MMFEC continues in their pursuit of Emile Corrigan – Governor Brackenhaven’s now-missing Chief of Staff – at the behest of Seattle DA Dana Oakes. But they overstay their welcome and find themselves in deeper than they ever intended…

Watch all episodes of “Shadowrun: Corporate SINs” on our YouTube playlist; Ep 27 is embedded at the end of this post.

As Ma1nfram3, Mordecai, Fang and Cromwell individually skip and/or walk through the woods near Friday Harbor on the way to the Starlight Retreat Hotel, Elsie continues skulking about the grounds of that corporate retreat. She makes her way to the shuttle bay, where courtesy shuttles are just setting in for the evening. Assuming a somewhat Ma1n-esque accent, Elsie attempts to sweet-talk the drivers and in a stab of luck manages to reference a troublesome couple elsewhere in the hotel. The drivers share stories in hushed tones about the couple in room 352, who keep a magical Bargast as a pet.

Ellie/Elsie convinces the drivers she needs to go to town for replacement supplies to keep the couple at bay. She convinces the drivers, but can’t get their keys and must hot-wire the shuttle. Still, she is shortly successful and drives the shuttle straight off-property to meet the rest of MMFEC on the road.

Upon returning, the team has to convince security that they are a magical mess cleanup crew hired by Elsie to deal with the Bargast. The ploy is surprisingly successful, and MMFEC soon finds themselves in the shuttle bay. Cromwell (as Hammer) and Elsie head to the security outpost, where Elsie poses as an employee introducing Hammer as an investigator into the Bargast’s proximity to Emile Corrigan. The ruse yields a clue: that Emile was last seen being escorted into the resort basement by two other individuals. Certainly suspicious circumstances.

Ma1n assesses the host situation and finds it fairly locked down, unsurprisingly – a direct wire will be required to make major progress undetected. Elsie hops out to grab the security guard a coffee and slips some Narcojet into the drink, rendering the guard mostly useless.

Meanwhile, Ma1n sneaks carefully from the shuttle bay and out to the security outpost, where she introduces herself as Detective Lord, Hammer’s “partner” on this investigation. Cromwell and Elsie leave to join the search party while Ma1n locks herself into the security booth with the guard and jacks into the hotel’s host.

Digital investigation yields Ma1n a camera feed from the hallway of the basement, and 4 smaller protected networks. She narrows her search down to a single network and marks it, heading deeper to discover footage of Emile Corrigan bound to a chair, undergoing interrogation from a mage. Nearby, four ghouls (who will eat any sort of flesh they can find) wait in a closet, and Ma1n takes control of the door between them and Emile, locking it down. Two mages and four Yakuza frontline men stand guard in the main room. Ma1n takes control of the basement door and the main chamber door, while pulling a Dennis Nedry and looping security footage to conceal the events about to transpire.

MFEC enter the basement, concealed by Sharky’s aid, and progress to the first door. SOMEONE shouts “Towel delivery” before Ma1n opens the door to let MFEC through. Ma1n begins to take attacks from a persona somewhere else within the secured subhost. But her combat with this opponent keeps them distracted and prevents them from reopening the ghoul door or alerting authorities.

The battle is swift and surprisingly efficient, despite the complete lack of surprise engendered by Mordecai’s towel artistry. The team quickly dispatches the rest of the henchmen and find themselves with an incapacitated Emile (and 4 ghouls still behind a doorway.) Attempts by Ellie at sweet-talking Emile into being cooperative go nowhere, but the team removes him from his chair and leads him out the way they came through the thoroughly sketchy basement.

Long story short, Ma1n calls their offshore contact and arranges for return passage to Seattle, their mark in tow. Ellie reaches out and contacts Dana, who arranges for MMFEC to follow her in Dinah to a safe house to deliver Emile for questioning.

This is the moment that MMFEC finds themselves in an “abandoned” warehouse, having SUCCESSFULLY DELIVERED THEIR MARK without being detected in any way. While they had the opportunity to leave, Cromwell will not turn down Dana’s invitation to watch the questioning. Ellie remains inside the warehouse with Crommie. Mordecai and Fang have no interest in the proceedings, so they remain outside. Meanwhile, Ma1nfram3 sets her drone up in the air of the warehouse, and sets it to record the inquisition allowing her to safely remain within Dinah.

It is only seconds into the interrogation that a deafening explosion is witnessed, destroying one of the walls of the safehouse. When the dust clears, Emile is dead with a clean gunshot wound to the head. District Attorney Dana Oakes is impaled by shrapnel and lying gravely wounded on the ground. Meanwhile, a shadowy figure jumps stylistically into the gaping hole in the wall – a familiar figure, it is one of the mages of Scarlet Fire.

MMFEC hasn’t seen Scarlet Fire since the night of the Dzhugashvili anti-assassination run, where Scarlet Fire abducted Ms. Dzhugashvili from under MMFEC’s nose. This is no time for reunions, as Scarlet Fire is out for blood.

• Ellie and Cromwell take significant hits from the street samurai in the room, while two powerful drones spin up outside and take aim at Fang.
• Fang manages to run in and pick up Dana, as wounded as she is, and gets all the way outside.
• Mordecai comes under heavy magical fire from several spirits and summons Sharky to trigger “Plan Omega”, some form of climate control.
• Ma1n drops one drone in the Matrix but cannot disable the other one before it hits Fang.
• Dana’s secretary runs out to Fang, asks, “Is Dana OK?” and then SHOCKS FANG WITH A TASER GLOVE, DROPPING HER.
• Fang, with a dead man’s trigger, tries to take down Becky but fails. She drops Dana in the process, then falls on her unconscious, both near death. Surely DocWagon is alerted at this turn of events.
• Ma1n begins taking attacks from Scarlet Fire’s Matrix backup, with a persona made up of wasps.
• Ellie manages to drop the second drone. She works to pull her rocket launcher out of her bag.
• Seeing the dire straits Dana is in, Mordecai summons his Spirit of Man and yells, “DAD! Get Dana to a hospital!”

Seconds later, Doc Wagon and Lone Star HTR show up. Cromwell and Fang are unconscious. Mordecai is very wounded. Elsie is holding a rocket launcher. Ma1n puts her hands up, steps out of the van, and says ‘I know this looks suspicious. We were working security for Dana when she was attacked. We have video of the entire event I will happily share with you.” The conscious members of the party surrender themselves to Lone Star custody, their friends to hospital care, and wonder what would have happened if they just walked away when the run was over.