Date: 07/21/2009

By: Vanishing Acts

Subject: Saturday Jones

It's inevitable. We do our best to stay off the grid, but at some point, everyone in the shadows needs to know how to disappear. Did you fuck up a job? Left behind blood or tissue they can use to ritually track you or start a DNA profile for a file on you? Didja get set up? Or maybe you haven't done anything wrong, and you need to make someone else vanish for a while (not uncommon for kidnappings and bodyguard duty). It's the 70's, friend, and there are more ways to track you now than any other point in history. You've got to stay one step ahead of them in a dozen different ways: physical, digital, magical, clerical, and a slew you'll likely never see coming. Maybe this'll give you a few tips the next time you need to take a vacation from the heat.

The most important thing you can do is be proactive. Lots of new runners make the mistake of thinking they don't need bolt holes, that they can just check into any old doss when the shit hits the fan. WRONG! Backups and failsafes are the bread and butter of survivors, and any runner who's made it past their first year in the biz will tell you that your contingencies are life preservation insurance. You've gotta have somewhere you are never seen visiting to retreat to when things go blackest. This safehouse, as it is generally called, can take a lot of different forms: I've heard of and seen everything from a shack next to the monorail to a converted crawlspace to a permanently leased motel coffin to luxury highrises and out-of-state mountain cabins lakeside. One particularly morbid gentleman actually keeps a mausoleum open for residence. For all this seeming variety, your safehouse should include the following:

* A low signature. This means the bills are paid on time through anonymous accounts, or there are no bills to pay. A squat in the barrens has no paperwork, so it can't be found. A high rise can be held under a false SIN crafted just for this purpose, with a fake persona "living" there to keep up appearances, bills paid by automatic debit from dummy accounts, trust funds, and so on. Make it a place they won't find via any connection to you. You should be the only one who can make the connection between it and you. It also means no surfing the Matrix under your usual profiles while under cover. Digital trails can lead them to you very quickly.

* Necessary supplies. If you have that 'legit' location with amenities included, this is less of an issue. But an isolated or off-the-grid location like a shed, bomb shelter, or attic will need those bare necessities you take for granted: food, water, bedding, and a place to shit. A spare set of clothes, bathing materials, and something to keep your mind occupied (Matrix games, books and literature, exercise and tutorsofts are all decent options. Self-improvement is always a good way to keep busy). If you've invested the right money into the location, there's no reason you can't enjoy your time under the radar. Call it a professional holiday.

* Mystical isolation. This is like low signature, but must be kept in mind especially because of the nature of magic. Mundanes often forget that they can be tracked via the Astral, and if there is a viable sample of their blood, hair, skin, etc anywhere their pursuer may find it, it can lead right to them. Have your hideout warded (not too expensive to have done, and common enough to go unremarked) to throw off ritual tracking, astrally projecting mages and spirits on the hunt for you.

These are the basics. With advance preparation, you can have one (or more!) places to hang your hat, or hide someone or something away from prying eyes. Just apply these rules to whatever or whoever you need to vanish.

The best way to approach the situation is not from the defense, but the offense. Put yourself in the position of the hunter. If you were going to look for a runner, how would you go about it? Ask the advice and opinion of others in your field. What could they do to stymie your work? What obstacles, what actions, would make them harder to find? Those are the things you should be doing.

Of course, there are a number of ways you can still be proactive. Prevention remains the best medicine, so take the time to keep your tracks invisible. When I was young, my mother put on an old 2D cartoon of Alice in Wonderland. There was a creature that had a brush in it's tail, and would dust away it's own footprints as it walked through the tulgey wood. The best runners know to take their cue from this beast. Before a run, exfoliate as much loose skin and hair as possible to reduce physical traces you might leave behind. If you are shot or wounded and you leave blood on the walls, have a mage with a Sanitize spell or start spraying ammonia or other over-the-counter cleaning chemicals on it. Rich runners have used nanite carcerand variants that release chemical compounds to taint samples when exposed to air, but I think this is a little hit-or-miss. Too new to be trusted. But still, it could be the best new approach in a long time. Use gloves to prevent fingerprints. Wear glasses, disguises, and so on to prevent visual identification, and whenever possible, use alternative walking styles, voice warpers and the like. And for goodness sake, use codenames! Nothing gives you away like a name.

In the digital realm, there are a number of ways to remain off the radar. Remember, there are RFID tags in goddamn near everything, now, so you could theoretically be traced by the RFID in your underwear, your jacket, or the still-digesting remains of the candy bar you ate an hour ago. Get a tag eraser ASAP and use it religiously. It's not even illegal, technically. Make constant use of fake SINs and licenses, and be sure they don't pick up any kind of info trail. Info trails begin when you walk out the door. You stop in a Weapons World window to look at the new Predator 4 firmware upgrades package, and the smart systems have already scanned you, tagged you, and started a profile about you as a potential buyer. If you were a legitimate citizen, this would make your browsing life easier. But you aren't, so it becomes part of a paper trail leading back to you. If the SIN is never used for anything illegal, and you're very careful about when you use it and what you use it for, you can generally afford to keep that info trail. If not, you need to strip and/or burn that SIN. Selling it for such a purpose to a programmer or fixer can net you a few cred... or put that info up for bidding. Your call.

You can also take care to have files pertaining to you erased. I've seen hackers go about it themselves, design worms to scour the net deleting any info on them they can, or services available at the Helix offering data sweeping. Last I heard, within-24 service for a few years went for about 200k. A worthy investment, to my paranoid mind.

That being said, there are times when you really do need to get the fuck out of Dodge (Or Seattle, or Neo Tokyo, or wherever). All the wards and fancy firewalls in the world can't beat some good old-fashioned miles between you and the enemy. Good locations to lay low are any out-of-the-way town or suburb, especially if it has little Matrix and/or corporate presence, or places that are awash in borders (like Denver). Once you cross a border, the people chasing you get caught up in paperwork if they cross it themselves. In Denver, it is possible to be within one mile of up to five borders at a time, easily. More if you really hunt around for the optimal political-landscape-LaGrange. Crossing a few borders rapidly can put a severe crimp in your pursuers' pace.

Loose lips sink ships, and they get sloppy runners flatlined. You know how you're always calling up your connections, laying the legwork and doing your research when you're looking for someone? That's a two-way street, and it pays to control what info about you is out there. Some people just stay tight-lipped about their lives with the people they know, but the clever ones (who don't mind lying to their friends and associates) spread misinformation. False addresses, hangouts, and so on, to throw the tracker off the trail. The truly ruthless even leave traps in their wake: I remember a runner back in 60 who had a team of Cross Seraphim after him. He had laid the groundwork for people to find his address at an apartment in Puyallup. When the Seraphim stormed the place, they triggered the explosives he'd left for whoever was after him. After a while, the cost of finding him was too high, and they gave up the chase.

The very best disappearing acts are for keeps: genetic recoding. I know of a few clients who decided to change their very DNA coding to escape their past. A month of floating in DMSO-nanite cocktails can turn a Japanese man into a CAS woman, different in all ways: voice, retina, blood and tissue, and so on. Of course, a top-notch series of false SINs still help there, and effort to change the astral signature can help tremendously, but, as the old song goes, "I can change my mold." If you have the money, that is.

For those who are willing and able, it is possible to dissappear. There is always an escape route, a second chance, a new lease on life. It may not be your own, but if it comes down to dying in your own shoes or living in someone else's, I think the decision is obvious.