Shadowrun: Classy Costume Parties

 guest post by Michelle

So our team gets some sleep and Tuesday rolls around. Tonight is the HSE party, and the general suspicion is that the head of HSE, Booker Pengrave, is the one sporting the chip. At the very least, he’s likely not a great person, and so the team wants to go in prepared.

The group decides that Cappy, Hocus, and Diablo will all go in person to the shindig, using Junior’s invites. Cappy sets out to have a shopping montage with Hocus, who as usual has nothing to wear to the ball. Cappy offers to do the same for Diablo, but given how hard it is to get off-the-rack clothes for trolls that look good and fit well, Diablo falls back to his trusty suit. He’s not going to look like he’s part of the moneyed elite, but he can pass for a bodyguard without too much effort. He brings his supplies in case anyone wants a bit of pharmaceutical refreshment. Kombucha and Coil are going to stay in the van a little ways away, doing overwatch.

Hocus does a bit of scouting in the astral during the day, and notices that the penthouse on the 20^th floor is locked down tight. There’s the odd bit of warding here and there, given that it’s an apartment complex, but those wards are more like “closing the blinds” against astral passers-by vs. actual security. There’s a lot of activity on the 16^th floor, in the lobby, and in the grounds and pool area of the building. Streets outside the building are blocked off, with clear plans for the party to spill out and expand. There’s the main doors, one on each of the other sides, and a loading dock/service door in the back. There’s also gated parking underneath the building, so there’s a basement entrance as well as the ramp down to the parking levels. Last but not least, there’s a helipad on the roof. The final takeaway is that there’s SO MUCH MONEY being spent on this party. Tons of fresh flowers, all real food, the entire 16^th floor being set up as a lounge/simsense viewing area, the freaking palanquin being set up in the lobby, everything being rearranged to accommodate traffic flow…. No expense spared. Hocus is vaguely horrified by it all, as any toiling grad student should be.

Coil takes a more mundane approach and takes a run at the building’s systems. They discover a nice, tight, secure system that actually gives them some resistance. Given that it’s an apartment building, the security for the building as a whole and its systems and security is a baseline for individual nodes/apartments, but their security varies wildly depending on how savvy/paranoid a given tenant is. He finds the 16^th floor set up, arranges a backdoor for later, and steals an advance copy of the show they’re previewing here for a bit of a cash grab. He’ll have to turn it around pretty quick to make some nuyen off it, but that’s not a huge problem. Kombucha also takes a fly-by – with a look at the security, he sees not only the standard building security coming in, but also some Knight Errants filling out the ranks and handling the traffic rerouting. Again, apparently no expense spared.

Time passes, Kombucha checks the feeds, and there’s word of another murder in the Barrens. This is one of those that has to be pretty bad, because it’s actually hitting the news cycle. The team find themselves going back over Junior’s PDA info and trying to contextualize what they learned. Junior’s shorthand of “Val’s running Cleo, and Griffith’s messed up with the Ripper” takes on some new relevance given the palanquin and everything – there’s supposition that maybe it’s not Booker with the chip after all, and that Ripper might be a reference to Jack the Ripper, though why anyone would want to put a Ripper persona in a chip boggles the mind.

So evening rolls around, and the group takes the Gorpmobile and parks a few blocks away. Cappy, Hocus, and Diablo all get out and head over to the party, with Edith Piaf (Kombucha’s spider bot) riding in Cappy’s beard. Their invites get them in the door without a problem, and the doorman gives them a special invite to the 16^th Floor to check out the latest HSE title. The weather is lovely, for a change, and people are gathering on the steps and the sidewalk at small tables, holding cocktails and chatting. The side courtyard is full of music and flowers and waiters moving around with trays, as well as seated guests looking for a more relaxing experience.

As the three move into the lobby, Coil goes ahead and logs back into the building via the backdoor he set up earlier. Hocus takes a look around and sees four corp mages patrolling the astral, two with elementals hanging out. Given the level of heat present, he decides not to spend a lot of time generally scouting the area on the Astral plane.

The trio walks in and immediately clocks the palanquin, as it’s smack in the middle of the lobby with an awkward looking Booker Pengrave sitting on the edge, effectively holding court. He’s dressed conservatively but well – not a handsome guy, but clearly he’s got some juice. This is his event. Hocus scans him but doesn’t get a lot, the gist of it being that he’s healthy, he’s intently focused, he’s proud of himself and this event, and he’s… happy? Oh heck, he’s in love.

There are four trolls standing at the corners of the palanquin, clearly intended to be the bearers – they’re all wearing some tunics and pants that hint at Egyptian/Classical influences without being full-on costumes. House security has another variant of this uniform as well. The decorations for the party are all sheer white curtains and draperies, water features, stone columns, and flowers, with colors of gold, blue, turquoise, tan, and Nile green – again, perfectly tasteful and exquisite, but somehow just a touch exotic for Seattle as well.

Cappy decides to work the room, and Diablo and Hocus head for the elevator. They’re going to visit the 20^th floor, but the floor is keycarded. A quick call for Coil on coms gets them moving, though, as he takes control of the elevator systems, ensuring also that no one is going to come up and bother them. The doors open, and the pair look out onto a well-appointed hallway, this one not decorated for the party. An ork in a suit stands by the single door at the far end. He says, “Can I help you?” As they mumble an answer, he steps forward and says, more forcefully, “I said, can I help you?” as he starts moving toward his radio. Diablo steps forward and hits him with his shock implant, and the guard’s eyes roll back in his head as he drops to the ground. Hocus is impressed, and says as much as he searches for the keycard the guard had. Diablo picks him up, and the two go in, with Diablo confiscating the guard’s weapons as well. What they find is a lovely penthouse apartment, with objet d’art, some minor magical trinkets, and a lived-in art exhibit feel. They look around and find notes on Pengrave’s computer referring to a launch at 9:30pm. They also find two bedrooms – one done over in modern ancient Egypt with a HUGE bed smack in the middle of the room, and one much plainer and more masculine. They’re in the middle of figuring out what to do with the guard when Cappy gets on coms and says, “Val just walked in. You guys should see this.”

During the trip upstairs, Cappy takes a moment to survey the room, schmooze, and generally figure out the plays happening here. There’s a little eavesdropping, and the gist of what he and Kombucha pick up is that someone’s surprised Junior isn’t here, someone else asks about Flair, a third person talks about how their stock in HSE is really taking off, and another wants desperately to get cast in the next film. Cappy takes a minute to clock the ones who want something and/or the ones likely to be goaded into a public meltdown if the situation arises.

About 15 minutes go by, and then Cappy notices Booker looking around distractedly. A couple of bodyguards exit the other elevator, and behind them walks an absolutely stunning woman. Her hair is up in a gold filigree sort of arrangement with some complicated braids going on; she’s wearing a simple designer number, strapless, white with a high-low hemline and on the sheer side, but with enough layers that it’s glimpses rather than a full show as she walks across the floor, her fantastic legs on display. She’s not classically beautiful, but she’s absolutely eye-catching – she’s got a sort of beaded turquoise, lapis, coral and gold Egyptian-style collar necklace with a big scarab in front and sort of wings encircling her neck. Her eye makeup is stunning, worn with a nude lip and little other color so that all you see is her huge dark eyes. She glides over to Booker, allows him to kiss her hand while she smiles at him, and then settles herself on the palanquin to lounge like she’s done it every day of her life in a gown and heels. She has a gold scarab decoration on her scalp, likely over her datajack.

Cappy alerts everyone while this is happening and the entire lobby falls quiet without meaning to as she walks in. Booker refers to her as Cleo. Kombucha gets a shot of her face and does some quick searching, and discovers that while you wouldn’t think the two had anything possibly in common, she’s a match for Valerie Westerfield, the rigger who was on the run against GTI. Valerie doesn’t wear makeup or dresses, doesn’t wear boots, and can get you anywhere you want to be within the city in short order, but this is way outside her normal skillset. Even without an astral scan, it’s clear to see that Booker is seriously smitten – his craggy face lights up when she comes over.

Diablo and Hocus join back up with Cappy, and share what they found. Cappy makes a quick call to a contact and discovers that there’s no reservations out there in Pengrave’s name, but that he does own his own ship – currently booked at the marina, pier 29, with the name “Explosion.” (ostensibly named after an action/softcore IP into its 7^th entry in the HSE stable of properties).

At 8:45, Booker sits back and the music rises a bit, and the trolls step forward to lift the palanquin and carry it outside. The runners decide to hit the side entrance and see if they can beat Booker and Cleo to pier 29, as they are fairly certain at this point that Cleo is Val, and she has the chip. They see Booker and Cleo get set down next to the black sedan on the street, and he hands her in and they pull away.

Luckily, between the bit of a headstart and Kombucha’s driving, the traffic and construction don’t cause too much of an issue. They don’t manage to beat Cleo and Booker to the docks, but they pull up right as the two are getting out and walking over to the boardwalk. Diablo and Hocus get out and head over to grab Cleo/Val. The pair see them coming – Booker shoves Val forward away from the two to help her get away and turns to stop Diablo and Hocus. She kicks off her shoes and takes off running, but to very little avail, as Hocus sends his air elemental after her and tells it to Envelop her. Diablo catches up with Booker, and with no ceremony picks him up and knocks him off the boardwalk into the water.. He yelps and sputters, but starts swimming and doesn’t drown. Hocus’s elemental brings Cleo/Val back, and Diablo catches her and they take her back to the van and drive off.

While she’s unconscious, Cappy flips open the scarab cover and pulls out the chip. It’s intact, and there doesn’t seem to be any damage. They take her to Renton to the safehouse and ask her questions when she wakes up. Unfortunately for the team, she doesn’t remember anything since she slotted the chip. Cooperman stiffed her and Griffith – refused payment as agreed and said instead that they should take the chips, as they were worth more. She didn’t feel she could argue given that they’d just dropped Freya at Dr. Bob’s and there were all the ganger thugs around as “security.” She took the chip, headed out, and slotted it to see what was on it – and that’s the last thing she remembers. She did hear Cooperman talking through the door, but it was muffled and didn’t make sense. “Now I …. Khan!” Which sounded weird, but she thought she misheard it. She does know about the warehouse Cooperman’s taken over with his gang, and provides the team with the address and layout, since that’s where the run against GTI took off from. Hocus and Cappy bonded over the fact that Val does not seem very streetsmart (she’s a rigger, not a brain surgeon, Jim!) and decided to spend some time tomorrow morning looking up info about the place to plan an attack. In addition, Kombucha and Coil decide to do some recon on the murders of streetwalkers in the Barrens, as they have a bad feeling that’s the best way to find Griffith. Time’s getting short, but at least they’ve got one chip. Join us next time for the War Council fracas!