Silver Lining:A Train Bound for Nowhere

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July 15, 2022 – Episode 4: A Train Bound for Nowhere

Characters Introduced

1. Reuben Tishkoff - 63 year old former mob enforcer. He survived the bloody history of Las Vega and now acts as an informal intermediary and "security consultant" between the casinos.
2. Liam Huchins - A middling computer hacking talent, Liam hatched a scheme to make a few extra dollars by hacking the casinos Video Roulette machines. The only problem is he got caught, and even worse escaped, and made a general fool of security in doing so.
3. Freddie Slater - A former security official at several different casinos, Freddie suffers from some mental instability and finds it difficult to hold jobs. He discovered the original program that allowed Liam to hack the systems the way he did, and Liam took it from him.

Locations

1. Vega - a bright star 25 light years from Earth, it is dominated by a massive dust/debris field which has accreted around the star, caused by some long-ago collision. Foe years Vega was a lawless system most thought of as a way-station to be passed though on the way to other, more habitable system.
2. Las Vega - the largest planetoid chunk within the debris field of Vega, named by Spazia Cosa Nosta (SCN) some 50 years ago. Where others saw a desolate, uninhabitable wasteland, they saw opportunity. At great risk they established a small base on the planetoid and built the first casino, the Pair-o-Dice lodge, some 50 years ago. Navigation to Las Vega is still difficult, with the debris field scattering most light until the very last few kilometers, so following navigation beacons in is vital.
3. Pair-o-Dice, El Rancho, 91 Clubs - The three major casinos on Las Vega.
4. Last Frontier Resort, The Fremont - two minor casinos on Las Vega.

Teaser

Your message was pretty cryptic, but we're here to "help you find a dude" if the job's still open. I've never been to Vega before - so this should be fun if not fruitful!

Anyway, we're landing right now, as soon as we clear customs we can meet with you wherever if you're available. I've got a present for you too, as a thanks. 

J

Cold Open

Your quarry taps a button on the panel and the doors that connect the two trains open, sucking him out of the car and into the next one. The doors shut behind him. You approach the door yourself, and look out the panel, letting out a sigh. "How do I get myself into these situations." You take a deep breath as you reach for the panel that controls the doors.

Background Info

The Dambolo Crime family, part of the SCN, built the Pair-o-Dice, a giant geodesic dome with the upper levels of the casino breaking through in 2302. Shortly after a rival family built the El Rancho on the same planetoid - close enough that incoming ship could see the bright lights of both casinos being scattered through the dust clouds, then a few years later went up the Fremont. By now, fighting was breaking out among the warring crime families, and the ruling council of the SCN stepped in and tendered an uneasy peace. This resulted in the building of the Las Vega Train station at the center of the three casinos, and two more casinos and resorts popped up, making a roughly star-shaped pattern on the planetoid's service, with the train station as the hub in the center. Slowly the planetoid became a popular tourist destination, so popular in fact that 2337 the United Worlds created the Interstellar Police Service (ISPS) to crack down on mob activity. All of the killing, mob retaliation, and money laundering was a bad look, and causing trouble in neighboring systems. ISPS pressure, as well as the arrest and prosecution of key members of the SCN dealt frequent blows to the operating of the planet, and eventually the Casinos were sold off to major entertainment corporations, with the requirement that no company could own the two casinos. Since then, the place has become more of a family destination, and is a frequent multi-day stop for cruise lines packed with vacationers. There are three major casinos: Pair-o-Dice, El Rancho, and 91 Club. Two smaller (if not by size but by popularity) exist as well: Last Frontier Resort and The Fremont. They range from 2 to 5 miles away from Vega Station.The casinos are joined together by a monorail system with 24 hour service and free rides that share a single central station. This station is also the main space port. Maintenance of the trains, track segments, and concourse is paid for by the casinos (each has their own branded and themed concourse) at the station, as well as paying 1/5 of the general maintenance fund for the station, which is overseen by the Vega Gaming Corporation (VGC). Upper management and executives are given housing at the casinos, but all other workers are forced to live in makeshift, ramshackle housing in the lower levels of Las Vega Station. Earlier in Las Vega's history, nearly all workers were housed at the casinos, but the demands of expansion and cost of construction have led to the corporations that own the resorts to slowly push lower level workers out in exchange for higher profits. There has even been some rough digging and expansion done by on the lower level by the locals to open up some extra space - none of this has been done with much safety oversight. As a result unsatisfied workers are usually welcomed to leave rather than the casino improve working conditions, as there is no cost associated with moving the workers out, and a ready supply of eager new employees lives under the station. As more and more workers were forced to live in the station, the lower level, which was the location of a food court, slowly built up into a tent city. The VGC proved to have no real ability to clear out the squatters from the food court, and the companies that ran the restaurants there eventually shuttered. The former locations were taken over by the locals, and now visiting tourists are greeted immediately by food and trinket vendors from the lower level on arrival. Above the main concourse is an observation deck that is frequently empty - the lack of facilities is what prevents it from being used as housing, and there has even been talk of converting it to additional dock space for cruise liners. From the observation deck, one can see the five casinos. Landing at Vega is a spectacular sight, as the lights and flash of the casinos scatter and glimmer off the dust cloud. A very thin atmosphere clings to the crater Las Vega is built in so the approach below the crater rim is free of dust. However, due to the amount of dust and debris system wide, Vega utilizes an enormous amount of landing beacons and guide paths for a system of its size - without the lights of the Casinos and beacons, only the most skilled of pilots could hope to make the landing. In fact, during the construction of Las Vega several fatal accidents occurred, which were mostly suppressed by the SCN.

Scene 1 - Meeting Reuben

Landing at Vega Station is a spectacular sight, as the lights of the casinos shines scatters through the dust cloud. As the Silver Lining breaks into the rim of the crater, it's much easier to see the central station, all lit up, and the five spokes of the monorail system that service the casinos, off in the distance. A few large cruise ships have docked on the upper berths, while the Silver Lining has been directed land in a lower cargo dock. As the players enter the station through a side door, they plunge into a crowded concourse filled with families disembarking from the recently arrived cruises. There are also vendors, locals hawking wares - costume jewelry, "the latest fashions", hair beads, foods, etc. The PCs have instructions to meet with Reuben on the under-used observation platform, the second level of the station.

It doesn't take much to get to the platform, just a short walk up a ram off the main concourse. A janitor stands unconvincingly manning a mop and a "wet floor" sign. When he sees them he picks up his sign and wanders off. From the observation room, one can see out across the planetoid, and catch glimpses of the twinkling lights of the casinos. A few minutes later Reuben shows up. Anyone else that may wander up there while Reuben is up there will get quickly shouted away with a foul expletive.

The Job

Someone has been defrauding the casinos out of several thousands of credits by cheating off the video roulette tables. The scam was so sophisticated that it was only discovered at the end of the day when the system went to balance the accounts, and money was seen as missing. It had been going on for several months before Reuben that it had been happening across all of the casinos - just from talking to guys he knew there - that's how he found out about the video, which he'll get to in a moment. That's why he's hiring an outside contractor. The casinos are reluctant to work together or even cooperate with him. In fact, they very reluctantly asked him to find someone to come in and find out who had been doing this. He had to threaten to take this to the VGC, which would have caused a legal nightmare for the companies. "It's probably someone that's worked at one of those casinos. Whoever it is they must know something about security - who pit bosses are, stuff like that." Reuben opines.

"The Pair-o-Dice was the first casino that was hit, one night a few months ago, the GameSec team noticed someone trying to hack an electronic roulette table. They observed the table for a bit and took someone into custody."

Reuben shows them the video of the apprehension on a personal device. He will not let the PCs have the video (this is a condition of the Casinos), but will let them watch as much as needed. He notes the face of the suspects appears to be of an old woman. "When security brought him - oh, right. They say it's a dude. I'll get to that in a bit. When they brought him in they put him alone in a room to sweat him a bit before - well, you know. Then this happened."

He shows another video. This time it's a view of the person from before sitting in an empty white room. They seem to be fidgeting with something around their waist. The screen is filled with static and when the clears the person isn't there anymore. Next is a view outside the room. The door begins to open, more static. Next a view of the security desk. A figure can be seen on the edge of the screen, head poking around the corner. The figure stays there a few moments looking down, of camera. The guards at the desk look up at their screens, panic crossing their faces, and they frantically begin making calls on their headsets. The figure looks up and uses the confusion at the desk to sneak by. A guard seems to take notice too late, and begins pursuit. The view switches to the casino floor - a person can be seen leaving from the security room, and hastily moving (but not running) across the casino floor. They seem to be anticipating the movements of the security team, and sometimes stop, put a finger to their ear, say something, and a nearby team will stop and go the other way. It ends after the figure ducks into the men's room. A few moments pass as people shuffle in and out of the restroom. Finally, a security detail shows up and goes in. A few more moments pass, and they come out, one of the security team is holding a set of crumpled clothing.

"So what we know is they have some pretty sophisticated hacking tools, and can obscure the camera imaging somehow. All they found in the toilet were the clothes he was wearing stuffed in a trash can. so he's probably one of the folks that came out after her goes in.

An observant Challenging person will see one man go into the restroom wearing a hat, and a few moments later come out not, and he appears to be angry. There's another man with a hat that comes out that never went in, and he's using the hat to obscure his face.

Since this happened, the perpetrator has gotten more careful. Every few days another casino gets hit, and it's only noticed after the fact - usually when running audits at the end of the day. Hence, there are no further recordings. Besides, there is no video record of the same person at the tables getting hit. Reuben has no idea how someone could be circumventing the facial recognition.

He does have a description of the suspect provided by security that took him in - it doesn't match the 'old grey haired lady' that is on the video. Someone under six feet tall, clean shaven, balding, white male, light colored hair. Didn't speak.

"It's impossible to get these casinos to cooperate. I had to promise not to give you these videos, only show it to you. You also won't get any help from the security teams, and i bet if you cause any ruckus they may come after you and kick you out, so watch out how you conduct yourselves. You'll be more or less on your own on this.

Scene 2 - Investigation

The PCs are provided the list of names and images of people who worked at all 5 casinos in security or GameSec

Name	Demographic
Bartok Smith1	Black man, long, dark colored hair, clean shaven. Height:5'9"
Bella Branca1	White woman, long dark hair, Height:5'2"
Liam Hutchins	White male, light colored hair, has a 'Security' hat on in picture, clean shaven Height:5'10"
Astrid Hastings4	White female, auburn hair, Height:6'1".
Rob Finnessy1	White male, light colored hair, mustache Height:6'
Henri Garlando1	Tanned skinned male, light colored hair, balding, clean shaven Height:5'6".
Taviek Mam24	Cydonian, Male, Dark fur with white spot in face, down neck and chest, Height: 5'11.
Simon Findelton1	Asian male, light colored hair, has a 'Security' hat on in picture, clean shaven, Height:6'
Brock Shepherd3	White male, light colored hair, beard Height:6'1"
Laurie Daly4	White male, dark hair, mustache Height:6'0"
Billy Girdler1	Black man, short hair, beard. Height:5'9"
Freddie Slater5	White man, dark short hair, clean-shaven, Height 5:10

1. These six can be ruled out with a immediately, as they all left the system more than six months ago (according to their dossiers)
2. Is a Cydonian, and unless he somehow shaved all his fur off and was masquerading as a human, can likely be ruled out immediately.
3. Seems nervous and cagey if questioned. Will accidentally drop Liam's name "Well, me buddy Liam was bragging about some tech-" and shuts up. He doesn't know what the tech was, just says Liam said he got his hands on "some golden shit", and that he was going to use it to "make some money and get off this rock."
4. These three, if ever approached and questioned about Liam will say they last saw him headed to El Rancho.
5. Liam gives the PCs the most trouble if questioned. He gets belligerent and will attack any PC that gets in his face, and cause an incident. He spends his days at his tent on the lower level.

Most of the above can be found in the lower level, save Liam and the ones who have left the system. Liam is known around the station, like the other workers he lives i the ramshackle tent/leanto city that has formed in the basement levels of the station.Liam has had a relationship with a 20 year old by the name of Mary - her mother, Ludmilla, doesn't approve. She happily tells the PCs anything she knows (Not much, just that he was by today, and said something about going to the El Rancho. Mary won't say anything to them). "Tell him to stay away from my Mary!" she will say. any incident that happens with Freddie will draw Ludmilla, Brock and Mary over, as their tents are right by his.

Save a proper ID of Liam, they may also notice that Liam has been doing this in a pattern, and the El Rancho would be next - he only hits a casino every week, and not the same casino twice in a row.

If the PCs just wait around for him to return, there's a good chance he slips by them, and onto a passenger or cruise ship, because he has been tipped off that someone is looking for him, by Brock or Mary.

Investiation of Suspects
This is investigation of the suspects who may be involved in the heist. This is a timed test that has 6 beats for the PCs to complete. Each NPC adds a d8 to the test when interacting with them.
Difficulty	Challenging
Beats:	6
Successes:	5

Scene 3 - The Chase

The El Rancho is a cowboy/western themed casino. The monorail concourse empties onto a 4-way intersection, 1 way goes back to the concourse, left and right lead to entertainment venues, and straight ahead goes into the casino.

Liam can be found at the video roulette tables at El Rancho. He's extremely cagey, so any indication that security is after him or the PCs are observing him, he will begin moving towards the exit, then escapes into one of the concert halls. If the PCs follow him in (hopefully the do) a chase starts. The room is pitch black, and there is shouting in a Japanese. All that the PCs can make out are the words "Diamond Dolls". The lights come up and four women in concert begin dancing and singing, the chase begins here in earnest, lights flashing and music thumping.

The Chase This is a timed test to chase Liam down. As dice get knocked off this test, the chase will move from the concert hall, to the hallway outside, and onto the train back to the Vega Station, referencing to the Cold Open. Difficulty Challenging Beats: 4 Successes: 5

Liam Hutchins Cunning Crafty Techie Liam also has Resources available to him that he can use to slow the PCs down during the chase. Communications Technological/Computers

When caught Liam doesn't know how to shut up. Part of it pride, part of it is nervousness, part trying to get himself out of the situation. "Look, I'll tell you everyhing. I was just trying to get out of here with Mary, so Little Liam - she's pregnant - could grow up some place far away from this hell hole."

Liam got the idea for the face scrambler from Freddie Slater. Freddie is a computer genius "but some mornings the guy doesn't know rabbit turds from rice krispies. He was fired for jerking off in the break room at THREE different casinos. Dude can't stay away watching cartoons of people wearing Cydonian costumes fucking people wearing Phaestyn costumes or some shit like that. And then he stun-gunned his manager at The Fremont. No one will touch him at this point. Shit. I kind of feel bad for him, actually." When lucid, Freddie was an IT Manager at Pair-o-Dice, and he happened upon an old program built into the facial recognition software - probably left over from the mob days, so important people could come and go as they pleased. So many important guys from those times were either unceremoniously arrested or unceremoniously ejected out of an airlock that no one knows it was baked into all five systems, and the corporations never replaced the old stuff. All it requires is some metallic makeup and an infrared light flashed onto the face every 10 seconds or less. The system replaces the face of the person with an AI generated face based upon an algorithm controlled by the frequency of the flash. Even more, the program was designed to not trigger facial recognition - so the same faces could show up at casinos without problem, or a face could change magically and throw a flag. "And it's coded to run at higher process functions, so before the recording even gets to the disk, the swap is made so simple hash checks on the recording won't show anything wrong." Freddie didn't figure everything out, but he did figure out how to control hair color and age. Finer details weren't so easy to control, so Liam has a preset of faces he mixed and matches with the other two he knew values for.

Unfortunately for Freddie, his medication was expensive and was getting harder to come by. . "Like i said, he's got mental problems" He was barely holding it together when the Pair-o-Dice decided the mid tier management was getting the boot so they could use those rooms to book more customers, and that tipped him over the edge.

"Honestly, I think all the shit he did was academic. Freddie's an OK guy when he's on his meds, he's no crook. I think he just enjoyed finding and fucking around with the system."

A few months back Liam was helping Freddie... "Dude shit his pants, OK. I was helping clean him up. He doesn't like no one except Brock... hates me, but... you can't let someone stew there in his own shit pants, can you?" when he helped Freddie back to his tent "i... may have helped myself to some data chips, you know. payment for getting another guy's shit on your hands.". on those chips was "mostly that porn shit i was talking about. Cartoons of people in alien suits fucking other people in alien suits. I mean, if it was *just* Cydonians and shit fucking that'd be one thing, but why do they gotta be humans wearing costumes? Anyway, I come across this facial recognition shit.. along with some wiring diagrams ... I'm not good with hardware, so i asked Simon (Findelton) and Bella (Branca) to help me with put the stuff together before they left to get married god knows where. Mary was able to find me the right makeup. But i didn't tell any of them what it was for... well.. Mary knows."

Oh shit guys. Oh shit guys. They're gonna fuck me over a barrel. All five of those companies are gonna bend me over and insert every legal document they own right up my ass, twist it, and pull out everything they find up there. and anyone that helped me too, whether they knew it or not. Simon, Bella, Brock Freddie.. Mary. They're gonna take every credit they have to their name, then force them to work at their shitty casinos forever to pay back the rest. Fuck. fuck man. fuck.

Now they have a choice to make. They can help Liam out - help him get of Las Vega and tell Reuben they were unsuccessful, This will result in no pay and making an enemy of Reuben, or of turning them over to Reuben, which will result in payment and future consequences for Liam and everyone around him.

Payment: Adjusted depending on final results and choices by the players

Musical Inspiration
Song:	The Gambler
Artist:	The Gambler
Album:	Kenny Rogers
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