After a lot of hard work, and of course plenty of harrowing encounters, the team was finally able to track down Shay's location: a Sint Holo lab hidden in a cave just off the coast. Ken set off with the team to rescue Shay, but not without a few new members - The Good Samaritans were split up into two teams to accomplish a different mission at the same time as well, with new temporary additions from another team of runners. One of these runners, though not on Ken's team for this mission, was, surprisingly, Ken's childhood friend, Jitsuko - But that's a story for another time.
One of the new runners on Ken's team was Cole - Laura's lost brother. It turned out that years ago, Cole, Shay, and Laura had done some shadowrunning of their own, completely unbeknownst to Ken. Cole was thought to have died after a run gone bad in the Barrens, and Laura and Shay had taken his loss hard (and this suddenly brought new context to Ken's memory of Laura the night she returned from that run). He was alive, though, because a toxic spirit joined with him just before he breathed his final breath, and formed a symbiotic relationship that had turned him into a monster of sorts (though he had been trying to fight back). He turned to a life in the shadows and never told Laura and Shay of his fate, instead keeping an eye on them from afar. Crazy stuff, I know.
It was also revealed in this conversation the reason Laura would never mention their parents. When she was young, she struggled to control her magic. But she had a gift - A unique power. The power to alter memory. After a destructive magical incident at school, Laura had tried to use her magic to make her parents forget. Much like what had happened with Ken, though, it went wrong, and they had forgotten her completely. She had a complicated relationship with her parents - They had money, they were more concerned with status than anything, and they didn't approve of a single thing she did. This incident only further complicated her relationship with them, for obvious reasons. So she ran away, taking her older adoptive brother Cole with her to Seattle.
Before heading out on the mission, Cole told him something else important - That despite everything, Ken really had made a difference in Laura's life. He helped her. And with that, Ken affirmed he wasn't done helping her yet. He was going to bring her back.
The team managed to infiltrate the facility and make it to where Shay was being held, on the way discovering Sint Holo's true plan, and why Laura was working with Sint Holo on it. Apparently, Sint Holo was manufacturing these synthetic, cybernetically enhanced bodies in order to transfer the consciousness of technomancers - rare mages with the specific ability to affect and control technology - into them, and finally combine magic and cyberware in a way previously thought to be impossible. In their efforts, they had joined forces with Arkship's dragon mage cult, agreeing to provide some of these new bodies to the mages whose bodies were deteriorating as a result of not being able to contain the power they were given. In return, Sint Holo was lent their power as grunts...And Laura was one of them, bound by her deal. On top of this, Ken found out through Sint Holo's files on Shay that she suffered from a rare blood disorder, and with Sint Holo's plan, it seemed that Laura thought she'd be able to give Shay a new body. So she spent the last few months keeping an eye on Shay for Sint Holo, with the belief that they would hold up their end of the bargain (and without much of a choice from Arkship).
It was all a big mess. One that Ken could have never anticipated or been prepared for. But as he reunited with Shay once again, lifting her up to carry her as far away from this mess as he could, he wasn't expecting to turn around and come face to face with Laura herself - Or, as she was known amongst the Runechildren, the memory-wiping mage VOID.
It was the first time Ken had seen her in person since before he could even remember who she really was, after months and months of tireless searching - And the circumstances couldn't be worse. Her long mane of blue hair was now cut short, her eyes were full of rage, she looked thinner than ever, and she was donning the cloak and armor of the dragon mages. She stood between the team and the door, crackling with a powerful electricity and ordering them to leave Shay. The team tried talking her down, but it seemed she was too far gone in her rage, especially after they revealed to her that Sint Holo was going to betray her - Ken tried getting through to her, begging her to give this up and come back with them...But she said she couldn't, that they would track her down, and endanger Shay as well. The Good Samaritans didn't have time for this precarious back-and-forth. The facility's security would be descending upon them at any moment. So Cole stepped out from the shadows, revealing himself to his sister at long last.
