Orígens de la llengua catalana al Matarranya

POSTED BY: SHE WHO GLIDES

>

Extractions almost always require you to get into places

the corporations don’t want you. For this reason I have recruited an infiltration specialist, She Who Glides. I have worked with her on many occasions, and she never disappoints. I figured her abilities and experience qualify

her to give an overview of ways to get around the things corporations do to keep us out.

>

^Cosmo

The corporations have vast resources at their dispos-al to keep unwanted people out. They use physicdispos-al, elec-tronic, and magical means to keep their facilities secure.

However, there is no such thing as an impregnable facil-ity. The security always has a weakness; it’s just a matter of finding and exploiting it. To find it you need to know what security they have, what they don’t have, and what to expect. This will depend on how important the facility and the work performed within it are to the corporation.

You can employ stealth, deception, or brute force to get into a secure facility. The problem with brute force is that the corporation has much more equipment and more people to throw into a firefight. For the most se-cure facilities, a pure brute-force method is only a viable option for top-tier shadowrunners.

>

And most of those who have achieved that level of

expertise got there by not relying on brute force.

>

^2XL

That leaves two different methods for getting by their security undetected—stealth (not being seen or heard), and deception (looking like you belong). These methods aren’t mutually exclusive, and for the most secure facil-ities a combination of the two methods is needed. Just as no defense is foolproof, not every stealth technique or deception is guaranteed to work perfectly every time.

But the longer you can delay detection, the easier it will be to achieve your objective.

If things go badly, your team must be a ready to use brute force either to finish your objective or to get out of the facility before security shuts you down for good.

The corporations use chokepoints to control access and open areas to try to detect intruders. These are usu-ally alternated to maximize the security’s effectiveness.

The more secure the facility, the more layers you will need to go through to reach your target, and the more complex each layer will be.

The first lines of defense the corporations employ are physical barriers. In the most secure facilities these come in layers. The obvious barriers are perimeter fenc-es, building walls, and floors inside a building. Not so obvious, and therefore often overlooked, are open ar-eas. Because they are overlooked or underestimated by infiltrators, these open areas can be more effective than a wall. Open areas are set up to make unobserved approach difficult to impossible, especially if you’ve dis-abled any obvious monitoring devices. They also give the facility defenders a free-fire kill zone. Deserts, fro-zen tundra, salt flats, Antarctic ice sheets, Arctic snow fields—any secure facility in the middle of an open no-where was built by someone who intends to kill anything that gets too close.

Each of these barrier types requires a different ap-proach, and each must be planned for. You not only want to get through the wall or across the open space undetected, you want to do so in a way that sets you up to overcome the next obstacle. I’m going to go over the more common defenses in the order you’re most like-ly to encounter them and give examples of ways you might use to defeat them.

The kill zone around the outside of the perimeter of a facility in a populated area may not be obvious. Typ-ically security won’t stop everyone who passes by, but they will track everyone not part of the corporation. If a stranger disappears or loiters too long, he or she will be investigated. It could be a drone, spirit, or person—but someone or something will be sent to take a close look.

This makes the approach to such a facility just as import-ant, if not more importimport-ant, than the actual breaching of the perimeter. You will either need to use stealth to avoid observation altogether or have a plausible cover story that explains your approach. If you rely on stealth, remember the monitors you see are not the real

dan-ger. Be prepared to defeat electronic surveillance, astral observation, and flesh-and-blood sentries, as any good security perimeter will use a combination of all three.

The most popular and most obvious electronic means of observation is the camera. You can assume a security camera will be outfitted with ultrasound, night vision, and thermographic technology in addition to or-dinary light functions.

>

It depends where the facility is and when you approach.

Thermographic cameras are almost useless in a desert at noon but work fine at midnight. They’re a lot more effective in the arctic because even in your best thermal gear you’re going to be warmer than the frozen background.

>

^Mika

With most cameras, a chameleon suit or improved invisibility spell will prevent you being seen. You would be surprised, however, at the number of runners who forget neither of these methods do anything to cover your tracks. Not being aware of your trail can get you

prematurely noticed. A top-of-the-line chameleon suit won’t do you any good if your footprints lead the securi-ty team right to where you are hiding. Some adepts have the ability to walk softly enough that they won’t leave a trail, or you can use an air spirit to swirl the snow or dust to erase your footprints after you have passed.

>

There are also mundane ways of doing this, such as

dragging a mesh to wipe out the footprints.

>

^Mika

The easiest way to mask your body heat from ther-mographic vision is to add thermal dampening to your armor. Except in extremely cold conditions, matching the ambient temperature is fairly straightforward. Ultrasound is more difficult to defeat. Rather than try for absolute si-lence, try to blend in with something visible and ordinary that provides natural sound cover. A rain or snow storm are obvious choices, but be careful. You can be invisible and soundless in the storm but if a flesh and blood guard notices the snow or mist swirling around you as it falls.

In the same way using a sound barrier spell to hide your approach can be effective if there’s nothing behind you, though if the bottom half of a tree disappears then re-appears, an alert technician will sound the alarm. In oth-er words, always be aware that nothing is poth-erfect but if you take all environmental elements into consideration when planning your infiltration can be better than their defenses. For example, members of your team passing innocently through or by the open area on obviously le-gitimate errands with their own ultrasounds in passive mode will let you quickly map the extent of the facility’s ultrasound coverage and locate potential weaknesses in their pattern you can take advantage of. As with any de-fense the best way to defeat ultrasound is to avoid it alto-gether. When that’s not possible be creative.

Most secure facilities will also have either a mage or spirits patrolling the perimeter watching for someone or something approaching in astral space. Even though travel in astral space can be very fast you have to slow down considerably in order to observe effectively. This means that if the perimeter is large enough, observ-ing and timobserv-ing the astral patrol is as straightforward as watching sentries patrol their beat. This is easier with spirits because they typically keep to the same route and speed, whereas mages may make apparently ran-dom changes to their patrols to make things as difficult as possible for potential intruders.

>

Spirits make inexpensive patrolling fairly easy for the

corporations. Not only can they notice magical creatures approaching and notify their controller, but they can be instructed to take notice of and tell about approaching mundanes as well.

>

^Winterhawk

Sentry posts are usually spaced around the perim-eter to observe and control ingress and egress. They are actually more common and more closely spaced in urban areas where the corporation has no legitimate way to control the flow of traffic in the streets outside their walls. There may also be observation posts locat-ed in corporate properties outside the secure facility to keep an eye on areas not easily monitored by the sentry posts. The metahuman element of a sentry or observa-tion post makes it more difficult to know who is looking where when, increasing the chances an intruder will be detected. They use the same types of sensors and cam-eras as a remote facility, however, so the fundamental theories remain the same. Also, since the sentry posts are in fixed locations, they are easier to avoid altogether.

>

When given the option of going past fixed ultrasound

cameras or a sentry post, I’ll take the sentry every time.

>

^Ma’Fan

Once you have gotten to the perimeter you will need to get through it and on into the facility. When going against the big boys this is the moment of com-mitment since once you pass the perimeter you are on their turf and under their jurisdiction because of extra-territoriality laws.

>

It is important to note this is true of the AA corporations as

well, not just the AAA.

>

Kay St. Irregular

>

Also remember that some corporations put their perimeter

fences well inside their property line so that when you get to the fence, you are already fair game.

>

DangerSensei

The perimeter can be anything from a figurative line in the sand to a plasticrete wall to a chain link fence.

Once you reach it, you again have a choice between using stealth or deception to get through it. Most like-ly, since there’s rarely a chance to make an unobserved transition, you’ll use the same method to get in you did to approach. Hardened walls are more likely in urban ar-eas where their security can’t control traffic on the street and there’s no room for a killing field. Thick walls provide additional stopping power in case of a vehicular attack.

The disadvantage is limited visibility and a reliance on cameras to keep an eye on the outside world. Again, there will be obvious cameras that are easily avoided and camouflaged cameras that can mess you up. We once had a mission blow up in our faces because the fa-cility had cameras hidden in the outer wall at about waist level. No big deal until our street sam stopped right in front of one as we prepared to go over the wall.

When using stealth you will have to go over the wall, use one of the entrances, or make a hole in the wall. If

you’re going over the wall you need to be thinking about what might be on top of the wall. More than one cor-poration strings monowire just above the edge that can slice anyone unprepared.

>

If you cut yourself, you need to hit the spilled blood with

a sterilize spell or C-Squared compound to keep the corp security from using it to track you.

>

^Butch

Another common wall-top defense used with or without monowire is a series of pressure plates. These plates might trigger an alarm, release a gas, or activate additional sensors to confirm the intruder isn’t a wan-dering cat. The sensors and alarms are the most com-mon, but if they’re guarding something they really don’t want found corporations don’t hesitate to mount harsh-er, even lethal defenses.

>

If there is wildlife around they may cause enough

false alarms to cause complacency about an alarm in the guards.

>

^Ecotope

>

If the pressure plates were set correctly the weight of the

local wildlife won’t be enough to set it off.

>

DangerSensei

The second option is to create your own hole. Mak-ing a hole through a solid wall large enough to get peo-ple in and out without drawing attention to yourself is problematic. Sometimes an acid or deactivator can be used, but many of these have a strong odor so unless the location you are breaching is remote, the smell will give you away. This is a tactic of last resort. Making a hole in a chainlink fence is easier, since you can just take bolt cutters and cut your way through. However, many of the modern fences are made to sense if a hole is cut unless you bypass the sensors.

>

You also have to be wary of the old-fashioned electric

fence. Some of these have options that will send up an alert in the case of a grounding event.

>

^Mika

>

A grounding event?

>

^Treadle

>

She means someone getting electrocuted.

>

^Bull

>

It will also sense if you use wires to ground the fence on

either side of where you plan to cut through so you don’t get electrocuted.

>

^Mika

The third option is going through an entrance that is already there. If the entrance is unmanned, there will at the very least be some form of locking mechanism.

The most common type of lock is the maglock, but hav-ing a good set of picks and knowhav-ing how to use them is common sense since there are a lot of old-fashioned key locks out there.

>

Bolt cutters work well too. Or C4.

>

^Kane

The maglock relies on some type of card reader, keypad, scanner, or RFID monitor. There are many avail-able tools dedicated to defeating the maglock. If you need to take apart the case be sure to deactivate or circumvent any anti-tamper circuits so you don’t sound an alarm. Also expect at least one camera to be cov-ering the door and lock and take appropriate counter-measures.

>

There are several good illusion spells that fool electronics

and will hide your actions.

>

^Lyran

>

Be sure to put things back the way they were unless you

want to have to maintain the illusion until you are done with the run.

>

^Winterhawk

>

Another option is to hack into the cameras and loop them

so the guards don’t see anything.

>

^Bull

Another way to bypass a remote lock is with the key-card or code of someone who is supposed to have ac-cess. This can be either stolen or tricked out of the per-son. If you have an inside contact he or she could even set you up with a legitimate access card. If you have a decker on your team, the Matrix can be used to trick the maglock into thinking it is getting the correct code.

At a manned entrance, the guards are expecting people to be coming and going, which allows for a direct approach. You will need a good fake identification, cov-er story, and undcov-erstanding of who would or wouldn’t be using the entrance. The more secure the facility, the more heavily restricted the entrance will be. The most secure sites don’t allow anyone outside their company into the facility. Maintenance and handling of garbage and repairs are done by company personnel who often are already housed in the facility.

>

Another thing to be aware of is that many personnel

changes or company visits occur on a schedule. That means that when a manned entrance is there, it is more to turn away people who wander up than to let people in.

>

DangerSensei

A disadvantage to this approach is you will be logged in, have to keep to approved paths, and the front door will be expecting you to exit the same way. This is why it is difficult to switch from one infiltration method to another in the middle of the run. The other option is to sneak in just like an unmanned entrance. The approach will be a bit different since the guards won’t just look away while you tinker with the maglock. However, you can use traffic to sneak past the guards.

>

You can use a decoy, preferably one the guards will find

attractive, to play lost and ask for directions or in some other way engage the security personnel in conversation or otherwise distract them while other members of the team sneak in.

>

^Mika

In addition to the people and electronics at a manned entrance, there may also be dedicated spirits watching the auras of everyone entering, looking specifically for active spells and foci. If your mage can mask his aura, he could try to match it to someone else going in and slip with them. Also, many manned entrances will have one or more of the guards with a glow wand to detect if anything magical is passing by. A glow wand’s range is very limited, so slipping past is possible, but if you have to stop and talk with the guards they will know if you have any active magic on you.

After you have made it past the perimeter, you will have to make it to the building itself. Unless space is at a premium, like in a downtown area, the facility will have an open area between the perimeter and the buildings.

This has several purposes. The first being that if there is a breach of the perimeter, the open area gives security time to lock down the building. It also provides another kill zone securely on the corporation’s property, meaning they can use deadly force without fear of repercussions.

>

In secure facilities there will almost definitely be deadly

force used to take care of any intruders.

>

^Thorn

>

Not always. If it is an ultra-secure, isolated, or

off-the-books facility, they may well try to take any runners alive and interrogate them to find out who hired them and how they found out about the facility.

>

DangerSensei

>

And if that does happen you may well wish they had just

killed you. Especially if you don’t have anything to tell them and they think you’re holding out.

>

^Sunshine

With large-area facilities, it is common for the corpo-rations to use animals to patrol. These could be normal,

With large-area facilities, it is common for the corpo-rations to use animals to patrol. These could be normal,

In document LA FRANJA D’ARAGÓ (página 84-88)