GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 18: The Arasaka Tower Heist

 Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Infiltration

Jar picked up a suit of Arasaka body armour on the black market for Paxos to wear during their infiltration; she then went and picked up the revolver and rifle the guards used.  The next morning, Peacock finally heard back from Arasaka and went in for their first day under their assumed name "Hermione Granger".  They would be working as the bodyguard for Katsuri Sugimoto, a junior division head in intelligence, whose last bodyguard had died in the line of duty.  Orientation wasn't exciting; they got their ID card and corporate licenses for their firearms, which had to be signed in at the end of every shift.

A typical day would involve arriving at Arasaka Tower at 4AM, suiting up in the barracks on the 30th floor, then heading back downstairs where they would then pile into a convoy of armoured trucks that went to pick up the mid-levels from their heavily guarded apartment compound.  They would then serve as Sugimoto's shadow for the rest of the day until he returned home, typically around 8PM.  The onboarding took even longer, so by the time Peacock had arranged for a getaway vehicle with the Birds of Prey, their nomad family, they were completely exhausted and had no time to properly rest.

On the day of the heist, Peacock drove in, their fancy tech pistol concealed in a newly-implanted hidden holster and a scrambler smuggled inside a secret pocket, and parked the getaway car in the employee parking lot.  They then suited up and boarded the armoured convoy to pick up Sugimoto.  From there, they proceeded to shadow their charge to his office without incident (other than a spilt coffee).  Later in the morning, Paxos hacked the cameras and she, Jar, and Specter snuck in through a loading bay, their fake IDs granting them access through most locked doors, and Paxos was able to use her stolen uniform to scout ahead.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 17: Job Interview

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Plans Within Plans

Peacock reached out to an old buddy, Walker O'heron, who owed them a favour and learned that the passkeys held by Kazumi Kanata and Yorinobu were probably the zetatech K-series, but when Paxos dove into the 'Saka net to confirm this, she got zapped by a black ICE databomb that had been left in the financial documents.  Flames shot out of her neural port and cybereyes, but she was able to jack out and then put out the fires before they got any worse.  Still, it put her in the hospital for a few days while she got skin grafts.  While she was recovering, she went through the photos Jennifer Thracker had taken from inside Arasaka Tower and compiled what useful information she could.

Peacock, meanwhile, went to Corpo Plaza with the intent of observing the tower security and maybe lip-reading employees on smoke breaks but unexpectedly struck gold: some HR employee was going on a rant to a coworker in Reconciliation Park (while never once turning away from where Peacock was watching!) about how a whole bunch of security staff had jumped ship to one of the other factions over this conflict with Kang Tao.  Apparently, Arasaka was hiring, and for once they were looking explicitly for non-japanese applicants with no scruples to become bodyguards for mid-level execs.

The next day, Peacock came back when work let out with a badge scanner hidden in a laptop bag to get some credentials for the techies to work with.  They had to get almost right up against people to scan them, but that wasn't a problem with the crowd.  While that was happening, Paxos was scouring Arasaka press releases, hoping she'd find something that would require the execs to access the data vault on their own.  Unfortunately, the closest thing she found was Yojimbo Kageki 3, a video game that wasn't due for digital release for several weeks.  Even if it was in the vault, it was past their deadline anyway.