Session 4: MIRU MIRU on the wall - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

304 Rand 1 Sun

Moopsie gets everyone – and herself – patched up. Once folks are settled, Rina asks her what she was up to that started the firefight. She tells her that she was trying to negotiate with the local Nomad gang for transport to Odaiba Island. They were amused, but not in the fun way. It went badly.

But why, Rina asked?

Well, her partner, Flamingo Grievous, made contact with a real AI, and went out into the Outback to connect with her – Alice. There was an antenna out there, and via that Alice piggybacked a kernel of herself into Flame’s extra capacity.

Moopsie put Flame in touch with Stridev, and Stridev, Flame, and Alice built this thing that looked like dragonfly as a failsafe using a secret lab somewhere (Flame was a found-metals artist). Netwatch did catch them, and Flame triggered the Dragonfly before capture.

By the time Stridev got to Netwatch, Flame was dead and Alice had been transferred to the substrate. Netwatch being Netwatch, they booby-trapped both the substrate and the Dragonfly. They didn’t understand the Dragonfly at all, and their trap interacted with it in some weird way. Stridev easily removed the trap on the substrate. He was able to make it look like a squad of synths stole the substrate, though he was under suspicion for a while.

He turned both over to a contact in the Triad. Later, Alice, who had been almost completely shut down by the Dragonfly, got an SOS out. Stridev re-stole her, but the Dragonfly wasn’t with her. He’s been looking to no avail. Netwatch had tagged him as having gone native, and sent a strike team for him. He went off the grid.

She heard from him after the regime change: when the deportation of Netwatch began, Stridev formulated a plan: let them take him to Netwatch HQ for deportation, along with the substrate, but then escape and lie low till Netwatch cleared out, then use the Netwatch facilities to unlock and transfer Alice into the abandoned Netwatch mainframe.

Except, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to do it alone if the Dragonfly lock was still in place, so he asked her to get transport to and a hacker. She’s struck out on the hacker: is it coincidence the guy Nymphie mentioned got killed right around the time Stridev disappeared?

After Moopsie’s sob story, Rina just looks to Lane for the people-ing. Lane asks Rina if she trusts Moopsie, since they have the Dragonfly back at the bar. “She’s my doctor! She did my ears!” Rina says they need to find Mister Stridev -and she’s a hacker, and has the Dragonfly, so maybe that helps? Rina calls up the picture of the Dragonfly and shows it to Moopsie, who’s shocked to learn that they’re both pursuing the same thing. Rina tells her that at Nymphie’s suggestion, she’s going to take it to MIRU to examine it, and disarm it.

Lane says they have a way of getting out to Odaiba, and calls Captain Sassypants. He’s more than happy to hire out: business hasn’t been so good this week. Odaiba’s in chaos, and the Ferengi don’t like fish, but do like sea-bottom worms. Trouble is how to trawl for them without pulling Kraken… Anyway. They’ve got crews just sitting around while the new trawling gear is being built, so, sure they’ll do a charter run, for 250 each, 100 each rebate if the need the team for active kraken defense.

Moopsie pays the 1000 NB fee for transport. Jiefan takes a nap while the team gets their upgrades from Nymphie, so is reasonably coherent to drive back, after pulling an all-nighter.

On the way, Lane’s google alert pings with a new relevant story:

Hey choomers! Today’s hot stock is Lavigne Exotic Mobilites (LEM on the Old Dome Exchange)! This sad remnant of the once Continuing Committee corp Lavigne Aerospace is suddenly back in the news at two corporate titans vie for its hand in, well, you know, getting screwed.

Who’ll end up on top? Will it be the lovely Tiffany Nguyen or the deadly Dekyan Zhukov? We don’t care, we’d let either one ride us! Hey, why not both!

And while we can only speculate as to why this trash stock is suddenly hot, remember that once upon a time they were the monopoly maker of ground to orbit spaceplanes. Did somebody find a stash of old birds that survived the Breen? Time will tell!

They get back to Ruin Island and crash for a while.

Later, Rina and Lane do their research on MIRU. They don’t find out a ton, but Lane realizes they don’t have to hack for the university’s well-protected IP, just for burglary – of a more or less public building. With that in mind, Rina takes a look at campus security: it’s basically mall-cop level. And MIRU is a classroom building, so it should be easy to get in at least.

They decide to dress up to blend in. Lane made The Vole and Rina change, being still traumatized about the attempt to blend into the fashy goth club. The Vole wanted to wear those classic red parachute pants, because those are scholarly, right? And Rina thought you had to wear a little plaid skirt. So after wardrobe makeovers, they’re going as a professor and two research assistants.

Rina notes that if you pull the fire alarm, the fire department shows up, if you paid them, so maybe her suggestion to pull the fire alarm to evacuate the lab wasn’t the best idea?

Rina wants to go to main security and disable alarm notices coming through first, then get into the MIRU building. They find it readily on the campus map. They’re not going to go at midnight, because that’ll draw more attention. Rina suggests maybe they go as janitorial crew? The Vole suggests going as a clown troupe? They need to not spook the other researchers if they just go in?

Rina decides to call her sister, Lara – a very cybered cat – who knows things about research. The cats’ origins was as a graduate capstone project, so that’s what they are. Of course that’s the way to get into a university lab.

Rina tells her she needs to break into the research lab, but need to not look out of place. Can they use her as their research project?

Lara is skeptical: have actual humans looked over this plan? She doesn’t want to end up dissected. Bribed with real fish, Lara says yes. So that should give them a place to settle in and look at the Dragonfly – they must have secure clean rooms in there. And if they walk in like they should be there, that should be totally fine.

Rina searches the class schedule to find something that would plausibly explain why they’re there: some graduate capstone class. Professor Mikhailov’s class – and they read her bio and remember her photo. They print out a copy of the syllabus. They think they might want student IDs – The Vole suggests mugging students, but they’d need students who look like them, so maybe forgery is the way to go.

This is new for Lane, but she works up some student and professor IDs.

Rina checks over her gear, pops the Dragonfly into her Victoria’s Secret Pocket, loads in a tech scanner for physical tech. The plan is, go to the security office, loop the feed or something from the MIRU security, go to MIRU and give themselves security access.

Lara rides the Metro to get to Ishikawa U. – they’ll meet her at the Metro stop. Rina asks Lane for a bag, and gets one of her designer purses to carry Lara in. They’ll get there at 9.

Debrief: good work all around with the planning OOC. Sister Lara as the research project. Lara realizing Rina is kind of young and guiding her a bit. They want more from The Vole! Happy Aura Happy Hour! A lot of setup and hand-holding. Sil isn’t sure that they could’ve gotten there better on their own. Grace learned a lot of mechanics tonight, Resa loves the home decorating book.