>>13990856
When last we left off, our ragtag band of red heroes had just finished getting their asses handed to them while Half-Life's doberman took out a rival team of five shadowrunners almost singlehandedly. It was a very messy affair, and it took everybody but the hacker a good six hours or so for their ears to stop ringing, but there was good news: they had the disk they were looking for.

While Half-life's medkit plugs away at Crazy Ivan's battered and bruised body, the hacker looks the disk over. It's an old-style optical disk in a paper sleeve marked "JB, Carrion Sessions '48. For enlightentment, seek out absent friends."

Being the curious type, Half-life wants very much to play the disk and see what's on it, but all of his equipment is far too modern for such an archaic data format. However, he does know of a place where he can get his hands on tons of old tech- the hacker bar he's already sitting in. The hacker remote pilots his van full of groaning teammates back to the Cathode Glow, and they fork over the cash for a private room with an old optical disk player.

>>13990983
Half-life rummages around in his bags for spare connectors and parts, constructing a Rube Goldberg-esque series of cables and sockets that connects the disk player to his commlink. He makes a copy of the data on his commlink before pushing play, only to hear nothing but static and little blips of music here and there, nothing distinct enough to make out clearly. The disk is heavily encrypted.

Half-life decides to do some searching on the Matrix about the disk and its cryptic label before trying to break through the encryption. He learns that Carrion Studios is located right here in Moscow. More importantly, he learns that JB stands for JetBlack.

JetBlack, it turns out, was a big phenom on the raver scene a little more than twenty years ago. He was one of the first to experiment with using dangerously high levels of simsense overlay in his tracks, so much so that people died of sensory overload occasionally at his gigs. He toured a lot with a group of DJ's called The Shadows, of whom Marli Bremerton is the last surviving member. She still lives in Dresden to this day, apparently. JetBlack himself passed away suddently in 2048, the same year he did the Carrion recordings, which means the group is in possession of JetBlack's last album, never released. Of course, there are rumors that JetBlack isn't really dead...

Half-life gets cracking on the encryption on the disk, and within about 30 minutes, he's past the layer of encryption, only to discover that there's a second layer of encryption on the disk. Worse still, breaking the first layer automatically locks in the second one; there's now no way to get the data off the disk without destroying it. The good news is that the music is at least audible now, albeit without simsense overlay or anything fancy like that.

At this point, as they played the disk, I put this on for the group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV8eiSA4vqc

At this point, the rest of the group is conscious again, and they sit in the room, listening to JetBlack's music and discuss what to do. Half-life wants to keep digging and try to get all the encryption off the disk to get the full album. That means going to Dresden to see if Marli knows anything about the Carrion sessions disk. Gunbunny is immediately set against anything that drives him further away from his guns and armor in St. Petersburg. Face just wants to get paid, typical hedonist that he is. Crazy Ivan and Cowboy don't give two fucks either way. Eventually the group decides it's smarter to go back to the Johnson and just take the money for what they've done so far. Face calls up his fixer and arranges a meeting back at Pulse with the Johnson at midnight.

Just as the van pulls out of Moscow, Half-life gets a phone call. A male voice on the other end mentions that they have something that belongs to him, something that he'd very much like to have back. He knows they're being paid to deliver it to their employer, but he's willing to offer them more if they'll just meet him at midnight. He sends them the coordinates to a cemetery across the mountains in Transylvania and hangs up.

>>13991310
Now, the adventure we were using just assumes that a group of fresh-faced runners will gladly abandon their existing contract for a more lucrative offer. Apparently my friends do not make good criminals. Ivan mutters something about "fuckin' vampires, yo," and the paranoia spreads like wildfire around the table. Half-life floors it back to St. Petersburg and they meet their flamboyant troll Johnson again. They hand over the disk and the copies Half-life made without hesitation and gladly accept the Johnson's payment of 15,000 nuyen.

>>13991372
That might be enough for most of the group, but Gunbunny's still butthurt about being separated from his high-caliber automatics and his snuggly security armor for so long. He gets his fixer on the horn and asks him to see about getting him authentic licenses for all of his restricted gear.

The fixer comes back in a day or two, saying that he's found someone who will be willing to provide the documentation Gunbunny needs. Gunbunny is to meet Mr. Johnson on the steps outside Smolny Cathedral at 9 a.m.

>>13991422
At 9:05 a.m., Gunbunny is greeted by a black limousine with government plates. A heavy-set bearded man in the back introduces himself as Mr. Johnson and bids him get in. The limo drives around the city while Johnson explains the job, the limo's densiplast ballistic screens preventing them from both seeing out of the limo and from being seen in it.

Johnson explains that the Vory are in a somewhat tenuous position in Europe right now. They're fighting a war with the Alta Commissione for control of criminal activity on the continent, and, outside of Russia, they're losing. To make matters worse, relations between the Vory bosses in St. Petersburg and Moscow are not exactly warm. The St. Petersburg bosses are concerned with the St. Petersburg syndicates, not with helping the syndicates in Moscow or abroad. Naturally, this pisses off Andrei Petschukov, the head boss in Moscow, to no end. There is only one boss in St. Petersburg who will deal with Petschukov- Luka Jankevitch, who oversees the syndicates in Scandinavia and northern Britain. Luka has become a bit of a pariah amongst the St. Petersburg Vory because of this- he and the men under him have started dealing exclusively with Petschukov, much to the irritation of his fellow St. Petersburg Vory.

Still, the Johnson explains, Petschukov is not above trying to extend an olive branch to St. Petersburg. He's sending one of his lieutentants, Vasily Omarevich Moltin, into the city tonight to meet with the St. Petersburg bosses one by one over the weekend. Johnson's employers would like to make sure Moltin never makes those meetings.

>>13991659
Johnson gives Gunbunny a small spray canister, explaining that it contains DNA synthesized from a known Vory thug. Once used, the DNA tags will last for six hours, disguising all of the user's hair, skin cells, even fingerprints, sweat and blood as belonging to the person from whom it was cultured. Johnson tells Gunbunny to go to the roof of a data center opposite Moltin's hotel and pick up the equipment he finds there. In exchange for terminating Moltin, Johnson's employers are prepared to provide Gunbunny with legitimate documentation for as many weapons as he might require. Gunbunny readily agrees, and the limo deposits him outside his safehouse (no mean feat, considering that Gunbunny is Erased).

Gunbunny puts out to a fence for some ganger clothes for the job, and does a quick recon of the hotel and data repository in his streets. The data center has a fire escape allowing for easy access to the roof, but Gunbunny doesn't bother going up there just yet.

>>13992466
At about 9 p.m., Moltin's plane lands. He takes a taxi to his hotel room. Gunbunny changes into his ganger clothes and takes the metro to the hotel square, stopping to use the little boys' room to spray himself with the DNA mask. He climbs up the fire escape of the data center and finds a suitcase hidden on the roof. It's sealed with a biometric maglock that opens to his touch.

Inside, he finds a disassembled Ranger Arms SM-4 Sniper Rifle and a sealed packet of ammunition. In the sealed packet is a clip of EX-Explosive rounds and two empty casings.

>>13992618
By about 9:15, Moltin arrives at the hotel. He takes the elevator up to his room, opens the curtains, and takes two rounds to the head and chest.

Gunbunny collects his casings, and leaves the two spare casings he found in the packet behind. He disassembles the rifle, puts it back in the case, and hoofs it to the metro before the militsiya arrive on the scene.

The next morning, Gunbunny wakes up to find a package on his doormat inside the door containing legitimate licenses for all of his weapons. Also in the package is a card from one "Vladislav" thanking him for his services, and to expect more jobs in the future.

And then Gunbunny realizes that his fingerprints no longer work on the suitcase's maglock.

>>13992705
There is more, but I'm mad tired and I'll throw it up tomorrow. Hope this is enough to tide you over.