The Lost and Found Job

Job Setup
The team actually found this job via a posting on Shadowsea. There was an advertisement looking for work and seeking discrete runners with breaking and entering experience.

The Meet
The meeting was virtual taking place in one of the many subrealms of the Nexus. Their Mr. Johnson seemed very unsure of himself and the team were quick to capitalize on that mocking him a bit while at the same time putting them at ease. Once the Johnson got to his presentation he seemed to be significantly less nervous. While the Johnson hadn't planned on paying them half up front the team were able to make arrangements for them to do so. The Job was to enter into the Citibank building in downtown manhattan. They would go in under pre-provided cover as produce delivery for the kitchens. Once inside and downstairs they were to break into the underground portion of the complex and access a former Citibank branch bank that had been built over when the current citibank building was put on the site. Inside their Johnson believed they would find something that would interest him, but wasn't sure on it's contents. Their mission was to bring the item top side to a location preprovided and open the case they found there where he could monitor the process via matrix link. If it was what he wanted they would bring it to him, if not it was theirs to keep or be disposed of at his instructions either way they would get paid the agreed upon fee.

After the virtual meeting the team went to retrieve their up front payment. They spotted someone observing them from a distance deducing (correctly) that it was their Johnson, but he ducked down into the subway before they could identify him and they chose not to pursue.

The Job
True to his word a boat and two pack drones were available for the Team's use to get onto the island as well as fake ID's and uniforms to support their cover. They made their way onto the island without issue and headed for the citibank building.

One of the runners was identified by security as carrying a weapon in an underarm holster. The face was able to deflect it as a misunderstanding and the security team held onto the gun until the runners left rather then confiscating it or calling the cops. Now the team had a double impetous to do the job quiet as the B&E specialist was rather fond of that gun.

The mission went more or less like clockwork the kitchen managers keys theyw ere given to offload the produce also allowing them access to the closet they needed to kick through to get to the underground.

In the underground they found the demolition site where the old bank sat. It was earily well preserved as if the workers had left work one day and just never come back. The bank vault had also been welded shut. While the whole scene was kind of eerie materials found on site indicated the site had stopped work just before the second matrix crash, which could explain it getting lost in the shuffle. The bank vault had been welded shut but with tools found at the construction site and the B&E specialist's skills and tools they were able to get into the vault quietly without using the breaching charge they had been given.

Inside much to their disapointment all the safe deposit boxes had been opened and stripped. In addition to the case they were presumably sent to find there were 6 body bags. Not wanting to risk the possibility of things going unlooted Torkian checked the body bags by patting them down. Confident no body was wihin he opened one up, only to find a grining skull in a hazmat suit staring back at him. Six dead bodies in Ares Hazmat suits all killed execution style. The team opted to exfiltrate with their target without further complication. They came out the way they went in collecting the aforementioned gun from security.

Following co-ordinates left by their Johnson they proceeded to a U-Store it facility on the manhattan shoreline. It was a pleasant sunny day outside, the sun shining, and nearby the blaring happy sounds of the Pan Corporate Little League World series added a much lighter tone to things. In the target storage locker the runners found a hazmat containment tent, a variety of cameras and sensors and some more Ares branded hazmat suits. They set up the tent and the cameras and the case within. The tent also had biofiber worked into it's construction to act as a low level astral barrier. After some discussion the team decided to suit up for full hazmat but to put a spirit in the tent to open the case.

It took several swipes for the spirit to get the case open but finally the hatch came open. The spirit was promptly eaten alive by a free floating cloud of indterminate origin. The cloud caused the walls of the containment tent to bow and shudder before finally eating it's way through and splashing on the runners as it disapaited into the surrounding air.

All their suits were beeping urgently for their attention. In the process of trying to check the status on his Torkian accidentally opened his exposing himself to the biological agent. For Lilly and others who could interpret the data the suits reported they had just been exposed to a massive bacterial bloom that was trying to eat through the suit material but wasn't an immediate threat. As the team was wondering what to do about the situation (and Torkian's player was nervously making Body rolls) the local alert sirens started going off and multiple multi story AR banners begin beaming across the sky inidicating a possible biological attack. THeir Johnson sent them a message that he was still interested in the artifact within the case, biowar germ cannisters, not so much, and he would pay to see them disposed of properly but until they got clear of the situation they were too hot to handle. However he also remotely directed their get away boat to leave him stranded and caused the pack mule drones to march off the docks in the water to limit his exposure.

As response forces begun to stream onto the island the team franticly looked for what to do. At the same time they were plotting to escape two individuals also lit out of different storage locker trying to outrun oncoming police. Torkian tried to intimidate these personages into stoping by flashing a grenade which they responded to by trying to clip him with their car as they passed by. The team decided these guys would be their perfect patsies and ditched the cannisters in their storage lockers which looked to be some kind of bolt hole or safe house. They took the artifact and stole a nearby fishing trawler modified for some kind of biological/ecological research.

Once out on the water the team were ordered by naval/coast guard/corporate forces to kill their engines and hold anchor. Lily changed the teams mage (their only human) so her picture was on the boats registration. When a cutter approached to investigate them she attempted to hack it so that any database checks would reflect these changes as valid only to trigger an alert. This lead to the team getting ordered to the deck of their boat at heavy deck gun point. While they were in the process of being apprehended the harbor patrol suddenly cut them loose and apologized for endangering their operation. The team surmised that their Johnson must have somehow managed to intervene.

Several of the team members were less then pleased with the Johnson and talked about selling the artifact on the open market. Other's however made the argument that without his intervention they would have been caught, so while he had left them in a lurch he hadn't done so maliciously. The team handed over the artifact for the originaly agreed upon fee which was left under a vending machine just like their advance had been after they deposited the artifact into the mail.

Torkian developed a mild case of a the sniffles that was cleared up with a short course of antibiotics. From all appearances the bacteria inside the canister eats mana/astral forms and being infectious in nature was only due to it's extremely high concentration within the case.......so far as anyone knows.