being 'round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won't you please, please help me

*- Help!* by **The Beatles**

## Session Summary

The Runways had about a day of downtime, after which they met back up together and decided to send Micah and Johnny to find out why they hadn’t been paid for Adam Smasher’s head. The rest of them would continue to track down Zeus’s murderer.

Tracking Zeus’ movements through the city, Smoke found his last known location before being jumped and killed: a Watson area bar called Lock and Key.

Smoke called Styx and then the bar, where a female voice on the other end indicated - hesitatingly and begrudgingly - that they might have some shit the Runaways might like to see.

They arrived at the bar at 3:00 pm. It was located underground and behind a large vault door and gave off Prohibition vibes. Smoke gave the password (QWERTY), the door was opened by a doorman that would put Fridge to shame, and stepped into a film noir with a smoky jazz aesthetic.

“Not dressed very appropriate, are we” said someone behind the counter. K2 gave them a look. “I can’t do anything about the clothes, but . . .” and she shook her head, telling her tech hair to transform into a flapper’s bob.

“Neat trick!”

Introducing themselves as Java, the Runaways introduced themselves before Smoke shifted the conversation to Zeus. It took some prodding from Nova, but eventually Java admitted that one of their severs (Trixie) might have some information for them.

Smoke shifted the conversation to Zeus. Java insisted she hadn’t seen the agent, but Nova sensed they might be hiding something due to fear of retaliation. Nova offered the Runaway’s help, and Java said the help wouldn’t be for her, but for one of her girls named Trixie.

Trixie had taken a “liking” to a corpo in a Biotechnica uniform there the same night as Zeus. They left together, and then Trixie came back an hour later all bloody. She insisted the blood wasn’t hers as she washed and finished her shift.

With a face for reference, Smoke accessed Biotechnica’s files and found a name: Leopold Tostov - and sent the name to the Continental, too.

Java was concerned that Trixie hadn’t arrived yet, so the Runaways went to her apartment, where they found a corporate-grade firewall. Detecting one lifeform hard-jacked into a private net port, Smoke tried to attack the firewall, and it reacted almost like it was a living thing.

They entered the apartment via back doors to the sound of bees and signs of a recent struggle. Trixie was unconscious but awake and looked high or drunk or maybe even sedated. Nova made a quick check and determined that she would need either a potent or market-grade detox.

Smoke prepared to take actions on the net and K2 started to provide some calming music, when the security door slammed shut, locked, and the firewall came back up. It was dark except for the light from one of Bit’s lizards.

Trixie looked at Nova and “spoke” - “You don’t understand. This is the happiest we’ve been in a long time.”

K2 tried putting Trixie in a sleeper hold while Smoke went to disable the technology. Trixie’s own hair reached out to reattach the cable and Smoke was forced to physically jack Trixie out of the port.

Smoke got a look at the code and was able to tell the code was called “Gaia” - an artificially integrated code not made by a meat brain. This was machine-made code.

Carrying Trixie out of the apartment, Nova and K2 saw a car blocking Gamera; Smoke recognized the driver as Fridge. “Thank god, it’s been a long day,” she said.

“It’s about to be longer,” he replied as he pulled a gun and opened fire. Decidedly, they were not Fridge. K2 was targeted and hit quite severely the leg any more damage and she would have lost it.

Nova opened fire to help cover K2. Smoke ran the attacker’s photo

and found his code name was Ares and he was excommunicado from the Continental. In the meat, Smokengaged him in gun-fu bum he only got pissed off and he broke sried to disengage, but Smoke held on as long as possible - but Ares made his escape.

Nova rushed him and hacked at an arm; Bit followed it up with a katana and took the entire hand off.

K2 made it to Gamer as Ares tried to disengage and though Smoke held on as long as possible he made his escape.

In parting, Bit tried - unsuccessfully - to get him to change his name to Freezer, since he was no Fridge.

Nova attended to Smoke and K2, and with Nova’s feel-good medicines, they forwent going directly to Doc’s and returned instead to the Lock and Key.