Episode Sixteen: Raptured - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

25 Minsky

The team -and only the team, not Night and Chance or the Princesses, but including Nymph – rematerialize in a transporter room, facing several turrets and two security goons in heavy armor – and Thieu Nivaa.

Vir thinks they’ve been raptured, but is confused, as the others are sinners. This is the anti-rapture and we’re in hell! And the Midgard serpent named Gehenna is going to chew is to little bits!

“I’m pretty sure we’re not dead, Vir.”

“How do you know?”

“Because my shoes aren’t here!”

“The waiter’s an alien!”

“You’ve met the waiter!”

“I thought Vulcan was just some kind of other cult! Where are the kitties? Where’s Eely and the kitties?”

Paragon does a quick check – whew, Dino’s with her.

Carbide goes for his gun, but it’s not there. “I liked you better when you were a waiter, what the fuck are we doing here?“ He and Star are pissed Netwatch left the Princesses behind while snatching their medic. “Also, Jasmine and Cindy have my shoes!”

Linvaa agrees to beam the Princesses over and get them medical attention. They lead the team to a conference room, where Antoine is seated, looking a bit mussed but generally calm. Carbide sits down at the head of the table and put his feet up – he’s going to be obnoxious about this – Netwatch brings this out in him.

Antoine quickly briefs them, calling Paragon Olivia. He’s glad to see the Princesses got to her – them – in time. Bai Jie made her move, looking to do a clean sweep of Bai opponents. His new admin has been working for her, but his people were in her messages, so he had enough warning to get out, but not enough to get Stephane-Louis clear. He’d hoped that playing loyal and dumb would give Stephane-Louis enough protection, but apparently not.

A woman enters – and for most of the team, it’s the first time they’ve seen anyone who’s never had cosmetic work done. She looks old and melty.

“THAT is botched surgery!” – Star

“It’s a venerated elder of the community! we’re in a lot of trouble! It’s probably Satan!” - Vir

The woman introduces herself as the Director of Netwatch, no names. She wants to know why BSP is manufacturing World War 3 nano-assemblers.

Chaos and confusion ensue. Eventually Antoine and the team realize that Netwatch has assumed that there was a connection between Paragon’s trolling online for information on the nanoassemblers and the highly encrypted file Antoine had her steal from the noodle restaurant on the space station.

The Director admits that Netwatch has fatally interrogated Paragon’s contact, Hotdogwater. The team tries to explain the situation with the nanotech in the baked goods and the connection to the Church of the Outer Gods. Star invokes freedom of religion, which apparently is a thing in the Federation.

“Actually if you want a sample of the inert nanos, I have one in my gear.” Carbide hands the Director a poop baggie.

Vir is not doing well, still looking quite green, as they weren’t able to dose themselves with Rapidetox, and is going on about the serpent and an uprising. Carbide says there’s no uprising, and Paragon adds that they’re inert in the body, and while they probably assemble something, they have no idea what. Nymph is curled up in a ball in a chair at the conference table, trying to be as invisible as possible, and having about as bad a time as Vir.

Vir scurries over to an aide - they need to barf again. The aide gets permission to sober Vir up, and takes them off to the infirmary, where the Princesses are being treated.

The Director asks who ordered the investigation into the nanites. Paragon refuses to name names. Security grabs her to drag her off, and the team erupts. They insist she’s asking the wrong question, that Netwatch should focus on the wheat as a vector, and the upper levels of the Church who’ve been moving the baked goods.

The Director wants to follow the story in chronological order, and pushes back against Paragon’s defiance over naming the contact who set them onto the investigation. The Team erupts in anger, and the Director’s about to have Paragon taken off for interrogation, when Linvaa intervenes: they believe they can de-escalate the situation, if the Director will give them a few minutes. And Netwatch needs to crack the noodle file and start an investigation of the Church: they’ll deal with the Team if the Diretor can get that started. The Director agrees, and she and Linvaa step out for a while.

Antoine wants to save Paragon, but doesn’t see a resolution that doesn’t involve her giving someone up for interrogation. Paragon, shaken over Hotdogwater’s death, refuses to get any more innocents killed. Antoine offers an alliance with the team: he could use more help in taking Bai Jie down, and, since he’s been preparing for this day for years, still has considerable resources that haven’t been seized. Carbide’s not thrilled at working for corporate scum, but thinks it’s a reasonable deal. The team agrees.

Vir returns, sober. They say the team’s got to make a bad choice – rescue Paragon’s fiancé and murder the dudrebros, or let him get murdered while they hold the team. Paragon thinks they’ll only hold her. “I think you all have to go, and I’ll see if I can find a way to kill myself. It’s the only option! I don’t want…”

Star: “We’re your baristas.” The team’s lives are on the line too.

“I’m the only one who has the ‘we’ll kill you if you don’t get it.’”

Carbide calls bullshit on trusting Netwatch.

Linvaa returns with a deal: a 24 hour stay while Netwatch runs its investigation and the team deals with their adversaries. However, the Director is set on getting Paragon’s information.

They get beamed to Antoine’s safehouse, a penthouse apartment in Kodo City. They discover that they were under a comms blackout at Netwatch: lots of messages for everybody.

Night calls: they won the Battle of Haywood Heights. The static defenses gave them time to negotiate with the ConBrands strike team. Firebrand let them send in recon drones, and it looked like things were going to be okay until they scanned the Flan…Turns out their APCs have a rocket battery. We’ll be needing a new bakery. And there’s a bounty on the Flanistas now.

Fortunately Night isn’t as trusting to sweet reason as Uncle Firebrand, and had called the Napalm Freaks in. Agent Orange drone-piloted their armored car into the APC. We’ll be needing a new front wall. The Night Witches picked off the survivors, and Night let them raid the ConBrands kit in return for ensuring the Napalm Freaks kept their riot outside the neighborhood. A ConBrands negotiator showed up, and they’ve cut a deal, that will include random drone patrols. Firebrand says he’s looking forward to sitting down with Carbide and designing some drone spoofers. Also, the synths want to open a bakery, and xxxScarlettxxx is on the run with Sandria Semochai. Which is really kind of romantic.

Nguyen returned Star’s call. She’s sending a TFS Specialized Defense heavy squad under the command of a hotshot lieutenant, one Isolde Foxwell. The tab will come out of Star’s profit-sharing.

K’sasibus calls Star – and apparently he’s paid a substantial premium to his network provider to override her privacy settings. The Gorn Happy Aura Fan Club don’t believe a word of the Star/Lady Chaos video, and are at her service: he’s an expert programmer, they’ve all got offworld connections – and a stash of heavy weapons  They did a preliminary analysis: Star’s publicity firm’s network has been completely owned, and taking it back will be a two-netrunner job, even with the firm’s assistance.

Star asks the team: she’s willing to admit that getting her network back from the hackers might not be their top priority. She is tower of sacrifice, Paragon says. She doesn’t know if she’s being sarcastic or not. Paragon doesn’t have any other netrunner contacts. She doesn’t have a mentor – netrunners ring doorbells and run away. Basically the run away is the big thing. The Gnu aside, we don’t assemble.

After a quick discussion, it’s agreed that Antoine will send a Princess, Honey Lemon, to work with the Gorn. Star offers the publicist’s address, and tells the Gorn help is on the way. Carbide asks if they should bring them along to the showdown. “You want me to put my fans in danger?” Carbide just wanted to ask. Star’s highly reluctant, but they decide to leave it to the Gorn. They’re absolutely down for a firefight! “We have chain guns! Any particular era of cosplay you’d like from us?” Star obliges.

Star calls Tentacle Pope back. He’s spoken with the local Church, and they’re absolutely ready to back Star. While he may be unsure of her, nobody fucks with the Church. There may be issues afterwards, but they’ll back her in the fight against outsiders. Star emphatically warns him that the hostage has to survive. Kiselyov winces, but he’ll stress the point, and get Hepzibah to work Asenath. “Remind her she gets to kill fewer people if I’m angry.” – Star.

Kiselyov says that the Church can’t handle a standup fight against ConBrands. Star tells him she thinks that’s been settled.

Star calls Shift: she wants them onsite to handle the media installation. They’re absolutely down for it. Then she calls to make sure Friction’s safe. She’s holed up in her dorm, and also offers to help, but Star tells her to lay low.

Nymph is in a ball in the corner. Paragon tries to bring her a snack. “You’re kinda weird but I don’t want to see you dead!” Antoine leads her off to a bedroom.

Carbide tells Paragon that it’s weird hearing Antoine call her Olivia. “Olivia is just not a basement gremlin name.”

“I used to be a Spire gremlin”

“There were at least four Olivias in the Factory,” Star adds.

Vir makes a plate of cheese and crackers and goes to tell Nymph the story of the Gehenna serpent eating you and leading you to redemption. “Jump onto the tongue, accept your fate!” Just like in the rope-skipping game. Nymph seems reassured – or at least distracted?

Star overhears: “Where were you during the idea phase for the new canon? that’s amazing!”

Carbide calls Iso to get some drones for recon. And full on rants about fascist Netwatch pricks, just unloading. He’s known Iso since he was 8, so he gets the dump. “They don’t get one detail they want, so we all could have died.”

Paragon considers sending a message to idiots from the Gnu and then decides against it because it seems like cheating – because Netwatch might intercept that. And they haven’t scrubbed their gear for ‘passengers’ yet…. So she thoroughly inspects Dino (and puts a tie on him, out of deference to Antoine), and then self-soothes by poking at the noodle recipe.

Star self-soothes by hitting on Hot Uncle. He’s on his agent mobilizing forces, but can multi-task. After a bit she wanders off to write a song – destroying Lady Chaos as an inferior musician is critical – it’ll play over the footage they record at the temple. They won’t get away with that cheap publicity stunt!

“It was a moderately expensive publicity stunt” – Carbide.

“That it cost a lot of money doesn’t’ make it cheap, that’s in the soul!” She writes something bound to be a breakout hit. As she’s rehearsing it, Carbide comes by and peels spy-film off her to get rid of her “passengers.”

Star photos Antoine’s lady-closet, and sends to Friction for help. Friction designs an absolutely killer outfit from what’s available, and gives her detailed instructions on how to assemble it.

Now to wait….