Episode 25: The Erasure Job, Part 3 - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

20-21 Moskva

The Team slept in, after returning to the hotel around sunrise. They plan to wait until the following night to do the hit, so as to not implicate Star. She needs to be visibly elsewhere when the raid happens. And they’ll have Allspice, since Star does not make with violence.

They may be in a top resort, but they’re making their own entertainment: doing otherwise would require them to interact with people. They have a very specific set of skills that makes them strange to be around. Vir tries to tape water glasses together to make Squeaky a hamster ball. And get a pedicure if someone goes with them – she thinks that’s the sort of thing you should want. Paragon agrees to go, though it is pretty creepy having strangers touch your feet. Star can’t be part of this conversation – it’s too upsetting. She might be selfish and a little crazy, but she’s a professional – she’s prepping for her gig.

Carbide builds a remote control hamster ball. He needs to order some parts from the concierge – but via their online portal, not via calling down and talking to a human. They do tip the delivery person quite well. It’s a pretty good hamster ball, with auto-recall remote and disco lights.

Day 3 rolls along. Allspice made her flight out, and joins them at the resort. They get their acid rain-proof ponchos, and Dino has his own under-poncho. They had to order that from the front desk too: Para sewed it down to size. Star told her to just demand a custom one, but she did a really good job, thanks to her Sekushino Meido gigs. Star has her fix her costuming seams.

They discuss staging a power outage, until Star points out they’re literally stealing a generator from them.

Paragon in her fat suit hovers near the wall of the server room to see if she can access from outside: no luck. Carbide is scanning for security, and gets in easily. He discovers there is a security alert for elevator activation. He owns the cameras and the elevator.

They find the reactor. Carbide determines the reactor is going to need software unlocks. Paragon wants Vir with her in case of brain sucking, and Allspice to be mobile to deal with security. Carbide triggers an alert, despite successfully overriding security.

Paragon walks in on the corp netrunner, Octavia. Vir injects her but she beat it! Paragon sends a group text on her internal agent to Spicy. Star sees the texts and swears. Octavia is jacked into the network. Paragon blasts interference, knocking her out of the network. Octavia slashes with her knife and misses! Spicy rolls in and grapples her, and drags her down the hall, using her as a human shield as a guard turns the corner to confront them.

Octavia shoots! Spicy bats her hand away and It misses. She slams the sword out of her arm. Octavia tells the guard to not do anything, but call Nolan.

“Who’s Nolan? Is he hot?” Allspice wonders.

Spicy rolls past the guard, kissing him on the cheek. Octavia shoots again, and rips up the ceiling tiles. Nolan, the chief of security - who is hot - comes out to negotiate. Spicy acts like she’s here alone, and dances Octavia around, focusing attention on herself.

Vir sends a group text to warn Carbide she’s sending Squeaky out in the hamster ball to do recon. “YOU BROUGHT THE HAMSTER?!” “Of course! We’re leaving right after!” “Good point.” Star: “THAT IS NOT A GOOD POINT!” Vir rolls Squeaky out under remote control, towards Carbide.

Octavia hurls from being spun around. Spicy points her towards the guard, away from Nolan. Nolan totally psyches Spicy and figures out she’s a distraction. He calls out to the guard to circle over to the testing lab. Vir intercepts him and knocks him out cold, then drags him back into the server room and re-locks the door.

Nolan tries to get her to spill on the mission. He retreats into the control room, but Carbide cuts the power.

Spicy knocks Octavia out and puts her carefully in a chair in an empty office, waving at the camera. She skates into the control room: “I do actually want your phone number.”

“Are you into weird entertainment? I was in this show recently with pinball…” “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.”

“My most common trade name is Allspice, you can look me up easily.”

Vir Speedheals Paragon, who’s taking damage in the network.

Paragon deletes the network files they were sent for and replaces them with all the covers of “All The Stars are Sunshine.” She takes a copy.

Spicy picks up Squeaky and returns to the control room. “Your partner is a hamster. You’re the hands, he’s the brains. Sure.”

“Did your partner get what you came for?” “Just another couple minutes, I think.” Spicy tells him they’re going to get away clean: SHE DOESN’T LEAVE DNA! (though she already gave him her name). The hamster squeaks again. She asks Nolan to call the tester to end the testing sequence and then sit quietly. She opens the door and gently rolls the hamster ball back down towards the testing room.

Paragon locks all the doors and shuts down internal security. The testing sequence can only be shut down from the lab.

Carbide asks Vir to join him to go after the tester. Paragon goes back to the prototype. Spicy zipties Nolan, kisses him on the cheek, and heads over to Testing. Carbide suggests Vir hang back and let Spicy handle the tester – she’s the only one anyone here can identify. Spicy totally intimidates the tech into compliance, and leaves Squeaky to supervise. They easily remove the reactor, case it up, and hand it to Spicy. Vir remote pilots Squeaky back to the team – reinforcing that the hamster is in charge!

Star has a normal concert, a good night, and flies back the next day. The team exfiltrates in the boat with Allspice piloting. It’s a rough ride but a safe one. Spicy returns the boat in an appropriately nautical disguise, the rest of the team returns with the reactor. Spicy requests that someone hug Star for her – Carbide looks around and mentally delegates that job to Vir.

Star returns the next day with an inexplicable tan. “So… that sounded fun! Did we make sure there’s no tracker on that thing?” Yes they did.

Star funds Shift to develop a cartoon series of SPICY AND MISTER SQUEAK, Star gets working on the merch. It’s a combination of He-Man and Rescue Rangers, with a little Borrowers thrown in – but like Team Rocket got to be the hero of their own show.

Nolan actually calls Spicy. That definitely awakened something in him. So he calls a hooker, but gets Spicy under her professional alias, Meg short for Nutmeg. She’s legit glad to see him -though that might not have been Nolan’s best life choice ever.