Episode One: The Spiderman Job

Stardate 44475.1, 3rd of Rand 292 (June 23, 2367)

Starscream made NB300 from the video she shot in The Asylum. She pays 30% to DJ Cutoff Frequency as a standard collaborator’s fee and cuts Paragon in for 10%

Night got Dome Ops temp passes for Carbide, Virago, and Paragon. Electronic security will accept them, but they’re likely to raise suspicion at the Spire Security checkpoint. The two decide to avoid the checkpoint by going into Dome Ops and through the “backstage” up the Spire. They’re able to do so successfully, not attracting notice, and steal a large supply cart as part of their cover and to aid in smuggling the comics out. They emerge in Sunrise Meadows, Harb Bai’s gated community, behind the street-facing defenses.

Paragon hacks into the house next to Bai’s, fighting off its basic defenses, and pulls the names of the residents, to use to reinforce their cover if needed. Meanwhile, Carbide goes after the physical defenses of Bai’s house, clearing Net access for Paragon. She jacks in, and discovers really heavy Net security: apparently Bai isn’t the total idiot he was made out to be. She opens upper-level access to house systems, turning on the lights and shutting down the alarms, but opting not to go deeper.

They enter the house and find five Liefeld comics in secure frames on the walls of the party room and media room. Carbide checks the frame of one for physical security and easily counters it, freeing the comic. The identify it as worth a couple thousand NB – great, but far from the big haul of the collection. They decide to search the rest of the house, and after Virago snags a bag of cheese puffs from the bar, they head upstairs, where they find a prize in the master bedroom: a signed first appearance of Cable. Unfortunately, Carbide recognizes the security on this frame: it’s a Steranko, effectively unbeatable without massive prep and a full crew. He’s got one chance: if he can enter the right password, it’ll open. He guesses, but it doesn’t. Unbeknownst to him at the time, it signals a silent alarm.

What the crew does notice is that the house announces that there’s a maid crew three minutes out. They rush downstairs to unlock and secure the rest of the five comics on display, and hastily exit, Virago just clearing the living room as the maids enter.

They return the way they came. Virago’s hit up for conversation in the back corridors by a supervisor, but fakes her way through, and they’re clear.

Meanwhile, Starscream is playing a club in the Spire, and they’ve succeeded in getting Harb Bai there. She plays all three Kingdom Hearts main themes, and the Japanese X-Men theme, entrancing Harb: he’s now a massive stan for life.

During the set, she notices that her old rival, Lady Chaos, has shown up with some of her band. She gets a spotlight on Chaos and announces that she’s “coming out of retirement – back in the day we were all such big fans!” She plays one of Chaos’s songs – better than Chaos ever did – then rolls into Happy Aura hits. Meanwhile, Chaos’s Netrunner got busted trying to hack the club’s soundsystem. Chaos cuts her losses and leaves with the rest of her crew.

After the show, Starscream joins Harb for drinks, flirting heavily, and encouraging him to talk about his collection. He offers to show it off, and she agrees. At his house, he receives a report that the maid crew stole the downstairs comics, and have been terminated by their agency, though the goods weren’t recovered.

He takes her upstairs and opens the safe the other team wasn’t able to get to, revealing a small portion of the collection that his father lets him keep on site. She’s recorded the combination to the safe! She picks the next ones to go out: all Jubilee covers. She asks to actually touch one, and he unlocks the frame on the Liefeld (she got that code too) and hands it to her. She flips through it and hands it back. She lets him make out with her for a few minutes, then has her Agent ring her about an appointment. He sees her out, and she gives him a sisterly peck on the cheek – but agrees to play a private gig at his house.

A couple days later they meet again with Night, who gives them the payout. Carbide’s impressed by Starscream’s effectiveness against Bai. The team makes up shopping lists for gear and cyberware, and Carbide builds a schedule for getting the team’s work done. Night tells them she’s working on a job from some intel she collected on Bai and his family’s corporate operations, but it’ll likely take a couple weeks to assemble: they’ll have time for upgrades.