Iona Glass

Overview

A corpo fixer for Rest Easy Interstate Services (REIS), operating out of an office near the top of REIS Six, above the cloud deck. Immaculate, calculating, and — per Bullfrog’s own hacking — a senior director of REIS’s Corporate Risk and Recovery division, with additional ties to an internal unit called Special Projects. Hired the crew to find Mara Sato and recover the stolen arcology keys.

She is also Mara Sato’s mother, which she did not tell the crew. Confronted about it at the handoff in Session 2, she was unapologetic: “It is not commonly known within the company that she is my daughter, and I prefer to keep it that way. You’ll forgive me if I don’t know how loudly your tongues wag.”

The crew has now seen the crack in the composure. When Mara stepped out of the van, Iona’s whole cool, in-control demeanor melted and she ran forward — then pulled herself back together the instant Muktar stepped between them. She hugged her daughter; her daughter very tentatively hugged back; then two suited men walked Mara into a van without giving her a choice.

In Session 3 the crew came back for Mara, and found out what Iona is under the white suit. She is heavily cybernetic. She is strong far beyond her slight build, fast enough to dodge “supernaturally,” and has metal under the skin of her temple. Her arm leaks a blue fluid when cut, alongside ordinary blood. She would not let go of her daughter. She held on to Mara’s wrist through gunfire and Muktar’s claws, and nearly pulled Mara’s arms out of their sockets doing it. Beaten, bleeding and still trying to stand, she told Muktar: “You cannot take my daughter from me. She’s my kin.” Then: “You’ve made a grave mistake here, Mukhtar. You do not know who you have angered.” He said he was sorry. “So am I.”

Mara’s own account of her is far less sympathetic: a psychopath and a corporate slave “through and through,” whose motherly presentation is a layer on top of something else, and who “finds me fucking everywhere.” Mara’s guess is that her mother’s real job is control of access across REIS Six — but she admits she doesn’t actually know.

Known Facts

• Senior Director, REIS Corporate Risk and Recovery.
• Also affiliated with Special Projects, a division confirmed (via a second, riskier hack that tripped REIS security) to exist specifically to “clean up messes that should not make it up to corporate leadership” — plausible deniability, built into the org chart. Neon Drift’s read: “She’s a cleaner.”
• Mara Sato is her daughter. Deliberately concealed from the crew, and not commonly known within REIS either.
• She spoke to Mara directly before Mara disappeared and tried to talk her out of leaving (“you can’t opt out now, not yet,” per a memory Muktar recovered).
• Terms she set for the job: bring Mara back alive, recover everything Mara took, 48-hour deadline before pay drops. When pressed further (a miss), she made clear she’s willing to escalate — “more people like you” would be sent after Mara if the crew doesn’t deliver.
• Paid out two cred per crew member on delivery — exactly what was expected from a job that was always going to pay badly. She did not ask about, or apparently know to ask about, the data stick Mara was carrying.
• Travels heavy: at the REIS Six garage handoff she arrived in a white suit with roughly six suited men, four unmarked black Cadillacs, and one unmarked black van.
• Told Muktar she intended to debrief Mara and then take her to dinner. Muktar invited himself; she declined (“this is mother-daughter conversation”). Speckz Arioso rolled Assess on her at that moment (a 10) to test whether that was the whole story — the resulting hold carries into the next mission.
• Took Mara straight from the handoff to lunch at a high-end ramen shop in an upscale part of REIS Six, behind an executive-access barrier. Her convoy split up on the way, with the van parked in a heat-shielded garage. She posted two guards at the front, two at the back and a couple more inside, and kept three Cadillacs of reinforcements in reach. They arrived within minutes of the shooting starting. At the table she was lecturing her daughter nonstop.
• Heavily augmented. She has a cybernetic arm that leaks blue fluid, metal plating under the skin of her temple (a gel round bounced off it with a metallic thud), inhuman speed and strength, and grappling training (she tried a jiu-jitsu throw on Muktar). Her looks are “almost artificially good.” She bleeds real blood as well. Speckz: “She’s a bot.” What she actually is remains unknown.
• Lost about six of her security team in the ramen-shop fight, and was left injured and slumped in the booth as police arrived.
• Possibly operates under an alias — Bullfrog’s hacking in Session 1 suggested “Iona Glass” might not be her real identity, and Mara’s name being Sato is at least consistent with that.

Relationships

• Mara Sato — her daughter and her employee. Estranged, retrieved in Session 2, and lost again in Session 3. Mara won’t contact her until she can do it without being found.
• Muktar — stepped between her and Mara at the handoff and called her out for withholding the relationship. Their eyes met; the description at the table was Muktar’s “cold, dead lizard eyes” against hers. In Session 3 he clawed her arm open, slammed her into a wall, and told her Mara “does not wish to see you anymore.” She knows his name and has promised he’ll regret it.
• Speckz Arioso — shot her in the head with a gel round and fought her for Mara’s wrist.
• Bullfrog — his Session 1 hacking intrusion into REIS systems tripped a security alert; whether she’s traced it to the crew is still open. In Session 2 he hacked her own black van from the garage and is holding three holds on it.
• Neon Drift — gave her unsolicited parenting advice at the handoff (“sometimes you gotta let your kids breathe”) and again over her bleeding body in Session 3: “You gotta let that bird fly. You squeeze her too hard, she’s gonna die.”

Open Questions

• Is “Iona Glass” a real name or a corporate alias?
• Full scope of “Special Projects” beyond cleanup/deniability work — and is Mara right that it’s really about arcology access?
• Does she know about the NSMC data stick, or that her daughter went into the Under Sector for VYRAL?
• Does she now know Bullfrog/the crew were behind the second intrusion?
• What did Speckz’s Assess actually read on her face? (The hold went unspent in the breakout.)
• What is she? How much of her is machine, and what is the blue fluid?
• What will she do now, and to whom? “You do not know who you have angered.”

Appearances

• Session 1 — Hires the crew to find Mara Sato and recover the arcology keys; revealed as REIS’s Corporate Risk and Recovery director and tied to the “Special Projects” cleanup unit.
• Session 2 — Revealed as Mara’s mother; takes delivery of her daughter in the REIS Six parking garage and pays the crew two cred each. Never asks about the data stick.
• Session 3 — Takes Mara to lunch at a ramen shop and loses her to the crew in a firefight. Revealed to be heavily cybernetic. Ends injured, with about six of her security dead, promising Muktar retribution.