I got a heavy little number
I got 42 wheels of pleasure and pain
I got a heavy little number
I’m gonna head it on down upon the Alice again
Widda a paraliddic weapon I can ‘ardly miss
Gonna gidda bricks anudder everlasting kiss
Widda a paraliddic weapon I can ‘ardly miss
Gonna gidda bricks anudder everlasting kiss
Jobs come and jobs go. Our heroes recovered from their near miss with corporate security at the student’s strike, and were spending some days taking some hard-earned rest when their favourite fixer, Anansie, contacted them with a new job. He had a contact, a Mr. Johnston, who wanted a job done quick. It appeared that our heroes have gained a reputation for urgent jobs done with little preparation, and without too much attendant catastrophe, and this Johnston had need of an urgent hit on a train.
Anansie funneled them to a man called Ibai Tejero, a Spanish-heritage businessman of some semi-legitimate kind who needed to track down a briefcase in the possession of a previous employee of his business. The man was about to take a Titan train from New Horizon to the Canton Confederacy, and Mr. Tejero needed the PCs to get on the train and get the briefcase – as well as the man, if possible – before it left New Horizon territory and headed out of his reach into Canton. He would pay for their tickets in the economy section of the train, and then they simply needed to get into first class, find their target, grab the briefcase, and call in a Rigger that Mr. Tejero would kindly pay for, who would extract them from the train or from any station they stopped at.
No guns allowed, actually!
Simple! They headed to Lai King station, to meet a contact of Mr. Tejero’s who would smuggle small weapons on board the train for them. The train itself was a strict no-weapons zone, but Mr. Tejero’s contact worked in the freight section and could organize for small weapons – pistols, knives, SMGs – to be moved into cargo. They would not be able to do this job heavily armed, but it was their expectation that no one else would be either. They met their contact at the smoking section behind the cargo zone, and carefully handed over a dufflebag with some light weapons and some hard-to-trace nuyen credchips, in exchange for a key to the cargo section of the train. At the station they also made contact with a new team member, a street samurai by the name of Genji who had recently been introduced to them by Anansie. They waited in the viewing area for their train to power up.
The Shenzhen 99 train is one of the smaller Titans, with three levels for passengers and one for freight in every carriage. It runs on a circuitous route through the northern territories of New Horizon, following the old coastline, before cutting inland through Shenzhen and into the Canton Confederacy, where it speeds up to full power and hurtles north to Shanghai or west towards the inland regions. Depending on the day and the season it can be 16 or 32 cars long, with the frontmost 2-4 cars first class. These cars are sealed off from the remainder of the rain by security doors, but for this mission the PCs had bought themselves a high-class sequencer, a device that works through most electronic door locks, and some nice suits so they could blend in with the business folks. Their plan was simply to walk through into the first class zone using a sequencer, gather in the first class bar, then wait until their mark went to the toilet to ambush him. Simple.
First, however, they had to board that train. They joined a milling queue in the waiting area, watching as the last of the priority passengers drifted through, and eventually reached a large security check zone. They passed through the weapon search easily, since they had already smuggled their guns on, but beyond that was an ID check, and they were all running on fake SINs (who doesn’t?) Jayden and Genji slid through easily enough but somehow the guards rumbled John’s SIN, and it began to look like he might be denied admission until Adam Lee stepped in and smoothly convinced the guards that their sniper’s SIN was the victim of a hacking attack by a rival corp, and there was nothing untoward actually happening. With this John slid through the ID check, but at the cost of all the licenses attached to that SIN – including all his weapons licenses and his driver’s license. A man might as well be stateless …
They boarded at the third car down from the first class cars. This train was a small one, just 16 cars with two first class and 14 economy, so they were in car five. As they were preparing to board Jayden did a brief circuit of the platform and noticed a group of yakuza boarding the number three car, the economy car adjacent to first class, all dressed in classic black suits and carrying austere looking umbrellas. They were likely Yamaguchi-gumi, which made them enemies of the PC’s regular contact, Niwa-san. Jayden noted that they were there and boarded his carriage.
Once the train was running and outside of New Horizon they made their move. First they picked up their guns from cargo, discovering with some disappointment that one of John’s two SMGs had been “misplaced”. John stifled his anger, and they crouched down in the cargo area while Adam Lee cast a magic eye spell. With this spell he could explore the whole train undetected, identify the location of their target and scope out the guards they might need to deal with. Once he had found the guards and the target the party decided that they would head to the first class cars and settle in the bar, from where Adam would again use his magic eye spell to keep watch on their target. Then they would pounce when their target moved to the bathroom. They headed to the front.
Unfortunately the path to the bar was full of yakuza, who seemed to be crowding into the lower level. Thinking they might draw a little too much attention to themselves if they passed through that hallway the PCs decided to head up, because the same car had an observation deck on level three that gave commanding views of the New Horizon coastline, the old crash zone, and the rambling shacks and tenements of the territories. They climbed the stairs to level 3 and headed towards the stairs to the observation deck. Here too there were yakuza, but only a few and only going about normal commuter’s business…
…until they saw Genji, at which point they went crazy. The moment the first of them saw Genji his eyes widened and his grip on his umbrella tightened, as if in shock. Then he yelled, “NAKAMURA SAN!” at the top of his voice, and with a sharp movement of his right hand pulled a katana from the stem of his umbrella, and leapt forward to attack Genji. Behind him, yakuza emerged stumbling and confused from compartments, and seeing Genji let up the same yell – “NAKAMURA SAN!” – as they ran forward, pulling swords from their umbrella stems.
At least, it seemed fast to them, probably like the blink of an eye. To Jayden this whole tableau unfurled in the sticky, gelid moments of Adept Time. He saw the Yakuza’s eyes widen, the clinch on the stem of the umbrella, the blade drawn; by then he was already moving with his knife out. By the time the blade was free he already had his knife in the man’s side, and moved through and behind him to stab him in the back as he began stumbling forward. Moments later he pushed the dying man aside – still mumbling “Nakamura … san” – as he moved into the group of yakuza emerging from the nearest compartment. As they readied themselves to enter the fray, he was already moving into them, knife slashing. Moments later the rest of the fight caught up with them, and John, Adam and Genji started shooting and casting spells. Soon four yakuza lay dying in the hallway, and Jayden stood near the entrance to the observatory, wiping his knife on a hand towel. The smell of gunsmoke drifted through the hallway as the door from first class opened and an armed and armoured train guard burst in, gun at the ready.
Adam Lee didn’t miss a beat. “Oh thank god you’re here!” he yelled. “These yakuza set upon me as I was returning from the bar! Please, let us back into first class before the rest of these fiends come up here!” His ruse worked, and the guard let them into first class as if they had always belonged there. They decided to cancel the trip to the bar and head straight to their target’s room, and were walking down the first class hallway towards the end compartment when the entire train shook, rocked and suddenly lurched to the side. An incredible grinding roar arose from below and the train began to buck and kick around them. They looked at each other, sighed the resigned sigh of people who are used to every mission going south for reasons they can never understand, and sprinted towards the room.
The train derailed and hurtled to a stop before they could reach the room, and before they knew it they were lying in a jumbled mess at the end of the hallway, their target’s compartment door now direclty above them and the walls and ceiling bucking and kicking as the train came to a staggering halt with an ear-shattering tearing sound. In the silence after its crash they heard the distant sound of screams and yells of shock, and the ticking of pieces of broken equipment falling and bending. Then they heard a bang from inside the room.
They sprang to action. The hallway had not been so wide, so they could all stand up and reach the door where it now hung above them. John pulled out the small black box of the sequencer and set it on the electronic lock, springing the door open. It slid wide to reveal a comfortable first class cabin, the door giving them a perfect view of a card table with seats around it. Two security guards hung in the seats, strapped in by seatbelts, and now dangling over the door, looking helplessly down at the PCs. Jayden shrugged and with an Adept’s grace leapt inside the room, landing on the wall to one side of the door. He looked around and saw that the window at the far end of the room had been blown out, and their target was nowhere to be seen. “Target’s gone!” He yelled.
Moments later Adam Lee drifted through the door, gave the security guards a dismissive glance and flew through the room towards the broken window to give chase to their target. Jayden gave the guards another look, but they shrugged innocently. Jayden pulled John through and then Genji, to stand on the wall, then ran to the window and leapt through. Behind him Genji and the guards exchanged pleasantries, that resigned, “I’ve done my part of the job, I’m not giving you any trouble now,” kind of conversation people have when they are no longer relevant and no longer a threat[1]. Happy that their backs were safe, Genji and John helped the guards out of their seats and then made for the window.
Outside their target was running away, trying to sprint across the sides of the train cars, avoiding shattered windows and passengers hauling themselves out onto the train side. To the south the sun shone on a pale blue sea, and to the north was the mist and smog of Shenzhen. From Shenzhen came the wail of sirens as ambulances and fire engines rushed towards the accident, but from the sea a different set of A/Vs were incoming – two nasty looking mercenary style A/Vs swooping in off the sea, no doubt coming in to pick up their target. They had just a couple of minutes to get their briefcase and make themselves scarce.
Adam Lee solved the problem. He waved his hand nonchalantly in the direction of the fleeing man and watched in satisfaction as their mark crumpled to the train side. “Paralyzed,” he explained through gritted teeth, concentrating as he held up both the flight spell and the paralysis. “Go get it.”
Jayden needed no urging. He sprinted along the train to the man and secured him until John could catch up. They applied the sequencer to the paralyzed man’s briefcase, which was locked to his wrist, taking it off of him while he watched helplessly. By the time they had the briefcase off him the rest of the group had caught up. Adam flew them all down to the base of the train and they moved rapidly away from the scene to a large huddle of survivors. Once they got there Adam dropped the paralysis spell and began healing injured passengers, with Genji and John offering first aid support, while Jayden hunkered under an emergency blanket with the briefcase and kept an eye on the horizon for menacing soldiers. As police and emergency personnel gathered they all relaxed, knowing that their target could not confront them now, and within 30 minutes they had been given a lift in an ambulance back to Shenzhen station. Once they were there they called in Mr Tejero’s rigger and got out as quickly as they could, their bodies and their booty completely unscathed.
Except for the loss of one Titan train, it had been a perfect job. They even saw Adam Lee briefly in a newscast, hailed as a hero for helping injured passengers, though his fame soon washed from view under an avalanche of reports about girl bands, riots, murders and celebrity weddings. He returned to the shadows, a little richer and a little more successful than before, and they returned to waiting for their next run …
fn1: Basically their target heard the fighting in the economy train and triggered an emergency evacuation protocol which involved using a rigger hack to derail the train and blowing his way out of a window. Extreme measures, but not unreasonable given our tendency to kill anyone we have difficulties with!
Compromise and Conceit 
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