[rednblack]

I asked him about that after his last absence. I'll forward you his response.

Received.  Thank you.

[bangbangtequila]

Sorry for such a prolonged absence! My mum has had some health problems, being laid up for the past while and storms kept our internet down, making it a struggle to get on. I've been taking care of her and this just completely slipped onto the back burner.

I haven't read to catch up, I figure you may have moved along and that's fair. If not, I'll be catching up this evening. Just wanted to pop on and let you all know why I've been so out of it. Sorry again for what I know  is a very annoying inconvenience, having been on the other side more times than I can count.

[rednblack]

Which file is complete? 1: Clients, 2: Joint Projects: 1d2 1

(Sunrise, Inc.) Clients is the complete file.  (Corporate Partnership) Joint Projects will be available in pieces.

Phew.  Ok, IC up covering the Clients file.  Joint Projects may have to wait until tomorrow.  Hopefully, this will give you guys some stuff to think over.  There are some additional "Silver" clients listed but not represented in the IC post.  The team will most likely surmise that they are infected residents of the Seattle sprawl who receive some level of protection from Sunrise.  If you guys are looking for some easy and quick bounties those are worth looking into, but if you want to go up the food chain, the starts for that are listed in the given info.

Sorry I can't get Joint Projects up immediately, as that will give you guys more to work with, but I've been a little slammed.

[Tecumseh]

A short IC post is up. I have thoughts about the results of the first file but it's late and I'm burnt after a long day of driving. I'll post more tomorrow.

Separately, Achak told SpitFire that the ¥100,000 had been split four ways, not that it was ¥100k each.

Can we get a rough count of how many silver clients there are? Ballpark is fine.

Link to the referenced piece of music is here. It ties into Achak's knowledge skill of Baroque music, which in turn ties into his enhanced adept hearing.

As an aside, I'm getting a kick out of some of these addresses. I used to live a block away from the one on Queen Anne Ave. I just walked by the address two days ago. I know a couple of the others as well. It's fun when the real world and the game world intersect.

[rednblack]

@Tec, I'll get the 100K discrepancy fixed.  Thanks.

@bangbang, I'm very sorry to hear about your mom.  Hope she's on the mend.  To catch up I need a Edge roll of 13 dice to avoid an additional 3S Drain damage, a BOD only roll to resist 4P and a BOD+WIL roll for the magical compounds stuck in your body. 

@All, there are half a dozen or so Silver clients.  Their designations are kinda weird: Last Name, First Name.  Roman Numerals I-III, Letter Code, ie. GH, GB, WN, etc.  Mercer especially would deduce that this refers to the strain of HMHVV and its final effect: Ghoul, vampire, Goblin, etc. 

As for the yak stuff, the team's first run in was at a yak-owned club in Redmond, and Achak surmised that one yakuza group, the Kenran-Kai was attempting to make the Kanaga-gumi look bad.  This was substantiated a bit in Nori Koizumi's article on the assault, which I'm listing in the below spoiler.

[spoiler]Upon returning back to Achak's flat, Mercer dips back into Grotto1 to check on any leads or actions by the moderators.  One of the first pieces to catch is eye is a cross-posted article from Sprawl-ites penned by Ms. Koizumi.

<<Poster: Flechette
<<Thread Title: Yak Attack? 74/12/2
<<Body:
<<NEbody wanna lay claim to this one?  Zumi's usually on point, but she could be stretching here.>>
<<Attachment: Full Text: "A Ronin in the Mix"

<<Publisher: Sprawl-ites
<<Article: A RONIN IN THE MIX
<<Author(s): Nori Koizumi
<<Full Text:
<<At just after 10:30 this morning, Eito Yukimura, reported so-honbucho of the Kanaga-gumi committed seppuku at his home in Auburn.  To this reporter's knowledge, Mr. Yukimura's death is the first account of seppuku by a senior yakuza official since the failed Nishidan coup of 2064.  So what grave oversight or transgression must Yukimura have committed to warrant such a seldom-used punishment?  What sin would force this man's hand to such extremes, given the relative power and profitability of the Kanaga-gumi across our great and glorious plex?  Could it be the result of the small and otherwise unremarkable raid on Century's Peak, a dance club in Touristville that no doubt one or two of my gentle readers have had chance to frequent in the past?

<<Doubtful, neh?  Drek happens in that line of work, and even the successful torching of a club, which did not occur in this case, isn't so uncommon for balmy Redmond as a whole or yakuza holdings in general.  So, if not the club itself, maybe what was in the club was the real transgression.

<<Human trafficking?  Bunraku?  Illegal chip manufacturing?  Well, I'm not sure what world you chummers are living in, but a dedicated Sprawl-ites enthusiast should know such things would only be a boon for Mr. Yukimura, not cause for disembowelment.  So allow me, gentle readers, to spit a little truth your way.  Century's Peak was indeed a layover spot for the poor and SINless, some hoping to find jobs on their own, some who would find their lives short and miserable as yakuza chattel, but all that was cut short not a month before last night's incursion.  And what took their place?  This reporter is convinced that the answer there lies with the infected.

<<Yes, yes, I am talking about vampires.  Trid feed leaked from our good friends down at Knight's Errant show the upper floors of Century's Peak looking more charnel house than den of pleasure.  Of course, the official word is organ-legging, and that is certainly a prurient enough taint on our good plex, but for my nuyen, and with the guts of Mr. Yukimura tipping the scales, I'm betting pointy teeth and a strong aversion to sunlight.

<<Not convinced yet?  Well, if you look closely at the 00:2:23 mark, you'll plainly see a nail embedded in the back of the head of one of the unfortunate deceased.  Know what that is, gentle readers?  That be a pithing needle, a very effective way of immobilizing prey so that a skilled vampire may take his or her time with draining the poor victim's life force.  And if that doesn't convince you, there is a young woman I know who works the streets down in Touristville.  Let's call her Ann.  And Ann tells me that there was a particular Hungarian man, oafish in appearance and demeanor, who the rest of the ladies of Redmond had put the warning out on.  In her words, "Well, he'd done a party with Lucia.  And then we didn't see Lucia anymore.  Then he picked up Chloe, and we didn't see her.  I had already told the girls about him.  Sum'n waddn't right, wiz?  Well, then C-Thang disappeared, and the word got out fast. . . We kept seeing him round the clubs and all, and he was a little pissed that nobody wanted to talk with him, wiz?  But he kept hanging round and started going in the clubs instead, ya know, Reichtalder, Blue Fire, Club Right. . . Oh yeah, I saw him come outta Century's Peak a lot, usually earier in the evening."

<<I'll leave the rest to you, gentle readers.

<<Poster: Loan Ranger
<<Reply: Yak Attack? 74/12/2
<<Body:
via Imgflip Meme Maker
<<Yeah, right.>>

<<Poster: Mirana
<<Reply: Yak Attack? 74/12/2
<<Body:
<<So, my question: who benefits?  9 times out of 10 you work your way to motive, and you find the rest.  Why would the Kanaga-gumi be working with Zekes?>>

<<Poster: Flak_Jacket
<<Reply: Yak Attack? 74/12/2
<<Body:

<<So, my question: who benefits?  9 times out of 10 you work your way to motive, and you find the rest.  Why would the Kanaga-gumi be working with Zekes?>>

A Zeke's nuyen's digitized, ain't it?  Spends as clean as anybody else's.>> 


The thread pretty much unspools from there, so Mercer checks to see that he has two new messages waiting for him, one from a moderator at Grotto1, and another from Ms. Koizumi.

<<Unread Message
<<Sender: fAlcon8 (Moderator)
<<Subject: Re: Possible Security Breach
<<Message:
<<Mr. Mercer:
<<
<<It's good to hear from you.  Here at Grotto1, we had feared the worst.  Forgive me to say it, but even more alarming is the information that you provided in your message.  To think that we had lost you was a blow, but it's nothing that any one of us here had not signed up for in our line of work.  That Grotto1 has been infiltrated and that the infected are using our site as a platform for hunting hunters has much further reaching consequence than any one of our lives individually. 
<<
<<I would like to compile and send out the information that you have provided for all of our vetted users, as well as place the information as an APB in our bulletins.  In order to do so, I need your permission to use your name.  Without a solid, named source in our alert, we would be doing the subscribers of Grotto1 a disservice, and it would only exacerbate the likelihood of misinformation being spread. 
<<
<<As for your query, I'm assured of the veracity of your information.  The poster who gave Stake his lead on the most job was Tillium/Gray, an information broker who has been active on our site since August 2073.  They have no current bids open, but we are keeping watch on the account.
<<
<<Best Regards,
<<
<<Falcon>>

<<Unread Message
<<Sender: n.koizumi@Write4.neo
<<Subject: Hoi Chummer
<<Message: 
<<Mercer,
<<Welcome back to the land of the living, doll.  Glad to hear you're ok.  Truth be told, I may still have been lighting candles for you, and all that.  Let me not be said that I've lost all of my idealism.
<<Look, I think you may be overlooking some things on the Sunrise front.  You said the vamps have been using antiquities as bait, right?  Well, it just doesn't sit right with me that two hoops just happen to win the deed to an old house that just happens to be loaded down with antiques, and then they just happen to start a security company that just happens to employ shadowrunners who were hired to take out a team of runners that also just happened to come across a rare painting. 
<<And another thing, this Sunrise place is low-rent, right?  Small offices, smaller client lists?  Then why the hell are they involved in logistics to begin with?  Moving freight is not for the small guys.  And then there's the link to Steinem and Tsukino.  Extraterritoriality should be way outside their purview, and unless they're moving a lot of highly questionable material, it shouldn't even factor into the logistics angle.  No, Mercer, I think these guys are rotten.
<<Tell you what, you didn't happen to have anything to do with these recent biz at the Century's Peak, didya?  How about a little quote, no names of course, and I'll see what I can dig up on other Sunrise holdings?  Whaddyasay?
<<xoxo
<<Nori>>

[/spoiler]

Additionally, Mercer and Achak would recognize the name Maria DePalma, who is the acting President of Sunrise's Seattle branch and Laura Pachis, who the team believes was in the Sunrise offices when they laid their assault on the offices in Auburn.  Last, given the client list, the team is relatively sure that the case, and by extension the Sunrise servers in their Seattle branch, only had information pertinent to that branch.  Complete information from all branches would likely be held at Sunrise HQ.

(Corporate Partnership) Joint Projects forthcoming.

[Tecumseh]

Another IC is up.

There could be a small typo and/or continuity error in the Clients file. The game year is 2074 so presumably Nozaki's contract was established in 2074, not 2075. Unless, of course, we're dealing with time-traveling blood mage vampires, in which case Achak is retiring to Antarctica until the sun sets, at which point he will transfer to Trans-Polar Aleut.

[Malevolence]

More IC goodness. I continue Tec's wall of monologue. I'd like to get info on that email address, and try to find an address for the Tacoma facility. And by me, I mean Spitfire. Or Hackerman. Anyone that can throw more than 5 dice at it, really.


I'm wondering if leaking some key info to Nori would be useful. If involvement with Infected got Yakimura to commit suicide, maybe the same could occur for Nozaki. And weaken Sunrise's Yakuza influence. Of course, it could also get Nori killed if she penned an article under her own name.


Anyway, I'm putting on my Ohanzee hat and trying to find a less brute force way to deal with the problem, maybe play factions against themselves. I'm certainly open to input.

[Malevolence]

Actually, just for giggles, I'll take a crack at it in case I get a Hackerman roll. I'll do 4 rolls, you can apply them as you like between the two pieces of info and drop dice from the end for subsequent rolls.


Matrix search [Logic 4 + Computer 1]: 4#5d6t5 1 2 1 0


No glitches.

[Zweiblumen]

I'll do the same 4 that Mal did.  One roll did better, the rest not so much.
Matrix Search (INT 5 + Comp 2 + VR 2 = 9): 4#9d6t5 4 2 2 2

I'll get an IC up soon, though RnB did a good job of describing what SF did.  He's still a bit on the outside here so I don't think he has a lot of input towards what direction they go.  I'll have him coming out of VR and responding to what the others are saying.  So, nothing show stoping if my posts are too slow.

[Tecumseh]

Another IC is up. Achak is supporting the Tacoma plan, although he's guessing it is a dead end.

@Mal, Mercer's Logic is 5, not 4, unless he's had too much to drink. In any case, Matrix Search is linked to Intuition, not Logic, so you have an extra die to roll.

Achak went all Hackerman once, so we'll try it again to see if he's still in the zone: Intuition 6 + Computer 1: 7d6t5 4 hits

Not bad! But no better than Zweiblumen's roll either. Perhaps rednblack will combined some of the rolls into a Teamwork test.

[rednblack]

@Tec, Nozaki's contract date should indeed be 2074.  Fixed.  Although, I do hear Antarctica is pretty nice this time of year, and fairly devoid of vampires.  Turning in Pachis alive to the Draco foundation is an interesting thought, and has the potential for being very profitable.  Someone would probably need to contact the Draco Foundation directly to see exactly what it would be worth to them, but I would think a specimen that rare, especially if you can provide some proof that she's at least 36+ years a vampire, would up their standing bounty on blood mages considerably. 

Glad you're getting a kick out of the addresses.  I spent way too much time on Zillow finding places that I liked the location of.

@Mal, you guys have a address for a Tacoma facility with Westfield Logistics.  Dash Point is in the docks district, and the address specifically is for a warehouse there.  As for the email address, Rejoov™, a proud member of the Ares family is a high-end cyber and bioware clinic in Bellevue.  The email address is ostensibly a working one, but it isn't listed anywhere on the public page displays. 

@All, a teamwork test sounds great for your matrix search rolls.  What exactly are we searching for or about?  Also, how long are you guys willing to keep up with the searching? 

[Tecumseh]

Achak was primarily interested in a Tacoma address but it sounds like that was not too difficult to dig up.

Achak is buzzed on novacoke and won't be sleeping anytime soon. He's willing to keep this up for the next 3-4 hours before he crashes and needs to sleep off his hangover.

Things to search for:
1) additional information on Westfield Logistics, including recent news
2) any additional information on Kreutz's home address (supplemental security, neighborhood associations, blueprints or permits filed with the district, etc.)

If people are fired up, Achak is not opposed to scoping out Westfield Logistics tonight.

SpitFire took "Pastor O'Malley" as a contact. I don't know if this is a misspelling for rednblack's stock "Father Jim Mallory" contact or if it is just a coincidence and it is an entirely different person. Either way, SpitFire could chime in with that regarding the discussion about involving the Church.

[Malevolence]

@Tec, yarp, you are right, Logic is 5, and Matrix search is based off of Int anyway. I'll roll the extra die in case it makes a difference with the teamwork tests (since it makes no diff on its own).
Additional die for Matrix search: 4#1d6t5 0 0 0 0
That's actually funny.


@All
As far as what to search on, since we have (a possible) address for the Tacoma facility, I guess we'd see what we can get on that address as far as tactical considerations. Law enforcement response times, for sure, but also local gangs, visible security (including matrix), best ingress and egress routes, and so on. Long term, we want to find out more about what's going on there, how far along it is, and how to shut it down (and do so if the risk/reward pencils out). Possible pay day stuff (research of value) is a bonus, but realistically, we'll need to hit the facility to get the good stuff and we need any intel we can get that will help that go smoothly.


Also, a deeper search on the email address and its owner. If he's more than a minor player, there's gotta be some information about his field of research, published papers, and so on. At the very least, there should be social media - if we can get a face, that's neat, if we can get a home address, that's better. What does he do at Rejoov - is he one of the surgeons, a researcher, the janitor, the CEO? I suppose bottom line, we want to be able to piece together if he is Infected himself, what he is doing for Sunrise/Ares (what his project's goal is), how far along they are (would it be worth stopping them and how urgent/risky is it to do so), can we use him to get more intel, and can we use his project as leverage - either blackmail or to bring down a bigger player to eliminate them for us. That's a lot to expect from a Matrix search, I'm just outlining the long term goals, so info that points us to a next step along that path is good intel.


Something else that would be of value would be to look into some of the abandoned names for Ms. Pachis and Mr. Kada on the off chance they prove useful. Maybe they abandoned them for some reason other than their agelessness becoming obvious (though with Leonization that becomes a less problematic issue). Maybe they did something that stands out that might open up other avenues of interest, and so on.

[rednblack]

So my dog died last night.  I'm going to try to throw myself into some posts, but he was definitely a part of the family, and so I may not get anything in today.

For Westfield Logistics, let's go with this: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.2665206,-122.3852675,267m/data=!3m1!1e3
That's actually further south in the docks in Tacoma, but I'm imagining that Dash Point has been heavily industrialized as well in the SR universe.  We'll treat this map and the surrounding areas as accurate for planning ingress, egress, etc, as well as its proximity to the water.  We'll treat this as a C rated zone, though Dash Point's distance from the main dock district will add an additional d6 or 5 minute interval -- I haven't decided which -- to response times.  Westfield Logistics doesn't have much of a matrix presence.  Their landing page describes them as a shipping and receiving company for consumer goods.  They have a standard municipal contract with the local KE precinct, but that means beat cops in the area, not on-site security.  Cameras are cheap, so you should expect those to be on premises.  Am I missing anything, or any additional info that you'd like?  I know it's kinda sparse, but it seems as though Westfield doesn't want to make a name for themselves.

Re: email address, are you trying to run the name Seth Ridge?  That name doesn't come back as an employee of Ares in the area, though there are bound to be a number of Seth Ridges in Seattle.  If you want to start scanning those on MeFeed, etc. let me know.  But in cyberware and bioware, there are no papers penned by Seth Ridge, or surgeons by that name in the area.

Looking into the vampire's aliases is a smart play.  Feel free to start plugging those in as you see fit.

We'll say you guys have spent about 1.5 hours digging up what you've got.  It's probably a 20-30 minute drive to Westfield if you want to scope it out tonight, which will give Achak at least an hour until he crashes from the novacoke. 

[Tecumseh]

Sorry about your dog.

I read about CRISPR in a New York Times article today. I won't pretend that Achak has heard of it - I'm already having him making connections and conclusions that are well beyond his Logic - but I will put CRISPR on the list of things for SpitFire to research so that the knowledge can emerge ICly.

The Westfield Logistics location is relatively close to our warehouse/safeshouse. Achak doesn't know how busy this stretch of the waterfront will be at night, but since the team is already up late and will have the cover of darkness if they want to take a quick look. Even just a drive-by with some of SpitFire's drones scouting out the area would be valuable. The same could be done from the astral. If it looks empty or low activity then they can sneak a peek in person. He still suspects that it will be empty/vacated, but maybe they'll get lucky and will stumble across another clean-up team.

Achak knows that the Yakuza have historically controlled Tacoma - they swept in and pick up a lot of land in the aftermath of the Night of Rage - but also that the Vory have been kicking in a foothold along the Tacoma docks. He will suspect that Dash Point will still be under Yakuza control, given the rest of Sunrise's connections, but let's see if he actually knows. This could conceivably be Area Knowledge: Seattle or Seattle/SSC Smuggling Routes since the docks are a primary smuggling point. Neither are perfectly applicable so we'll see if we get lucky with a lot of hits:

Intuition 6 + Relevant knowledge skill 2: 8d6t5 4 hits

Pretty good.