Session 4: Wetrunner - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

304 Rand 4 Water -> Money

The team – minus Kestrel, who’s back on bus cleaning – sits down, all clean and fresh, in Bao Down to plan. First up, getting the cat Colony established. Rina casually suggests over the server link that she just heard of a potential cat base, but it could be super dangerous, and kitties going through it should make sure all 9 of their lives are in working order. And don’t send any of the Drift colony there – she has to deliver them intact!

Lane finds no detailed information out there on the warehouse attack. Is it a staged story, or is somebody trying to keep information covered? Could the attack have been a distraction for something smaller or stealthier.

Rina discovers that 4 or 5 days after the attack, people started to complain about squatters in the warehouse.

Kestrel, back from the auto repair shop, plans to change his appearance and go listen for rumors. He goes to a mall and gets made over into a generic action hero look, but gone a bit to seed: as nondescript a white Vietnamese male as he can.

Rina goes for a walk, Rook and Lane go up to the loft, and Kestrel is getting his face changed.

Lane discovers the warehouse was a transshipment point for newly constructed spaceplanes, from the Lavigne Arcology via barge to Odaiba Island. Lane’s realizing Zhukov is a threat to the whole power structure, if he gets the only spaceplane.

The cats have scouted the warehouse. There are newly installed cameras on the roof covering the streetside entrances (loading dock and office) and the seaside loading dock. There’s also 15 smelly human squatters, with a couple trash-barrel fires going. Defenses have been shot out, and there’s evidence of heavy fighting, but no remaining bodies or anything.

Rina checks things out: there’s two discoverable networks. One is rudimentary, probably a backpack unit. The other is seriously intense.She calls on kitten backup. She says to send the cutest kitten to deal with the squatters. Get adopted by the smelly humans.

Unfortunately, they only see cybereyes gleaming in the dark, so they scream and run instead. Rina strolls over towards the warehouse as she reports back to the team.

Rook, Jiefan, and Lane go to meet up with Rina She starts a run on the backpack node covering the security cameras. She uses the front ones to note some squatters are still outside, before shutting them off.

They walk around the block to approach the office door from the streetside. Lane hears automatic rifle fire, and sees no one on the street. Rina peeks inside: the squatters are back in. They head up to the office door, which is intensely locked. All try, they can’t get in. Time to go in from the warehouse side.

They give the cutest kitten a bag of kibble to take up to the squatter guarding the garage entrence. They definitely have Fizzy left.

Meanwhile, Kestrel buys a spent tank shell from a guy in a bar: they’re stamped with the BADI logo, and came from the Zhukov attack. He says that squatters moved in: they defend the place but don’t bother anybody. He doesn’t know if anybody’s trading for them. Kestrel has a long chat with him about the scrap merchant biz.

Back at the warehouse, the kitten goes in with a bag of kibble. The guard offers to split it, and the kitten love-bombs him – and farts explosively. The kitten wanders in for a look around. It definitely gets picked up and shoulder-kittened, attracting the attention of the group nearer the door. They send in another kitten, who works on distracting the back group.

They deploy a third kitten who’s to act wounded from down the block. The guard on the door is nose down in the kibble bag and doesn’t notice. They move in, while the “injured kitten” shifts in closer and persuades the guard to walk down the block to it. Rina easily sneaks past the squatters up to the office and pops the lock. She closes the door behind her: let’s do some proper hacking!

The others just hang out outside. Rook picks up handfuls of small junk. Kestrel is on his third bar, buying drinks, but he can’t get the conversation changed from the Haiphong Howitzers game: they’re up by 1 over the Drift Dolphins. Lane advises him to talk about the players, to gain trust to change the subject. Somebody reaches past him to get a bowl of cornuts off the bar, ignoring him completely.

Rina gets the files and Cloaks her way out and wakes the Balron on net defense back up: “No hard feelings!” There’s a huge KABOOM! Rina escapes out the side door as troops hit the building through the seaside dock. Miraculously, everyone else disappears unseen by the attacking troops. All the cats get out except one kitten staying in the rafters to observe.

They tell Kestrel to meet them at the loft, but he goes to get the bodysculpt undone first.

Lane examines the captured files. Clearly the spaceplane is incomplete, and went out by sea. Maybe to the underwater lair?

Jiefan is worried that the bus might have picked up a tracker: it’s conspicuous as hell. The team scans clean, but the bus deserves a search. Rina finds the tracker on the bus. She wants to remove it and go into a random chop shop and add it to a Nomad vehicle. She can’t get at it, though, so calls some tech cats to do the job.

They realize the warehouse is now off the list as a home base. They go back on NextDoor to find an abandoned building in bad shape. A narrow 4-story building owned by Terabase Express Corporatipon: they bought it for 11 grand. They haggle down to 3 grand:

Rina is going to ask the cats for reimbursement for that! Hayate says no way, but they will agree to settle there. It’s a starter home, and they own it free and clear: they can always flip it and move on up. Rina turns over title to them even though the cats didn’t pay them back.

Rina sets up their server in the basement, then curls up and falls asleep next to it, waking up in the afternoon covered in cats. She then wanders around town trying to find a doctor in town who can work with the cats. The cats can ask for a Moopsie-trained person later if they want, but Rina thinks a local agent now is a good idea. She tells Hayate that his long list of demands was not part of the deal: “You’re a cat, you’re saying you can’t do it by yourself?”

Lane pre-books three rooms in the Emerald Blossom Resort for 4 nights to start. Kestrel wants a back way off the island. Rina arranges for the Drift cats to meet them in the morning. They spend the afternoon down by the docks having lunch from a little local place and watch the kitties fish. They bring back fish for Bao Down.