Concerned with the intense media pressure and law enforcement scrutiny being brought to bear on the Team, Lieutenant Miller opts to move his Cell to a headquarters in the Outer System, choosing as the new rear-ward operating base the science/mining ship USG Ishimura. This sizeable vessel was salvaged by FireWall after a particularly bloody Exsurgent encounter ( See the game *Dead Space* for details )and is now retrofitted with modern and secret Firewall equipment. Through arrangement with Anarchist FireWall agents from allied Cells, the way has been paved for the now-renamed U.S.S. Sulacco to join the Scum Swarm "The Stars Our Destination" and travel the Outer System under the anonymity and cover that the Swarm provides.
Retired Player-Character "Johann" rejoins the FireWall Cell of Router Lieutenant Miller as the space-ship-sleeved AI in command of the Sulacco. As the crew of sentinels come aboard and take stock of their new surroundings the vessel is tentatively renamed *The Fuzzy Earwig* and then *Rudolf the Red-Nosed Fuck You* and Agent 23 nearly succeeds in welding giant plastic antlers onto the vessel before he is wisely voted down by the rest of the Cell. Miller's cell has come to be named _The Murder Hobos_ (as a result of their rootless, unconnected string of homicides left in the wake of their operations) in the banter on The Eye ( the covert network of Firewall operatives). This chafes Lieutenant Miller and is a primary factor that is instrumental in his decision to shove the Sentinel *Beta Team* (our heroes) out to the rowdier outer-system, where they either could do less harm, or at least no one would care as much about the harm they continue doing. Agents of The Murder Hobos *Alpha Team* will continue to mop up as Firewall 'Cleaners' in the inner-system, covering the tracks of the organization. Agent Motoko resumes direct Vector and Scanner work for the Cell as Agent
Nikolai covers everyone's media tracks as the Cell's Social Engineer back on Mars. Mr. Thursday joins Fenopy in piloting Firewall's trans-atmospheric shuttle for Agent Mike Chin and other erasure squad agents. This *Alpha Team* remains stationed in the Martian theater of operations to help clean up Beta Team's flashy, public assault on the Olympus Infrastructure Authority's classified-site crater base. This event having been the biggest media event of a string of recent local terrorist actions that have been attributed to the Barsoomian Movement. With the powerful Erasure Squad Sentinel Victor Vorstagg now at his disposal as an overseer for the AI murder machine Soldaat Moordenaar v7.01.0023( also now hesitantly deployed by Miller as an erasure squad operative ) Miller has then skipping around the inner system in the Cell's last remaining spaceship engaging in extraordinary renditions, wet-work black ops and other silent operations required to keep the existence of Firewall under wraps while not raising any further flags among the Planetary Consortium or Lunar Lagrange Alliance. This is becoming increasingly difficult as dogged former L.L.A. New Detroit Colony's Delta City police inspector Jayne Lewis and the indefatigable Reginald Stonecypher of The Planetary Consortium's OVERSIGHT are hot on the trail of even the tiniest clue left un-buried. Stonecypher is networked with the hideously well connected and very VERY pissed-off Project Ozma operative Neurasthenia who after being murdered by Agent Sandy seems capable of almost miraculous insight into Firewall-related hijinx as concerns The Murder Hobos. Supporting the fearful rumors about Ozma's reach and capabilities that pass among Sentinel agents on The Eye.
After being rescued from the O.I.A. Crater Base by The Murder Hoboes, Asa Ivorssen remains in a FireWall top secret facility so dark, even Miller doesn't know where it is. His formerly latent Watts-McLeod infection now having advanced to Exhuman Psi-epsilon class sleights due to his mind shattering trauma. He is perhaps among the most dangerous Exhumans in known Transhuman space and debate rages among Firewall Proxies as to whether or not he should be destroyed utterly. The safety concerns of his being kept alive for study at all being subject to hot debate among opposed cliques of Proxies.
Agent 23 meanwhile has busied himself over the last 12 months since the mission at the antimatter crater east of Olympus Mons. Having been unable to burn from his mind the image of the TITAN assimilator absorbing first Zak Corvid’s shuttle and then Johanns terrified synthmorph before flying off to the IFF friendly signals it detected coming from the TITAN Quarantine Zone. Having seen the effect of the ElectroMagnetic Pulse grenades on the centibot disassemble worm-swarm as it destroyed the Trancom subterranean complex, he has applied his not inconsiderable talents as a research physicist and academic to network with his Titanian university and the Argonauts to craft a never before seen atmospheric photon pulse cannon and extra-atmospheric Gamma radiation directed energy weapon. This he designed in a feverish one-year hiatus from professorial academia crafting nanofabricator blueprints with the aid of some University AIs and his own custom-created Muse. And the invaluable assistance of his network of intrepid Argonaut theoretical physics and Mathematical allies.
He created a prototype experimental cannon which he promptly replaced the rail-cannon on the undermount of the Sulacco with during a moment of zeal involving considerably unauthorized and dangerously unmonitored extravehicular activity at speed. It is not yet known what this cannon will do when activated. Virtual Reality computer simulations all point to favorable outcomes.
Agent Dave has completed doing the cell's inventory and analysis of the Sulacco's extensive equipment load-out, verifying the materials on record as it was presented by Johann after sleeving into the vessel and running an electronic scan of all spimes in the vessel.
The Team encounters the one-girl narcotics circus that IS the teenager known as Barking Dog, and she leads them down the proverbial rabbit-hole through the Labyrinth to...*A Reception*!...which has been presented to the gathered representative of the Autonomist Collectives that make of The Stars Our Destination scum swarm. This introductory, 'Getting to Know You' event is a truly typical Scum stunt-event. It's part a talk-show interview, part a celebrity roast (to determine starting reputation for the newcomers) and part an anything-goes deviant cosplay/S&M/potluck dinner party in the spirit of pre-Fall Brazil's Carnivale. Led by "Captain" Sui Generis, the hermaphrodite (male genitals/female secondary sexual characteristics) Thai LadyBoy salvage barge party-girl (boy?) who is known for throwing some of the best parties the swarm has to offer and blowing apart the remaining quaint notions of binary gender.
Swarm Captains
This Ruby-Rod (see the film The Fifth Element) style-entertainer/party personality puts on a fabulous interview until the question and answer session when Agent Sandy is confronted by a member of one of the collectives among the guests who brings a professional circuit fight challenge from one of the Swarms contenders. A berserk-exhuman borderline-psychopath named Simona Soukupova. This ego sleeves in a deeply posthuman morph with an alarming amount of hyena and jackal chromosomes integrated into an otherwise human body. Simona is a post-slavic Ego committed to extreme geno-modification and exhuman physiognomy who, due to the use of numerous extreme, experimental, and dangerous self-modifications, has done some permanent damage to her psyche, transforming her mode of thinking into something that is no longer recognizable as fully human.
This intimidating warrior runner offers a challenge to compete for reputation and bragging rights against the Martian title-belt holding Sentinel. Sandy foolishly accepts this challenge since she doesn't want to be shamed be seeming like a coward if she backs down in front of all these Scum Captains. There is going to be a Free-Running/MMA combat event on 30 days between the two. Asses *WILL* be kicked.
