June 21st, 2038

After learning about the death of Hijacker, the team decides that their business with Tobias Luna and Biotechnica is complete. They head home to decide how to spend their newly earned cash.

Unfortunately, they find their home has again been attacked. The doors are smashed in and most of their equipment is gone. Torrent is missing, as is his dummy computer. The real one, hidden away, appears to be intact. Saito checks his hidden weapon storage, and finds it has been busted open, and his very expensive rifles are missing.

They immediately suspect that Alys Grant is at it again. However, when they check with Death in the Afternoon, they learn that is was a SPARS team that had raided the place. They immediately recall it was a SPARS team that was after Rico.

At noon, they head to the Forlorn Hope. There they meet with the Professor. He believes that Lt. Bubba McCarty must have somehow figured out that they were involved in his failing to catch Rico. Therefore he went to their shop to confront them. Finding only Torrent there, he likely arrested the netrunner and then confiscated everything they have of value to make sure the rest of the team doesn’t split town. His likely goal will be to have the team either turn over Rico, or implicate the Forlorn Hope crew in helping with his escape. They decide to give McCarty what he wants, sort of. They plan to give him Rico’s location, but with enough advance warning that Rico can make his escape.

Jarvic receives a phone call from Hamstring who offers him an opportunity to distribute his Super Fly in other cities such as Denver and Detroit. Jarvic is evasive, as he has no idea who Hamstring is. He promises to get back to Hamstring after he considers his options. After he hangs up the phone, Jarvic immediately looks into getting a different apartment.

Riptide and Zen go to the Night City Justice Center to turn themselves in. They are placed in separate interrogation chambers and left to wait.

McCarty interviews Riptide first. McCarty tells Riptide that he can get back most of his stuff if he cooperates. Riptide explains that they had dealt with an unknown fixer, so he does not know who ultimately got Ricco out of town. He says he does know where Rico is, however, and gives McCarty the location.

McCarty then talks to Zen. Zen sticks with the same story as Riptide.

McCarty is not convinced that they have shared everything, so he pumps both of them full of truth serum. Riptide holds out, but Zen reveals that they did the job as a favor for the Professor. They are then both thrown in jail for interfering with a police investigation.

June 22nd, 2038

Zen and Riptide are released, along with Torrent. McCarty promises the return of most of their gear once he has his hands on Rico. Zen contacts the Professor to see if McCarty had contacted him yet. He said no, but that he had received word that Hand had been killed. The three then return home.

After conferring with Riptide, Jarvic arranges to meet with Hamstring at The Catch. At 10:00 PM, he arrives there along with Zen and Riptide. They make a deal that keeps Riptide distributing in Night City while Hamstring can distribute the drug in Detroit. He needs a sizable batch upfront, which will take Jarvic a few weeks to produce.

They inquire about the Berlin deal and what Hijacker’s role was in it. Hamstring confirms that Hijacker was not the one who stole the date from Biotechnica, but set up the deal for someone else. Who that person is, Hamstring does not know.

June 23rd, 2038

Riptide receives a call from Dollar Bill who states that he just had a call from someone named Dog Tag. This Dog Tag was a friend of Hijacker’s and claims that he is the one who hacked the Biotechnica Database. When Dog Tag learned of Hijacker’s death, he began to investigate. A hack of Hijacker’s phone records indicated multiple calls to Dollar Bill. Realizing that everyone else involved in the Berlin deal is now dead, Dog Tag figures that he’s next. Dollar Bill gives Riptide a number to contact Dog Tag.

Riptide finds a young punk hacker looking to make an easy couple of bucks. He has the weefle runner dig up what he can on the phone number. The kid determines that the number originates from a hab unit on the Crystal Palace. The unit is registered to a Chris Hackabout.

Riptide decides to make contact. He speaks to Dog Tag who requests Riptide’s help in protecting him. Riptide asks why the team should help Dog Tag and Dog Tag responds with a question of his own. He asks if the team has ever done any work for Biotechnica and if so, have they ever been unconscious while in the presence of Biotechnica agents. Riptide realizes that Helios was when Tobias Luna took him.

Dog Tag explains that Berlin is a nanotech weapon that is injected into its target. Once the nano-bots are in place they can be triggered by a remote signal. Berlin prevents the body from expelling lactic acid. The effect is that the victim suffers from sudden soreness that quickly leads to full body cramping. Within 10 minutes, the person dies, poisoned by their own muscles.

Dog Tag tells Riptide what to look for in a blood test to indicate the existence of Berlin. If Riptide helps him, Dog Tag will give him the data he has from Biotechnica on how to shutdown and destroy the nano-bots.

Riptide calls Helios and has him head down to REO Meatwagon. Jarvic runs a blood test and determines that Helios indeed has been infected by Berlin.

Riptide, Saito, Jarvic, and Zen purchase tickets to Crystal Palace. They drive to Oakland and board a shuttle to the Johnson Space Platform. Then they head over to Crystal Palace via an OTV.

Around 11:00PM PST, they arrive at Crystal Palace. They head to Dog Tag’s domicile. They knock on the door and announce themselves. While they are waiting for him to open the door, Riptide spots an unusual object attached to the door underneath the doorknob. They tell Dog Tag to get back from the door. Saito takes a close look and identifies it as a shaped charge with a motion trigger. The moment the door started to open, the explosive charge would go through the door killing the person on the inside. In this case that person would be Dog Tag. Saito deactivates the bomb and detaches it from the door.

They have Dog Tag hack into Crystal Palace’s surveillance system to find out who planted the charge. He eventually finds video of a woman attaching the device to Dog Tag’s door as well as a button camera on the opposite wall. This means that the assassins know that their plan has been foiled.

They have Dog Tag work on finding a way to follow the women’s movements and find out where she is staying. Zen, Saito, and Jarvic get some sleep, while Riptide stays up on guard duty.

June 24th, 2038

About 1:00AM, Riptide takes a look through the door peephole. He yanks his head back just as a spike gets rammed through the door. A tube quickly replaces the spike. Suspecting that someone is about to pump gas into the room, Riptide swings the door open and goes on the attack.

Outside is the woman as well as another man. Riptide stabs the man, who is holding the tube, which is attached to a cylinder. The wound is not fatal, but apparently catches the man completely off guard and he collapses. The woman pops a set of wolvers, and attacks Riptide.

Zen, Saito, and Jarvic are awakened by the noise. Jarvic stands guard by Dog Tag, and Zen and Saito move to the door to assist Riptide. The other man quickly recovers and rejoins the fight.

Riptide battles it out with the man as Zen and Saito double-team the woman. The melee is fast and brutal but eventually Riptide pummels his opponent to the ground. Saito grapples the woman, and Zen secures her with some restraints.

The two are dragged back into the room and interrogated. The two edgerunners go by Angel and Klaus. They were hired by World Genetics to eliminate anyone involved in the theft and sale of Berlin. The two names left on their list are Dog Tag and Hamstring.

The team then spends the next couple of hours debating what to do. They ultimately decide to have Dog Tag erase the video surveillance of the incident. They make arrangements to get Dog Tag off of Crystal Palace and into hiding. They call Hamstring and apprise him of the situation. Jarvic gives the two edgerunners a lethal dose of a depressant and they leave the bodies in Dog Tag’s room. Chris Hackabout was an assumed name, so Dog Tag was not concerned about being traced.

They then make arrangements to get back off of Crystal Palace. But not before doing a little shopping, where Saito acquires an orbital crystal mono-blade. By late evening, they are back home in Night City.

June 25th, 2038

Jarvic gets to work on using the data Dog Tag gave them to process an antidote for Berlin, to give to Helios. Saito begins to conduct surveillance on Alys Grant’s home. Riptide conducts some business and then returns home to find a Night City Utility truck parked outside of their home. The truck is there to pull the illegal power connection that the team has been using. Riptide, with help from some members of Death in the Afternoon, chases them off.

June 26th, 2038

Zen heads into the hospital to get some sub-dermal armor implanted. Jarvic administers the Berlin counter-agent to Helios. He then goes to a ripperdock and gets some minor implant work done.

The utility truck returns along with a couple of Night City Police units. The team is issued a fine of $1,000 and ordered to pay some back charges.

June 27th, 2038

Saito continues his shadowing of Alys Grant. Zen is in the ICU due to complications of the surgery implanting her armor.

June 28th, 2038

Riptide gets their home set up with legal power service after paying the fine. The team learns that Professor brokered a deal with McCarty to bring Ricco back in. McCarty can get his televised perp-walk, but Ricco gets the treatment he needs rather than just getting tossed in jail.

June 29th, 2038

Saito continues shadowing Alys Grant. Riptide arranges to get some forged parking passes for Cloud Villas, the gated community that Alys Grant lives in.

June 30th, 2038

Network 54 News reports that SPARS commander Bubba McCarty has captured the Calypso Club Killer Enrico Estevez. Riptide goes to the Night City Justice Center to retrieve the team’s confiscated equipment. They are given back everything except most of the weapons. Saito’s Arasaka sniper rifle is returned however.

That evening, Riptide, Saito, and Helios go to pay Alys Grant a visit. They use the forged parking pass and are let into the community. Helios waits in the vehicle as Riptide and Saito go to her door.

They knock and a few moments later she answers. When she sees that it is them, she immediately tries to slam the door shut. Before she can get it closed, Saito throws his weight into the door, knocking her onto the ground.

Riptide produces both pistols and aims them at her head, while Saito clears the rest of the apartment. Once it is determined that they are alone, the talk commences.

Alys admits that she was behind the attack on their home and the hit on Hand. She had not planned on taking any further action as Hand is now dead, and she felt that the team has been adequately warned.

They demand she pays them $10,000 as compensation for the damage done to their place. They also make it clear to her that if she meddles with them at all; they will get to her and kill her. Once they are sure she understands the situation, they take their leave.

McCarty and Grant were now off of their backs, and Berlin incident has been wrapped up. With these loose ends secure, they could now start concentrating on their future. But there were other past events that were about to come back to haunt them.