More Machine Than Man Mechanical Cyborg Calibrated for Extermination (MCCE) unit 184 system op 5.67, or MC for short, was a cybernetic assassin for a big mega corp until something happened that short circuited programmed controls they had installed. Awakening in a strange place and with no recent recollection, MC is forced to run from a corp security team sent with the intent on "bringing in the rogue asset". Now in control for the first time, MC is on a mission to piece together and crystallize the fractured memories from the past. MC's search for answers brings news of an online viral vid featuring a recently assassinated CEO named Maximilian Hersch of Babylon Security Solutions International (BSSI). According to information garnered on the matrix, the leaked footage featured the assassin prominently in the act of committing this murder. Tracking the movement of this BTL, MC heads to the sprawl where a dealer by the name of Sweet Tooth is rumored to possess a very expensive copy of the footage. Wanting to know everything she can about Sweet Tooth, V3ct0r searches the matrix for anyone with issues or interests in him. She finds that someone was recently inquiring all over the matrix as to where to find "Candyland", Sweet Tooth's home and base of operations in District 7. Feeling the need to bring in some help outside of Jazz's control, V3ct0r uses her hacking skills to discover MC's comm number and arranges a place to meet a few blocks away from Candyland. Big Bob With Swede heading back to Sharkey's in order to attend to Glitch, Killeroo visits his salty tongued automaton step father at the "Foundry" scrap yard where he lives and works. Big Bob, as he is known to most, provides the hybrid mercenary with enough weapons and ammunition to potentially level Sweet Tooth's tenement building. Killeroo then tries to convince his adoptive father to help him come to Spade's rescue. Bob agrees to go along, but under the sole condition that, if he helps him take on Sweet Tooth and the Shankers gang, Spade will have to come live with him at the Foundry. Roo reluctantly agrees and, hefting the impossibly large "Big Betty" tank gun, sets out to meet with V3ct0r and her "new associate". "Ok," Big Bob said gruffly. "Let's go get 'em, kiddo." Candyland Arriving just a block or so away from Sweet Tooth's Candyland, the group decides to split up in a plan to infiltrate the building, find Spade and retrieve the BTL MC is looking for. Just then the group's planning is interrupted by a call from Jazz, who wanted to let them know that she had decided not to sell Aiko to any research group or university. V3ct0r proposed the idea to sell bits and pieces (copies) of Aiko's coding structure to anyone willing to buy. Potentially, anyone with sufficiently deep enough pockets could purchase all the pieces of Aiko's core framework and construct their own AI. This intrigued Jazz, both as an ingenious way to make a tremendous amount of credits and to keep Aiko from being enslaved or exploited by people who don't have her well being in mind. Roo very quickly tells the fixer that he's not at all interested in what they do with the AI and that he has serious personal issues that he's having to attend to at the moment. When Jazz inquires as to how she could help, Roo mentions his son Spade and the fact that he's been playing errand boy for a BTL dealer in District 7. The line goes quiet for a moment and Jazz asks who, specifically, it is that Spade has been running around for. When it is revealed that Sweet Tooth is behind Spade's kidnapping, Jazz offers to help in any way that she can, pro bono. Doubtful, V3ct0r inquires as to how much she's willing to charge Roo and them for her "services". Jazz simply alludes to the fact that she and Sweets have "bad blood" dating back several years. Reiterating that this is mostly a personal matter, Roo declines the fixer's offer. After a short pause, Jazz offers to pay a thousand credits a head for anyone who can put Sweet Tooth in an early grave and ends the call. Proceeding with their plan, Roo and Big Bob stay outside the building and wait for the right time to start reigning down fire on the gang members located in the front and back of the building. MC and V3ct0r, alternately, opt to zip line onto the roof of the building and bypass the guarded entry ways. MC cuts his way through a pair of guards and V3ct0r uses her hacking skills to monitor all mobile device broadcasts in the building and narrows down which one belongs to Sweet Tooth. She then sends Sweets an anonymous message hinting at the prospect of getting his hands on some drugs for the big party the Shankers are currently having. Together MC and V3ct0r ambush Sweets and three of his men on an abandoned floor of Candyland. MC dispatches two of the Shanker gang members instantly with a mono filament blade while V3ct0r blasted a third gunman with her taser. Despite being shocked, the one gang member's cybernetics helped to shrug off its effects and ran after the hacktivist--chasing her into one of the abandoned tenement dwellings. Seeing most of his men fall to the cybernetic assassin's blade, Sweet Tooth sprays the hallway with his sub machine gun. MC narrowly dodges the barrage, diving and rolling into a nearby open apartment. V3ct0r manages to hide herself in an apartment full of furniture covered in semi-transparent plastic tarps. Dashing back out of hiding, MC pins Sweet Tooth's non-cybernetic shoulder to the wall with his blade--causing the BTL dealer to drop his sub machine gun. Sweet Tooth grabs a hold of the blade with his cybernetic arm and sends a jolt of electric current through the steel, hoping to fry MC to a crisp. The chromed out killer's cyber reflexes proved too fast and MC was able to let go of the blade in time. V3ct0r uses her hacking skills to feed the goon's mobile broadcast signals to MC's cybernetic receptors, showing the cybernetic assassin the ganger's general location nearby. Just as the thug pulls a tarp down off of a couch, a steady stream of automatic fire comes bursting through the wall and rips him to bits. Reporting to Killeroo that Sweet Tooth was in their possession, the hybrid heavy gunner begins firing Big Betty at a group of Shanker gangers clustered together at the front of Candyland. An explosion of motorcycles and body parts litter the derelict parking lot. Big Bob catches the fleeing thugs with automatic fire from his assault rifle, creating an instant bloodbath. The thumping party music emanating from Candyland comes to an abrupt halt as the rest of the Shankers gang take up arms and begin shooting out of windows at the two gunmen. Party's over. Old Enemies V3ct0r and MC begin interrogating Sweets amidst the deafening chaos taking place outside, asking about Spade and the BTL's location. At first, Sweets defiantly refuses to tell them anything and instead goes on about how powerful the Shankers gang is and how large a grave they've dug for themselves that night. MC's blade slices down diagonally, severing Sweet Tooth's arm at the elbow. When the wounded dealer's mouth contorts into a scream the cybernetic assassin rapidly rips out the single engraved gold tooth from Sweet's toothy grin. With all of his courage now having evaporated, Sweet Tooth quickly tells the two runners that Spade is in the basement but that the BTL is completely gone. Feeling that he's holding something back, V3ct0r sets up a video call to Jazz and flips the view screen to face Sweet Tooth. Catching her up on what's happening, V3ct0r tells Jazz that she feels Sweets isn't being entirely open with them. When Sweet Tooth repeats to Jazz what he told them Jazz calls him out and says that the dealer is lying about not having the BTL MC is after. "Any BTL dealer worth two credits keep back ups of their shit," she says. "Tell my people where the fuck you're keeping your product or I'm going to have them deliver you to me in pieces." "Ah Jasmine," Sweets said, grinning through bloodied teeth. "You shoulda stuck with me, girl." Jazz promptly closes the call and contacts a reliable runner to drive into District 7 to pick up the team quickly and bring them back to Sharkey's. Bleeding, hurting and afraid, Sweet Tooth admits to having a series of terminals on the fourth floor of the tenement that are set up to copy, edit and produce BTLs. With this information, MC activates light reflecting camouflage and dashes down the stairwell, heading straight to the basement. There, he finds a bound and bloodied Spade--hurt, but still alive. Releasing him from his bindings, MC leads the teenage boy up the stairs and to the fourth floor while he reports back to Killeroo on their status. Relieved to hear that his son still lives, the hybrid and Big Bob take up new positions surrounding Candyland and begin calling for the rest of the team to leave through the back exit way. After another few short exchanges, the Shankers cease their return fire and Candyland plunges into an eery silence. While this is happening, V3ct0r writes up a conspiracy laden, racist political screed in a style similar to the one she fabricated when the team raided Yokono Corporation's offices and prompts Sweet Tooth to read it while she records him on her many mobile devices. Predictably, Sweets takes one look at it and refuses. V3ct0r produces her stun gun and the dealer looks back over the material and clears his throat. Finding the terminals containing all of Sweet Tooth's better than life recordings, MC and Spade work together to find the BTL that the former cybernetic assassin is looking for and download it onto a small cyber chip. They then begin to make their way to the back of the building. After saying something about how jet fuel can't melt steel beams, Sweet Tooth shakes his head, throws V3ct0r's script on a moldy couch and gets up to leave. "Get your shit 'an get the fuck outta my house, lil' girl. I ever see your face in District 7 again, I'm gonna turn you into one 'o my weekly specials," Sweet Tooth growls before shuffling out of the room. V3ct0r's eyes settle on Sweet's communicator lying on a couch cushion. It isn't long before Sweet Tooth's virtual profile has messages on it that read: "LOL! Some bitch is offering 900 credits for pr00f of my dead a$$." Stashing the device in her bag, V3ct0r smiles and heads out to meet with the others. Corporate Intercept As the team begins to make their way through the building to leave, they begin to notice that some of the dead Shanker thugs have neat little holes placed in their heads. Either they all died suddenly and with great precision or they fled without anyone noticing. V3ct0r and MC chalk it up to Bob and Roo's handiwork. "Uh...kid, everyone back here's already dead. Was that you?" Big Bob asked Roo over the comm channel. "No, I'm in the front, dad," Roo replied. "You're in the back. Right?" Big Bob's comm goes quiet for a second and then he warns that something isn't right. Bob starts yelling into the comm to meet up in the rear of the building and move out together. MC picks up Spade and begins scaling the outside walls of Candyland. In a matter of seconds, the cyborg makes it to the ground floor safely and sees the others approaching quickly. Stepson, father and stepfather/grandfather come together in a short lived moment of relief and begin to move away from the Sweet Tooth's tenement. Spade sees V3ct0r for the first time and awkwardly says "Uh...hi." As the group puts Candyland in their rear view, several armored vans drive out of the dark corners of District 7 and form a perimeter around the area, flooding their position with incredibly bright flood lights. Corporate security types covered from head to toe in tactical armor raise their weapons and train them on the team. A woman dressed in an impeccable business suit approaches the group with hands out in a peaceful gesture. V3ct0r fiddles with her devices and attempts to find the security team's signals in an attempt to hack them. Though she finds the signals easily enough and discovers who they are, her devices lock up and are shut down almost immediately afterwards. "Runners? Interesting. Don't worry, we're not here to arrest or kill you. Actually, we have need of your services. But first, Babylon Security Solutions International would like to have a word with you, number 187." Note: Big props goes out to Kelevra for coming up with the great off the cuff idea for Killeroo's adoptive automaton stepfather, Big Bob; he was a blast to play. :)
