The team heals up in the underground bolthole they rented from the Capotrenos head, Giada. Thankyou hovers on the edge of death, and takes a full week to recover, even with magical assistance. Ro learns some new skills and languages, impressing everyone with her mental acuity. Lafeyette flies in to join them, to help Tobias Cheney free , his oldest friend, from Saeder-Krupp’s clutches. He knows the facility he is in, they just have to get inside. Tobias will provide cover, and is arranging a way out for him and PHH after the extraction. He is paying them partly in nuyen or gear, and partly in an introduction to the Exchange, which he is looking to expand to more parts of the Earth.
They do some research and find that the SK building in question is completely smooth-sided, with no visible points of entry, and is located in the middle of a large minefield, ringed by a moat, with good sightlines and heavy surveillance/monitoring. They watch as a helicopter comes and hovers over the building for about 15 minutes and then departs. Unsure what to do, they contact Saul Chronic, who does some digging. Apparently, this facility is a weapons dev and testing spot (not surprising), and usually gets supplies/sends stuff out via chopper. However, they have been out of contact for almost a week (not uncommon, they only send out unimportant communication via wireless to avoid monitoring), and didn’t respond to the most recent shipment chopper at all. Also, they find out that the building morphed into its current form about the same time as the sale of the mellified man, but can’t figure out any connection.
They decide to go full pink mohawk, and blast & shoot their way through the minefield, before blowing open the building using plastic explosives. Hearing that an SK team is also on its way to investigate, they decide to hurry, although they hope to also turn that to their advantage, and maybe avoid getting on the corp’s bad side, if they can make it look like they were doing their work for them.
The manage to pass through the minefiled in a hail of explosions and gunfire, with Tobias helping shoot the mines, targeting via TY’s radar. Ro blows open the side of the building, and essentially destroys the first floor due to explosive overkill. They enter, and are happy to have brought a ladder as they wrecked the elevators and stairs. They find one shredded corpse but can’t get any useful info. They ascend through a few levels of trashed labs and office space, fighting off some horrifying combat mutants equipped with melded in laser pistols and charge packs. Under Ro’s guidance, they use clever tactics to avoid heavy damage, but find some other distrubing-looking experiments.
They find PHH’s office, but it’s also trashed and noone’s there. They clear the rest of the floors and head back down, deciding to check the basement. Distressingly, they find what seems to be a breeding area with some medical vats, as well as a fighting pit and some cages a floor below, down a large but empty elevator shaft. This lower floor is also equipped with a tripbeam that Lafeyette sets off while checking it, triggering a laser grid that injures her and cuts her rops, dropping her about 20 minutes into a recently-hollowed cavern. She breaks most of her bones, and ko’s.
The rest of the team uses this intel to safely bypass the laser maze, and reaches the bottom, finding some bad shit: an insect hive (wasps), a man in a Tobias-like powered armor suit, and a grotesque shaman engaged in some sort of ritual. They nuke the shaman before he even has a chance to respond, and begin grenading the wasps nest, setting it aflame- it seems to be made of all the various soft items available in the floors above: clothes, paper, flesh, etc. This seems to be where all the missing employees ended up….
Unfortunately, the man in the suit, who they quickly id as PHH, isn’t on their side, and is blasting them with laser beams. They manage to hold off the wasp spirits emerging from the nest just long enough to drop him, and then get back out of there before all the oxygen is sucked out. They leave a helmet-cam recording on a burner ‘link inside (as they’re all masked up anyway) for the SK team, to hopefully keep them off their backs.
They fill Tobias in, and he jets in to grab his friend and give him a proper burial. However, locals are gathering, including some militia, who Tobias has held at bay with sniper shots. They hightail it to the arranged spot and meet Giada, who escorts them to the Capotrenos underground safehouse. They lay low and heal for a few days before heading back to Hamburg to rendevouz with the rest of the team and go deal with Ted McNicholson. Lafeyette, in no shape to travel (or regain concsciousness), remains behind.