CY_BORG: VIP Abduction

[Stormbringer]

Sorry about the delay.

16 on the D20

No problem! We're keeping the pace slow here after all, to keep it manageable for everyone.

+ + +

"All right, all right, no need to pull a gun on me!" says Talsequin, smiling with his hands in the air.

"Tell your friend I'm sorry about the deal falling through, but, this here..." he nods at the bike "...if I were to buy this particular piece of hardware, I'd be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering when ACGS were going to hunt me down and send me to Borghold!"

He retracts the camera on the steel tendril back into his coat sleeve, likewise with the other tendril that's plugged into the Cyberbike.

"You take care of yourself now."

Smiling benignly, Talsequin 8-D7 turns about and walks unassumingly back down the street the way he came.

[Mantis]

Zola honks the horn of the taxi incessantly in the hopes it will impress upon Volley the urgency of their rapid disappearance from the locale.

[Wrathbone]

Hearing the buyer suggest the bike was a bad sale, I look slowly from the bike to the mall to my credstick several times, cogs whirring, until it dawns on me that maybe those heavily armoured medics were here for the biker.

“Uh, boss… you think that maybe… maybe those guys tearing up the mall are here for the biker dude? And, you know, maybe they won’t like that we… liquified him for creds?”

I take aim with my rifle at the mall’s back door from the rear seat of the taxi.

[Animalmother]

Volley will jump into the backseat of the taxi and slams the door shut.

[Mantis]

Zola speeds off towards the nearest main road.

"Chill out chooms, they got no proof it was us, dude was a goner anyway, not like we iced him ourselves."

Zola nervously tries to recall if he saw any security cameras on their path through the mall.

[Stormbringer]

With a wheelspin and a screech of tires, the stolen taxi speeds away from Hypermall #1994 into the traffic of the Arcs district.

Moments later, a news update pops up on the punks' RCDs on the CyNews/Update feed:

G/M/T LAWYER KILLED IN ARCS DISTRICT AMBUSH

CENTRAL, 08:30 — Gravf/Mellberg/Tosk lawyer Tomi “Toad” Dian was killed this morning in a violent ambush near Hypermall #1994 in the Arcs district.

Surveillance footage shows a group of armed assailants dragging Mr. Dian’s body through the mall’s west entrance and into a clinic trading under the name Ol’ Trusty Joe’s. There, the attackers fed the victim whole into an Organ Booth, reportedly in an attempt to exchange his organs for creds.

One suspect was simultaneously advertising Dian’s ACGS Cyberbike on the Net. The vehicle’s lease was linked to an ACGS life-insurance policy, which automatically triggered an Emergency Response Team recovery operation. By the time officers arrived and sealed the building, the victim had already been processed by the Organ donation machine.

A bystander, identified only as Vira, told investigators: “I saw three men carrying someone into the clinic. I spoke to one—he seemed intoxicated.”

Hypermall central management say no business called Ol’ Trusty Joe’s is registered on-site at #1994. The clinic’s owner could not be located, and the premises have been closed pending a UCS investigation.

A local witness captured the suspects fleeing in a taxi, believed stolen. The Cyberbike was recovered and remains in ACGS custody.

A. Gustafsson, a board member for ACGS, issued a statement:

“This was a senseless and deplorable act. Mr. Dian was a valued customer of ACGS, and a respected lawyer whose loss will be deeply felt by both Gravf/Mellberg/Tosk and his main client Tulles & deVerte. We commend our emergency team’s swift action and have full confidence that UCS investigators will bring those responsible to justice.”

A looped video-reel runs along-side the article, showing footage from Hypermall CCTV cameras, video-call interviews with the various parties concerned, as well as 8D-7's footage of Zola, Sen and Doze scrambling into the taxi, then Volley pointing his revolver at the camera-owner's face.

[Wrathbone]

I mean... as new reports go, it's only partially inaccurate.

Would it be fair to assume that even if we had concrete proof that we didn't cause the lawyer's death, the police and the courts wouldn't care?