Fowl Business

The runners are visited at their safehouse by a jackdaw, who brings them a datachip. On the chip is an invite to meet a Mr. Johnson at a nearby park. There they encounter a Dwarf feeding the local birds healthy seeds, introducing himself as a birdlover. He wants the runners to heist the avian department of the Zwolle Lifestock Research and steal a set of ducks they have been breeding.
He explains that the new line of birds are being used as living chemsniffers, meant to help find landmines. He caught news that the live demonstration will be sabotaged by a competitor, which would lead to the death of the birds. To prevent this, he wants the runners to steal the birds and ruin the project, but without hurting any other birds present.

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The Mallard

Metatype

Dwarf

Gender

Male

Birth Year

2042

Awakened/Ware

Mundane

Type

Eco-terrorist

Personality

Loves birds

An eco-terrorist who's in the business to protect birds, the Mallard has frequently gone up against Megacorps to fight pollution threatening local wildlife. The uprise of genetical engineering has shifted his focus to help protect birds being raised solely to die in the line of duty. From berserk animals to those with fatal jobs, he wants to save them all.
Currently, he has to go after two projects at the same time, so he's hiring the Runners to pick up one of the two jobs. While chemsniffer ducks could be real useful, he takes offense to having the poor things blown up. So he wants them stolen so he can pass them along to neo-anarchist compounds, where they can detect ammo and combat drugs to stop infiltrating hostiles.

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The Run

The Zwolle Lifestock Research mainly focuses on researching critters capable of dealing with toxic environments. Their avian department, however, has branched out into different markets. For this purpose, they own a former zoo in Emmen, far away from the Toxic Wastelands, all the way near the Westphalen border. There they breed and engineer several kinds of utility animals.
The former zoo, bankrupted during the EuroWars, has both fenced-in areas and several large buildings. Security involves electric fences, cameras, drone patrols, physical guards bored out of their minds, as well as sensor traps mostly meant to detect any animals trying to escape. There is little astral security, as spirit presence disturbs the animals.

Johnson

The Mallard

Job Type

Extraction

Opposition

Canadian Attack Geese

Base Rewards

¥6,000
7 Karma

Word on the street

"A little birdy recently told me that the upcoming presentation will be sabotaged. I want you to save the ducks before they can get hurt."

"The Zwolle animal researchers? I hear they really are getting their ducks in a row. Best beware so you don't get your goose cooked."

"Look, they're doing crazy things with their critters. Some are quite obviously genetically enhanced, or even prepped as biodrones."

"Oh lord the teeth! Stay away! Keep them away from me! Open the door, please! Don't let them get me!

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The Complications

Sure, security can be avoided. But the real problem starts when the runners enter the aviary. See, the sniffducks are but one of the many twisted experiments being performed with birds. Their Canadian Attack Geese population is basically running the show inside and know not the meaning of the word "fear". They do know the word "anger".
The geese are much tougher than their wild brethren. Additionally, they are equipped with the genetical equivalent of a pain editor. In other words, they ignore injury modifiers and do not fall unconscious from Stun damage. This makes them near-impossible to take out in a fight.

The Aftermath

With their chemsniffing ducks gone missing, ZLR hosts an impromptu showing of their geese instead. The geese going wild and attacking their handlers does not help their business at all, so sales are set back for a while. Worse, the Mallard had a second crew insert falsified damage into the research data, so the only operational chemsniffing ducks are now with various neo-anarchists in the ADL.
The Mallard, assuming the runners did their job right, is very pleased with their work. He will definitely consider them the next time he needs backup. Meanwhile, he made a killing by shorting ZLR.