Mission 1 - Jumping to Conclusions

Hey Sam, we're at the ((insert name)) park looking into the murders that have been happening recently. We might be able to use a broad matrix search at some point with any details relating to it. I'm gathering footage right now of the latest scene, Kingfisher might be temporarily occupied dealing with a randy spirit...

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Sam... does that ((I don't know the in-game procedure for doing that))

"Oh, hey," he says. "Ken Satou says the Cowboys are calling it a serial killer??? That's crazy! I'll see if I can hack intot he local koban from here and see what they've got." ((I have no idea if I can hack into their system from my apartment, or how to do it. But, if I can, I do that))

The spirit grins and gestures to his naked self, saying, "I am not much for clothing as you can see. Why don't you ditch yours and we can see what I can do to impress you, eh?"

Sam realizes that the Cowboy matrix systems for evidence are air-gapped, meaning he will have to physically go over to one of their offices to actually get access. Within the building, he could probably access their local wifi. There also may be some physical line going between offices that he could attempt to splice into, but that would probably involve digging around underground access tunnels. He can probably find some plans if he decided to go that route.

"Hey guys. I just realized that the Cowboy matrix systems for evidence are air-gapped, meaning I will have to physically go over to one of their offices to actually get access. So, I guess I'm headed over there now."

Before grabbing his coat and heading out, Sam does a matrix search for info, because Evan knows how to have him do that now: Sam Dekker carried out 15 launched of one d6 :

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sam heads over to the koban on his bike, scanning for their wifi as he approaches. If he can find a nice spot where he can gain access to their wifi without having to actually be inside of the office, he would prefer to do that. Maybe a nice little bistro across the street?
He thinks to himself that it's crazy to go through the trouble of air-gapping your system, but also use wifi. But, he thinks, that's the cops for you.

Chougou offers to assist if he can, and looks to his drones that have been scanning the perimeter. Can he check for intuition if he sees anything interesting?

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Sam is still en-route to the koban, and will be until he finds out if he's getting support of any kind from Chougou. But, when he gets nearer to it he realizes that the local wifi is confined to the interior of the koban, and no signal can get in or out. Kind of like a faraday cage, he thinks.
He curses under his breath and reminds himself to give the Cowboys more credit in the future.

Sam's matrix search on the murders turns up a handful of news reports all apparently written by Michiko Morimoto. They seem to be mostly buried under flashier news stories about more important people. The stories mention the victims being drained of blood and that police believe it is the work of gangs, though her tone is one of incredulity. He finds several conspiracy blogs blaming the murders on blood mages from Majoukoya, though none of the killings have been in that area. They take that as further proof that it must be blood mages from Majoukoya since they wouldn't kill people in their own backyards. It would be too easy to get caught there.

Meanwhile Chougou checks his drones to try and see what he can see. Since he is trying to avoid flying into police space, he is having a hard time seeing anything useful. It is dark and the body is kind of far away. There appear to be 5 officers, one looks like a detective, the other perhaps some CSI, the other three are beat cops. All are human, the CSI and one of the beat cops are female. The others are male. The surrounding area turns up nothing particularly suspicious. He will have to cross the police tape to see anything useful.

Chougou curses under his breath and brings his drones into the nearest inconspicuous positions to their current location and gets up to go investigate on foot...

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((Presumably, if Sam's gotta go in the building, drone support isn't going to be helpful to him for the time being. So, here's the stuff that I need to know before I decide what he does next: What's it like in the building? Is it just like walking into a Little Caesers where there's just a guy at a counter staring at you when you walk in? Basically, if he goes in and sits down, how conspicuous would that be? Could he just kind of prop the door open with a rock to let the wifi out and stand nearby to pick up a weak signal? Is there maybe some sort of small inconspicuous drone that he could plug a long USB cable into that could go into the building and transmit the wifi through the cable? Or, maybe go to the back of the building and drill a small hole and put a sort of wifi to ethernet bridge through the hole?))

((Or, if Sam thinks that he wouldn't be too conspicuous doing it, he just walks in and finds a lonely corner (or seat) to hack from where he won't be bothered or noticed))

At the Koban
Sam takes a look at the building. It is about the same size and layout as a Little Ceasars (minus the pizza-making equipment) with a small waiting area up front and a counter separating the reception from the desks behind it. ((give me an edge roll))

At the Park
Chougou approaches the crime scene, looking no more out of place than the handful of other onlookers. The detective is still arguing with the reporter while the CSI walks around taking pictures with a trio of drones floating beside her. The beat cops are mostly standing at the edge of the tape, trying to keep the crowd from disturbing the investigation.

Chougou would like to push as close as possible and intently observe

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At the park

Chougou can see that the victim is female from where he is, but not much else. It is dark and the body is a good 50 meters or so away. If he could just get closer, he is sure he could see something. Those drones are undoubtedly picking up all sorts of key evidence.

At the Koban

Sam is peeking through the glass door and realizes he is in luck, sort of. There are no officers currently in the koban. However, the front door is locked while they are out and he notices a security camera outside as well as two inside.

Hack the drones! Chougou thinks...

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((I would like to pursue my idea of drilling a hole in a wall near the back and dropping in a wifi to ethernet converter. I don't see an item that actually does this, but it's 2004 tech. Maybe I can try to juryrig my datatap or something?))

At the koban

Sam considers finding a way to slip a signal in through a wall and quickly realizes the noise of drilling might attract unwanted attention as the only wall he has access to is facing the street. However, he does see that the camera has a line going into the koban. While the camera does not have a wireless signal, it does have a cable port he could try plugging into. Of course this would leave him standing around in front of a koban looking sketchy with a cable in the security camera, but if he is fast, maybe no one will notice?

At the park

Looking through his commlink, Chougou does see the drones' icons in matrix space. If he plugged into his deck, he could probably try and sleaze his way into one without attracting too much attention.

If the cable to the camera hangs down a reasonable length so that Sam could plug into the cable itself rather than the camera, by using his data tap, and sort of hide the fact that he's plugged in from anyone who happens to walk by without looking too closely, then he plugs in that way instead.
((Earlier, when I suggested jury rigging the datatap, what I meant was the microtranceiver. Not that that matters. Just making the correction))
If not, then he plugs in the way suggested.
Sam plugs in, intending to make this quick, and needs to be walked through his first hacking attempt a little bit, even though he dutifully watched all of the tutorial videos he has recently been sent

Chougou would like to sleaze the drones!

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((I have a feeling you both will need some walking through on this, and since you are both basically doing the same thing, albeit one wirelessly and one directly, it is a good opportunity. These first two runs are meant to have a lot of hand holding so you guys can learn the system before we get into more serious runs.))

At the koban

Sam sees that plugging into the camera's cable would be just as conspicuous as plugging directly into the camera, but it would require slightly more work, and if he doesn't have time to clean up afterward, it could leave signs of tampering that aren't worth risking while standing on the sidewalk in front of an active street. He decides that plugging directly into the camera is the best bet. He does so and prepares to make his way through security...

At the park

Chougou readies his deck to hack into one of the drones....

((Now before we get started, you both have to decide what mode you will be hacking in. You're choices are AR, VR (cold sim) and VR (hot sim). AR is the slowest, but allows you to remain conscious of your surroundings. Distractions can also penalize your rolls. VR involves plugging your consciousness into the matrix and is much faster to do. Hot sim is faster than cold sim, but has the danger of possibly getting your brain fried if you encounter particularly nasty defenses. Hot sim also technically requires you to modify your deck to override safety mechanisms in it, but I'll assume you guys have done that.

Chougou, I am going to need some stats from your deck. Your deck has an array of 4 3 3 1 that you can arrange however you like among Attack, Sleaze, Data processing and Firewall (ASDF). I will assume Sam's deck is arranged as is currently on his sheet unless he decides to change it (this is a free action to do) ))

Sam rearranges his deck to 8 sleaze, 6 firewall, 5 attack, 4 data processing and goes in VR cold.

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((Now you roll for initiative. AR's initiative is whatever your normal initiative is. Cold sim is Data processing + Intuition + 3d6. Note that you only roll the 3d6 and add the result to whatever data processing + intuition is. You don't roll a whole bunch of dice like you do for most checks. Hot sim rolls Data processing + intuition + 4d6. You also get +2 to all matrix actions in hot-sim.

Note that you can always rearrange your ASDF as you go if you decide you need more of one stat than another. However you can only swap 2 stats at a time while you are busy doing stuff in the matrix.

Once you have rolled initiative, it's time to start hacking in. You both currently see the icon you are trying to access, this isn't always going to be the case, but for now it is. You can either hack on the fly (using computer+logic with a limit equal to your sleaze) or brute force your way in (using computer + logic with a limit equal to your attack). Hacking on the fly is quieter, but if you fail you are noticed in the network. Brute force wrecks shit and is noticed when you succeed, but not when you fail, though you do take damage for failing. Both methods will put marks on the icon and allow you to do other stuff to them.

Once you start doing naughty things, there is an overwatch score that I secretly keep track of. It represents how close the system is to tracking you down. If it hits 40, you lose and very bad things happen.))

At the koban

Sam slips into VR, allowing the world around him to disappear. Hopefully no one comes by while his body is unconscious. As the matrix winks into his consciousness, he can clearly see the icon for the camera. It looks very unoriginally like a security camera. It is connected to the greater system which appears to be an old west saloon filled with gun-slinging sheriffs just looking for some bad hombres to give a bad day to.

Okay. So, let's see if I've got this right... I roll 3d6:
Sam Dekker carried out 3 launched of one d6 :

, ,

And then add to that data processing (4) + my intuition (5) = +9

Is that right?

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