Week Ten

Friday May 12th, 2043

As of 0400, everyone had returned to their apartments; Alex and Derek both went to sleep, Rook stayed up to watch the sunrise, and Drake put the young girl to bed (after taking some stim to stay awake). BUG, however, didn't make it into her apartment without incident.

While unlocking her building's front door, BUG was attacked from behind and then fired upon. Her attackers seemed like professionals, clad in all-black jumpsuits with a myriad of pockets and no identifying markings. There were at least three of them- one driving a long black car, one firing from the passenger side, and the one in hand to hand combat with her. BUG killed the one near her, and quite probably the one firing at her, before the car screeched away (with two of the men). The third, whose body fell right in front of her building, was engulfed in green flame and reduced to nothing but ash and bone fragments. BUG hurried inside and called Drake to tell her she was heading over.

Drake then contacted all the other team members to warn them that BUG's attack may not have been an isolated incident. Alex's apartment seemed clear, but Derek once again saw the "old gods" evangelizer, this time sitting across the street looking through his case. Derek hit him with a gyroc sleep round, searched him thoroughly, and left him in a dumpster- he wasn't carrying anything suspicious. BUG and Rook met at Drake's.

Everyone spent most of the day just resting and recuperating from the combat of the night before. Early in the morning Drake tried to call Griffon, but he wasn't responding...only a blinking icon appeared. Alex tried him again a little later, and traced the connection through two "hops", into Hobart, but didn't pursue any further. Finally, late in that afternoon, the team got a call from Gipetto.

There was no audio or video on the display, just a static picture of Gipetto. A file was also uploaded to their G3K's, a file of passwords, one for each day of the year, but no information on what these passwords opened.

Rook struck out on his own and went down to the Fusama Storage Facility, where Gipetto was previously seen entering. He then "pinged" the others with his G3K to inform them of his location- they gathered and met outside the Fusama perimeter. Once everyone was together, Rook jumped a truck headed for Fusama and "convinced" the driver to get him inside. He made his way to Storage Unit 15, the one he had previously failed to bypass.

This time, however, he opened the security lock with no problems. The warehouse itself was totally empty, but there was a ramp in the floor which led to a lower level. Rook opened it and went down.

He found himself in a 20' x 20' room, just beneath ground level. Gipetto was here, dead, lying face down in a pool of his own bright red blood. The room also had some kind of clone storage tank, a small vault, two separate computer banks, and a complex array of broadcasting/receiving equipment. The steel walls were covered with deep gouges, claw marks similar to the ones discovered in Chad Ferguson's apartment. The vault (which had both retinal and fingerprint locks) was empty- it contained a rack for approximately 30 disks, but there were no disks to be found. There were no personal effects here at all...no pictures, no clothes, no food.

The larger computer bank was merely an enormous data storage unit, definitely Corp- Arasaka, Ryutech, Ares, Zetatech, Kenru-Hazai, etc. The smaller bank's function was unclear. Rook rigged a program to hack through its 150 digit password, but just when it started to work another hacker (from outside the system) reversed it and started deleting files from the main drive. Rook took careful aim with his gyroc and fired; the blast destroyed the communication lines, but left everything else virtually intact.

Rook then, using the equipment in the warehouse, tried to trace Griffon's location from his still open comm channel. Griffon was broadcasting from Maplewood, the C-1 district, at 74 Tranquility Terrace. Rook planned to "vouch" for them at the border by simulating a call originating within Maplewood.

As the session ended: Rook remained inside the Fusama compound in unit 15's basement, Drake was still at her apartment minding the child rescued from Morgan, and BUG, Alex, and Derek were outside Fusama determining who exactly would be going to Maplewood to check on Griffon.