Import:Data Theft (englisch)

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Über das Abenteuer

Data Theft ist ein englisches Abenteuer von "Gurth" von http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth , das in der Ausgabe Nummer 8 des NAGEE (The Neo-Anarchists Guide to Everything Else) Fan-Rollenspielmagazins erschien.

Background

In a round of budget cuts, one of the megacorps (which one is not important- it could be any one of them), has come to the conclusion that it is wasting money and would do best to dispose of some of its subsidiaries. It plans to do this by evaluating each subsidiary, and only keeping the ones that are most profitable in any given field. The others will be "disposed of" -their useful assets transferred to other companies, all employees laid off, and so on.

This adventure revolves around two such subsidiaries, both of which research, design, and manufacture cyberware components. Each has become aware of their parent megacorp's intentions, and each intends to be the one that survives the upcoming budget cuts.

One of the two, Campbell Biosystems Engineering (CBE) has for some time had an agent in the offices of the other corporation, Radical Solutions Incorporated (RSi). Until recently, CBE has been content to let the agent keep a low profile, maintaining her cover as a loyal RSi employee while stealing the occasional bit of information. With the imminent closure of one of the two companies, though, CBE doesn't have much to lose by letting the agent steal every pulse of data she can. Naturally, she needs to do this without drawing too much attention to herself, both to avoid potential complications and of course to keep the information flowing as long as possible. CBE is using the stolen data to make itself appear more valuable to the parent corporation than RSi; at the moment they do not have the time to actually do anything with it, but that's not what matters now.

RSi, through the agent's actions, has discovered that someone is leaking information to CBE, and wants it stopped. What's more, they believe they can turn this leak into a way to cause CBE's downfall so that RSi is the one that will remain in business. But to do that, they need to know the agent's identity. They have four suspects, but do not have the means to keep these under surveillance to catch the actual agent. RSi thus decides to hire shadowrunners to do this for them, and report back with their findings as soon as possible. For RSi, it is important that the agent is not made aware of the investigation, so the runners must be careful, but also fast, as time is short for both RSi and CBE.

A Note About The Encounters

This adventure does not have a great number of pre-written encounters, mainly because much of it will be spent by the runners shadowing the suspects -every suspect is a separate encounter taking quite some game time, basically. Only once the runners have found the agent (which can be at almost any time, depending on which suspect they start with) does the adventure really continue.

Getting Hired

The runners are contacted by a fixer to set up a meeting with Mr. Johnson for a silent job -one that will take surveillance and observation skills rather than firepower. They are to meet this Mr. Johnson at 19:30 this evening in the Fenris Nacht, a high-security nightclub in Tacoma often used by shadowrunners to meet fixers or Johnsons. If they ask the bartender for Rob, they will be taken to Mr. Johnson.

The fixer doesn't know anything else about the run, so can't answer questions the runners may have. The Fenris Nacht has a slight bias against orks and trolls, but won't refuse them service. The bouncers at the door are very strict about people who might cause trouble inside, and won't allow anything larger than a light pistol or a knife inside.

Mr. Johnson is a man in his mid-fifties, with pale skin, dark brown, graying hair and a goatee. He wears a typical, though expensive-looking, business suit that doesn't indicate what corp he's from at all. He has rented one of the back rooms, and once everyone is in the room, he explains that he wants to hire shadowrunners to investigate some employees of a company who may be involved in corporate espionage. He is willing to pay 7,500¥ per person for this job (negotiate over it as normal, if the players want to do so).

Furthermore, Mr. Johnson will mention that he can arrange for the runners to get access to many pieces of equipment when they need them, on the condition that they must make it plausible to him why they will need it during the surveillance, especially for the more expensive kinds of gear. (What this comes down to is that Mr. Johnson has access to all electronic equipment and cyberware the gamemaster allows, though Mr. Johnson should be given a damn good reason to implant cyberware into the runners (and even then this only happens when the adventure is completely over). All normal Availability rules apply, as per SR3 p. 272. This equipment will be provided at no cost by Mr. Johnson's corporation, and the runners can keep it when the run is over.)

Once a price has been settled on, Mr. Johnson explains that he works for Radical Solutions Incorporated, and that one of its employees is slipping information to Campbell Biosystems Engineering -one of RSi's competitors. They have narrowed the number of possible spies down to four, but RSi does not have the resources to monitor them to find out who the actual spy is -that's what they need the runners for. The runners have two weeks to unmask the spy.

The runners are expected to perform the surveillance in a way that will not tip off the suspects to their presence. If asked why, Mr. Johnson explains, in a tone that clearly implies "think for yourself, please," that it will reflect badly on the corporation's management if it comes out that they are spying on their employees. He also explains that the one off-limits area for the runners is RSi's offices; if necessary, he explains (in the same tone of voice as before) that this is because RSi does not need more security hazards than it already has, and the runners would definitely qualify as a security hazard.

Apart from these minor restrictions, the runners have a virtually free hand in deciding what they will do, when, and how.

Mr. Johnson provides a short biography on each of the subjects of the investigation. (These appear at the end of this adventure and can be given to the players as handouts.) He also gives the players his cellphone number, so they can contact him if they need something or if they have figured out who the spy is.

If the players have any questions, Mr. Johnson will try to answer them as best as he can, but he will not give any information about the reason for the enmity between RSi and CBE. If asked about this, he will say it's "just business". Once some questions have been answered, Mr. Johnson gets up, hands each shadowrunner a 2,000¥ certified credstick, and leaves. Anyone following him will see him walk straight out of the club and step into a chauffeured Toyota Elite that drives off almost immediately.

MR. JOHNSON

This adventure's Mr. Johnson is actually David Zimmerman, the CEO of Radical Solutions Incorporated. He acts as Mr. Johnson for the runners because he feels that the survival of the company is so important that he needs to take personal control. Because of his position, he has access to all of RSi's resources, which though not overly large, are more than most shadowrunners can manage; he hopes he doesn't need to access those resources, however.

• Attributes
  • Body: 2
  • Quickness: 4
  • Strenght: 3
  • Charisma: 5
  • Intelligence: 6
  • Willpower: 5
  • Essence: 6
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 5
  • Initiative: 5+1D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 7
• Karma Pool: 3
• Professional Rating: 1
• Race: Human
• Active Skills:
  • Computer 3
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 4 (6)
  • Negotiation 5
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Accounting 5
  • Business 7
  • Corporate
  • Politics 5
  • Psychology 5
• Armor: Armanté "Tokyo" Business Suit [2/1]
• Gear:
  • DocWagon Contract (Gold)
  • Handset Cellphone

Shadowing

This is the main part of the adventure, in which the runners can shadow and investigate any or all of the suspects. For each of them, the daily routines (and possible diversions thereof) are listed, together with guidelines for the gamemaster on how the players might tackle the surveillance, and possible results of their methods (both good and bad). This section is mainly intended for the gamemaster to improvise encounters, based on the information supplied.

The runners can keep all suspects under observation at the same time (if their team is big enough), or concentrate on one at a time -this is entirely up to them, as is how they handle the surveillance, but they should keep in mind that they cannot just question (or Mind Probe) the suspects, as this could alert the agent.

THE SUSPECTS

Starting on page 47 are descriptions of each of the four suspects, including such information as who they are, what they do for RSi, and their daily routines, as well as game statistics.

However, these descriptions do not give precise information on what each suspect does every minute of every day they are under observation -such detail would fill an entire issue of the NAGEE with nothing but timetables for the suspects. Rather, the descriptions are intended as guidelines for the gamemaster to judge what each suspect may be doing at any given moment, and use that to improvise the specifics.

ATTRACTING ATTENTION

Almost inevitably, the runners will do something that may draw attention to them in some way. To decide if the suspect being investigated notices the runners, use the following sections.

ACTIONS TABLE

Each suspect has an Actions Table in their description. Every time the suspect rolls a test to spot the runners or their actions, as described below, keep track of the total number of successes rolled (this is called the Actions Total) and check the Actions Table to see what kind of action the suspect takes when a given number of successes is reached. Note that each suspect has their own Actions Total -tailing one suspect does not increase the Actions Total for another, unless otherwise indicated.

COUNTERSTRIKE

When the combined value of all the Actions Totals reaches 40, whether or not the runners have been keeping an eye on the actual agent, she will become worried, as she has by now picked up plenty of signals that something is going on -and she suspects it may be because RSi is onto her. (From the gamemaster's point of view, this can be used to give the players a wrong lead to follow, because the counterstrike may come when they are investigating someone other than the agent.)

At this point, the agent asks her superiors at CBE to undertake action; these actions are described in the Counterstrike section, page 54, but note that it is also possible to go to this section from the Actions Table for the agent long before a total of 40 successes against all suspects has been reached. There will not be another team to go after the runners when the 40-successes mark is hit.

On the other hand, if 40 successes are reached before the agent's own Actions Table indicates the Counterstrike. In this case, CBE hires a second team of runners for another strike once the appropriate number of successes has been reached.

METHODS OF SURVEILLANCE

The following are typical methods by which the runners may want to keep an eye on the suspects. They will probably come up with more, which the gamemaster should judge on their feasibility, and allow to succeed or fail accordingly.

ASTRAL SNOOPING

As none of the suspects is Awakened, none of them have any real means to prevent astral snooping on their actions. However, from time to time they may go to astrally- secure areas, especially when at work. This prevents the runners from keeping track on everything the suspect does. (And no, Mr. Johnson will not allow the runners' magicians astral access to the facility -they have enough security problems as it is. If the runners want to go in anyway, let them. RSi's facilities have a security mage and some elementals that patrol the grounds, as well as wards around secure areas. Mr. Johnson will report the runners with Lone Star if they set off any astral alarms and can be identified.)

Also note that astral surveillance will not really help at any rate, because the method the agent uses to get information to CBE is unreadable from astral space. (See Felicity Cooper, page 50.)

BREAKING IN

Should the runners break into a suspect's apartment, they will need to make the necessary tests to get passed any security measures protecting the apartment building and the apartment itself. Every failed attempt to get through security adds 1 to the Action Total for that suspect. Should the runners search the apartment, let them make a Stealth test (as for Shadowing, below) to see how well they hide the traces of their search; successes again add to the Actions Total.

Modify the target number for the suspect based on how well the runners try to hide their tracks: if they don't bother at all, lower the target number severely, while if they make plenty of effort, increase it a bit.

ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE

The runners may want to plant tracking signals, listening devices, cameras, and so on to keep the suspects under electronic surveillance. The exact way to place these depends on where the runners want to put these bugs.

In The Suspect's Apartment: the runners need to break in (see above) and roll a Stealth test for each of the bugs to place it. When the suspect has a chance to spot a bug, roll a Perception test for him or her, and add the successes to their Actions Total.

In The Suspect's Vehicle: much the same as above, but the runners need to break in to the suspect's garage instead of apartment. Alternatively they can place the bug while the vehicle is parked in the street somewhere, which is easier to do but may attract attention from bystanders.

On The Suspect's Person: this is difficult to do, but dropping a bug into a pocket or purse (for example) can be done with an opposed Stealth test just as for picking pockets (p. 96, SR3). An alternative is to place the bug into an object that the suspect carries all the time, such as a cellphone. This requires access to the object, and so the best way to do it is to break into the apartment as described above.

In The Office: under no circumstance will Mr. Johnson allow the runners to place bugs in the RSi offices -again, RSi has plenty of security problems already, and don't need more. If they want to do so anyway, they'll have to break into their employer's building; if they get caught, Mr. Johnson will cancel their employment and report them to Lone Star.

LEAKING INFORMATION

The runners may want to arrange for Mr. Johnson to "leak" some information, so the runners can see if the suspect transmits this to anyone else. They will need to contact Mr. Johnson for this, and he will agree to the plan. Mr. Johnson will make sure the information is completely useless but sounds real enough to fool the suspect. Naturally, the runners will need to be informed by Mr. Johnson about the time at which the false information will be released, and what its approximate content is -else they won't know what they have to pay attention to.

SHADOWING

When the runners shadow a suspect, let them make an openended Stealth test, as described on page 95 of SR3. The subject rolls an Intelligence test against the result of the Stealth test, and add the successes to the Actions Total for that suspect.

Every new attempt to shadow the suspect is a separate test.

TALKING TO THE SUSPECT

The runners may try the direct approach: talk to the suspects face-to-face. There are several ways in which they can do this, but remember that Mr. Johnson does not want them to outright question the suspects.

Presumably, if the runners try this option, they'll go for the subtle option: make conversation with the suspect in a bar, for example. The runner should roleplay out part or all of the conversation, and roll an open-ended Interrogation test (SR3, pp. 93-94), with the suspect making an Intelligence test, rather than Willpower, against the Interrogation result. The gamemaster should modify the suspect's target number based on how well the player roleplayed the conversation.

Any successes are added to the Actions Total for this suspect. As usual, the more successes are rolled, the less the suspect will tell the runner(s) about him- or herself.

Should the runners simply interrogate the suspects, rather than try to ferret information out of them, the suspect gets a Willpower test as normal (instead of Intelligence), and twice the number of successes scored are added to the Actions Total. Use of Mind Probe or a similar spell adds twice the number of net successes the player (not the suspect) rolls to the Action Total.

TALKING TO THE SUSPECT'S NEIGHBORS

("Neighbors" includes everyone around the suspect -family, friends, co-workers, next-door neighbors, and so on.)

The information these people can provide is entirely up to the gamemaster to decide, since there is an almost endless number of possibilities here. However, none of them will be able to give any real, useful information to the runners. Not even the agent's closest friends and relatives know about her spying activities. Let the runners make Interrogation rolls as above, but don't give them anything truly useful for their investigation.

To decide whether or not the neighbor will tell the suspect about the people that came to ask questions, let the neighbor roll an Intelligence test against the Charisma of the runner doing the talking (use the average Charisma, rounded nearest, if a group of them questions the neighbor). Two or more successes means the neighbor will tell the suspect within in 1D6 days. When that time is reached, add one-half (round down) the number of successes that the neighbor rolled against the runners' Interrogation test, to the Actions Total for the suspect.

FINDING THE AGENT

Once the runners find the agent, they can report her name to Mr. Johnson, and the adventure moves on to "The Agent Unmasked"

Pauline Archer

Function

Pauline is a research scientist and lab manager in RSi's headware division. These days, she is more occupied with managing the lab than actual, handson research.

Personality

After her husband died a few years ago as an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting, Pauline has become a workaholic so she doesn't have to face the trauma of her husband's sudden death.

Pauline thinks about little else than her work at RSi, and is difficult to get along with for that reason: she will inevitably turn almost any conversation toward her job (though without giving away any classified information, though the runners need not recognize this immediately), and cuts them short for "more important business" even then.

Social Life

Little or none, because she is almost always busy with her job. She has not married again, and currently does not have a relationship with anyone -mostly because she just doesn't have the time (or so she says; she doesn't see that she can make time if she really wants to). Runners trying to approach her this way will have a very hard time, because she hardly ever goes out.

Routine

Pauline has set her alarm clock for 5:00 and is usually up before it goes off. She has a quick, light breakfast and leaves for work about half an hour after getting out of bed; barring heavy traffic (unlikely, this early) she arrives at the office around 6:15. Working more or less straight through until at least 18:00, and often until at least 20:00, she only takes a few short breaks for things like eating lunch (and what passes for dinner, if she's working really late).Most of that time is spent going over memos and reports, writing memos and reports of her own, and being in meetings with various other staff members.

When she finally gets home, often late in the evening, she eats some dinner (if she hasn't already), and spends a few more hours working on things she didn't have time for during the day. If she's lucky, she'll have time to respond to private messages left on her answering machine, but unless they're very urgent, she usually she leaves them until the weekend. She does, however, make frequent, short phone calls (voice only) from her work to an unlisted number, which should arouse suspicion from the runners. The number is Pauline's parents', but listed as "Pullman, Thomas N." in the phone directory, in case the runners check it out. This is Pauline's father's name; she uses the last name of her deceased husband, but the runners have no way of knowing this without checking it out. In the phone calls, in case they are tapped by the runners, Pauline asks the (female) voice on the other side how "he" (her father) is doing, to which the voice replies with variations on "No improvement" or "It's getting worse." Nothing is said that will means anything to anyone who doesn't know what is going on -in other words, it might be some kind of code…...

Weekends for Pauline are spent going over things for work that she couldn't fit in during the week. Very occasionally, one of her friends manages to drag her away for a night on the town, but this happens about once every few months, if not less.

Diversions From Routine

On the afternoon of the third day the runners are keeping an eye on her, Pauline gets an urgent phone call at work from her mother, telling her that her father has died. (If the phone if tapped, it goes something like "Yes?" "It's over…" "Oh god… I'll be right there…" <click>) She will immediately take the next two days off (for "personal reasons," should the runners ask RSi for her reasons) to be with her relatives until after the funeral. The day after her father has been buried, though, she will be back at work -ever more work, so she again doesn't have to come face to face with reality.

All this, however, is not something the players will necessarily figure out until they see her father's funeral… Play up the suspicious fact that Pauline has suddenly ditched her whole workaholic routine after one phone call.

Pauline's Actions Table

• Total: Actions taken
• 3: Pauline starts to feel unsafe in the street, and tries to always stay near other people when she

is outside. This could lead to suspicious behavior (from the runners' point of view, anyway).

• 5: To protect herself, Pauline gets a PANICBUTTON hookup installed on her pocket secretary.
• 8: Pauline goes to Lone Star to report she is being stalked by people she doesn't know. Lone Star

will now keep an eye open for people fitting the runners' descriptions.

• 9: The codes of the locks on the doors of Pauline's apartment are changed.
• 12: Pauline tries to get Lone Star to assign an officer to protect her. The best they can do, though, is patrol near her house more frequently (she is not rich, but is wealthy enough to matter to Lone Star's PR people), making the runners' job more difficult.

Pauline's Game Statistics

• Attributes:
  • Body: 4
  • Quickness: 5
  • Strenght: 3
  • Charisma: 5
  • Intelligence: 6
  • Willpower: 4
  • Essence: 2,75
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 5 (6)
  • Initiative: 6+1D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 7
• Karma Pool: 2
• Professional Rating: 1
• Race: Human
• Active Skills:
  • Athletics 2
  • Car 2
  • Computer 5
  • Electronics 2
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 3 (5)
  • Negotiation 4
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Biology (Metahuman) 3 (5)
  • Chemistry 3
  • Cybertechnology 7
  • Medicine 5
• Cyberware:
  • 4-Slot Chipjack
  • Datajack
  • Encephalon (2)
  • Skillwires (Rating 6, 500 Mp)
• Gear:
  • DocWagon Contract (Gold)
  • Fine Clothing
  • Pocket Computer (100 Mp)
  • Pocket Secretary
  • Toyota Elite

Marc Christenson

Function

Marc is a buyer -an office clerk who buys the necessary materials to keep the RSi labs, offices, and manufacturing facilities running. As such, he deals with other corporations and people outside of RSi on a daily basis. He tries to be upwardly mobile, doing this by taking every chance to impress his bosses and co-workers with his competence.

Personality

To offset his rather dull life, Marc fancies himself to be a tough, gung-ho type like the heroes in the best (or should that be "worst"?) action-simsense. As such, he'll try to take aggressive action against anyone he perceives as harassing him or his family. The gun he buys when he feels threatened by the runners (see Marc's Actions Table, below) reflects this: a SuperEagle is a monstrous handgun that looks really cool in Hollywood sims, but which sensible people avoid because of its low ammo capacity, excessive size, and strong recoil.

Social Life

Marc is married to Caroline, and they have two children, Denise (8) and Ben (6). The whole family lives in a fairly average apartment in a large building, and generally have a typical life for mid-level corporate employees. Caroline works as a secretary to the CEO of another small corporation, which has nothing to do with cyberware research. She does not know much about what her husband does all day except in general lines.

Since the children were born, Marc and Caroline haven't gone out much because of lack of time. They normally spend their nights at home, watching the trid, though every so often they go out to eat.

Marc's main hobby is watching (experiencing?) action simsense, his favorite being the classic Neil the Ork Barbarian series, although he appreciates any simsense with a good dose of old-fashioned action. (For an idea of the kind of sims Marc likes, think of shows like The A-Team, MacGyver, Xena: Warrior Princess, and so on.)

Routine

Marc gets up every morning around 6:00 hours and leaves for work by 6:45. It takes him about an hour to get there, and he takes a half-hour lunch break at noon. At about 17:00, he leaves for home, arriving an hour later again. Most of his working day is spent in the office, which he shares with two co-workers, making phone calls to various suppliers of anything RSi needs at the moment - from toilet paper to cyberware components -to try and get those at the lowest price possible. Representatives from other companies also phone Marc themselves to negotiate further. Occasionally, a representative comes by the office to talk to Marc face-to-face.

As the runners should note, these frequent phone calls would make an excellent opportunity for him to make contact with an agent from CBE.

Once home, Marc spends most of his nights playing with his kids, watching the trideo, or putting on a sim if there's nothing on the trid. On Friday nights, he goes to a friend's place (or some friends come over to his apartment) to play multi-player video games for a few hours.

They take their own computers with them, and hook them all up into a network; shadowrunners who observe this should recognize that this is an ideal time to copy stolen information from one computer to another. Not to mention it gives them a lot of people to try and keep track of, since any one of them could be a CBE agent going home with stolen data… (But try to stop the players from going too far off track -if they want to investigate everyone involved in the video game nights, make it clear soon that there is not much of interest about any of them.)

Diversions From Routine

None. During the entire time Marc is under observation, he will not do anything that does not fit his personality and habits.

Although this need not make the runners suspicious, some may suspect he is deliberately not doing anything out of the ordinary because he knows they are watching him. Try to get the players to think in this direction if you at all can, especially after he buys a gun (see below).

Other Notes

Marc has been collecting information about some of his superiors for some time now, with the intention of blackmailing them into promoting him. He keeps this information in a directory on his computer at home, and every time he adds something important to his files, Marc makes a back-up copy that he stores in a locker at the bus station two blocks from his house.

The exact nature of this information is left up to the gamemaster, but shadowrunners keeping an eye on Marc should note his somewhat suspicious behavior when he is working with his files -when he thinks nobody is looking at work, Marc makes quick notes about things he discovers about his bosses, and types them up in more detail when he gets home.

Marc's Actions Table

• Total: Actions taken
• 3: Marc becomes suspicious and will pay more active attention to anyone who appears to be following him. Subtract 1 from the runners' Stealth test results from now on.
• 8: Next time he is tailed, Marc will try to confront the runners and demands to know why they are following him.
• 9: Marc goes to a gun store and buys himself a SuperEagle pistol (see Running Gear, p. 10).
• 13: Marc takes to wearing the SuperEagle everywhere he goes.
• 14: Marc takes offensive action against the runners next time he spots them: if driving, he tries to run them off the road (resolve as vehicle combat, SR3 p. 138), while if on foot, he will try to threaten one or more of the runners, using his pistol if the situation permits.

Marc's game Statistics

• Attributes:
  • Body: 3
  • Quickness: 4
  • Strength: 4
  • Charisma: 4
  • Intelligence: 5
  • Willpower: 4
  • Essence: 6
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 4
  • Initiative: 4+1D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 6
• Karma Pool: 1
• Professional Rating: 2
• Race: Human
• Active Skills:
  • Car 3
  • Computer 3
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 3 (5)
  • Intimidation 1
  • Pistols 1
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Economics 2
  • Computer Games 4
  • Cybertechnology 1
  • Office Supplies 5
  • Simsense Stars (Neil The Ork Barbarian) 2 (4)
• Weapons:
  • at first: none
  • later: SuperEagle
    • [Heavy Pistol, SA, 11M, 7 (c), with transport permit]
    • 3 clips regular ammo
    • Range (TN): 0-10 (4), 10-20 (5), 21-50 (6), 51-100 (9)
    • Double recoil penalties for this weapon.
• Gear:
  • Handset Cellphone
  • Fine Clothing
  • Honda-GM 3220 ZX
  • Pager

Felicity Cooper

Felicity is the agent the runners are trying to unmask.

Function

A life-long employee of RSi, Felicity is the secretary to RSi's Director of Operations, Margaret Wells. Mostly this means Felicity can be found in Wells' office, though when she travels to meet with representatives of other companies, Felicity often goes with her.

Personality

Felicity is not someone who is easy to get along with. On principle, she doesn't trust people she doesn't know, and holds grudges for a long time against those who've done her wrong. In dealing with people, she is usually brief and to the point, though those few she considers her friends find her a warm and caring person.

Felicity has been a widow for the past nine years, something for which she blames RSi -her husband worked in one of the research labs and was killed in an accident that Felicity feels was caused by criminal negligence on the part of RSi's management. However, she stayed on as a secretary in order to, in her view, cause as much damage to RSi as it has caused her. This manifested itself in stealing data and selling it to RSi's chief competitor, Campbell Biosystems Engineering. CBE realized they had a valuable agent inside RSi and made efforts to keep her there, promising Felicity that they would eventually help her destroy RSi. Felicity, for her part, is looking forward to this, especially now that she has been ordered to step up her spying activities.

Social Life

Felicity's social life is fairly typical for someone in their mid-fifties. After work, like most people, she tends to busy herself with housework, her hobbies (her favorite hobby is arranging flowers), and watching the trid. She doesn't go out much, but has a fair number of friends she sees every few days. At these times they talk about all kinds of different things -nothing related to spying on RSi, though, in case the runners are listening in. From time to time, Felicity and some of her friends go out for dinner in one of the local restaurants instead, though not very often.

Felicity has not re-married after her husband's death all those years ago, though she does have a relationship at the moment. However, this relationship is under stress because Felicity still cannot truly let go of her husband.

Routine

Felicity gets up around 6:45 every morning, and leaves for work about an hour later. As she does not live far away, she takes a short bus ride and gets to the office at about 8:00. Most of her working day is spent doing secretarial work: typing letters, receiving visitors, and generally helping the Director of Operations do her job. Felicity has lunch when her boss' schedule permits, usually somewhere between 12:00 and 14:00 hours, though she sometimes skips it altogether when there is not enough time.

Between 16:30 and 17:00, she is done working and goes home again by the same bus she took in the morning. Once home, she relaxes a bit in front of the trideo, before going out again, once more by bus, to get groceries (if necessary) and buy a bunch of flowers at a store called New Age Flowers. Felicity buys fresh flowers every day, partly because she likes them, and more importantly because the florist is also on CBE's payroll -she delivers any stolen data to him, as described under "Making The Drop", below.

With her flowers and groceries, Felicity goes home and has dinner, after which she spends more time watching the trid and on her hobbies.

Diversions From Routine

On the fourth day she is being followed, Felicity calls in sick. She has a light case of the flu, and has to stay in for two days before she has recovered far enough to go back to work. An RSi staff member will come by her apartment to confirm she really is incapable of working on the morning of her first sick day, and after that Felicity will stay in bed for most of the following days.

Other than this, Felicity does not divert from her normal routine.

Felicity's Actions Table

• Total: Actions taken
• 3: Felicity has spotted the runners and suspects them to work for RSi to find her out. She will become more careful, making it harder for the runners to notice her doing anything wrong. The exact effects of this caution are up to the gamemaster to decide.
• 7: In an attempt to get rid of the runners, Felicity mentions that she thinks she is being followed

to her boss, RSi's Director of Operations Margaret Wells. Wells knows about the runners, and gets Mr. Johnson to pass word to them that they may need to back off a little bit.

• 10: Felicity warns CBE that something needs to be done about the runners; go to Counterstrike on

page 54. CBE instructs her to keep stealing data anyway, as they need everything she can get her hands on.

• 12: Ignoring CBE's orders, Felicity stops gathering data, but makes the mistake of not going to the flower store anymore. This can serve as a hint to the runners that the florist is important.

Felicity's Game Statistics

• Attributes:
  • Body: 4
  • Quickness: 3
  • Strength: 3
  • Charisma: 5
  • Intelligence: 4
  • Willpower: 6
  • Essence: 5,8
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 3
  • Initiative: 3+1D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 6
• Karma Pool: 1
• Professional Rating: 1
• Race: Human
• Active Skills:
  • Computer 4
  • Dance 3
  • Electronics 3
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 4 (6)
  • Stealth 2
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Cybertechnology 4
  • Electronics Background 3
• Cyberware:
  • Datajack
• Gear:
  • Fine Clothing
  • Laptop Computer (75 Mp)
  • Micro-Camcorder
  • Pocket Secretary

MAKING THE DROP

The way CBE has arranged for Felicity to give them stolen data is rather ingenious. Before she goes to buy flowers, she copies the data she has stolen that day (if any) onto a modified credstick. This stick is indistinguishable from a standard credstick on the outside, but inside its normal electronics have been ripped out and replaced by a single, 500 Mp optical chip. The credstick cannot be used to pay with.

The florist inserts Felicity's credstick into a modified credstick reader which copies the data off the chip and sends it via the Matrix to CBE's mainframe. Thus, it looks like Felicity is paying for her flowers, but actually she is handing over stolen data and incidentally getting the flowers for free. CBE sees the expense of real flowers as part of their payment for services rendered by Felicity. The runners can notice this way of passing the stolen data along in a number of ways. If they get their hands on Felicity's special credstick (which she only carries with her when she goes to "buy" flowers, though they might find it if they search her apartment) they can examine it. but it's unlikely they'll think of this unless they have reason to suspect something is up with it -after all, a credstick is a credstick.

The main clue is that the florist uses a different credstick reader for Felicity than for the other customers. Hint that something is out of the ordinary by describing how someone before Felicity pays for some flowers, and then allowing the runners to notice (let them roll a Perception test but ignore the roll unless it's really bad) that a different credstick reader is used when Felicity is paying for hers. A bit subtle, yes, but if things had been more obvious, the runners wouldn't be investigating these four people, now would they?

Another pointer that some runners may miss, is that real flowers are pretty expensive in the middle decades of the 21st century. They would require quite a large portion of Felicity's secretary salary, especially since she buys a fresh bunch every day, but somehow she seems to have plenty of money left to live comfortably from. Characters with a background in economics (like those with such Knowledge Skills as Accounting or Economics) should certainly find this suspicious.

NEW AGE FLOWERS MATRIX HOST

If the runners suspect something is up with the New Age Flowers shop, they may decide to investigate via the Matrix. Its host uses the following ratings: Green-4/9/8/9/9/8

• Trigger Step: Event
• 5: Trace-9
• 10: Passive Alert, Tar Pit-5
• 15: Active Alert, Binder-5
• 20: Killer-7

Paydata: 1D6 x 5 Mp, no defenses, worth 1D6 x 1,000¥

These may seem a bit tough for a simple store, but that is because CBE has installed a bit of IC to keep out nosy deckers.

Nothing much of interest can be found in the host -a flower shop's bookkeeping is not worth much on the black market -but the runners will be able to intercept any data Felicity stole from RSi if their decker is in the florist's host at the time Felicity makes the drop.

QUESTIONING THE FLORIST

Another option for the runners is to go up to the florist and ask some pointed questions. The florist is a real florist, but has been recruited by CBE to pass on data from a number of operatives (including Felicity Cooper).

When questioned, the florist is able to tell the runners the following things, depending on the difference between the Interrogation Open Test result, and the florist's highest Willpower roll (see the rules on pages 93-94 of SR3).

• He is a real florist, but also works for Campbell Biosystems Engineering, passing data from their field agents to the corp.
• The agent gives him a credstick that contains the data, he puts it into a modified reader, and everything gets uploaded to CBE automatically.
• He doesn't know who receives the data at CBE -he never meet with them, he just sends them the data.

JIMMY BECK (FLORIST)

The florist is a middle-aged, dark-haired man, going bald and with a moustache, by the name of Jimmy Beck. He has no patience with people -not a good trait in a store owner, but that's not really relevant to the adventure except to frustrate the runners with.

Beck keeps a length of steel pipe and a light pistol under the counter in case somebody tries to rob him -it's happened before, and he wants to be prepared in case it happens again. He will not hesitate to try using he pistol or his self-defense skills against the runners, whom he will mistake for common thugs at first (an easy enough error, with many shadowrunners).

• Attributes:
  • Body: 2
  • Quickness: 4
  • Strength: 3
  • Charisma: 3
  • Intelligence: 4
  • Willpower: 4
  • Essence: 6
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 4
  • Initiative: 4+1D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 6
• Karma Pool: 1
• Professional Rating: 2
• Race: Elf

• Active Skills:
  • Computer 4
  • Etiquette 3
  • Pistols 4
  • Unarmed Combat 3
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Computer Background 2
  • Botany (Flowers) 2 (4)
• Weapons:
  • Beretta Model 101T
    • [Light Pistol, 12 (c), SA,6L, with possession permit]
    • 1 clip regular ammo
    • Range (TN): 0-5 (4), 6-15 (5), 16-30 (6), 31-50 (9)
  • Club [+1 Reach, 4M Stun]
• Gear:
  • Ordinary Clothing

Ted Henderson

Function

Ted works as a mechanic for RSi, fixing problems with electronic equipment (including computers), working on the building's electrical system, and so on. This gives him access to sensitive systems when they break down.

Ted also has a night job, because RSi does not pay enough to make ends meet for his family since his wife's employer went bankrupt and she was laid off. Three or four days a week, Ted works as a night clerk at a convenience store.

Personality

Ted is a pleasant enough person to get along with. He is normally cheerful, friendly, and easy-going, which has given him a good reputation with RSi's office and lab staff. He can also get along well with his boss and customers at the convenience store, and was made employee of the month there a few months before the adventure.

Recently, though, he has started becoming depressed as a result of drugs he is taking (see below). Up until now, though, this has not had any real impact on the way Ted deals with other people.

Social Life

Ted is a married man, living with his wife, Marcia, in a small apartment adapted to dwarf-sized occupants. They have one adult daughter, but she went to live on her own a few years ago and comes to visit on Sundays. The only other occupant of the apartment is the dog, a German shepherd named Tammy.

What his wife doesn't know is that Ted has a mistress, a dwarf woman by the name of Yolanda Jensen, whom he goes to see every couple of days (more often if he sees a chance to do so). His night job gives Ted an excuse to see Yolanda more often, by telling his wife that he has to work while in fact he hasn't.

Routine

The kind of person that doesn't need much sleep, Ted regularly wakes up between 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning to do housework and other things he doesn't have time for during the day.

Around 6:30, he has eaten his breakfast and leaves for work, where he usually arrives between 7:45 and 8:00 am. Until his lunch break at 12:00, and again from 13:00 until 17:00, Ted is busy doing his job: fixing electronic devices that are not working properly, maintaining and installing electrical systems, etc. In his lunch hour, which begins at noon, Ted stays in the RSi building, eating lunch in the break room and talking to his co-workers.

After his working day, Ted goes home to eat dinner around 18:30, and leaves again for his night job in the convenience store at 19:30; his shift usually begins at 20:00, and lasts until midnight, when the store closes; he then spends another half hour closing up and then goes home. Once there, he goes straight to bed.

On nights he doesn't have to work in the convenience store, and during weekends, Ted mainly busies himself with his hobby: aircraft spotting. He can often be found, either alone or with some of his friends, near the various airports in the Seattle Metroplex, armed with a camera to take photographs of aircraft that are taking off or landing. Since there will often be other spotters present as well, shadowrunners should see another excellent opportunity here for Ted to give stolen RSi data to a CBE contact.

Some nights on which he doesn't have to work, Ted pays a visit to Yolanda Jensen, his mistress. In order to fool his wife, he pretends he has to work that night, or that he is going to go over to a friend's house to talk about aircraft (which he does regularly as well). He doesn't stay longer with Yolanda's than would be plausible for his chosen excuse. For example, if he's told his wife he has to work until midnight, he won't be home later than 1:00 am.

Ted somehow manages to stay awake all day long despite getting only about four or five hours of sleep per night while having two tiring jobs and a mistress… What nobody (not even his wife) knows, is that in order to keep up this kind of routine, Ted takes triphetamines (see page 108 of the Collected NAGEE or page 81 of Running Gear for details). Because this drug works for 3 or 4 hours, on average, Ted usually takes one tablet after lunch and another after dinner.

His friends, co-workers, wife, and mistress have all noticed that in recent months, Ted has become a bit detached and depressed, and often complains of nausea. However, if the runners question them, they will not start talking in depth about these things -they might mention the symptoms in passing, but don't consider them important enough to really talk about. Of course, if confronted with Ted's possible stimulant addiction, they might (and some will also mention it to Ted himself, adding successes to his Actions Total).

Diversions From Routine

On the third day the runners follow Ted, his supply of triphetamine tablets has almost run out. During his lunch break, he first makes a quick, hushed phone call, quickly eats, and then leaves the building, getting into his car and driving off. If the runners follow him, he drives to a bad part of town, parks his car outside a burnt-out apartment building, looks round to make sure nobody is following him (let him roll a Perception test to spot the runners at this point) and -if he is satisfied that nobody is following him -goes inside.

In the burnt-out building, he meets with a local smalltime criminal who sells him a bottle of triphetamines, enough to last Ted for another month or so. This business is done very hush-hush, and might lead any shadowrunners who observe the deal to conclude that Ted may be handing information to a CBE employee.

Ted's Actions Table

• Total: Actions taken
• 3: Ted becomes visible more nervous every time he thinks he spots the runners. This has no real effects, but gives the runners a clue that he may be onto them.
• 5: Ted assumes his wife suspects him to have an affair, and hired the runners to follow him. He

will not see Yolanda anymore for a while, although he will give her the occasional phone call.

• 8: Ted will stay home every night, calling in sick for his night job even though he can't really afford this.
• 10: Ted pays his triphetamine dealer a few hundred nuyen to have some gangers rough up the runners.

Use a few of the Sprawl Ganger sample characters (SR3 p. 328) but with their attributes modified to represent humans. The runners should be able to deal easily with them, and they don't know anything when questioned.

• 14: Ted confronts his wife about the runners, completely confusing her because she doesn't know

about them. This eventually turns into a big argument over Yolanda, ending with Ted being kicked out by Marcia and staying in a cheap hotel for the next few nights. Their marriage will go down the drain rapidly afterward, ending in divorce a few months later.

Ted's Game Statistics

• Attributes:
  • Body: 4
  • Quickness: 3
  • Strenght: 4
  • Charisma: 6
  • Intelligence: 3
  • Willpower: 4
  • Essence: 6
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 3
  • Initiative: 3+1D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 5
• Karma Pool:1
• Professional Rating: 1
• Race: Dwarf
• Active Skills:
  • Car 2
  • Computer B/R 4
  • Electronics B/R 4
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 1 (3)
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Computer Background: 2
  • Electronics Background: 4
  • Rotor Aircraft Background: 2
  • Vector Thrust Aircraft Background: 3
  • Winged Aircraft Background: 5
• Gear:
  • Bottle of triphetamine tablets
  • Camera
  • Electronics Toolkit
  • Ford Americar
  • Ordinary Clothing

Counterstrike

Once the combined suspects have reached 40 or more successes against the runners, or Felicity Cooper has achieved 10 or more successes by herself, this complication will take place.

Campbell Biosystems Engineering will take direct action against the runners, trying to stop them from unmasking the agent. They hire a team of shadowrunners, who will strike at the runners the day after this section begins.

CBE's Team

The team hired by CBE consists of a good mix of sample characters from the Shadowrun, Third Edition rulebook and/ or the Meat Market and NAGEE Updates chapters of the NAGEE. (Or, of course, characters of your own design.) The idea is that they are more or less equal in strength to the players' group, and so can give them a run for their money.

The CBE team should not be so tough that they can walk all over the runners without breaking a sweat, or so weak that the players' team doesn't even really notice them. A good guide is that they should have skills and Karma Pools roughly equal to those of the player characters.

TACTICS

These shadowrunners will try to take the runners down without warning, striking at them when they are vulnerable -for example, when they're in some place where they had to leave their guns at the door (in which case the CBE team simply goes in guns blazing), or when the runners are just walking along a street. They also prefer to hit smaller groups of runners rather than take them all on at the same time.

Smart players should be able to withdraw without taking serious casualties, though. Sure, they may (or perhaps: should) take some wounds, but the gamemaster should not aim to kill all the player characters in one big, perfectly-executed ambush.

WHEN CBE'S RUNNERS STOP

Once they have lost (dead or hospitalized) one-half of their number, CBE's hired help calls it quits -they are in the shadowrunning biz to make money, not to get slaughtered by runners who are obviously better at their job than they are. They will launch no further attacks against the player characters, although at the gamemaster's discretion, CBE may hire other runner teams if the players are having too easy a time at the adventure.

It is up to the gamemaster to decide when CBE's team breaks off their attack in order to withdraw and try again later, but generally this should happen when the players prove too strong.

WHAT CBE'S RUNNERS KNOW

Not much. If one of them is captured in a state in which he or she is able to answer questions, they must be interrogated to get information out of them. The following gives an indication of what the enemy runners know.

• They were hired by some Johnson to stop the runners from whatever it is they're doing.
• She hired them yesterday, and paid 10,000¥ each to take the runners out of her hair.
• They did a background check on the Johnson, and found out that she works for some outfit called Campbell Biosystems Engineering.
• They couldn't find out why she wants the runners stopped, but that doesn't matter to them, anyway, as long as they get paid.

The Agent Unmasked

Once the agent has been unmasked, Mr. Johnson tells the runners to stay away from Felicity Cooper, so as not to tip her, and CBE, off that RSi knows the identity of the spy. RSi's management plans to take advantage of the situation by letting the stolen data work in their advantage.

When the runners report to Mr. Johnson with claims that they know who the spy is, he will arrange a meeting in the Fenris Nacht again as soon as possible. There, he wants the runners to tell him what they found out and how, and after hearing their story, he will pay the runners the balance of their fee

He then has another job offer for them: he now wants the runners to find out what CBE has already stolen, and to modify that data so it will be useless. This requires a decker (one will be supplied by RSi if the team has none) to infiltrate the CBE offices and deck into their secure, offline system. Mr. Johnson will also give the runners a utility that will make small, but significant changes to any data stolen from RSi that is found in the system. (The idea, which Mr. Johnson will not relate to the runners, is that the parent megacorp will discover that CBE has seriously flawed research projects, which will put CBE at the top of the list of companies to be shut down.)

The run will pay 5,000¥ per person (negotiate as normal; 2,000¥ per person can be paid up front, as Mr. Johnson has this with him) and must take place within the next 24 hours -though preferably yesterday -and be done without attracting attention to RSi. The runners are completely free in their execution of this run, and in fact Mr. Johnson states that collateral damage is not wholly undesired -as long as RSi is not implicated.

Naturally, Mr. Johnson provides the runners with the address of CBE's main building, and he also gives their decker a chip containing a 36 Mp utility that the decker must use in CBE's mainframe. He tells them that once the utility is running, the decker can leave the host, as it will take care of everything itself.

As before, he can also provide them with equipment they might need for the run, as outlined on page 44 under Getting Hired. Remember that Mr. Johnson only has access to electronics, as well as cyberware if given a good enough reason.

In case the runners do not have a decker of their own, Mr. Johnson has hired another shadowrunner, to whom he will introduce them after negotiations are complete. This turns out to be an ork who's sitting at the bar since before the runners came in, and Mr. Johnson will go over to him and take him to meet the group. His name is Robbie McNeill, but he goes by the street name of Pinball. (Use the Combat Decker sample character from the SR3 main rulebook to represent Robbie.)

The runners can of course decline, in which case the adventure is over right here and now, so go to Picking Up The Pieces on page 59. RSi will hire other runners to do this job, and will in future probably decline to work with this group again.

Breaking & Entering

This section describes Campbell BiosystemsEngineering's offices and security.

GUARDS

Campbell employs a total of seven mundane guards. One of these is a dwarf, two are elves, three are human, and the last is an ork. One security sorcerer is also on duty in the office building; this is not a full mage, but rather an aspected magician, and so cannot use astral projection nor conjure elementals. Also in the building is the security decker.

SECURITY GUARDS

Attributes	Dwarf	Elf	Human	Orc
Body	6	4	4	7
Quickness	3	6	5	5
Strength	6	4	4	6
Charisma	3	5	3	4
Intelligence	4	3	4	3
Willpower	6	4	4	5
Essence	5	5	5	5
Magic	-	-	-	-
Reaction	4	4	4	4
Initiative	4+2D6	4+2D6	4+2D6	4+2D6

• Dice Pools: Combat 6
• Karma Pool: 1
• Professional Rating: 2
• Race: Dwarf, Elf, Human or Ork
• Active Skills:
  • Athletics 3
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 1 (3)
  • Pistols 4
  • Shotguns 4
  • Submachine Guns 4
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Security Procedures 4
• Cyberware:
  • Boosted Reflexes (Rating 1)
  • Smartlink
• Weapons:
  • Ares Predator
    • [Heavy Pistol, SA, 9M, 15 (c), with internal smartlink, 3 clips Regular ammo]
    • Ranges (TN): 0-5 (2), 6-20 (3), 21-40 (4), 41-60 (7)
• Two guards:
  • Remington 990
    • [Shotgun, SA, 10S, 8 (m), with internal smartlink, 10 rounds Gel ammo, 20 rounds Regular ammo]
    • Range (TN): 0-10 (2), 10-20 (3), 21-50 (4), 51-100 (7)
• Others:
  • Steyr MP i 25
    • [SMG, SA/BF/FA, 6M, 35 (c), with gas vent (rating 1), internal smartlink, laser sight, 1 clip Gel ammo, clips Regular ammo]
    • Range (TN): 0-10 (2), 11-40 (3), 41-80 (4), 81-150 (7)
• Armor: Armor Jacket [5/3]
• Gear:
  • Metal Restraints
  • Pocket flashlight
  • Transceiver (Rating 4, with Rating 3 Encryption)

SECURITY SORCERER

• Attributes:
  • Body: 4
  • Quickness: 4
  • Strenght: 2
  • Charisma: 4
  • Intelligence: 5
  • Willpower: 6
  • Essence: 6
  • Magic: 6
  • Reaction: 4
  • Initiative: 4+1D6

• Dice Pools: Astral Combat 7, Combat 7, Spell 5
• Karma Pool: 1
• Professional Rating: 2
• Race: Human
• Active Skills:
  • Athletics 2
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 1 (3)
  • Pistols 4
  • Sorcery 5
  • Submachine Guns 3
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Magic Background 3
  • Security Procedures 3
• Spells:
  • Clairvoyance 4
  • Detect Life 5
  • Manabolt 5
  • Mass Confusion 6
  • Mind Probe 5
  • Treat 5
• Weapons:
  • Ares Predator
    • [Heavy Pistol, SA, 9M, 15 (c), with internal smartlink, 3 clips Regular ammo]
    • Ranges (TN): 0-5 (3), 6-20 (4), 21-40 (5), 41-60 (8)
  • Steyr MP i 25
    • [SMG, SA/BF/FA, 6M, 35 (c), with gas vent (rating 1), internal smartlink, laser sight, 1 clip Gel ammo, 4 clips Regular ammo]
    • Range (TN): 0-10 (3), 11-40 (4), 41-80 (5), 81-150 (8)
• Armor: Armor Jacket [5/3]
• Gear:
  • Metal Restraints
  • Pocket flashlight
  • Smart Goggles
  • Transceiver (Rating 4, with Rating 3 Encryption)

Security Procedure

The normal routine for security is that one guard watches the monitors in the security center while three guards patrol the hallways for an hour. The other three are also in the security center, mainly resting and will relieve the other three after an hour. The sorcerer and the decker are also in the security center. If a firefight breaks out, all guards except the decker will participate (she will only get involved if the runners decide to storm the security center).

If security suspects a break-in, but they are not sure, the sorcerer will use Detect Life and Clairvoyance to help locate the intruders.

The guards' main tactic, should a firefight break out, is to split into two groups and try to deliver aimed fire at the runners from two directions, with the intent of removing the intruders from the premises as soon as possible -either through killing them, or making them withdraw. The sorcerer will help out in the combat mainly by Manabolting targets of opportunity, or using his Mass Confusion spell to hinder the runners.

Astral Security This is very poor, mainly because CBE hired a sorcerer rather than a full mage to do their magical security. As the sorcerer can only check astral space in the area in which he is physically present, the runners should have it fairly easy scouting out the building from the astral plane before they go in.

BUILDING LAYOUT

A map of CBE's offices appears on page 56; following is a description of the rooms in the building.

THE GROUNDS

The CBE compound consists of a pleasant, landscaped park with lawns, flowerbeds, copses of trees, and a few small, shallow ponds. Contrary to what the runners might expect, there is little security hidden in all this -a major reason is that the landscaping cost plenty of money, leaving little for extensive security measures.

The whole compound is surrounded by a three-metertall chain link fence topped with a few strands of electric, barbed wire; see page 234 of SR3 for information. Bolted onto several trees are surveillance cameras with low-light systems, arranged to cover as much of the grounds as possible. These feed their images to the security center, where a guard watches the monitors.

DOORS

All exterior doors are unlocked during the day, but are equipped with a rating 8 cardreader maglock for locking them at night. Interior doors are generally unlocked at all times; the ones indicated as "locked" in the building description below are only locked at night, with a rating 6 cardreader maglock. The security center has two master keys that will open any door.

FIRST FLOOR

• 1: Cafeteria This large room is filled with tables and chairs, and at one end of the room is a long counter where food and beverages are sold during lunch breaks. For most of the day, there is only one person here, behind the counter. During lunch breaks, two more people help out, and of course the room is filled with workers eating their lunch.
• 2: Bathroom There are two bathrooms on each floor, one for men and one for women.
• 3: Public Relations Office Anyone coming in with generic questions about CBE will be referred here. It is a roomy office, which tries to show a pleasant atmosphere to visitors and potential customers.
• 4: Visitor Center/Waiting Room Visitors will be received here by the CBE representative with whom they have an appointment, while those without an appointment are generally made to wait here. The room has tables, chairs, and sofas, and contains plenty of promotional material for CBE's products -flyers, framed posters on the walls, etc.
• 5: Boiler/Ventilation/Storage Room This room is normally locked, even during the day. It contains a full air conditioning system, including a heater, and also serves as storage space for cleaning supplies.
• 6: Security Center CBE's security guards are described on page 55. At most times, there will be six guards here: one watching the monitors, one decker, one sorcerer, and three mundane guards who are just hanging around. In the security center are monitors displaying the images transmitted by the cameras shown on the map. Under normal conditions, the guard will notice a shadowrunner who appears in the camera's field of view on a successful Perception (6) test -people watching monitors all day generally aren't all that observant anymore. The cameras are equipped with low-light systems, so if the runners plunge the building into darkness, apply the appropriate modifiers to the guard's target number. Any door in the building, apart from the mainframe room (#17) can be locked and unlocked remotely from the security center. Naturally, there is a PANICBUTTON located here which the guards will use to call Lone Star in case the runners start a firefight. See pages 108-114 of New Seattle for information on Lone Star's response, though read the time given in minutes rather than initiative phases; CBE's building is in a B-rated part of the city. If New Seattle isn't available, assume Lone Star cops arrives on the scene in 2D6 minutes of the PANICBUTTON being activated.
• 7: Customer Relations Office Similar to the public relations office, this office is used by CBE's customer relations staff. It is difficult to get in here by fast-talking, since the people in this office deal only with companies that are already customers of CBE, and with serious, potential customers.
• 8: Reception A large, airy, two-story atrium is the reception area. Centrally located is a large desk behind which, during business hours, are two receptionists. Decoration in the reception consists of a kind of indoor garden, with a small fountain and plenty of plants (artificial, but you can only tell from up close). The whole southern and eastern walls are glass, giving a very clear view of the grounds outside.

SECOND FLOOR

• 9: Research & Design Offices Although CBE's actual R&D facility is located elsewhere, these offices belong to their R&D department. They contain office cubicles, each with a computer that is connected straight to the Matrix host. There is no cyberware in these offices.
• 10: Section Heads' Offices The offices of the heads of the R&D and Manufacturing divisions.
• 11: Manufacturing Offices From these offices, CBE's Manufacturing division is controlled. As with R&D, actual manufacture of cyberware takes place in another facility, and there is one computer per cubicle here through which CBE's Matrix host can be reached.
• 12: Atrium Part of area 8 on the first floor. The hallway that runs along the atrium has a glass railing from which it is possible to go down to the first floor, if the runners are so inclined.

THIRD FLOOR

• 13: President's Office This luxurious office belongs to CBE's president, Rebecca M. Sysskowski. In addition to a chair, desk, computer, etc., it has a lounge area with mini-bar, leather sofa, and other luxuries.
• 14: Secretary's Office This small office has two desks where the secretaries to the president and vice-president work. A door gives access to the president's office. 15: Vice-President's Office Not as large as the president's office, but with much the same features.
• 16: Administration Offices Offices filled with cubicles where wageslaves toil all day making sure CBE's administration stays up-to-date. In them are plenty of computers, through which the runners can deck into CBE's Matrix host. The offices are locked at night.
• 17: Mainframe & Storage Room This room contains a large computer on which CBE runs its Matrix host. It also contains the necessary cooling equipment to keep the host functioning properly, as well as storage closets with spare parts for the computers in the offices. This room is locked at all times, by a rating 8 cardreader maglock.
• 18: Conference Room This room has one large, oval table with plenty of comfortable chairs, as well as all kinds of electronics used for presentations: computers, simdecks, a holoprojector, and so on.

CBE's Mainframe

The objective of this shadowrun is to break into CBE's mainframe. During a normal working day, this can be accomplished through any of the terminals in the offices, but at night when everybody has gone home, the terminals are shut off from the mainframe, and are thus useless. The runners must locate the actual mainframe and deck straight into that. The only alternative is to go into the security center and go in through the cyberdeck located there.

SECURITY DECKER

CBE employs some security deckers, one of whom is always on-site. The decker stays in the security center and has a cyberdeck plugged straight into CBE's mainframe. From time to time (roughly every hour), she will check the mainframe for intruders, and will certainly go in when an active alert has been tripped.

• Attributes:
  • Body: 3
  • Quickness: 5
  • Strenght: 3
  • Charisma: 4
  • Intelligence: 6
  • Willpower: 5
  • Essence: 5,8
  • Magic: -
  • Reaction: 5
    • Matrix Reaction is 7
  • Initiative: 5+1D6
    • Matrix Initiative is 7+2D6

• Dice Pools:
  • Combat 8
  • Hacking 4
• Karma Pool: 1
• Professional Rating: 3
• Race: Elf
• Active Skills:
  • Computer 6
  • Computer B/R 3
  • Electronics 3
  • Etiquette (Corporate) 1 (3)
  • Pistols 3
• Knowledge Skills:
  • Computer Background 5
  • Security
  • Procedures 3
• Cyberware: Datajack
• Weapons:
  • Ares Predator
    • [Heavy Pistol, SA, 9M, 15 (c), 3 clips Regular ammo]
    • Range (TN): 0-5 (4), 6-20 (5), 21-40 (6), 41-60 (9)
• Armor: Armor Jacket [5/3]
• Gear:
  • Campbell Model P-2762 cyberdeck (Price 373,640¥)
    • MPCP 7
    • Bod 6, Evasion 6
    • Masking 4, Sensor 5
    • Active Memory 500 Mp
    • Storage Memory 1,250
    • Hot ASIST interface
    • I/O Speed 375 MePS
    • Response Increase 1
    • Vidscreen
    • Utilities
      • Analyze 5 (75 Mp)
      • Armor 5 (75 Mp)
      • Lock-On 4 (48 Mp)
      • Attack-S 5 (100 Mp)
      • Medic 5 (100 Mp)
      • MpRead/Write 3 (18 Mp)
      • Scanner 6 (108 Mp)
      • Tracks 6 (288 Mp)