In the last session, the pc's got a million dollar job from their new big employer. Tony was killed by Joker's missed grenade attack, and this time we had two new characters in play. One of them was actually the first character created, but the player hadn't been able to get in the game in earlier sessions. Ivan 'The rat' is a bit untidy fixer and Emanuele is an assassin with cyber legs who's quite nerd, playing often a assassin -themed computer game and also talking about it to everyone (who are not interested). Player of Agnes wasn't present.
In the beginning of the session, Ivan went to a pub to meet Dimitri, a contact of his in order to get new info about how to get in the middle of the slums/warzone where even police spinners get hit and shot down by missiles. Emanuele was accompanying him. After drinking some vodka, enemies of Ivan hit the bar and see him. They are on their way to give him some rough moments when Ivan and Emanuele raise the stakes and draw their weapons.
The fight started; Emanuele ran through the bar and slashed at the two extras, who went down immediately and in slices and ended his turn next to bar desk. The tougher goon drew his heavy pistol and caused Emanuele 2 wounds and soon thereafter Ivan 3 wounds, Ivan passed out due to a fumble on spirits check while the Italian assassin fled the bar trying to come over the pain from the wounds (took a few rounds to recover from shaken, and fumbled on spirit roll and was burning because of booze and a fallen candle), heard a gunshot from the bar (poor Dimitri had gotten a new forehead ventilation hole) and returned, charging and slicing through the goons with a great hit & damage roll.
Fight in the restaurant: Ivan and his buddy on the bottom behind the table, Emanuele next to bar desk after striking down two mooks, the only remaining hostile docked behind the table on the left. The rest are panicked bystanders - anyone drawing a club must make a str check or be shaken as a civilian crashes him.
A Russian doctor and a week in the hospital helped the heroes back on their feet. They had met with local Russian mafia head Pjotr and Ivan promised him a later favor for escort to the area in the slums. The team equipped themselves, Joker changing to gatling from automatic grenade launcher after accidental killing of Tony. The most notable event while equipping happened to Ivan, who went to 'socialize' a pickup truck. He rolled a fumble and while trying to break in to the car he glanced up and saw a group of 6 Mexicans staring at him stunned. A chase (by foot) started, and Ivan rolled badly and fumbled again, and the mexicans caught him.
After some time, Ivan returned to their headquarters, eyes bloated shut and cigarette-burns in his forehead, in form of wort PUTA. Not his day. He didn't have any actual damage though and was able to join the team next day, although he kept the vizored hi-tech helmet provided by the company deep in his head. Joker has bought a cheap pickup for the mission and a minigun that is attached to it's back.
Before leaving for the mission, everyone in the team got a video-message from late Tony, dating to the time they visited the cemetery of a small town in Mexico. It was a video with some interference from a bar in Mexico, where the team was supposed to meet their contact but found the contact murdered. In the video, someone looks at the body the pc's found in that bar and places a data chrystal in the pocket so that it can be seen by someone looking at the passed-off looking man close. This data chrystal had the infamous mercenary's new mission information and lead the pc's to the Kenta research building and allowed them to defeat the mercenary, but not save the building.
The slums ('Warzone') and The Golden Man
A group of 'friendly' slum-natives escorted the team through the warzone after trying to buy Joker or trade her for two girls of their own. There are car wrecks, trash and even a body everywhere so cars and escorting mc's need to navigate all the time. The group also sees a bazooka-man on the roof but because of the escort are safe from attacks. The escorts give Ivan a flare pistol to call them back when needed - electronic communications are unreliable here. They leave the team next to a building surrounded an Afro-american thugs protecting home of 'The Golden Man' who's supposed to know about things around here.
Golden man's thugs
Only one person is allowed in and Ivan enters to negotiate after a body-check. He sees an apartment filled with expensive but tasteless things - to very much of his liking. He meets the man with lots of golden jewelry, who's willing to give information if Ivan agrees to negotiate about area control in the slums between his people and Pjotr's people. While Ivan actually isn't authorized to do such things, he knows these areas aren't of Pjotr's interest and he is in turn interested on some other areas.
Negotiations (using social conflict rules) go quite evenly and Ivan hopes he's come to a satisfying result - at least The Golden Man is satisfied and tells that a local building called 'Red 5', one in the line of red tower buildings, has some kind of generators on it's top floors as well as traffics large amounts of data. These were just recently noticed and probably haven't been there for long.
The Red Towers
After trying to come up with the best way to go to the towers without being shot or exploded, the team decides to use the shortest route and don't meet any trouble. They park the car under corner of Red 4, and Emanuele gets inside the first tower. He's about to shoot a kid hiding in the lounge (speaks only unknown, probably some African language), but starts then to run up the high building with his cyber legs. He gets there easily and starts spying Red 5. He sees only closed area on the top level of the building; There are also random inhabitants here and there, and some vegetation grown on the top of the buildings.
Corrado botches with notice and falls asleep in the car. Ivan sees this and decides to make a lesson, drawing to his face with Joker's lipstick. Corrado wakes up, looks at the mirror and notices the lipstick on the street with black greasy fingermarks - just like Ivan's fingers. Some movement is noticed next to one of the adjacent buildings, and Corrado puts his pistol to Ivan's person and tells they are going to check it out. While going then arguing all the time, they are being shot. Emanuele is able to direct fire and the hostile is soon eliminated with Ivan's grenade launcher.
Red 5
Time to get in the tower. Ivan and Joker stay out with the car when Emanuele and Corrado climb up the tower - Corrado needs to make some fatigue checks. Outside party attracts some unwanted attention and they get a tire hit. Joker drives to underground parking area below Red 5, running over amounts of trash and avoiding larger junk. They start fixing the tire, when they see they are surrounded by some freaky beings - men tattooed and masked as skeletons, with piercings, red eyes and other strange features (they have a great intimidate). They start driving around, Ivan on the back trying to use Minigun but creatures just keep jumping into melee and some attack Joker too. In the end, the couple emerges victorious and are able to fix the tire.
Up in the tower, Emanuele starts cracking into inner part's door electronics of the top level. He first fumbles (sending all the alerts and starting sprinkler system in the parking area, spreading smelly water for 30 seconds) but then gets in. They see transmitter, cracking into it and hacking transmissions open - it's sending news clips. Generators are working but are somewhat obsolete design. Power lines and wires lead to a large pipe diving deep into the tower - and as they soon realize, to cellar level.
Beyond parking halls of Red 5
Small Cement-walled corridor has a few metal doors on each side. Wires and pipes similar to the ones on the penthouse level lead to one of the rooms. The team puts their HUD -helmets (those that didn't yet have) on and prepared to storm in. Emanuele pushed the door carefully in (as it wasn't locked) and the team saw a perfect example of a high class hacker's room and a large rotating armchair before the desks. The room was almost too perfect - like it was straight from a movie with a hacker main character.
And then, everything got strange. The team moved in while a woman in black leather suit jumped off the chair with a smg in each of her hands. A firefight ensued, the computer consoles took a hit and started burning fiercely and finally the woman went down. Especially strange this was because everyone in the team were quite sure they were standing still at the door and not shooting. They raised their electronic vizors and everything was as it was right at the moment they opened the door, except the chair was now turned towards them and the woman in black was staring at them.
"I can show you some very important things, if you want to get an ally from me. But you need to make the decision very soon. Your employers are watching the transmission from your helmets but have just seen what you saw a minute ago. Now the transmission has gone blank and they believe EMP just hit your systems, but two minutes is the maximum shutdown time they can believe. So, after a minute the transmission returns. So, what shall it be, are you in?" Ivan: "Have you got a million for us?" Woman: "Well, as far the company is concerned, you just shot me." Ivan: "Hm, good point." Woman: (looks concentrated for a second) "I just blocked a transmission, but I believe we've been watched. Your back-up is here; This is something you need to see yourselves. I'll be going now, and so should you as this room is about to blow up - the door will hold the explosion though. Now prepare."
Enter the back-up
The team exits the room weapons ready and start to move towards the exit. Joker moves opens a door and moves to the room on the right and is shot with a smg from the direction of the exit, but is able to avoid the fire.
Below is a photo of the area, to help visualizing the situation. Stairs up aren't pictured but are on the top right, and it's the only way out. Data console room is on top left (not actually presented with models either).
The situation continues: Corrado moves forward to the corner where the fire came from, but sees no-one. Emanuele moves close to him. Ivan opens door on the left, but sees an empty room with miscellaneous stuff - some consoles, some boxes etc. Suddenly, a pale-skinned man appears from the darkness and slashes with his mono-katana, and Ivan goes down and is bleeding out. He retreats, closes the door and jams it.
Emanuele moves to put some bandages on Ivan and succeeds. Corrado tries to move towards the stairs but at the last moment notices a bomb that would be triggered if he moved even an inch forward. He steps back. The pale guy steps straight through the wall, swinging his sword at Emanuele who's not feeling quite well either after this. He retreats back (after soaking Corrado's shot) and disappears.
Corrado is on hold again, and the pale man jumps from the wall, moving towards Joker past shaken Emanuele. Corrado goes off hold, shoots and gets some aces for damage, dealing 53 damage to the creature. The corridor becomes dotted with little red spots and silence makes the echoes of the guns even louder.
From left to right: Ivan, Emanuele, Joker, Corrado
The team manages to dismantle the bomb and drag Ivan off the scene. The rest of the session is fast-forwarded as it's late - there were no difficulties on the way home, characters told the company that their competitor had sent some half-man after them. After some questioning the job is accepted, and in a few days the team gets their money. Ivan plans to get a face-lift (at least to remove PUTA) and a thought of a Bahama vacation is mentioned.