Heist in The Heights [RP]

- Miles -

The Heights rises from the street, like a monolith into the smog above. The stucko and faux-columns aesthetic of a mid-town mall gives way to stark glass --that would have counted as 'modern' when it was built, but now looks tacky-- just before vanishing from sight.

It used to have many lower level entrances when it was a mall, but they have mostly been filled in and barricaded over the years since the Lowlifes took up residence.

In your time watching, you have seen almost nobody coming or going at street level, and the below-ground parking structures and access from the underground rail-system is heavily guarded.

These perimeter guards are the only source you have had to judge appropriate attire for a disguise, but that is probably not a bad thing, since they tend towards the 'armed-and-militant' side of general gutter-trash milieu that dominates the style, and that probably allows for more gear and weapons to be incorporated into any disguise.

While also convenient, you suspect, from your observations, that impersonating a guard could come with its own set of troubles, if discovered. And, while you don't see much structure or organisation, they may well know each other or be known by the people they protect, as is common with community-gangs.

To learn much more, you would definitely have to expose yourself to scrutiny from the guards.

What do you do?

- Blank -

While the Lowlifes don't trust or accept you, you have had more contact with them than most. Maybe this is why the Operator hired you? They obviously don't care about your desire to spread medicines around --else they would have offered you the plans for the medical manufacturing prototype you are stealing, instead of just creds for handing it over to some other faceless corporation.

You have even been --almost-- inside. The Lowlifes arranged to open up an old loading dock to give you access to do your work, and you had the chance to observe a bit about them and the interior-just-past-the-walls.

When you recently contacted them, you were not immediately rebuffed --as is their wont-- and have been able to open a dialogue with them.

• What have you told them about why you are in contact? Did you discuss this with your team?
• What was the nature of the medical emergency last summer?

- Kamisori -

So far you have confirmed that the High-levelers' deliveries use only small-drones, as per the datapacket.

Each drone has to transmit its encrypted waybill before it is allowed past the antiaircraft guns --you lost at least one of yours by straying too close.

While you have made some, very few regular drones are large enough to carry a person-sized load. If you could assemble enough to get the team in the top that way, you would still need to get around the lethal protections the high-Levelers have to keep people like you away.

<< Scanning livecasts: ... >>
Categorisation: [Insular]

There are almost no feeds being projected out into the world, it is almost like these people don't want to be part of the global economy, or something. Was the Operator, maybe, right to be so dismissive of them?

One interesting thing you do learn from the few sources that watch these quasi-private feeds, is that one of the drones that features a fair bit on the feeds inside is one of yours.

• Do you participate in robot fighting? Have you ever?
• How did one of your old drones end up here, under someone else's control?
• What is interesting about that particular drone?

- D. -

Your contacts are all surprised and baffled by questions about the 'Lowlifes in The Heights'. Most know nothing about them, those that do mostly only know that they don't deal with the outside world.

If they have problems, they tend to deal with them internally, and with direct and savage violence. Your normal set of skills would not be of much interest to them, but there are hints that your new profession of 'medical sales rep' might get you closer towards a connection.

The Lowlifes don't trust the corporations that make the medicines, and have refuse to deal with them, so there have been (unsubstantiated) stories of sickness within their compound.

Who knows: Maybe someone would be willing to talk to you.

- Miles -

Over the years, the Lowlifes have either barricaded or set guards on all the entrances in their area. Though, you have not seen anyone checking how well the barricades are holding up, nor maintaining them, so you might be able to find one that could be opened given enough time and effort.

An agile crew could definitely climb the walls, at least up to the level where the glass windows start, above that --and possibly hidden by the smog layer-- climbing may be possible, but is hard to test until you try.

Being spotted climbing the sides would very likely get you shot at by either side.

- Blank -

Your contact is very interested in talk about gaining access to their upstairs neighbour's parts of The Heights. They have been trying for years to expand into the higher levels, but the barriers the Higher-Levelers installed have defeated their every attempt.

• What is your contact's name?
• Do the other Lowlifes know he went to an 'outside doctor'? Has this fact hurt his standing in a community so distrustful of outsiders?

- Winston -

Some effort was done to remove blueprints from the city archives when They Heights severed their connections with the world. But you are able to track them down in a forgotten backup of the original architect.

These are old, and still list the lower levels as 'mall', and the mid levels as 'offices'. This lends credence to the Operators guess that the work you are interested in is probably done below the residences at the top. Until you can get in, you can't know what has been changed from the blueprints, though.

When they disconnected from the system and became their own enclave, they did so completely. The surfaces above the smog cloud were affixed with energy harvesting solar panels --aided by the reflective windows-- in the years before, which suggest some amount of thought and preplanning went into the act before anyone knew it was happening.

- Kamisori -

You have made it past the initial proving bout virtually unscathed --well, your bot has, but people talk about this sort of thing in the first person.

Now: "... IT'S ROBOT FIGHTING TIME!" The announcer shouts. The crowd is hyped up and excited to see what this outsider can do. There has been a lot of betting against you --on general principles-- and they want to see you go down.

All eyes are on the arena, so your companions were able to slip away unnoticed --no one cares about the pit crew mid-event-- but you don't know how long you will need to keep the show going.

Knowing that you might not get to take this fighting bot with you on the rest of the mission: What have you brought? And how do you feel about possibly abandoning it?

• Are you, perchance, facing your old bot?
• If so: Does that give you an advantage or a disadvantage?
• If not: Where is that bot now?
• Do you have any plans for it?

- Everyone else -

You were able to slip away unnoticed while your drone pilot distracted the Lowlifes.

You don't know how long you have. Whether Kamisori wins or loses, the Lowlifes will be looking to the the pits and your absence will be noted.

• Are you trying to keep this operation secret from the Lowlifes?
That will add some pressure since you need to avoid being noticed, but you know it will avoid some complications down the line. Allowing them into higher levels now will create chaos, which might play to your advantage, but only a fool --or the desperate-- relies on chaos.

- Winston -

The barrier --scarred and pitted by decades of attempted cutting-- is right where your blueprint-inspired-guesswork suggested it would be. You were pretty sure there should be a control node you can try hack to get the barrier down... but the barrier and walls are several feet 'closer' than you hoped, and the physical access point to that node is on the other side. This makes sense, but was both awkward for them when building the barrier, and is now a problem for you and your team.

You thought this might happen. How do you plan to gain access through the two feet of tungsten/steel alloy to the physical port on the other side?

Kamisori made a name for herself as a drone jockey in the merc trade, but arena bot fights are a rather different beast, as she already experienced. Still, she gathered a lot of experience on the field since she last faced the arena, and she grew out of her most obvious mistakes from the last time around. Making a few adjustments to Ushi-oni (her attack and self defence drone) to make it more "sportly" she realises she lacks a fundamental skill for the performance, she's a lousy visual designer. Thankfully she learned to delegate things, and lets her colleagues handle that [Guys, I need arena bot styling feedback stat!].
She knows the challenge might trash Ushi-kun, leaving her quite undefended, but she's used to jury-rigging her friends on the go, so she's rather confident she can keep it /running until they're out.
Worst case scenario, she'll have Otter look after the wreck. He seemed friendly enough when she contacted him, and he proved to be trustworthy when he /ran with Lunette. He even stepped aside from confronting her this round, and, seeing his skill, she feels grateful for that, even though she might face him next.

- Solovei -

From you position on the balcony opposite the worksite, you have a fairly good overview of the area and the approaches, but these old --and adapted-- buildings have many nooks and crannies for the crooks and grannies to hide in.

Your thermal vision has just picked up several warm bodies sneaking towards the alcove where Winston has set up his rig. You can not see them through the hanging plastic curtains that have been installed around this area, but their movements are definitely 'furtive'.

It will be a moment before they arrive at D.'s position.

What do you do?

- D. -

It is important to keep Winston hidden, but there is not much at the blocked-off end of the this out-of-the-way corridor to hide behind.

• Have you taken any precautions to prevent people wandering up to where they can spot him?

The plan was for all the locals to be at the big robot fight, so you were not expecting interference, but your bodyguarding experience has heightened your senses in such situations and you are sure you hear someone --or someones-- sneaking around nearby.

What do you do?

- Miles -

You have crawled though that felt like miles of fetid airducts to get the to the place where the control wiring runs tight over the structure above.

You have melted through the ceiling of the duct and the floor above it. It is a pity it was not the other way round, as working above yourself means you have to constantly worry about the chemicals dripping down onto you.

You have spliced your end of the link --running all the way back to Winston's position-- into the system as per the plan, and were just thinking about pulling out when you spot smoke emanating from the old wires in the conduit. Age has weakened the surface coatings, and the chemicals Blank provided are eating their way through. Even if this holds up long enough for the hacker to finish: if the wires come apart later, it is likely to sound an alarm somewhere.

What do you do?

- Blank -

You were worried when concocting the chemicals that there would be adverse reactions with the aged infrastructure, but this was the only way to gain access --any attempt at drilling would trigger sensors and draw attention.

Watching Miles' camera feed on the encrypted comms you can't yet see that there is problem, but what precautions did you take, and what instructions did you give your burglar for such an occasion?

- Winston -

Your cyberdeck has just gone live, you have made it past the initial login screen (how? stolen passwords? factory defaults? unpatched exploit?).

This is probably just an unprivileged user- or diagnostic interface, but should --with enough skill, luck, and prior-planning-- allow you access to deeper systems where you can find what you need.

• What does your environment look like when you are hacking?

What do you do?

- Winston -

One of the roots feeding the diagnostic flower carries data from the control system in charge of the barrier doors. You can tell this because of how inactive it is --the doors have not operated for decades.

You are able to follow along this thread and find yourself in the control system. This is a much more serious machine with what looks like ancient and outdated I.C.E. programs sitting idle, and mostly bored and dormant. Most of the young bucks, these days, would not even recognise these as ICEs --they were 'banned' after some of your friends got their brains fried being attacked by them-- but you have dealt with them before, and know how to avoid the worst (or you did).

The control system is asking for a password. If you can convince it you are meant to be here, it probably won't get all exited when being told to open a door long shut, or you could ignore the login prompt and try force the system open, which will be noisy but quick.

Somewhere connected, there must be a security node that receives messages about activity. A log message about a door (even this door) opening might go unnoticed --for a while, maybe even forever-- but you have no way of knowing who (or what) is paying attention to such messages. Dealing with that would be its own job.

What do you do?

- Solovei -

From the thermal signature it looks like four bodies approaching.

- D. -

The 'four amateurs' are actually four teenagers --apparently making use of your supplied distraction to sneak away and do whatever teenagers do in private. There was a slightly tense dynamic to the group even before they came upon your imposing presences in an 'out of bounds' area.

One of them --it is not clear which-- lets out a small, high-pitched scream, and they all turn large eyes to you. One of the girls that was leading the group gabbles an accusatory something at you, but their slang is strange --doubly so, since they are not only from an insular community, they are also teens-- so understanding what she said is a challenge, even for your streetsmart ears.

Any thought of just scaring them away and relying on the general uninterestingness of possible reports of 'a strange guy... where we were not supposed to be', go out the window when the impenetrable barrier emits the clear klonk of unlocking for the first time in decades.

The barrier does not open --it sounded to you like it will need some muscles to help it on its way-- so you may be able to obfuscate the source of the sound if you can manage to communicate with these residents.

Any news of an 'unlocking' would travel fast.

What do you do?

- Winston -

The backdoor codes for the relevant model were handed over with copious and repeated reminders to "not talk about backdoor club". Hopefully no one puts two and two together from the model and serial number and gets tipped off about where, specifically, these codes go...

But go they do. The machine accepts them without making a fuss, the connecting plant-stem from the control system to the door mechanisms goes from 'red' to 'green' as the locks retract.

Job done!

Then, what appears to be a stylised 'log' appears somewhere down the line, it takes but a moment to recognise that as the pictorial representation for 'jam' (as in 'log jam'? how droll). Age --as you well know-- wreaks havoc on physical systems, but that is not really your responsibility.

What do you do?

- D. -

"Dunno." The apparent leader 'answers' sulkily with a shrug --in typical teenage fashion. At least your experience with the underground scene allows you to sorta make out what they appear to be saying mumbling.

While three are eyeing you with distinct interest. (Here is something new. They seem to be thinking. Save us from our boredom.) The nervous-looking boy following behind reaches for his phone --'see something, say something' maybe? You suspect he is about to sound the alarm.

- D. -

There is a lot of blushing, their attitudes a mixture of 'creepy old dude' and 'cool creepy older dude'.

"Umm... you know..." The lead boy stammers indicating the girls, and then glancing around at the 'private space'.

The trailing kid drops his phone as though it is hot and then scrabbles to make sure the camera is off and locations are not transmitting. He evidently had not thought much about those consequences and is impressed you did not report them.

"Yeah," he blurts out to the others. "Make sure your phones are not transmitting..."

Then the clonk happens and they all stop and stare at you in wonder. "Did... Did you just open the door!?" The lead girls asks. "Wow! Can we see?" She elbows the sulky looking girl next to her. "I told you this would be exiting."

Eventually you all make your way over to the barrier.

It has quite clearly moved a bit, you can see a clean section, previously covered and now freshly exposed to the atmosphere.

"Wow." One of the teens says in an awed voice. "You actually did it!" They have grown up with stories of the daring exploits done in attempts to open this barrier, and here you are, strangers, waltzing in and just opening it, just like that.

D.'s 'level of cool' might diminish slightly when his companions appear and reveal that it was not just the force of his personality that did it. But first impressions last.

"A what, what?" The trailing boy asks Winston --though he might need D. to translate for him till everyone gets the hang of their slang (or they start to speak properly... but what are the chances of that happening?). "And who the hell are you?"

The smaller of the two girls studies the gap speculatively. "I could get through there." She declares.

- Winston -

"Why would you want to pick up a car?" The trailing boy asks in a combination of teenage exasperation and attempted-hiding of genuine curiousness. Growing up inside a skyscraper they possibly have no experience of 'cars' and definitely were not carrying such tools with them.

"I'm Demi, by the way." He adds in a more civil tone while moving over to watch was you are doing.

- D. -

Simultaneously:

"No, E, it is too dangerous." The lead girl declares trying to restrain her friend and finding you already blocking her way. She glares at you accusatorially, as if to say 'you are not her dad'.

- Winston -

"But I live here!" Demi declares, as though that should trump your asking first. He does back away, though, to go and stand with his friends and, coincidentally, with D. between himself and you.

- Solovei -

You see D. taking the group of teens over to the door. Do you join them there, or make your own --surreptitious-- entry unbeknown to them?

"'The Fossil'? That's a funny name?" The lead girl says to Winston with no trace of awareness that she may be being rude.

"Isn't that a sort of old rock?" She asks, her head cocked to one side. "My name ('Herma') means 'rock' too --apparently."

"Um... I don't know what a 'jock' is," Demi observes. "But there are noises coming from the other side. Do you think its a 'ka'? Sounds like one."

What do you all do?

- Winston -

Possibly showing off, but also possibly trying to show you up, Demi replies in a condescending tone. "It will definitely see the open door. That has never happened before, so it will definitely notice that."

His pomposity deflates a bit near the end of his speech as he realises that this is his only chance to see what is on the other side and his chances of a cool story is slipping though his fingers.

"We have to stop it!" Demi says desperately, starting to move towards the opening.

You know that he is right, the new input will trigger something in the bot. But you can not guess what neural network pathways will be involved for such an unusual --but possibly preprogrammed-- event. There is a fair chance it will (maybe after some processing) kick this up to a supervisor and eventually a person.

You need to act now.
What do you do?

- D. -

The bot looks small enough to fit through the opening. But is not equipped --nor interested-- in making that trip on its own, and might not be quite the right shape.

What do you do?

E jumps at Herma's outburst and turns to shush her.

Then: "What is it?" She asks when she sees the other girl standing with her arms crossed firmly across her chest.

"Magnets." Is all Herma will say, blushing fiercely.

"That was cool, though." Demi says giving a sulky looking Lys a nudge, but he does not respond, merely stares at the girls and the 'cool new people' resentfully.

---

With this bot dealt with, you have probably bought yourself a little time to get through the door. It should not be hard to force it, working together.

What do you do?

- Blank -

"That's you!" E exclaims. "I can't get past level 3, but Lys was second on the scoreboard for a while. Weren't you Lys? Didn't you say if you ever met number 1 you wanted to ask him how he got a perfect score on... something or the other?"

E's enthusiasm just seems to make Lys even more sulky. You suspect he is used to being the big dog in his group and is now feeling like a little fish all of a sudden.

What do you do?

While the kids resent the interruption to their fascinating C.A.K.E. discourse, and seem to want to find fault with Winston's plan on general principle, they also really want to see what on the other side --and each want to be the first to step through, you suspect, so you may need to take action if you don't want them bundling through heedless of danger, each trying to jockey for that 'first' position. They jump to the task and quickly have the barrier moving outwards --with some grinding and screeching that carries a lot further than you would like.

The door becomes easier to move once it gets past that midway sticky point and will soon be open enough for all of you to pass through.

What do you do?

Sticky as it is, it will be a challenge to get the door closed.

It looks like there was, maybe, supposed to be some sort of time-delay-automatic-closing, but the software has given up on that due to the jam. It may kick back in again at some point --maybe if you can get the door fully open and trigger a rest-- or you may be able to manually close it --or make it look closed-- with some effort, or the software could be hacked back into action.

If you move fast enough an open door might not matter.
If you need to get out fast, and open door may be a good thing.

What do you do about the door?

The corridor looks like it has been abandoned for a long time, the treads of the little robot have left deep tracks in the layer of dust, and the air smells stale, like the air-conditioning filters have been neglected.

Automatic lights turn on as you pass, many flickering badly while some failing to light, leaving pools of dimness.

The view through the window at the far end of the corridor confirms that you are still below the smog-line, so you would need go up several levels to get to where the labs are suspected of being located.

The teen foursome struggle to keep their excitement under control, for them it is like they have stepped into a long-fabled fairy-tail land. If the grubby disuse of this corridor puts them off, it does not show yet.

What do you do? Do you head straight upwards --looking for likely laboratories-- or are there any preparations or precautions you want to do first?

"A Second Door?" Demi says in awe, pronouncing the capital in 'Door' as though it is some sort of mystic relic --which, to them, it kinda is. "Wow!"

Your employer did not mention a second barrier, but there is no way they could have known about such a thing if there is one. You will just have to deal with what you find.

Your briefing did speculate that the residents living quarters were in the levels above the smog, where the view was grand, and that the work-areas might be located in or below the perpetual smog band. While you can see out the windows, they have that slight murky effect you associate with two-way mirrors, and no one been able to see in from outside.

While these are all good questions, the briefing was unfortunately brief on facts about the High-Levelers. Not much --next to nothing, really-- is known about them since they have had no contact with the outside world since sealing themselves off and are pretty big on their personal privacy.

You know you will not be welcomed, but whether these people still even have any concept of outsiders as being a thing that can happen or that they need to look out for, you don't know. So far they don't seem to be paying attention to the security features you have encountered.

The kids want to spend a long time staring out the windows --theirs are all boarded and barred and they have not see much of the outside world-- and, when forced to move away they want to explored everywhere and touch everything, especially the dusty, yet clean and glowing buttons.

There are cameras spaced out in the corridors, but their motion has slowed due to time and lack of maintenance --you can also hear a faint warning whirr of ungreased gears when you are near them. They may originally have been set to overlap and not leave gaps, but their erratic movement --as they pan back and forth-- allows you to duck between them easily enough so far.

The need to avoid cameras is slowing down your progress, though. Do you do anything about them, or just keep dodging?

Are you bothering to check the rooms off these corridors? You can tell that they are not the lab you are looking for, since they are definitely not being used, and are unlikely to contain anything of interest to anyone but the Lowlife-Kids.

What do you do?

"Don't touch that." Herma says nodding in agreement, and nudging Lys who snatches his hand away from the panel he was about to poke at --trying to make it look like he was never doing anything.

"You touched it first." He mutters under his breath at Herma, but glares resentfully at Blank.

- Blank -

"I'm not an idiot!" Lys proclaims while stopping --like an idiot-- in view of the camera till you point it out. "And she touched it first, you just didn't notice. Why aren't you shouting at her?"

Despite your words, he really was hoping to lead his friends on an 'adventure', and the fact that you guys upgraded that to something real should not get in the way of his fun. You know you are going to have to deal with him eventually (pity that someone shut down all the trash-compactors on this level:), but gaining his trust or respect will definitely take more time than you have right now, and fighting him into submission would cause a ruckus. The sullen resentful quite you have achieved is probably the best you can hope for for now.

- Blank -

"We're not going to climb that?!" Lys says, trying to sound both incredulous and bored at the idea while also trying to give the impression that he would do it, no big deal.

The kids were surprised when they encountered the stairs, they all stood on the bottom stair and waited to be carried upwards. "Is this the wrong one?" Herma asked, assuming this must be the de-escalator. In their converted mall, all the stairs move, and the very idea of non-moving stairs was fascinating to them... till they started complaining about burning leg muscles.

The timing on the cameras in the stairwells was particularly tricky to navigate. You don't see any cameras in the elevator shaft.

- Winston -

"Maybe we can summon down an 'elevator car'?" Demi says, or you guess that is what he means, their slang for such concepts is strange. The other three don't appear to understand what it means to be old, but he has shown awareness and concern that suggests prior caring for an elderly relative maybe.

"Yes, please." E says turning to D. "I am getting tired. How much further it is?"

You all can guess that you are near the floor where you have to start looking for your lab --you will know it when you see it-- and this may be the floor you need to be on. Though you have not seen anyone yet --possibly because you were trying to avoid people-- each level has become progressively less unmaintained, there are definitely people on this floor regularly enough, and the systems --cleaning and monitoring-- are up and running.

What do you do?

It took enough effort explaining what a 'car' and a 'jack' was at the barrier. Now the kids look confused as to why that would be useful to 'support Winston'. Not wanting to appear ignorant, they hold their tongues to see what you do. As usual they touch everything --picking things up and putting the down in the wrong place-- but that seems safe here --so let them get it out of their systems-- the stuff looks regularly used and moving it will just irritate the workers later.

Unsurprisingly there are several jack-in-points located by worn-but-comfortable chairs.

- Blank -

The kids seem more interested in your gum than in the old man sitting down.

- Winston -

It is easy for you to slip past the login prompt and gain access to the system, but you can see that something has noticed the unusual access and logged it somewhere, no immediate action has been taken against you, but you will need to tread lightly if you don't want to raise more suspicion.

• What are you looking for? This workshop is not associated with your goal, so its systems don't directly contain internal references to what you are here for, you may be able to piece together some clues from what is here, but you also have access to the larger network of the building. Curtailing your activities to this system should not draw any extra attention (not in the time-frame of your job, anyway), but access to the outside world could allow you to help your companions from the comfort of this chair.

What do you do?

- D. -

"Why are you so interested in our sex lives?!" Lys demands at your continued probing.

"Hey! I told you nothing like that was happening! Ever!" Herma snaps at him impatiently her eyes darting to E who is trying to ignore the conversation and blushing furiously.

- Winston -

Most systems are segregated and separated from each other, but the Surveillance and Security System (SSS) connects to all areas. It is intended to be inward orientated and you know you will need to be very careful if you tried to use it to connect out from anywhere, any misstep in that system would quickly raise red flags.

What do you do?

- Winston -

You slide into the SSS, and can see a wide array of cameras to choose from. They are labeled with arcane name-codes so you don't know what they are, or even what floors they cover.

You will need to search for your objective, but at least you don't need to walk around while doing that.

---

In a corner of the Security alerts system you see a flashing red banner:

UNUSUAL OR UNAUTHORISED ACCESS
13th FLOOR

By your count that is the floor you are on. They do not appear to have pinpointed the room you are in.

What do you do?

- D. -

"Yeah? Well... um... at least I am not... old!" Lys tries to bounce back, but even he can see it fell flat and pretends to get distracted by a doodad on the table.

"What? Them?" E asks with a giggle. "They are harmless. Known them all our lives, and there are no other kids our age. But I am not interested in them..." She looks away and the blush returns as her sentence trails away when she realises she has said too much.