Cyberpunk 2036

Episode 28 - Data Haven

The team was able to close out the remainder of the year without incident. Normally, two months without work was frowned upon, but they were pretty banged up right about then, so the time off was appreciated.

January 14th, 2039

Riptide is working at the Golden Saloon when he is approached by a Filipino man named Kona. His is a fixer with a big job opportunity. He is offering 60 large for a two-part task.

The second part of the task will be stealing a personnel file from a data haven in an undisclosed location. But before that, they need to complete the first part of the mission.

The first part involves stealing a helicopter from an OTEC facility located in Night City. It needs to be stolen on the evening of the 18th, and taken to a designated spot out in the desert. There they will immediately set out on their second task. Riptids accepts the job.

January 15th, 3039

Zen uses her resources at Infocomp to find out what she can on OTEC. She learnes that the full name is Ocean Technology & Energy Corporation. The company specializes in sea going vessels and platforms. Their main source of income is offshore oil rigs and the ships that service those platforms.

Riptide does his own research, but on Kona. He learns that he is a small time dealer whose preferred market is stolen vehicle parts. A $60,000 data theft seems like a big score for such a small timer.

Saito stakes out the OTEC station. It is set on the water’s edge, fully fenced with a warehouse and two small hangers. He watches as a Bell-Huey CCK lands on a chopper pad. Technicians come out, fold up the rotors, and wheel it into one of the hangers.

That evening, Zen hitches a ride on the bottom of a transport truck bound for the secure warehouse across the street. Once inside, she sneaks over to the building that was closest to the road. She then sets up two cyber-cameras that can be accessed via Mouse’s computer and aims them at the OTEC facility.

She then tries to use the same method to get back out. Unfortunately, the truck hits a bump and she loses her grip. She narrowly avoids being run over, but someone has spotted what has happened and armed guards were now approaching her position. When the first guard arrives, she is able to subdue him and use him as a human shield long enough to make her exit.

Afterwards, Saito watches to see what the reaction inside the warehouse facility is. The staff and security are focused on the warehouse inventory, trying to see if anything has been stolen or vandalized. No one even comes close to spotting the cameras that are aimed at the facility across the street.

January 16th, 2039

This is Mouse’s day to do what he does. He records all of the video from the cameras watching the OTEC facility. He also hacks their computer system to see what they have for security. At the end of the day, he makes his report.

The fence surrounding the facility has vibration sensors. Pretty much every square foot of ground space is covered by cameras. OTEC uses its own security and does not contract it out. They have two guards on staff at anytime, working in 8-hour shifts. There are also 3-4 technicians on the premises at any given time.

While all of this is going on, Helios goes in search of a transponder for a helicopter. It takes some looking and a few thousand dollars, but he is able to find one.

January 17th, 2039

In the early morning hours, Saito and Riptide drive out the OTEC facility. Around 8:00 AM the two security guards who have completed their shift, drive off of the site and head towards their homes. Saito and Riptide each follow one guard. They are able to determine where each guard lives, and their living situation, including family, schedule of spouses, kids, and home security systems.

They then return back to the team headquarters. There they sit down and iron out a plan to steal the helicopter.

January 18th, 2039

During the day, Riptide and Saito each visit the homes of the guards they had followed. In both cases, the guard is secured, and then the edgerunner waits for the family members to return home and then they are secured as well.

Then they each drive the guard’s vehicle to the OTEC facility. They arrive around 11:00 PM. Each pulls up to the gate and uses the guard’s security badge to open the gate. First Riptide pulls in and then Saito does as well. They drive the vehicles into the hanger where the guards typically park.

Then, before the gate can close, the rest of the team, in a Robo-Rental van, piggyback in. This of course immediately alerts the guards already there with guns drawn. The team members are able to stall the guards long enough for Riptide and Saito to come up from behind the unsuspecting guards and relieve them of their weapons.

The guards are tied up and thrown into the back of the Robo-Rental. The return button is hit, and the vehicle begins the process of driving itself back to the Robo-Rental lot.

Helios begins the process of swapping out transponders while the others go into the warehouse and secure the technicians. The techs offer little resistance. Mouse hacks in remotely and disables the security alarms and cameras.

After roughly 20 minutes, the transponders are swapped and the team climbs into the CCK. Helios then flies the chopper out to the meeting point.

They arrive in the desert where they meet with Kona. He explains that they will be stealing the data from an offshore data haven roughly 180 miles out to sea. The data haven is owned and operated by Infocomp. The file they need is on an EBM employee named Fredrick Shumann.

The data haven has a 10-man guard team as well as an automated defense system designed to eliminate enemy ships and aircraft. He explains that they need not worry about that though, because the chopper’s transponder will let the platform know that it is a friendly.

The team needs to go immediately. Once the chopper is discovered stolen, its transponder code will be taken off of the platform’s friendly list.

The team immediately takes off, but not for the platform. They instead return to the OTEC station. Luckily no one seems to have yet discovered what happened. Helios swaps out the transponders again, returning the correct one to the chopper. About 15 minutes later, they are airborne and on their way to the data haven.

About an hour later they come upon a platform in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On one end is a helipad. Next to that is a freight elevator positioned between two surface to air missile systems. Behind that is a control tower and back behind the control tower is a couple of loading cranes. As they approach the helipad they see ten guards in armored Infocomp uniforms and equipped with submachine guns. Four of them are positioned on the helipad itself.

Helios brings the chopper down. Saito and Riptide, still wearing the OTEC uniforms, step out with Mouse. Two of the guards immediately approach them and demand to know who Mouse is.

Riptide explains that OTEC has reason to believe that someone has found an exploit in the computer hardware that OTEC used when constructing the platform. The guards explain that they cannot let anyone off of the helipad that is not preauthorized. Riptide agrees to go with one of the guards to the control tower to get things cleared up.

They head to the control tower where the head of security, a comms officer and the executive officer are waiting. Riptide tells the executive officer that he could call the OTEC team leader, but being 2:00 AM, he may not be apprised of the situation as the security issue came up at the last minute.

The officer makes the call, and as Riptide had hoped, the OTEC guy on the other end has no idea what is going on, but will make a call to his office to find out what was going on. The problem is that it would not be long before OTEC learns of what has happened to their chopper and then things will go south fast.

Zen gets out of the chopper and begins to chat up one of the guards. Saito then approaches another guard demanding to know what is taking so long. He insists that he be allowed to go to the tower to make sure his partner is okay. Eventually the guard gets tired of arguing and calls the tower. The head of security says he will go down to the helipad.

Riptide waits until the security officer is about half way to the helipad. Then he pulls his weapons and points them at the security guard still in the tower. He orders everyone to drop their weapons and they comply.

The head of security makes it to the helipad and explains the situation to Saito. Saito decides that he is satisfied with the explanation. The security head radios the situation to the tower. The comms officer calmly makes a reply as Riptide holds a gun to his head.

The head of security returns to the tower to find the rest of the command crew tied up and Riptide waiting for him. Riptide disarms him and secures him as well. Riptide then gives the all clear to his team.

Helios gets out of the chopper and approaches one of the guards and then sucker-punches him with a stun glove, knocking him out. Zen uses her gang jazzler to stun the guard that she has been talking to. Saito gets the guard he is conversing with into a chokehold and chokes him out.

For a moment they think they are in the clear, but then they notice one of the guards by the defense system approaching to check things out. Riptide kills the lights on the helipad giving his team the advantage.

Saito is able to sneak up on the guard by the STA launcher who seems to have not noticed what has happened and is radioing the tower regarding the lights. Another chokehold takes him down. Helios distracts the other guard while Zen sneaks up on him and subdues him as well.

The team now out numbers the remaining guards. Riptide orders the head of security to instruct the remaining guards to stand down. He complies and the team manages to take control of the platform without firing a shot.

Riptide calls up Mouse. Mouse takes a look around the control tower and points out that there is no data jack there. The executive officer explains that the door to the vault is on the back of the platform. No one on board the platform has a key.

Mouse and Saito head to the door. Mouse pulls the electronic key panel off and plugs in his deck. With in a few seconds, the door slides open.

The two find themselves staring down a long narrow hallway with another door at the other end. They approach the door and Mouse again goes to work on bypassing the lock. His first attempt is unsuccessful and another door closes behind them, sealing them in. An air pump engages and begins sucking the air out of the room. Mouse begins frantically working at the lock as the two begin to feel light headed. A few tense moments later the doors open.

Once inside, Mouse jacks into the data haven. After a few minutes, he unplugs himself and reports that he has a copy of the data file.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team makes sure that they have everyone on board the ship secured. Once everyone is reunited, they board the chopper and head back to the coast.

Once they are back over land, they fly back to the meeting place in the desert. They turn over the chip to Kona. He then asks them where and when did they want to meet for the money. Riptide suggests right here and now.

Kona explains that he needs to get the chip to his employer and then he can get paid. He will then pay them. Against their better judgment, they agree to meet him at the Golden Saloon at noon, which is now only a few hours away.

They then take the chopper back home. Once they got close to Night City, Helios takes the chopper in low, flying just a few feet over the roof tops, some times flying along streets below rooftop level. Eventually they make their way back home. Helios lands the chopper. He begins to fold up the rotors while the others take the other vehicles out of the shop. Then they roll the chopper inside.

A few hours later, Zen heads off to her day job. Helios contacts Dollar Bill and begins the ball rolling on finding a buyer for the chopper they stole. Saito and Riptide head to the Golden Saloon.

Noon comes and goes with no sign of Kona. When the clock strikes 1:00 PM, Riptide is on the phone trying to contact Kona, but his phone goes straight to voicemail.

Riptide then hits the streets trying to see if he can track down Kona. It isn’t long before he gets word that around 10:00 AM, Kona got into his car and then his car his car went up in a ball of fire.

Riptide then begins working his contacts, trying to figure out who might have taken out Kona. He learns that a solo known as Cynthia Red specializes in car bombs, but he could not get any other information on her.

Riptide then contacts the others to tell them what he has learned. Zen decides on a long shot and calls Krissy and Roxie. It turns out that they do indeed know Cynthia Red. She’s not a friend, so much as an acquaintance. They don’t know a whole lot about her, but they do know she hangs at The Afterlife.

Riptide and Saito decide to go to the Afterlife that evening. First, they go home and try to get some sleep, having now been up over 24 hours.

After cramming in a few hours sleep, the two head to the Afterlife. Unfortunately, Cynthia Red is nowhere to be seen. They decide to head home and call it a night.

January 19th, 2039

The team spends the day taking care of errands and attending to their day jobs. That night, Saito and Riptide head to the Afterlife.

Luck is on their side this night as they spot Cynthia Red. Not surprisingly, she has bright red hair, and possesses the poise of an experienced solo. She also seems to have company, as she is busy chatting up a man at her table.

Riptide heads outside and finds a corner dealer to make a purchase from. He then heads back into the bar and gives it to Saito. Saito in turn, gives it to the bartender along with a bribe and some instructions.

The two then hang out, patiently watching the table. Finally, the man heads to the bar and orders a couple of drinks. He returns to the table and resumes talking to Cynthia. Several minutes later he passes out. They watch as Cynthia looks momentarily perplexed, then relieves her date of his wallet and heads for the door.

Saito intercepts her and tells her she could do better than the loser passed out at her table. She laughs and tells him she could tell someone spiked his drink, and rightfully assumes it was Saito.

She says she likes a man who comes on strong, and so he does. A few minutes later, they are kissing. Unfortunately for Saito, she is equipped with a cyber-snake in her mouth and uses it on Saito. The electrical shock that hits him nearly knocks him out, but he manages to stay conscious. The two begin to struggle, and a crowd gathers. Riptide hangs in the back and watches to see how things play out.

Eventually security arrives and immediately throws Saito out of the club. The staff begins to then question Cynthia. Riptide can’t her what they are saying, but he watches as the questions turn to accusations, and soon one of the bouncers has the stolen wallet in his hand. A few moments later, Cynthia Red is out on the street as well.

Riptide follows her out of the club and to her car. She turns, ready for a fight, but then Saito arrives to back up Riptide.

They question her about the hit on Kona. She says that Kona tried to change the terms of the deal with his employer, so his employer decided it would be cheaper to kill Kona and take the chip. She is reluctant to reveal her employer, but eventually admits it was Mr. Y, the same Mr. Y that had hired the team late last year to retrieve the stolen EBM chip.

Riptide explains that his team was the one to get the Infocomp data and he’d like to get paid for the work they did. She asks how much they are supposed to get paid and he tells her $60,000. She says she will ask Mr.Y about the money, but certainly cannot make any promises. Riptide and Saito let her go.

January 20th, 2039

Around noon the next day, Riptide gets a call from Mr. Y. Y explains that $60,000 is more than Kona had agreed to do the job for. He indicates however, that he will pay them their fee if they deal with another matter that has come up.

It seems that Kona was trying to engineer some sort of double cross, or triple cross as the case may be. In addition to screwing Mr. Y. and the team, Kona had also worked a deal with a man named Klaus Von Himmer, who was using Kona as a go between to extort Mr.Y. However, in his revised deal with Mr. Y., Kona wanted Y. to pay one million eurobucks for both the data on Shumann and where to find Von Himmer.

Mr. Y. had Cynthia Red kill Kona and take the data chip. Now however, he is concerned about this Klaus Von Himmer. With Kona dead, there is no real lead on locating him. If the team can find Von Himmer and eliminate him, Mr. Y. agrees to pay the full $60,000.

Their first course of action is to look into who is Klaus Von Himmer. It turns out he’s a newly escaped prisoner, who has spent the last few years in Brain Dance isolation. He was barely into serving his 39 consecutive sentences for murder when a power outage at the prison gave him an opportunity to check out early.

A background check indicated that although he was originally from Houston, Texas, he had worked in Night City for EBM, working as a courier. However, after blowing up an apartment building and killing 39 people, he was off to prison for the remainder of his life. He was out now, but the state decided to issue an arrest for his execution, which was then assigned to the State Executioner, Judge Julius Anderson.

Zen went to Infocomp to see what she could learn about Judge Anderson’s progress. While there, she learned that the company was offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest of those who attacked their data haven. She briefly considered how to collect that reward, but then it was back to Judge Anderson.

It seems the Judge had tracked Von Himmer here to Night City due to an ill-advised call he had made to his mother in Houston. Anderson’s most recent action was to impound the remains of Kona’s vehicle. How Anderson knew the connection between Von Himmer and the now deceased fixer is unknown.

Luckily for the team, Riptide still has his contact working at the police impound yard. A quick phone call and a promise of a few bucks and they learn that Judge Anderson’s crew has not yet gone over the car remains. The two race over to the impound yard where they are allowed to examine the remains.

The car was once a Nissan Mage, but now is a pile of metal and plastic. They sift through the pile wreckage, trying to find anything useful. After nearly an hour of searching, they turn up nothing useful.

Then they notice that the car had contained a lot of after market parts. They sort those parts into a separate pile and begin to examine those parts specifically. They are able to determine that many of the parts came from a shop called The Dub Kings.

They are about to continue their examination when they hear a convoy of vehicles pulling into the impound yard. Riptide and Zen sneak over to the impound office and watch the proceedings on the security cameras.

Out of the vehicle come about a dozen officers in immaculate uniforms. But the last to emerge is a monster of a man, well over 6 feet tall and nearly as wide as he is a mass of grafted muscle. He too wears an immaculate uniform, but he sleeves have been removed, exposing his oversized arms. The badge on his massive chest indicates that this is Judge Julius Anderson.

His team works like a well-oiled machine, systematically going over the remnants of the vehicle, while he himself watches them, his hulking form standing perfectly still.

Having been contacted by the others, Helios heads over to The Dub Kings. He steps inside and is at first delighted to see the shop is run by fellow Thai like himself. But then they begin to talk in “tuner-speak”, an odd mix of English and Spanish, leaving him shaking his head.

He then tells them about being a fan of the Nissan Mage, and saw one that was completely tricked out and wanted to know if they knew who’s it was. The Dub Kings crew, eager to brag about their work, tell him that that car was their project that they did for a guy named Kona.

He asks them how much the mods cost, which they explained would run about $30,000, but Kona is a dealer in car parts, and provided many of his own. Not one to pass up a business opportunity, Helios tells them about his salvage business and that he would be interested in becoming a provider for them. They tell him they already have Kona, which reveals that they don’t know that Kona is already flat-lined. Helios gives them his contact info, and he begins to peruse the shop.

Back at the impound yard, it seems the officers from the State Executioner’s Office have noticed the same thing that the edgerunners did. They gather up their gear and load into the vehicles. Judge Anderson’s voice carries well, and they hear him tell the other drivers that they are going to The Dub Kings.

After the judge’s crew departs, Zen and Riptide locate the brain dance unit that was built into the car’s entertainment system. It is badly damaged, but they think that Mouse maybe able to pull some data off of it. They decide to take it back home.

Helios is still browsing the store when Judge Anderson arrives. He walks into the store and approaches the counter. He also asks the man behind the counter about the Nissan Mage, and the Dub Kings employee acknowledges that they did the work for Kona. Anderson then produces a photo of Klaus Von Himmer and asks if they have seen him. The employee denies ever seeing the person. Apparently Anderson does not believe him as he grabs the employee, pulls him over the counter and slams him onto the ground. The employee cracks and admits that the man in the photo is hiding out at his sister’s house. He gives up the address, and Anderson goes back to his vehicle.

Helios, who has been quietly watching the proceedings, radios Ritpide with the location of Klaus Von Himmer. Riptide and Zen are currently closer to that address than Helios and Judge Anderson. They race to the house.

They are the first to arrive. Zen heads into the narrow gap between the houses while Riptide goes to the front door. Zen finds herself face to face with a very large and unfriendly dog. She hopes it’s not viscous, but gives up on that notion as it chomps down on her leg.

This draws the attention of the woman living in the house. She grabs a shotgun and goes to the back door. Riptide takes advantage of this distraction and enters through the front door. He quietly heads up stairs and spots a man watching out the back window. Riptide quietly draws his pistol and approaches the man.

In the back yard, Zen is forced to stun the dog with her gang jazzler. The dog collapses in a heap. Just then a woman bursts out of the back door talking rapidly in a language Zen does not understand. Zen is able to grasp that the woman thinks that Zen has killed her dog.

Upstairs, Riptide talks to Klaus. He demands that Klaus turn over the data that he has on Mr. Y. Klaus is at first confused then realizes that Riptide is talking about his old boss at EBM, Edger Jaymes. He tells Riptide that he was framed for those murders. Riptide changes tactics and tells Klaus he needs to come with Riptide now as Judge Anderson is on his way.

Outside, Zen manages to convince the woman that the dog is not dead. She hears over her ear bead that Riptide is out of the house and on his way to the truck with Klaus. Zen slowly begins to back out of the backyard and heads back toward the street.

Just as Riptide and Klaus get in the truck, Judge Anderson’s convoy comes around the corner a couple of blocks away. They decide that Riptide should leave, immediately but casually. Zen will try and link up with Helios who has followed the convoy from The Dub Kings.

As Riptide slowly drives away, Zen goes back into the gap and returns to the back yard. She gestures to the woman that she is just passing through. She almost clears the backyard when the woman begins screaming at her again. This draws the attention of Judge Anderson who is coming up the front walk.

Zen breaks into a full run. She doesn’t look back, but she can hear the heavy footfalls of the State Executioner following her. He may be built for power, but he’s not built for speed, and she is able to put some distance between them.

In the truck, Riptide and Klaus head back downtown. Klaus explains that he used to be a courier for Edgar Jaymes. Edgar had paid a local booster gang to kill Edgar’s boss at EBM and make it look like a random gang violence incident. The only person who had info that could implicate Edgar was Klaus. He says it was Cynthia Red that blew up that apartment building and planted evidence to implicate Klaus.

Klaus says he planned to extort Edgar for enough money that he could disappear. His mistake was hiring Kona who apparently intended to sell him out. Riptide asks him where the data chip is, and he says it’s in a locker at the transit station along with some cash. Riptide says that in exchange for the contents of the locker, he will help Klaus get out of town.

Meanwhile, Zen seems to have lost the judge, but now she spots a police helicopter flying overhead. As she crosses a street, Helios comes racing up on his motorcycle. She climbs on and they take off. They start to head downtown when they spot the police chopper overhead.

At about this time, Saito is coming into the city via the highway, after spending the better part of the day working at the gun range. He is apprised of the situation and suggests that they go to the mallplex where they have a parking ramp that will provide cover.

He then contacts Buckshot Betty, who is on duty, but taking a break at a corner bar, and asks if she can head over to the mallplex and pick up his friends. She agrees.

Helios and Zen arrive at the mallplex and ditch the motorcycle in the ramp. They jump into Betty’s cab that is waiting for them and head over to the transit center.

Saito is the first to arrive at the Transit Center and locates the locker. He also spots a man in a suit watching the locker. He lets the other know.

The rest arrive. Riptide stays in the truck with Klaus. He gives the locker key to Zen who goes in with Helios. Zen circles around, gives the key to Saito and then gets behind the man watching the locker. Helios then goes to a fire alarm pull station, and pulls the lever.

The fire alarm is triggered. But instead of fleeing the building, most of the patrons look around to see if there is actually a fire. Finally security guards begin ushering people out of the building. Zen uses her gang jazzler to stun the man watching the locker and grabs his wallet. Saito goes to the locker, opens it, and grabs the case inside. They all then exit the transit center. They pull out just as the judge’s vehicles begin to pull in.

They begin to head back home. Zen checks the wallet and sees that the man is with the State Executioner’s Office. On a hunch, she examines the ID card. As she suspected, it contains a satellite transponder. She promptly throws the card out of the window. Saito checks the case and finds a pistol, a data chip, and $20,000 in cash.

Back home, they ask Mouse to examine the data chip. He says it does contain evidence to implicate Edgar James in the death of Daniel Cortez, another employee at EBM. The data chip is designed to note any copies that are made, so if they copy the data, Edgar James will know.

Mouse then looks into Cortez’ background. He finds out that Daniel was the Vice President of R&D for EBM’s Night City Office. He was killed in a gang-related shooting, after which his underling, Edgar Jaymes was promoted. Daniel was survived by a wife and two children.

Riptide hatches a plan.

January 21st, 2039

He asks Satio to rig up an explosive device big enough to take out the passengers in a car while he runs an errand. He then takes Klaus to a bus station and buys him a ticket to Houston. As promised, he gets Klaus out of the city.

When he returns, Saito has rigged up a bomb using some C-4 he had left over from a previous job. They then head out to The Afterlife. They spot Cynthia Red’s car. Riptide picks the lock and Saito plants the bomb under the driver seat. They then sit back and wait.

Around 3:00 AM, Cynthia exits the club. She climbs into her car. A moment later, the car goes up in a ball of fire.

When the sun rises, Riptide contacts Alisha Cortez, Daniel’s widow. He indicates that he has evidence that proves that her husband’s death was not a random act of violence. He is looking for $75,000 in payment for the evidence. She agrees to meet him in a coffee shop up in North Oak.

Around noon, Riptide goes to the coffee shop where Alisha Cortez and her lawyer Mr. Parsons are waiting. After introductions, they get down to business.

Mr. Parsons indicates that the $75,000 has been placed into an account and gives Riptide the numbers and passwords to access the account. However, he has placed a 72-hour hold on the funds. If the information proves to be useless, he will close the account and Riptide is out his money. If the information is useful, Riptide can withdraw his money when the hold expires.

Riptide asks what would prevent them from taking the chip and then closing the account before the 72 hours regardless of the value of the info. Mr. Parsons merely shrugs and points out that Riptide knows who Alisha Cortez is, while they don’t know who he really is. Riptide agrees and they make the exchange.

That evening, the team watches the news and sees special report from [[:jim stacey | Jim Stacey]], reporting on the arrest of Edgar Jaymes, on charges of conspiracy to murder Daniel Cortez.

Three days later, the hold ends,and they get their money. Between the Cortez payment, and Klaus’ stash, they make $95,000 plus have a helicopter to try and sell. Plus they have avenged a few deaths, making it a rare moral victory as well.

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Episode 27 Eurotrash

The team gets about three weeks of down time before their next job. They spend the time healing up and replacing damaged gear.

November 7th, 2038

Dollar Bill contacts Riptide. He says he has a corp looking to hire some edgerunners and wants to know if Riptide can meet at the Forlorn Hope tomorrow. Riptide agrees.

November 8th, 2038

Riptide goes to the Forlorn Hope. He meets a man wearing some serious yuppie flash, including pointed ears, fangs, and color-changing suit. He introduces himself as Mr. Y.

Y is looking to have a data-chip recovered that was stolen from another corporate by an exotic joy girl. He does not have a lot of info on the girl other than she is a cheetah-exotic who goes by the name of Misty. She was last seen working the Night City Convention Center the night the chip disappeared. He doesn’t say what the chip does, only that its ID code is EBMBIOPROC971X.A.

He agrees to pay $10,000 for the chip plus $5,000 upfront to cover expenses. Riptide gets him to agree to an incentive bonus of $10,000 if they can get it to him in 24 hours. No contact information is exchanged. Instead, they simply agree to meet back here at the Forlorn Hope in 24 hours.

Riptide talks to Dollar Bill to find out what he knows about joy girls. Dollar Bill says he only knows two guys in the area pimping exotics. One is named Hartely. He works out of Durant’s restaurant in the EBM Tower. The other is Wilson, who works the New Harbor Marina area.

Riptide contacts the others and fills them in on the details. They meet at the hospital, in the room where Zenis recovering. She uses her resources in Infocomp to find out anything about Misty, but with nothing more than that name to go one, she comes up with nothing.

Saito puts on his Sunday best and heads over to Durant’s. He figures out which patron is Hartely and asks him about hiring a joy girl, specifically of the cheetah variety. Hartely says he only has one currently, and her name is Baja. Saito agrees to set up a date in one hour at the Hotel Hamilton.

In the mean time, Riptide heads down to the marina and begins looking for Wilson. He finds the dread-lock bedecked pimp and inquires about hiring a cheetah joy girl. Wilson says he has one but has not heard from her in a couple of days and is not sure what her availability is. He is clearly not happy about the situation, as she owes him for some drugs her got her.

Riptide offers to track her down for a discount on the session. Wilson agrees, saying if Riptide can get her furry butt back here, Riptide can have a go for free. They agree on the deal. Wilson says her name is Misty and she lives at the Meadow Creek Pines.

Riptide contacts Helios and Saito and has them meet at the Meadow Creek Pines. Saito sticks around the Hamilton long enough to meet Baja. He cancels the date, but still pays the $600 minimum fee. She gives him her contact number if he changes his mind.

As Helios and Riptide drive to Meadow Creek Pines, they notice that they are being tailed by a blue sedan. They are able to shake it before arriving at the Pines.

Meadow Creek Pines is a rundown apartment building with zero security. Its home to blue collar types in the upper levels and a cheesy country-western bar on the first floor. They talk to a resident reading a newspaper in the second floor lobby. Being an exotic, Misty’s hard to miss. He says she lives up in apartment 503. They wait for Saito to arrive. When he does, Helios stays in the lobby while the other two head up to the fifth floor.

They approach the door and Riptide uses the thermo-imager in his cyber optic to scan the apartment. He sees one prone person in the living room. They knock a couple of times, but get no answer, nor does the person move.

Riptide picks the lock and they enter the apartment and see that it has been ransacked. Lying on the couch is a man who doesn’t register that they are there until they are standing in the living room. Talking to him they realize that he is stoned on Blue Glass. He talks about being visited by angels and trying to find God in the Net. He says he found God once, but he called himself Masslight and zapped him with lightning.

When asked about what happened to the apartment, he says the angels came asking for Misty. When he said that he did not know where she was, they created a terrible wind, which trashed the place.

They relayed this information to Helios who asked the man reading the newspaper if four people came to visit recently. The man said that four attractive ladies came by a short while ago. Based on the language they were using, he guessed that they were German.

Saito and Riptide are about to leave the stoner when the phone in the apartment rings. It rings only once before switching to an answering machine. The voice on the phone is a rugged female voice that says, “Misty, Its Bee. Your brat is here from the grocery store. Are you with the program or not? If your not here in 5 minutes, I’m bugging out. Call Chueng if there is a change of plans.”

They head back down to the lobby to talk with Helios and the newspaper reader. As they are talking, they hear a commotion in the back stairwell. Saito goes to check it out. He sees two women in the back stairwell. Saito approaches and one draws a pistol and aims it at him, warning him off. Saito continues forward and she fires at him.

Hearing the shots, Riptide and Helios move to the stairwell. Saito gets in contact range of the shooter and swats her gun away and tries to grapple her. He now has full view of the stairwell, and sees a third woman who zaps a badly beaten Misty with a Tazer. The third woman exits, while the second joins the struggle with Saito and tries to get him to release her.

Riptide and Helios try to help, but the fight in the stairwell has them bottlenecked. Eventually the second woman gives up and leaves the first to her fate. The first woman succumbs to Saito’s chokehold and collapses. He moves to check on Misty, who is barely alive.

Riptide and Helios push past the melee and out the back door where they are greeted by a claymore mine blast. It rips up their armor, but they survive. However, before they can recover, a fourth woman, covering the escape of the other two opens fire with her assault rifle. Riptide is able to dive back inside, but Helios is cut down. Riptide drags Helios into the building. Saito calls Jarvic for a medical evac for Helios and Misty.

They discuss what to do next, knowing that they may only have a few minutes before the chip disappears forever. They ask the newspaper guy where the nearest grocery store is. He says it’s the MaxiMarket one block east.

They head over there and ask the clerks if anyone knows Misty or her daughter. A grocery runner says that Misty’s daughter Kelly was in here just a few minutes ago. She bought some groceries and headed over to the medical supply warehouse that is across the street from the Meadow Creek Pines.

They run over to the warehouse to the door that the clerk had pointed towards. The door has an intercom and a camera. Riptide buzzes the intercom and a voice asks what they want. Riptide says that he is looking buy the chip. The door unlocks.

They head up a set of stairs where a solo instructs them to place any weapons in a box before having them walk through a full body scanner. They do so and enter the warehouse room.

There they meet Queen Bee, a fixer who is looking to sell the chip. She asks for $750,000 for the chip. The edgerunners don’t have that kind of money, nor do they have any way of getting a hold of Mr. Y. They are considering what to do, when the voice from the intercom now comes over the loudspeaker in the room telling Bee that there is a problem.

A moment later a small explosion tares open the front door. Saito runs to the gun box to get their weapons. Two grenades are launched into the stairwell. Saito is able to grab the box, but is badly wounded by the grenade detonations. He hobbles over to a crate where Riptide had dove for cover.

One of the German solo girls charges up the stairs, now decked up in Full Metal Gear. She opens fire with her assault rifle and guns down the solo that had been watching the stairs.

The lights suddenly go out and a crate opens up. Out rolls a drone mounted with a mini-gun. It opens fire, ripping apart the German solo. Riptide and Saito run into the warehouse office, as the drone keeps the other solos at bay.

Inside the office they see the girl Kelly, and a man lying on a couch, wired to a deck. Queen Bee is pushing a shelf out of the way revealing a hole behind it. She orders the girl through and then follows her self. While Riptide watches the door, Saito unplugs the Net Runner.

The man is disoriented for a moment and looks at Saito angrily and demands to know why he did that. Outside, they hear the drone’s mini-gun wind down as its controller had just been disconnected. Saito picks up the man and they move through the hole in the wall. Beyond is a small room with a fireman’s pole descending to the floor below.

Below is a small parking garage with a single small roadster. She tells Saito to put Chueng in the trunk. Riptide demands she turn over the chip. She knows the deal is cooked so she decides to take what she can get. Riptide offers the $5,000 they got in expense money, and she agrees. They make they exchange as two solos slide down the pole.

Queen Bee and Kelly take off in the roadster leaving Riptide and Saito to run off on foot. They are pursued by the solos who fire at them while chasing, but the shots go wide.

As they exit the warehouse, they are forced to dive out of the way as the blue sedan drives up onto the sidewalk and tries to run them down. Both of them are able to dive out of the way just in time.

The sedan begins to circle around the block and the solos continue to pursue from the warehouse. Saito and Riptide run down an alley dodging bullets the whole way.

As they run through the alleyways, they happen to come across the headquarters of the infamous booster gang, the Maelstrom. Riptide tries to convince them that the two girls chasing them are going to attack the HQ. The punks out front laugh at that notion stating that the building is a fortress.

The two edge runners continue on. A few moments later, they hear gunfire. The boosters may not have believed Riptides story, but the German girls, being out-of-towners, probably didn’t realize whom they had just run into. A fatal mistake made on their part.

The pursuers were dealt with, but now there is still the sedan. Free to stand their ground, Riptide and Saito open up with every once of firepower they had at hand. The windshield of the vehicle explodes, and the driver is riddled with bullets. The car swerves past them and slams into a light pole.

They make a quick stop at Trapper John’s to get Saito stitched up. They then decide not to go home. Saito calls Baja, and agrees to pay double the standard fee if he and Riptide can crash at her place that evening. She agrees.

They head to her place at the Mallplex. Riptide sleeps on the couch while Saito retires to the bedroom and lives out his Thunder Cats fantasy.

November 9th, 2038

Riptide goes to the Forlorn Hope and meets with Mr. Y. Y examines the chip. Satisfied with what he sees, he transfers $20,000 into Riptide’s account. The money will have to last. With Zen and Helios in the hospital, and Saito nursing some serious injuries, it would be a while before the team could take another job.

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Episode 26 The Hunt

The group gets about a month of down time before their next job. They spend the time healing up and replacing damaged gear.

October 19th, 2038

Riptide gets a call from a corp named Ross Crowe. He is a Managing Director at Biotechnica. It seems that he is in need of some investigative work and would rather not involve the police at this time. He says he got Riptide’s contact info from another Biotechnica employee, who Riptide assumes must be Tobias Luna.

Riptide drives over to the Biotechnica office to meet with Ross. He is met by Ross’ assistant Phil Sanders, a junior corp that clearly thinks he’s a bigger player than he is. Phil takes him into Ross’ office and is then immediately dismissed.

In the meeting, Ross explains that another director, Malcolm Flint was found dead that morning in his bed. His wife awoke to find him dead next to her. She had not been awoken during the night, though that may have been explained by the fact that she practices chemically enhanced sleep. But Malcolm showed no signs of a struggle and there was no sign of forced entry. The alarm system had not been tripped, and the CCTV system was missing several minutes of footage in the early morning hours. Biotechnica was preparing to perform an autopsy.

Riptide calls Mouse and has him poke around Flint’s home computer net and see what he can learn. Riptide then hits the streets and starts inquiring about if anyone had any recent dealings with big shots at Biotechnica. He ultimately ends up with a name: Black Knight. He is a fixer who works out of an abandoned warehouse district on the northwest side of Night City. He has a strong reputation as a reliable and confidential dealer. The confidential part concerns Riptide as this means it won’t be easy to get Black Knight to share what he knows.

Later that morning Mouse calls and says that Flint’s system was hacked, and that both the access control and security systems were compromised. It was the work of a talented runner, which means there is no hope of tracing the source of the hack.

Around noon, Riptide gets a call from Ross. He says that they have finished the autopsy of Flint and found that he had been injected with a neurotoxin that stopped his heart. They could find no injection point.

Riptide calls Zen and asks her to use her resources at Infocomp to see if she could find who might make a neurotoxin like this. She does some research and learns that a Japanese company called SubTech had a shipment turned away by customs that apparently contained an illegal shipment of an unknown neurotoxin. The shipment was meant for a company called Super Nova Technologies.

In the afternoon, Riptide gets another call from Ross. Another employee, Dustin Palmer was found dead on a toilet in one of the office restrooms. His cause of death appears to be identical to that of Flint’s. Palmer also worked in the same department as Flint. Riptide asks what the department does and Ross explains that they negotiate deals for joint ventures with other companies. They are currently negotiating with EBM for a cybernetics project, Petrochem regarding a new CHOOH plant, and WorldSat on an advertising deal.

Further research on Zen’s part reveals that SubTech was shutdown a year ago by the Japanese government when it was learned that SubTech had ties to a death cult that was planning some terrorist attacks.

She also learned that Super Nova Technologies went out of business a few months ago. There was a fire that destroyed their main laboratory. Investigation into the incident by the Fire Department indicated that it was caused by arson. As a result, the insurance company did not pay out, and Super Nova was unable to recover from the loss.

After learning that Dustin Palmer worked directly under Malcolm Flint, they inquire as to who is next in line in that department. They are informed that the next two are Theodore O’Conner and Sarah Williams. Ross Crow has already moved them to a secure room to be watched.

Riptide drives down to the old warehouse district and locates Black Knight’s home. It appears to have reinforced doors and windows, access control, and a CCTV system installed. Riptide calls Mouse to see if he can hack it, but it appears that Black Knight’s system is off the Net.

He then asks Mouse to hack Biotechnica’s data fortress to monitor their security system for tampering similar to what happened with Malcolm Flint. Mouse is clearly not excited about trying to hack the mega-corporation’s system. Still, he says he will need to score some software and then will make a go at it. A couple hours later he calls back to say that he succeeded, but he took a hit from a zombie program, which has left him with a massive headache.

A short time later, Riptide gets another call from Ross. Theodore O’Connor is dead. He was sitting in the secured room with Sarah Williams when he swatted at his neck as if bitten by a mosquito. He then dropped dead a few moments later. Checking the body, she found a tiny needle stuck in his neck. Video surveillance of the room confirms her story.

They team meets up and travels to Biotechnica. They inspect the room. The only ways into the room would be the door, which closes flush with the wall, and an air vent. The air vent seems to be the only place from which the shot could be taken, however, it to O’Conner’s right, and he was hit in the left side of the neck.

The team decides that Sarah Williams is not safe inside Biotechnica and relocate her to their own secured home. They also learn that Biotechnica’s preliminary examination of the needle indicates that it is some sort of cybernetic nano-device with a self-contained delivery system.

October 20, 2038

Saito calls Mouse and asks him to research what happened to the employees at Super Nova after the business shut down. Mouse says that despite the fact that he has spent all night throwing up as a result of the Zombie attack, he will see what he can do.

Riptide checks in with Ross and leans that Ross’ assistant Phil Sanders has stolen the needle. They already sent a security team to his home at the New Harbor Mallplex.

Mouse calls and says that most of the employees of Super Nova Technologies were hired away by other companies. The company founder and owner, Dr. Shamburg, was missing however. He disappeared around the time of the lab fire.

Riptide continues to stake out Black Knight’s place. In the early afternoon a tactical van rolls up and a strike team assaults the building. There is an exchange of gunfire and then silence. Riptide watches as the team ransacks the place. He calls Saito to come back him up. However, before Saito can get there, the strike team regroups in the van and takes off.

Riptide follows them through town to a residential area. The team again moves in on an apartment building. Riptide calls Saito and redirects him to his new location. Again, before Saito can arrive, the team exists the building and takes off. Riptide decides to let them go and waits for Saito to arrive.

A short time later, Saito arrives and they investigate the apartment. They find the place trashed and a man apparently beaten to death. Close examination indicates that he is still alive but barely. They are able to resuscitate him long enough to learn that the men were looking for Dr. Shamburg. He gave them the Shamburg’s address, which is where they were heading now. Saito calls Jarvic and asks him to pick up the nearly dead guy and get him to a hospital. Riptide calls Dr. Shamburg, using the number he got from the man, and warns him that some men are on the way. He instructs Shamburg to go to the Ron Walker Auto Showroom and wait for him there.

As Saito and Riptide make their exit, they are stopped by two men. One introduces himself as Mr. Lam, an agent for Arasaka. He tells them that he too is searching for Dr. Shamburg and Shamburg stole something that belongs to them. How he knew they were in contact with Shamburg is unknown. Riptide tells them that they are going to meet him now. Lam indicates that he will follow them.

On the way to Ron Walker’s, Satio and Riptide both take separate routes and are able to lose the Arasaka agents. Saito heads straight to Ron Walker’s while Riptide goes to Shamburg’s apartment.

At Shamburg’s, he sees the same strike team searching the building. He then heads towards Ron Walker’s.

Saito gets to Ron Walker’s and quickly spots Dr. Shamburg. He just as quickly explains what is going on and gets Shamburg to agree to go with him. He is about to leave when the Arasaka agents enter. He is able to evade them and make his escape just as Riptide rolls up.

They quickly make their way to their safe house, the former home of Irina Lovodny. Once there, Shamburg explains that the device is a prototype he created called the Nano-Fly. It is remote controlled, can bypass most security systems, and can deliver a lethal payload of neurotoxin. He sold the device and its design specs to Arasaka. He gave them the specs, but before he delivered the device and its control unit, he learned that Arasaka was going to shut down his company. So he ran off with the Nano-Fly and its control unit. Using a fixer named Fireman, he sold the unit. He has been lying low ever since. Saito remains there while Riptide returns back to their home in the Combat Zone.

Saito gets in contact with Jarvic who has the man they found tucked away at REO Meatwagon’s emergency clinic. Jarvic says that the man is a fixer named Fireman. Talking with Fireman reveals that he sold the device through another fixer named Black Knight. He also recalls that before losing consciousness, one of the strike team members mention they should talk to someone he called “The German.” Another strike team member agreed, but referred to the contact as “Wolf”. The team recalled that they once did a job for a German solo named Wolf Reimann, who they knew had done regular work for Militech.

Riptide callshis contact within Arasaka, and asks him about the Nano-Fly. His contact says that the device was always thought to be a rumor. He also mentions that if Arasaka is interested in the device, it would likely be to destroy it, not use it. Arasaka is in the security business and such a device would be a threat to that business.

In the afternoon, Mouse gets to work trying to track down Phil via his cell phone. Meanwhile, Riptide tracks down someone with contact information for Wolf Reimann.

Riptide makes contact with Wolf, who remembered them from the job in Romania. He tells Riptide that he was asked by Militech to track down and retrieve Dr. Shamburg. Riptide tells him that they are after something that the Doctor has and that they should coordinate with Wolf to find the Doctor. Wolf says he will be catching a flight shortly to Night City to take over the investigation himself. The team realizes they need to wrap this up before he gets there.

Back at the old Lovodny house, Saito continues to babysit the Doctor. There is a knock at the door and Saito answers to be greeted by one of the neighborhood kids. The kid informs him that there is a sedan full of men parked a block away, watching the house. Saito contacts the others, who immediately make plans to return to the house and relocate the doctor.

Riptide is the first to get back to the neighborhood, but once he is within a couple blocks of the house, he finds a police roadblock in his way. An officer standing at the roadblock explains that Arasaka is conducting a training exercise. Riptide calls Colin, who tells him that Arasaka is getting ready to assault the house. Riptide lets Saito know what is waiting for him.

At the house, the doorbell rings. Saito answers to find this time Mr. Lam at the door. Mr. Lam states that he would like to speak to the Doctor, and place him in Arasaka’s protective custody. He then offers the team 50,000 Euros to retrieve the Nano-fly, which Arasaka intends to destroy. They would give the team just enough of the remaining pieces to take back to their employer to get paid for solving the murders.

The others arrive to discuss the matter. First they wonder how Mr. Lam found them, but then they remembered that their motorcycles had been sitting outside of the apartment building where they first met him. Those same motorcycles were now parked outside this house.

They then decide to agree to Mr. Lam’s terms. They hope they were not giving over the Doctor just to be liquidated, but it is hard to pass up the big paycheck.

They then head to Phil’s apartment at the Mallplex. It has already been gone over by a Biotechnica tactical unit, but maybe they missed something. The apartment turned out to be well searched, but they did learn that Phil had a Blue Ice habit. His dealer was a man named Tangent. Riptide knew this fixer had a reputation for being an untrustworthy weasel who would sell out his own grandma.

They head out to the Mallplex parking lot, where Tangent sells drugs out of his van. It takes a bribe of 1,000 Euros, but they learn that Phil is holed up at the EZ Overnighter in coffin 172.

They then head over to the EZ Overnighter. When they are a few blocks away, Riptide spots the van from the Militech strike team parked on the street. Thermo optics tells them that the van is empty. They stop long enough to disable the vehicle and continue on their way.

When they arrive, they contact Mouse and have him hack the Overnighter’s security system and keep an eye on the facility for them. He hacks in, only to find another Netrunner in the system. A battle in cyberspace takes place as the two runners trade attack programs. The other runner is clearly corporate backed and has a wide array of nasty programs. Mouse is outmatched but hopes to stall the runner before he is taken out. However, for a brief moment, Mouse spots an opening in the other runner’s defenses and launches a Deck Crash program. The other runner is knocked out of the system.

Mouse happily informs the group of his success but warns that Militech will know that they are there once the booted netrunner tells his comrades.

By this time however, the team is already in place. Saito is up on a roof, overlooking the Overnighter complex. Zen and Riptide sneak around the back and near to where the Militech men are gathered. The scene has a strong sense of familiarity, as this is the same place that they fought Union Force during the incident with Ricco Estevez.

Zen closes in on one of the men and hears a report on the radio that three edgerunners were moving in and that someone named Remmy was on his way. She had no idea who Remmy was, but she knew the three were she, Saito, and Riptide. Once she was close enough to the solo, she took him out with her Gang Jazzler.

Several Militech men are standing around one of the coffins. Phil is with them, protesting as one of the Militech men begins going through his coffin. The team decides to move in. Zen opens fire at close range, while Saito snipes from the rooftop. Riptide offers supporting fire for Zen. Phil is quickly killed in the crossfire.

Zen finds herself outgunned, but Saito’s sniper fire helps keep the Militech men occupied. But then Saito hears something moving up behind him. He turns to see a full conversion cyborg, its light armor painted black, and his footsteps almost completely silent. The two exchange close range fire, but the borg quickly closes the distance to make Saito’s giant rifle useless. It attacks in hand to hand, Saito desperately avoiding its crushing blows. At one point, Saito out maneuvers, it, and it goes flying over the edge of the building. But the moment it hits the ground, it recovers, launches a grapple cable to the roof and quickly ascends back to the top.

Without Saito’s supporting fire, Zen finds herself in trouble and with in moments her armor, both external and internal is chewed up. Another burst rips into her flesh and she collapses to the ground dying.

Back on the roof, the cyborg returns with graceful ease. However, its fall and return gave Saito just enough time to recover and set himself with his rifle. A point blank shot slams into the borg sending it flying once more to the ground.

Meanwhile, the Militech agent that had been rooting around in the coffin comes out with the Nano-fly. He makes a break for the exit. The cyborg that was ready to go after Saito again, decides to instead meet up with the agent. There is a momentary exchange, and then the cyborg also attempts a hasting retreat. The cyborg moves alarmingly fast, but Saito is able to tag it with another round, slowing it down considerably. Another two well-placed electro-thermo rounds bring it down, but at this point it is already a couple blocks away from the EZ Overnighter.

Riptide contacts Helios to meet them there as quickly as possible. He then contacts Mr. Lam and tells him they have the Nano-Fly, but need medical support.

He then drives off the last remaining Militech agents and secures Zen’s body. Riptide then moves on to get to the cyborg, while Saito gets to the dying Zen and attempts to stabilize her body. He is able to keep her from bleeding out, but she will need medical attention and soon.

Riptide gets to the cyborg body at the same time that Helios arrives. They look at the body and see that the Nano-Fly and its control unit are attached to the cyborg. The cyborg, apparently some sort of stealth and infiltration model, was the one that had been controlling the Nano-fly. They are able to remove both the fly and the control unit.

An Arasaka medical team arrives, and they take Zen to the hospital. Riptide turns over the Nano-fly to Mr. Lam. Mr. Lam tells them that they will be paid immediately, but would not get the evidence they need to get paid by Biotechnica until next week. Riptide agrees. He also looks at his watch and realizes that Wolf would be arriving in a couple of hours. They had turned the Doctor, whom they told Wolf they would help find, over to his employer’s competition. What were they going to tell him?

While Helios gets the Militech van up and running again, Riptide contacts one of his coworkers with an unusual job offer. For a couple hundred bucks, he would need to drive to the airport, wait for the team to leave, then follow them, but lose them when they tried to shake him. His coworker thinks it odd, but wasn’t about to turn down the easy money.

They then go to the airport and meet Wolf at the gate. They tell him there is trouble and he needs to go with them immediately. He quickly gets into their vehicle as they speed off. Riptide explains that Arasaka took the Nano-Fly, kidnapped Dr. Shamburg, and then wiped out Wolf’s team at the EZ Overnighter.

Wolfgang is surprised by this but has little time to consider it as Helios reports that they are being followed. Riptide states that Arasaka got wind that Wolf was coming to the airport and was going to take him out there. Helios’ skillful driving allows him to shake the pursuer.

Wolf, now fully convinced to Riptides’ story, directs them to take him the Militech’s testing grounds south of Night City. They drop him off and return home.

As promised, about a week later, Arasaka produces the remaining pieces of the Nano-Fly. The team then turns the parts over to Mr. Crowe at Biotechnica. As promised, he pays them double their original fee.

The team is not sure how they feel about this mission. It was definitely profitable, but it meant doing some dirty work for their nemesis, Arasaka. Does this mean they could let bygones be bygones if the money is right?

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Episode 25 A McGuffin Called Agrippa

The group gets about three weeks of rest before their next job. They spend the time healing up and replacing damaged gear.

September 13th, 2038

Riptide gets a call from Mouse regarding a job opportunity. He has been offered a job that pays $50,000, which he is willing to share in a five way split. This means a $10,000 payday for each member. The job requires them to get a room at the Hotel Hamilton. There he would use a write-once-read-once box called an Agrippa to download a data transmission. They would then take the Agrippa to the Night City Transit Center and place it in a locker. Then they would mail the key to a designated address.

They agree to take the job, which will take place the following evening. In the mean time, Riptide acquires the use of a cargo van from his contact at the Night City impound yard. Helios scopes out the Transit Center and Saito picks a place to perch that will allow him to cover the team while at the hotel.

September 14th, 2038

At 6:00 PM they meet at the Forlorn Hope. After a quick review of the plan they get started. Helios dresses as a homeless person and waits it out the Transit Center. Saito, disguised as a janitorial worker gains access to the building to the East of the Hamilton and positions himself on the roof. The others take the van to the hotel.

When they arrive, Mouse checks with the front desk to see if he has any messages. The clerk hands him an empty envelope with an address already printed on it. They then head up to their room.

At 8:00 PM, Mouse jacks in and establishes the connection. The Agrippa begins the slow process of downloading the information. After several minutes, Saito spots several unmarked vans pull up to the hotel. Roughly 15 men in tactical gear get out and start conferring with one another.

With the information still downloading, Zen starts hitting buttons on the elevators to tie them up. Riptide breaks into the hotel room next door in case they need a back up escape route. Unfortunately they cannot leave until the download is complete.

The download finally finishes and Mouse jacks out. Unfortunately, at this point the tactical team is literally at their door. Riptide shoots out the window in their room. The strike team blows a hole in the door and demands that the team drops their weapons and surrender.

Zen secures a grapple line at the window. With Mouse clinging to her for dear life, she climbs outside, six stories above the ground. Riptide tries to hold off the strike team, but is forced to dive for cover, as the room is ripped apart by suppression fire. Before Riptide can recover, one of the strike team races by him, the bionic legs propelling the commando with superhuman speed.

When the commando gets to the window he aims down, intending to shoot the descending edgerunners. Riptide tackles the man, sending them both flying out the window. Both are able to grab onto the rope, Riptide having the slightly higher advantage.

Meanwhile, Saito begins firing at the vehicles, disabling the engines. He then opens fire on strike team members that are exiting the hotel, trying to keep them pinned down so that the others can escape.

Riptide and the commando continue to struggle against each other on the line. The commando then uses a retractable blade to sever the line below him. Zen and Mouse, who are still several floors above the ground, plummet to the earth. Both are badly injured as they slam into the ground, though Zen is able to remain conscious. Although barely able to walk on her own, she picks up Mouse and attempts to escape under the support of Saito’s sniper fire.

Another commando leans out the window and aims his weapon at Riptide. Knowing he is outmatched in this situation, Riptide surrenders, and he is hauled back up into the room. There he is handcuffed and interrogated about who he works for. He tells the truth and indicates that he does not know whom they are working for.

Helios, upon hearing the situation over his tactical radio had made his way to the hotel. Zen was still trying to get out of the area when he arrives and adds fire support to her and Mouse’s escape. He then gets into the van and picks the two of them up. They pick up Saito a couple of blocks away. They then drop Zen and Mouse off at the hospital. Helios and Saito then go to the Transit Center, renting a locker and placing the Agrippa inside. They then mail the key in the envelope.

They are forced to abandon Riptide who is under heavy interrogation. He eventually claims to work for Bill McKlusky. Calling his bluff, they load Riptide into a van and take him down to the marina to point out McKlusky. He does and they snatch McKlusky off the street. Both are then drugged and taken to an undisclosed location.

September 15th, 2038

The two fixers awaken, tied up in a warehouse. Not surprisingly, McKlusky is extremely unhappy with Riptide falsely accusing him of being behind the data theft. Meanwhile, by accessing the registration of the vans that the strike team used, the team learned that a German biotech company called Teschen Biotech employed the strike team. Further research determines that the company has a warehouse down by the New Harbor Marina.

Further complicating the issue is a call from Mouse. He is still in the hospital, but had regained consciousness during the night. The TV was on in his room when he saw a report indicating a shoot out between two heavily armed groups at a home out in Pacifica. The news reporter indicated that it was suspected that the Russian Mob owned the home. Mouse recognizes the address as the one on the envelope that they sent the key to.

The news also reports that Police want Gordon Marsden, the owner of Club Atlantis for a data theft involving Teschen Biotech. Mouse indicates that he believes that the fixer that hired him, named Mr. Go, may have been Gordon Marsden.

They considered the situation they are in. Teschen Biotech has Riptide in custody and its only a matter of time before they learn where the Agrippa is. The fixer that hired them is on the run. And the intended recipient of the key was apparently killed in a raid out in the suburbs. It was a complicated situation, but they knew their first priority. They had to get Riptide back.

Investigating the warehouse that Teschen owned, Saito was able to confirm that Riptide was there by scanning it with the thermo-graphic imager he had recently installed in his cyber optic. He then used the thermo-graphic imager and his heavy sniper rifle to shoot through the walls at the guards who were present. With the guards pinned down, Helios charged in and after an exchange of fire, was able to drag Riptide out. They opted to leave Bill McKlusky tied to his chair.

With Riptide rescued, they have to determine what to do next. Should they sell the info back to Teschen, or try to contact the Russian mob? Riptide, however, has a different idea.

Riptide calls Tobias Luna. He inquires if Tobias knows about the data theft from Teschen Biotech. Tobias states that he has been following the news. Riptide then states that he has the data and is interested in selling it. Tobias seemed shocks but quickly composes himself. He says that if Riptide actually has the data, Biotechnica will pay $100,000 for it. He gives Riptide a time and location to bring the data.

The next step is getting the Agrippa back. Helios again disguises himself as a homeless person and goes to the Transit Center. He spots a couple of individuals who are keeping an eye on the lockers. Riptide and Saito than create a disturbance in the Transit Center while Helios goes to the locker, picks the lock, and grabs the Agrippa. He immediately exits the Transit Center and makes sure he is not followed. Riptide and Saito then leave making sure they are also not followed.

Riptide then rendezvous at the location Tobias told him about. It appears to be some sort of “Black Site” for Biotechnica. The Agrippa is given to Tobias who has the data downloaded onto a terminal. A couple of computer techs then dive into the data and after a few minutes confirm that the data is legitimate. Tobias makes the payment as promised.

Riptide asks what the data is. Tobias explains that Teschen has created a nano-tech treatment that will initiate a sex change at the genetic level. Once completed, the subject’s new gender would be confirmed by even DNA tests.

He also stated that his intelligence agents are telling him that World Genetics had extracted the head researcher on the project for Teschen, and that they were likely behind the theft.

Riptide says that the Agrippa was to be sent to the Russian mob. Tobias thinks on this for a minute and then says that the team was likely set up to be to take the fall for a double cross. Mr. Go was probably contracted by World Genetics to steal the data. He took the job but intended to double cross them and sell the data for a bigger profit to the Russian Mob. By hiring the team to download the data and send it to the mob, Mr. Go could claim it was the edgerunners that betrayed him. He gets paid by the mob, and the team gets the blame for the double cross.

Mr. Go’s plan backfired however. Now the team got paid and Mr. Go has an arrest warrant on his head. Corporate espionage usually leads to a life sentence. This mission had its usual share of complications but things turned out better than expected. For the second time in a row, they ended up getting paid twice their original fee. Plus they moved closer to getting themselves back in the good graces of Biotechnica, although Tobias made it clear that would not happen as long as Helios was alive. They didn’t need to have Tobias as a friend, but it couldn’t hurt to have a corporate ally, now could it.

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Episode 24 Got Milk

Over the next couple of weeks, the team got a much-needed break. Saito spent most of that time in the hospital. Riptide andHelios got cyber-optics to replace their blinded eyes. Torrent indicated that he had a personal matter to attend to that would talk him out of town, and did not know when he would return.

August 14th, 2038

William Davis, the owner of Pocket Fluff Advertising, Inc, contacts Riptide. Riptide meets Davis in his office. There, William tells Riptide that his brother and business partner was murdered three days ago. The police have begun to suspect that William was behind it, so he wants Riptide’s team to investigate and find out who really killed his brother. He also offers a bonus if they can do it in a week.

William then shows Riptide a video montage of various commercials that Pocket Fluff has recently done as part of a milk promotion campaign. The commercials are edgy and make fun of Arasaka, Militech, EBM, the President, and hippies. Apparently Pocket Fluff doesn’t mind ruffling some very powerful feathers.

William has his secretary Mumashi Asura escort Riptide out. She hands him a copy of the video and says that if he has any questions, he should contact her or Maggie Evans, who was Tom’s secretary.

Riptide goes home and gathers the team. He shows them the video and explains the job. The team decides that the first order of business is to find a free-lance Net runner who can cover for Torrent while he is gone. Riptide knows of a guy who hangs out at the Golden Saloon that may be able to help.

August 15th, 2038

Zen goes into work at Infocomp and does some digging into police files. She is able to learn that Tom was shot in his car by what appears to be a gyro jet rifle round. He was shot while sitting in his car in a southwest neighborhood near the Combat Zone. Tom does not live anywhere near that neighborhood. A call to his secretary, Maggie Evans determines that he had no business dealings in that neighborhood that she was aware of.

Riptide spends most of the day trying to find out if there are any hitters who are known for using a gyro jet rifle. As he suspected, using such a weapon for a hit is rare, as it is loud and messy. However, his inquiries come up empty.

That evening at the Golden Saloon, he speaks to Mouse, the hacker he has seen hanging out at the Saloon. He recruits Mouse to do some digging online for a share of the fee they are getting paid.

August 16th, 2038

Zen, Saito and Riptide go to the police impound to look at the car. Zen is able to use her Infocomp credentials to get a look at the car. While Riptide strikes up a conversation with the manager of the lot, Zen and Saito inspect the car. Saito is able to determine that the shot came from an upward angle, likely from a second floor location. Zen is able to find a small pouch tucked up under one of the seats. It contains Blue Ice, the popular synthetic drug.

Mouse is able to learn quite a bit about Pocket Fluff. It started out as a division of Turner Broadcasting before being bought by the Davis Brothers who turned it into a successful advertising business. They have offices in Seattle, New York, London, and Amsterdam. They have roughly 6,500 employees worldwide.

He also learns that Tom has a wife named Mallory and two children. The oldest is John, currently attending college in New Hampshire, and a 16 year-old daughter named Lisa.

Most interestingly, he learns that William owned 35% of the company and Tom owned 65%. According to legal filings, upon Tom’s death, Tom’s wife would get 45% ownership, with the other 20% transferring to William, giving him a total of 55% ownership of the company.

August 17th, 2038

The team spends the better part of the day involved in investigations. Talking to employees at Pocket Fluff they learn that Maggie Evans had worked for Tom for many years. Mumashi Asura was a more recent hire, having been brought on about a year and a half ago, having been hired through a temp service. They also learned that the commercials shown to them by William were part of an advertising campaign funded by the National Dairy Board. They also learned that DMS is the company’s biggest competitor.

Other investigations revealed that the area where Tom had been killed was Blood Razors territory. The team decided to go into the combat zone that evening to seek out the Blood Razors under the guise of looking to sell some Super Fly.

They encountered a couple of Blood Razors on patrol and got them to agree to take the Super Fly in exchange for some information. The Blood Razors indicated that the hit was done by one of the Voodoo Boyz, who had gone into Blood Razor territory without permission. They told the team where to find the gang and that their leader was a woman named Mother Sage.

They then drove into Voodoo Boyz turf and found their main hangout. The Voodoo Boyz would only allow one person to meet Mother Sage and it was decided that Riptide would be that person.

He went into the run down building lit by small fires and filled with the smell of cooking animals. Voodoo writings and fetishes were everywhere. Finally he was brought before Mother Sage, and older black woman dressed in Caribbean style garb. She was willing to give the name of the hitter, since he was not acting on Voodoo Boyz business at the time. But she had a price. Riptide was forced to give her $750 plus four ounces of his own blood. In exchange, he was given the name Skitterboy and an address.

August 18th, 2038

At 1:30 in the morning, they arrive at Skitterboy’s apartment building. Helios waits in the van, as Zen and Riptide head in. Saito goes around the back and climbs the fire escape.

They knock at the door but Skitterboy refuses to let them in. Finally, Saito sneaks in through the bedroom window and is able to get behind Skitterboy. Skitterboy, now at gunpoint, lets the others in.

They question him and he states that Tom’s daughter Lisa hired him to kill Tom. She hated her dad, and offered Skitterboy $20,000 to off him. Skitterboy gladly took the deal. They then take Skitterboy and head over to the Golden Saloon.

At 3:00 AM, Riptide calls William and asks him to come down to the Golden Saloon. William is less then pleased to be dragged out of bed that early, but Riptide convinces him that the matter is urgent.

An hour later, William Davis arrives at the Golden Saloon. The team tells him that it was his own niece that put out the hit on Tom. At first he refuses to believe it, but the team convinces him otherwise. He shows them Tom’s family photo that he carries with him and they notice that Lisa is wearing Voodoo Boyz colors.

William then offers them another $5,000 to bring Lisa to him. She should be at home and he has all of the security codes. They agree. Riptide stays with him and Skitterboy, while the other three go to get Lisa.

In an extremely rare moment for the team, the extraction of Lisa Davis from her home goes completely without a hitch. With the security access codes they are able to drive right up the family residence and into the garage. Once inside, they stealthily move to her bedroom, and secure the girl with minimal effort. They are able to drive off with her without waking anyone else at the residence.

At 7:00 AM, they arrive back at the Golden Saloon. William questions Lisa about the hit. She swore she knew nothing about it. Zen’s experience with interrogation tells her that Lisa is telling the truth. So they bring Skitterboy into the mix to sort things out.

He still insists that she hired him. It turns out that Lisa had been complaining that her dad was demanding that she get out of the Voodoo Boys. In her anger, she told Skitterboy that she wanted her father dead. A short time later, he got a call from a woman offering him $20,000 to kill Tom Davis. Skitterboy assumed it was Lisa. Zen looks at the call history on Skitterboy’s cell phone and determines that the phone call came from the Pocket Fluff offices.

They secure Skitterboy back in the van and head back home. William took Lisa home. They get a hold of Mouse and have him go to work on hacking the Pocket Fluff phone records. It takes him some time but the only thing out of the ordinary is that Mumashi frequently made calls to a competitor of Pocket Fluff’s, a Japanese company called Kishi Corporation.

At 7:00 PM, Mouse contacts Riptide to inform him that he did some background checking on Kishi Corporation. It turns out that Arasaka owns controlling interest in that company.

Riptide attempts to call William. When he answers, Riptide tries to explain that he believes that Mumashi is the one behind Tom’s Death. William, however, indicates that Riptide has called the wrong number and hangs up. The group remains puzzled for a couple of minutes until Riptide’s phone rings. Riptide’s caller ID says its William, but when he picks up, no one is on the other side. In the background he hears William and Mumashi arguing. Riptide suspects that William may be in trouble. After making a few more calls, he is able to determine that William’s last known whereabouts was on his way to his office.

They pile into the van and make their way to the office building that Pocket Fluff is located in. When they arrive, Helios recognizes another van parked there as having also been parked outside of Skitterboy’s apartment. The team decides to head in. On the way, Saito deflates the tires on the other van.

They head up to the Pocket Fluff office on 7th floor. When they arrive, they find William working on a bottle of whiskey. He says that Riptide was right. Mumashi was working on a plan to black mail the two brothers into selling the company to Kishi. However, when Tom indicated that he was interested in selling Pocket Fluff to DMS, which had recently made an offer, she had him killed to prevent the sale. Now with the edgerunner team in danger of figuring things out, she had to go for broke and had William sign over controlling interest at gunpoint. He then says he will double the fee if they can recover the signed papers.

The team scrambles back to the elevators but finds two armed men waiting for them in the reception area. Bullets are exchanged at high velocity. Saito takes down one with his gun, and then tackles the other one. The others decide to take the stairs.

As they burst out of the building, they see a car that was parked out front driving away. They get in their van and attempt to pursue. Upstairs, Saito incapacitates his opponent and tries to catch up to the others.

Realizing they may not be able to catch up to Mumashi, Zen calls Jarvic on the off chance he might be working and in the air. Luck is on the team’s side as Jarvic’s medical crew is currently out and about in their AV-4. He agrees to fake mechanical difficulties and sets down in a busy intersection right in front of Mumashi’s car. A man steps out of the back seat of the car and fire’s on the team’s van.

Helios and Zen argue over Helios’ plan to launch a grenade at the car. Riptide suggests that he back the van out of the traffic jam and try and circle around to flank the car. Zen and Riptide then exit the van under fire and move towards the car. Helios uses the sidewalk to back up the van and proceeds to head around the block.

Another gunman gets out of the back of the car and the two solos shoot it out with Zen and Riptide amongst the stuck cars at the intersection. The driver of Mumahsi’s car rams into the car behind them and then drives up onto the sidewalk to squeeze around the AV-4. Zen is forced to deal with both gunmen as Riptide concentrates his fire on the fleeing car.

Jarvic’s AV is forced to leave as sirens can now be heard in the distance. Zen dispatches the two gunmen as Riptide successfully disables the fleeing car, which is now almost a block away.

The driver of the car steps out and opens fire as Mumashi gets out of the passenger side and makes a break for it. Riptide shoots the driver while Zen guns down the fleeing woman.

The sirens are getting closer as Helios comes flying around the corner from the other direction. He pulls up to Mumashi’s body and quickly scoops up her briefcase and is rolling again. Riptide and Zen jump as he passes by them. They circle back towards Pocket Fluff and pick up Saito who has been running after them.

Back at HQ, they evaluate the mission and declare it a success. They collected one of their biggest paychecks to date with minimal injuries to anyone. Maybe their luck was finally changing.

Oh yeah, and maybe somebody should let Skitterboy out of the van…

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Episode 23 The Ties That Bind

July 10th, 2038

Riptide arrives at work at the Golden Saloon, where his boss tells him they have a new girl who will be working there for a few months. He goes into the dressing room and immediately recognizes the girl as Lacy Ties, a girl he worked with back in Las Vegas. She is quite happy to see him as rumor has it back in Vegas that Riptide is dead.

When the Golden Saloon shuts down for the night, they head back to Riptide’s place. There they catch up on old times. Lacy explains that she has been mostly travelling the country, working in a location for a few months, then moving on. This is her first visit to Night City. Riptide is less forthcoming about what he has been up, stating that he moved to Night City and has been expanding his horizons. But when he explains what he has been up to in Night City, she points out that it sounds just like what he did in Las Vegas. She spends the night with Riptide and in the morning he takes her to the EZ Overnighter where she has a coffin rented.

July 11th – July 13th, 2038

Everyone goes about his or her normal routines.

July 14th, 2038

Riptide and Lacy are talking at work when she admits to him that she started touring after she was fired from her gig in La Vegas. She used to work for the same outfit as Riptide, and he would go with her to parties where she was hired as a stripper, to keep the party goers in line. The reason she was fired was because she had a habit of stealing cash or other small valuable from the places that hosted the party.

She asked him if he remembered the party for some young Arasaka executives. He indeed remembered it well, as it got completely out of control and he had to crack a few skulls in order to get himself and Lacy out of there safely.

It turns out at that particular party she stole a wallet belonging to a guy named Burton Chambers. It had some cash in it, but it also had an important looking data chip. Riptide recalled the name from his time spent in Detroit. He asked if she still had the data chip. She indicated she did, but kept it in a safety deposit box, because she thought she could make use of it some day.

Lacy also points out that she is tired of living in the coffin and asks if she can stay with Riptide while she is in Night City. He agrees, and she moves in. The other members of the team are a bit leery of this new development, but mostly keep it to themselves.

July 15th – July 21st, 2038

Everyone goes about his or her normal routines. Riptide and Lacy spend most of their time together.

July 22nd, 2038

At 3:00 AM, Riptide and Lacy are exiting the side door of the Golden Saloon, and begin to walk toward the company van. It is pouring rain outside. Suddenly, Lacy’s body is thrown hard against the wall and she collapses to the ground. A large bullet hole in her head reveals the cause. Riptide snatches up her purse and ducks behind the van for cover. Among her belongings he finds the safety deposit key. He pockets it and then calls the police.

From the opposite direction of the sniper shot, approach two men in body armor and assault rifles. Riptide dives into the van and starts it up as the two riddle the back of the vehicle with bullets. He tears out of the alley and a sniper shot blasts a hole in the windshield, just missing him.

He races into the Combat Zone and calls ahead to the rest of the team. As soon as the door to the garage opens he pulls the van in and tells Helios to secure the place and check the cameras.

When everyone else is awake and assembled, he explains what happened. They look up the serial number on the key and find out that it belongs to the Las Vegas branch of the First Bank of Tokyo.

At 6:00 AM, Riptide makes arrangements to meet with Colin Fisk, a contact that he has been cultivating over the last couple of years. Colin leads an Arasaka strike team based in Night City. They agree to meet in an hour at the New Harbor Mallplex.

At 7:00 AM, they meet. Riptide asks if he knows who Burton Chambers is. Colin explains that Chambers is a hotshot corp that has skyrocketed up to a VP position in the Detroit office. It’s unusual, not only because of Chamber’s young age, but also because he is Caucasian. Usually only Japanese employees ascend that high in Arasaka. Beyond that he knows little of use. Riptide asks Colin to keep him informed, and they go their separate ways.

By 8:00 AM, the team has loaded up the rental van, and takes a road trip Las Vegas. By 6:00 PM, they roll into the city limits. They rent a couple rooms for the night. While there was much talk of checking out the nightlife, ultimately they decide its best to stay at the hotel and keep a low profile.

July 23rd, 2038

In the morning they drive to First Bank of Tokyo. Riptide, Torrent, and Helios wait in the van while Zen and Saito go in. They present the safety deposit key and are ushered into a private room where they are presented with the safety deposit box. The attendant leaves them alone and they open the box.

Inside is $5,400 in cash, a pair of diamond earrings, and a data chip. They pocket these items and leave the bank.

As they are making their way out of Las Vegas, they happen to spot a helicopter about a 1,000 ft up that seems to be following them. They drive to the airport, knowing that it is a no fly zone, and the helicopter would need special permission to follow.

They pull into the parking garage. Helios jacks another van. Once they have their stuff transferred, they hit the return button on the rental van and watch it take off on its own toward the nearest Rent-a-Robo. They then take the new van and drive back through the city. Unfortunately, their ruse must have failed as not only is the chopper still in the sky above them, but an APC is now following them from several blocks behind.

As they make their way through the city streets, Torrent uses his deck to crack the encryption on the data chip. He sorts through inventory and supply chain records and finds that several caches of weapons had been redirected to a man named Assan Al Fiaed. Zen and Saito recognize that named immediately from their days in the US Army and the Mossad respectively. Both had been present when his HQ had been raided and a dirty bomb had been detonated.

Riptide again contacts Colin. Colin states that he has learned that there is a three-man hit-team from the Detroit Office currently operating in Night City. They had arrived a few days earlier, but what they were doing in the city was privileged information. Riptide explains that he has some dirt on Burton Chambers and that it has already drawn the attention of Arasaka agents. Colin wants nothing to do with it and explains that if Riptide is smart, he will lose that information and disappear.

Riptide ends his call and leans out the front passenger side window. Using his pistols, he open’s fire on a motorcycle that is behind them. The cyclist is not hit but crashes his bike, instantly causing a traffic jam, and giving Helios an opportunity to lose the APC.

Suddenly the roof of the van caves in and the windows explode out as a result. Helios is able to maintain control of the vehicle as the suit of power armor that has just landed on the vehicle punches a hole through the roof narrowly missing Zen. Everyone looks to Saito to use his .50 caliber sniper rifle on the war machine, but he points out that the rifle is too big to maneuver in the van.

Helios swerves the van, nearly rolling it over. The power armor suit, which was preparing to open fire into the van with its machine gun is caught off balance and is thrown from the top of the van. Now behind the van he is in the cross hairs of Saito’s rifle. The first shot rips into the suit, but it does not falter. A second shot blows out the actuators in one of its legs and it collapses.

Unfortunately, as Saito squeezes off the second shot, the power armor suit launches a phosphorus grenade into the van. From the outside, the van appeared to glow. Inside, the light is blinding and the heat burns clothes and melts plastic. Luckily for the team, the windows being blown out allowed for enough heat to vent out that they were not cooked alive. They are all temporarily blinded however except for the driver. Helios’ one cyber-eye is equipped with anti-dazzle and continues to function, allowing him to see where he is going.

They drive out of the city in their windowless, smoking van and head out into the desert. Their sight begins to return for the most part. Helios’ one natural eye, and one of Riptides never work again, having been permanently blinded.

As their vision returns, they see the helicopter is still on their trail. Helios stops the van and Saito lines up a shot with his rifle. Despite the half-mile distance, the electro-thermo round finds its mark and a shower of sparks erupts and the chopper’s engine begins to billow smoke. The chopper, barely able to stay airborne, backs off. Zen tells Saito to hit it again, be he decides not to. The chopper will be lucky to land safely, much less be a threat to them.

At 8:00 PM, the team arrives back in Night City. Not wanting to risk returning home, they instead go to the former home of Irina Lovodny. Though she is now deceased, her home is being used by the local street kids that she supported when she was alive.

Once at her house, they begin to discuss their options. Initially they plan to use the data chip as leverage and possibly blackmail Burton Chambers. Torrent points out however, that none of the data on the chip actually points to Chambers. The only reason they know that it is linked to him is because Lacy had told Riptide that the chip came from Chamber’s wallet.

They opt instead to let the information be free. They have Torrent upload the information to several Net sites and allow it to get out on its own.

Zen contacts Death in the Afternoon to ask if they have seen any suspicious activity near their home. For a change, the DitA boys have nothing to report. Zen has the local kids dispose of the van as Saito calls his former coworker Buckshot Betty to come and give them a ride back home.

July 24th, 2038

Riptide again calls Colin, who tells Riptide that his team was out all night looking for a trashed van that was coming into the city, but they never spotted it. Colin could put two and two together and figured it was Riptide and his crew. He again implors Riptide to ditch the stolen information and lay low. He makes it clear that Riptide is not to contact him again until this has all blown over.

Riptide then receives a call from Roger, the owner of the Golden Saloon. He states that a rather unfriendly Japanese man had accosted him last night and demanded to know who had been hanging around with Lacy Ties. Roger knew it was Riptide, but not wanting to lose a good employee, lied and said it was Doug Anderson, a Saloon regular that had a habit of running up a bar tab and not paying it off. Roger is concerned though, because he figures the Japanese guy will figure out real quick that he lied once he gets his hands on Doug. He tells Riptide to resolve the matter quickly because he considers Riptide worth lying for but not worth dying for.

The team heads over to Doug’s Apartment. They find that he is not home, so they break in. They debate how to handle the situation. Eventually they settle on having Riptide wait in Doug’s apartment while the other three would break into the apartment across the hall and wait there.

Saito moves the dining room table into the hall in front of the apartment door and sets his rifle up there. With Riptide in Doug’s apartment, and Saito, Zen, and Helios in the opposite apartment, the waiting game begins.

Several hours passed with nothing happening. Then the woman who lives in the apartment across from Doug’s comes home. Needless to say, she is quite shocked to find a man sitting at her dining room table with a very large rifle aimed at her. They are able to calm her down and learn that her name is Diana Goldman. They tell her that they are there to protect Doug. They have her stay in her bathroom until things are resolved.

Then Riptide, who is in the bedroom, becomes aware of sounds in the apartment. Someone has opened the door and walked in without him noticing. Riptide comes out of the bedroom and sneaks up behind the man who is staring out a window. He draws his gun on the man and questions him. At first he thinks the person may be Doug, but figures out that it is an Arasaka operative.

Riptide secures the operative, but realizes that the man has a tactical radio and has been in constant contact with someone. The team then hears the screaming sound of an AV-4 flying overhead. The craft drops into the parking lot and a strike team disembarks. The strike team charges into the apartment building and up the stairs.

Saito crosses over to Riptide’s side of the hallway. With two on each side of the hall, they pour firepower down the hall as the strike team makes its way in. Bottle necked in the hallway, the strike team quickly finds itself in trouble against the dug-in edge runners. Its only when one strike team member fires a fragmentation grenade down the hall, are they able to push farther in as the edge runners are forced to take cover.

Despite even that, the edge runners are able to stay dug in. But then the AV-4 swings around outside of Doug’s apartment and opens fire with its heavy machine gun. Riptide and Saito are forced to take cover to avoid being shredded by the high caliber rounds. The bullets tear through walls, threatening to take out Zen and Helios as well.

Saito is able to get to the apartment’s bedroom and used his anti-tank sniper rifle to fire at the AV-4. It takes a couple of shots into the cockpit, but eventually the AV-4 is forced to retreat. Saito, who is wounded by some shrapnel from the machine gun barrage, decides to try and get behind the Arasaka strike team. He jumps out the window and drops to ground level. He begins to make his way back to the main entrance.

As he approaches the door, he is hit by rifle fire from a van parked out front. Realizing that it’s the sniper team from Detroit; he returns fire as he scrambles into the building for cover. Unfortunately for him, the last couple members of the Arasaka team still standing have decided to retreat out of the building. As Saito is entering the building to avoid the sniper fire, the last two team members are on their way out. He suddenly finds himself caught in crossfire. He is able to take down one of the fleeing men, but is gunned downed in the crossfire.

The other edge runners pursue the Arasaka team out of the building, but come under fire from the snipers in the van. Once the last Arasaka member makes it to the van, they pull him in and the van takes off. The team has survived the day, but Saito is badly wounded. Had it not been for his body armor, he would likely be dead a couple times over.

They take him to the hospital, and finally return home.

July 25th, 2038

The team gets news that the US government has launched an investigation into Arasaka’s involvement with Assan Al Faied. Roger, from the Golden Saloon says that the Arasaka operative never returned.

July 26th, 2038

Riptide is able to get a hold of Colin. Colin tells him that Arasaka is in lockdown until the investigation is completed. He thinks that Riptide is absolutely crazy for releasing that information. He also indicates that the sniper team that killed Lacy has been recalled back to Detroit.

July 27th, 2038

The news is buzzing with the fact that the illegal arms shipment from Arasaka has been traced to a man in the Detroit office named William Moss. William will never be prosecuted however; as he apparently committed suicide once he realized he would be arrested.

The team doesn’t exactly buy the story however. They remember William’s name coming up as the man who arranged to have them shipped to Columbia. That means William Moss worked for Burton Chambers. Odds are his “suicide” conveniently stopped the investigation before it got that far up the latter.

This whole affair proved to be costly, but the team gained some important information. Zen and Saito are the only two left alive from the Assan raid a few years back. When Burton Chamber’s data chip with the arms deal info on it disappeared that night in Las Vegas, Riptide and Lacy were the most likely suspects. It made sense that Mr. Chambers would have it in for them. They also learned that Chambers will stop at nothing to have them eliminated, and has access to some vast resources and firepower.

Releasing the info on the Net made Chambers have to run to ground for a while. But for the team, and most likely Mr. Chambers, this was all far from over.

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Episode 22 Cold Leftovers

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.

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Episode 21 The Berlin Contingency

After chasing down Rico and helping getting him out of the city, the team focuses on healing. Toshi “Torrent” Kimura and Helios get out of the hospital, Torrent with a new cyberarm. Helios opts for some elective surgery and has some additional implants installed, further damaging his already ailing humanity. The team gets about a full month to recover.

June 19th, 2038

Helios gets a phone call from a male voice stating that Helios should assemble his team and meet at the Caf-Caf coffee house at 1:00 PM.

Saito arrives early to watch the place. He watches as a girl behind the counter gets a phone call to reserve a table with a full brain-dance station. A few minutes later, when Helios, Riptide, and Zen arrive, the same girl seems to recognize Helios, and directs them to the reserved table.

Reluctantly, they put the electrodes on their heads and begin the brain-dance session. They find themselves outside a stately manor as it snows. They approach the front door, which opens on its own. They find themselves in a spacious living room with a roaring fire in the fireplace.

A side door opens and a man steps in wearing a velvet smoking jacket and matching ascot. His face is hidden in shadow however. As he moves about the room, the shadow seems to follow him so that his face is never clearly visible.

He thanks the team for coming, and indicates that the team possesses a skill set that he needs to make use of. The company he works for has had some important proprietary data stolen from one of its orbital platforms. Two files were taken, and word on the street is that it is going to be sold in Night City. He will pay the team $20,000 to recover the data and another $10,000 if they identify and eliminate the thief.

The two files are named “Berlin” and “N792B.” The files contain blueprints and biological data. Both are encrypted and contain anti-hacking defenses. He recommends not attempting to look at the file.

Zen insists that he reveal whom they are working for. The man is reluctant but indicates that Biotechnica is hiring them and that their Copernicus Orbital Satellite’s datafortress was hacked. The team agrees to take the job and the brain-dance session ends.

The team goes on their separate ways. Zen heads to Infocomp to see what she can learn there. Riptide goes to the Forlorn Hope and talks to the Professor. Saito contacts Apoc, his Mossad contact in LA. Zen and Saito come up empty, but Riptide is steered to Dollar Bill who is currently hanging out at the Tequila Sunrise.

At 5:00 PM, Riptide is at Tequila Sunrise and talks to Dollar Bill. Dollar Bill does not know about any deals involving stolen Biotechnica data. He does tell Riptide that if the stolen data involves biological material, there are two people he should talk to. The first is Bill McKlusky, a body parts dealer down by the marina. The other is Hamstring, a biotech dealer that hangs out at a nightclub called The Catch.

The team members make contact and compare notes. Riptide decides that he will hunt down Bill McClusky. Zen decides that she will head to The Catch and track down Hamstring.

Riptide spends the rest of the day tracking down McClusky. He eventually finds him and inquires about the stolen data. Bill McClusky remains vague about how much he does or does not know about the deal. Eventually, Riptide gives Bill $200 in exchange for info on the deal, which Bill promises he will have the next morning.

Zen arrives at 10:00 PM at The Catch along with Saito, who will remain in the van. The Catch has a line out front full of hopefuls hoping to meet the bouncer’s high standards for which patrons they let in. Although she has to make a wardrobe adjustment, she is able to get in.

Inside the club, she talks to the bartender who indicates that Hamstring can be found up on the mezzanine. She makes her way up there and is eventually able to get Hamstring’s attention. He is a handsome man in his late twenties. Most everyone on the mezzanine is a member of his entourage.

They make small talk for a few moments and then get down to business. Zen is able to figure out pretty quick that Hamstring is involved in the deal. Naturally, he is reluctant to discuss the deal. When she learns that he is interested in the Super Fly drug that has been making the rounds, she offers to put him in contact with its creator in exchange for info on the deal.

She learns that Hamstring acted as a go between for a hacker named Hijacker and a ripperdoc named Hing Wu. Hijacker was selling the data to Hing Wu, which he referred to as Berlin. Hamstring gives Zen the address of Hing’s shop in Little China. As agreed, she gives him Jarvic’s contact info.

She stays until after 1:00 AM, and then heads to the van. She learns that Saito also had a successful night, involving one of the girls who were waiting in line outside.

June 20th, 2038

At 8:00 AM, Riptide returns to the marina to meet with McClusky at the appointed time. McClusky, however, is a no show. Riptide spends the rest of the morning searching for him. At noon, he tracks down McClusky who admits he has no information on the deal. McClusky pays back the $200, which Riptide makes clear he had better give back.

The team meets back at their home to discuss the situation. Riptide contacts the man who hired them on the number they were given. He explains that the deal has already gone down, but they know whom the buyer is and have a lead on the seller. The man explains that they are to get the files back from Wu and find out who sold the data. After Riptide hangs up, he realizes he recognizes the voice on the phone. It was Tobias Luna.

At 1:30 PM, they head to down to Little China and stop at Wu’s Infirmary and Cyber Center. Riptide and Zen go in to speak to Hing Wu. They speak to Hu, who naturally does not acknowledge any involvement in the sale. Riptide and Zen apply some pressure and he cracks. He was paid by a company called World Genetics to purchase the data when it was offered to him. He then had the data hidden in a data fortress for Amstein Agricultural. Riptide calls Tobias and indicates where the files are located. Tobias says that his own netrunners can extract the data from Amstein without any issues.

Torrent checks out the BBS sites and is able to determine that Hijacker is a netruuner. Riptide arranges to have Dollar Bill contact Hijacker in regards to a big job that would need to be discussed in person. They offer to fly him to Night City. They plan to take him to the Golden Saloon and determine if he is the guy they are after.

At 10:00 PM, Zen receives a phone call from Hamstring. He indicates that earlier that evening, someone killed Hing Wu. He was apparently tortured and executed. He wants to know if Zen’s crew is responsible. She denies it and states that he may be in danger and should probably lay low.

Riptide contacts Tobias and asks if he was the one who had Wu killed. Tobias says he had nothing to do with it. The data was at Amstein as Riptide had indicated, so as far as Tobias is concerned, that end of the matter was wrapped up.

At 11:00 PM, Zen gets a call from Hamstring. Hijacker called him, asking about the deal just offered him by Dollar Bill. Hijacker is aware the Wu is dead, and he is therefore reluctant to come to Night City. Using Hamstring as a go between, she is able to convince Hijacker to come to Night City where he will be under their protection. They schedule him on a 7:00 AM flight.

June 21st, 2038

The team checks its bank account first thing in the morning and find that Tobias deposited the $20,000 as promised. They then head to the airport, but after the flight from Denver arrives, its clear that Hijacker is not on it. Zen talks to the airline staff and is able to determine that Hijacker never got on the plane.

Zen contacts Nails, and asks her to check the homicide reports for Denver for the last 12 hours. Sure enough, Hijacker was found in his apartment, tortured and executed.

The team decides that this event ends the mission for them. They contact Tobias and indicate that Hijacker was the thief, and that he has been eliminated. Tobias is satisfied with this, and promises to deposit the remaining $10,000.

The team decides to head home having completed the mission. However, questions linger. If Hijacker was the last link in the chain, why was he tortured for information? Perhaps more importantly, who is doing the torturing? Who ever they are, they beat the team to Hijacker. Is Hamstring on their list? Is the team?

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Episode 20 The Last Long Rider

May 13th, 2038

Zen is hanging out at the Forlorn Hope catching up with Krissy and Roxie and comparing exploits. About 9:30 PM, Night City’s SPARS team storms in. Police in body armor begin passing out leaflets to each of the tables.

Zen takes a look at one and sees two photographs on it. The first is a Hispanic man in tiger stripe fatigues with the name Estevez on his name patch. Zen also notices that unit patch on his sleeve is for LRT-601. The second photo is of an armored up cyborg shooting in a wide arc in what appears to be a police or traffic cam video. The date stamp indicates it happened today.

One of the officers, a formidable looking man in body armor and a tight buzz cut takes to the stage and begins using the microphone. He indicates that the second photo is of a cyborg that went on a killing spree down at the Calypso Club earlier this evening. Apparently a deal went bad and he snapped. Anytime a person appears to have had a cyber-psychotic breakdown, its up to him and his SPARS team to bring the ‘borg down, one way or the other. He believes that the cyborg in the second picture is also the person in the first picture, Enrico Estevez, a South American War vet. The officer knows that the Forlorn Hope is a popular hangout for those vets, so he figures this is a good place to start looking. He asks if anyone has any information and is not surprised when he gets no response. He then reminds the crowd that a person suffering from Cyber-psychosis has lost all humanity and all control, and is no longer their normal selves. He also reminds them that he is authorized to take any measures he deems necessary to bring Estevez in, including using lethal force against anyone who gets in his way. On that ominous note, he and his team depart the Forlorn Hope.

Jonathan “Saito” David, who has been running some errands downtown, stops at the Forlorn Hope just in time to see the SPARS leaving. Intrigued, he enters as the John “Professor” Freeman starts calling off people’s names, including Zen’s, and asks them to follow him in back. Saito decides to tag along.

In the back are gathered familiar faces from previous jobs. Roxy and Krissy are there, as well as Marlo and Hollywood Henderson. The two bouncers IcMax “Ice Pick” Johnson and Ringo are there as well. A few unfamiliar faces are there as also there.

Professor indicates that Rico Estevez was a member of the Long Riders, just like himself, William “Dollar Bill” Dolarhyde, Icepick, and Ringo. Back in those days, Rico was a good and compassionate man. Unlike most of the unit that ended up here after the war, they lost contact with Rico. Rumor had him working as a mercenary, possibly living in Miami. If the cyborg in the photo is Rico, the Professor wants to do everything he can to help him. If Rico really has gone past the point of no return, he wants him to die at the hands of a friend, not some SPARS hit squad.

He is now asking for everyone’s help. He can’t pay anybody, but some people here do owe him. Zen and Saito can’t help but notice that he was looking at them when he uttered those words. He also states he wants to help Rico, but not at the cost of anyone else’s lives. He says that the SPARS leader is named McCarty, and that he will make good on his threat and roll over anyone who gets in his way. The Professor emphasizes the importance of avoiding a confrontation with the SPARS.

With that out of the way, he gets down to business. He says that McCarty indicated that the incident at the Calypso Club was the result of a deal gone sour. Since everyone Rico knows in Night City is currently in this room, its safe to assume that he was there on a business deal. The first step is to figure out with whom he was meeting with. The Professor knows that the Calypso Club is a popular hangout for the Blue Angles, a smuggling team, Union Force, a mercenary military unit, and the Morks, one of Night City’s bizarre poser gangs. The Professor divides the room into teams, each assigned to following a lead. Saito and Zen, along with Ringo, are given the job of driving out to the old Petrochem refinery, where Union Force is headquartered and find out what they know.

Zen places a quick call to Riptide, who is currently relaxing at home. He loads up all of the gear that he can fit into the van and drives to the Forlorn Hope, where he picks the other three up.

At about 11:00 PM, they arrive at the Union Force HQ. They pull up to the gate, but the guard booth appears to be empty. Closer inspection reveals that it seems to have acquired some recent bullet holes. Taking a look inside reveals two dead guards. Their pistols are still in their holsters and their M-16s, still racked. Riptide forces open the rolling gate and gets inside the booth. The bodies are still above room temperature, so the hit happened recently.

They then make their way across the compound to the main building. Zen finds the door unlocked and steps inside. She immediately has to step back out as she is greeted by a hail of gunfire. Zen is able to convince the person, named Sid, to cease fire and talk.

Sid indicates that a man named Stringer was working as a liaison between Union Force and its employer for a job in Indonesia. Stringer and their commander, Nate Ryder didn’t get along from day one. Things were coming to a head when the two of them decided to go over to the Calypso Club to talk things out. A few hours later, Stringer came back by himself, and then without warning, opened fire. Sid estimates that they have 20 currently dead here at the base.

The team seems to be on the right track. Ringo confirms this when he says that Stringer is a handle that Rico had frequently used. Zen asks Sid what he knows about Stringer. He knows that Stringer is staying at the EZ Overnighter Luxury Coffins. Beyond that, he knows little. Zen gives him her contact information and they then head out for the EZ Overnighter.

Close to midnight, the team arrives at the EZ Overnighter. The clerk confirms that there is a heavily modified solo staying on sight, but states that it is against company policy to reveal where tenants are staying. Zen and Riptide each give him $100, which helps convince him to make an exception. The clerk tells them that he is staying in coffin 121.

They head to coffin bunker #1 and find coffin 21. Saito positions himself in an overgrown lot next door that gives him line of fire on the bunker. Riptide uses a key he got from the clerk to open the door, but as he is opening it, he detects that the door is rigged. Luckily he is able to stop himself before triggering the mine that was wired to the door. Ringo is able to remember enough of his demolition skills to disarm the trigger and allow them to open the door.

Inside that find some personal gear and a photo taped to the ceiling. The photo is of LRT-601, posing for the camera while in the jungle. The team can recognize younger versions of the Professor and others from the Forlorn Hope.

Then they notice a cyborg emerging from the shadows on the north side of the facility. Ringo recognizes the man as Rico. Rico immediately opens fire with his Militech Renegade. Ringo dives into the coffin while Riptide runs to a nearby maintenance shed. Zen is not able to get out of the line of fire, but her armor protects her.

While Zen tries to get out of the line of fire, Ringo yells at Rico to stop shooting. Luckily, Rico recognizes his old squad mate and ceases fire. Ringo is able to convince Rico to come to their position. Once there, they are able to talk.

Rico does not appear to have gone cyber-psychotic, but he seems to be right on that edge. He confirms that he was working as a liaison for a job with Union Force. He did not get along with Nate Ryder, who seemed to have contempt for South Am Vets. The two were basically ordered by the Union Force members to work out their problems before they went forward with the job. So the two went to Nate’s favorite hangout, the Calypso Club. But once there, Nate started in on him again and basically he told Rico he needed to shut up and take it. Rico finally snapped and went after Nate, regardless of who got in his way.

After years of killing and all of the cybernetic enhancements that have chipped away his humanity, the fact that many innocents were caught in the crossfire seems to bother him little. All he could think about was killing Nate. The tragic irony is that out of all the deaths he caused, Nate was not one of them.

Rico is clearly in trouble, not just legally, but also mentally. He is in a heap of trouble and begins to despair. Then Ringo tells him that the Professor is still around, and wants to help. Learning the their old unit leader is at the Forlorn Hope, Rico agrees to go.

Just as the team gets ready to leave the EZ Overnighter, an Arasaka Combat 10 APC rolls onto the lot. The Union Force label is emblazoned on the sides. The back ramp opens and 30 armed men, including Nate Ryder pile out. The team is caught in the open. There are able to find cover, but not before the Union Force men spot them and open fire.

A massive firefight ensues. The team is outnumbered six to one, but they have a better position, and a cyborg on their side. Saito moves up to a better position and begins sniping opponents moving across the lot. Ringo and Rico take the north side. Zen and Riptide try and hold the middle.

Several of Forcers spot Saito’s position and begin to try and flank him. A group of Forcers, including Nate Ryder, moves up the middle, trading shots with Zen and Riptide. Planning to take down a cyborg, the Forcers are all armed with armor piercing rounds. Nate throws a frag grenade right on Riptide’s position, but the grenade fails to fully detonate and Riptide is shaken, but unharmed.

On the north side, a majority of the Forcers move on Ringo and Rico, and are able to draw them into crossfire. Ringo is badly wounded, but Rico’s metal plating holds up, even against the AP rounds. He is able to drag Ringo to safety, and then goes guns a blazing against the Forcers.

Saito has to change position as the flankers on the south side as begin to move in on him. In the middle, Riptide is able to wound Nate, though lightly. Nate is able to score a hit on Riptide. His weapon is armed with specially made penetrator rounds, which are normally used against lightly armored vehicles. It rips through Riptide’s armor, and he goes down.

On the north side, Rico is making easy work of his enemies. His SAW rips apart the Forcers while their own AP rounds are barely scratching him. Finally, the Forcers radio forward the APC, which opens fire on Rico with its 40mm cannon. The first shot misses, blasting apart a coffin. Rico is able to get out of the way of the second shot and he moves himself close enough to the APC that the turret cannon cannot target him.

The APC crew instead uses the .50 caliber machine gun. They cannot target Rico with that either, but they can draw a bead on Zen, still positioned in the middle. The half-inch rounds slam into her. Her armor holds, but it is torn up, and she can already feel her whole body turning purple from the bruising.

The south flankers throw a grenade on to Saito’s position. He is able to avoid the blast. He is unable to continue supporting Zen in the middle, as he must now address the soldiers that are now in position to attack him.

Rico moves around the back of the APC and comes face to face with Nate Ryder. Nate tries to bring him down with his penetrator rounds, but Rico’s enhanced reflexes are faster, and Rico guns down the Union Force leader.

With Nate dead, and three quarters of their men dead or wounded, the Union Force calls a retreat. The APC moves to hold the middle as the remaining men, and whomever they can drag, get into the APC.

As soon as the APC moves off of the property, Zen helps Riptide back to his feet and Rico picks up Ringo. Saito joins them just as they hear the sounds of sirens off in the distance.

They quickly pile into the van and fight the temptation to race away at full speed. Instead they drive away at a casual pace. They get only a couple of blocks away, when they see the SPARS team racing to the EZ Overnighter.

They take Rico to the Forlorn Hope, where the Professor and Dollar Bill are waiting. Dollar Bill already has resources in place to get Rico out of town. Along, with Ringo, they then pay a visit to Trapper John to get stitched up.

Rico appears to be safe now, and hopefully he gets the help he needs from his friends. But what about the team? The SPARS will find Union Force members at the EZ Overnighter. The Union Force has Zen’s cell phone number. How long before Lt. McCarty and the SPARS are knocking on the their door?

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Episode 19 When the Chips are Down

After returning the missing boy to his mother, the next few weeks are quiet. Torrent is a bit disturbed that a coworker at Raven Micro-Cybernetics seems to know that Torrent is the one selling the Wraith program. Torrent claims to know nothing about it, but then begins to rethink how he is selling the program as clearly someone has started putting the pieces together.

Helios begins making some security related modifications both to the tow truck and his motorcycle. Zen works on figuring out how to use her resources at Infocomp to learn about who it is at Arasaka that wants them dead.

April 28th, 2038

Zen is hanging out at The Afterlife when a man in a black suit approaches her. He introduces himself as Webbs. He has an offer for a quick job. He is going to make an exchange in two hours at the Blowtorch, a club on the west side known for its tendency to play grind core. Its 500 bucks for a couple hours work. Zen agrees. He insists they go there straight away. Although he offers to share a cab, Zen insists on taking her motorcycle, despite the pouring rain.

On the way, she calls home and asks for backup. Riptide, Jonathan “Saito” David, and Torrent agree to help her out. Several rain-soaked minutes later, she arrives at the Blowtorch, right behind Webbs. They head inside. The other three arrive a few minutes later. Riptide and Torrent keep an eye on things from the outside. Saito heads in and takes a seat in a position that allows him to watch Zen and Webbs’ table.

While they wait, Webbs tries to make small talk and buys a drink for himself and Zen. Saito observes a Japanese man in a black suit by the bar, watching the table.

A few short moments later, Zen notices two young punks moving towards them. They brandish pistols and immediately start shooting. Webbs is hit in the arm before Zen can get between him and the attackers. She begins to push him towards the door, doing her best to use the crowd as cover. She then becomes their target. Her armor protects her from most of the hits, though she does take a grazing wound to the head. Saito, who had been watching the Japanese man, begins to move towards the two punks.

Zen gets Webbs safely to her motorcycle where she applies quick first aid to his bullet wound. Unfortunately, he looks much paler than he should for a relatively minor wound. He then complains that he does not feel very well. She orders him onto her bike and tells him to hold on. She then races to the ripperdoc Trapper John.

The two punks burst out of the club just as Zen drives away. Apparently they do not have a means to follow and dejectedly walk in the other direction. Torrent and Riptide follow them for several blocks, at which point the two punks make their way into a corner bar. Riptide and Torrent follow. Inside they hear the two argue over whether it was a successful job. One feels they failed because they did not kill Webbs. The other sees it as a success because they were paid up front.

Much to Torrent’s surprise, Riptide pulls out his two pistols and puts them at the back of the punks’ heads. Torrent quickly fumbles for his gun and follows suit. The two punks state that they were paid up front by some guy with a southeastern accent to go into the club and kill Webbs. Who the guy was or why he wanted them dead, the two of them didn’t know and didn’t ask. Realizing that he was dealing with a couple of over-their-heads rookies, Riptide confiscates their weapons and leaves them be.

Zen is racing to the ripperdoc’s when she feels Webbs let go. She stops the motorcycle just as Webbs collapses onto the street. She calls for Saito who is already on his way in the van. When Saito arrives, they get Webbs into the van and go to Trapper’s.

Unfortunately, Trapper has to point out that he is not a body bank, as Webbs is Dead on Arrival. They pay Trapper to run a toxin screen, which he indicates he will have the results of tomorrow.

Zen goes through Webbs’ suit and finds about $1,500 cash, an odd-looking data chip, and a business card. This business card is for Frank Harnes, a sales manager for Unlimited Concepts’ Orbital Division. On the back are several notes. There is a note to call John Burks, but there is no number. There is a phone number for a Frita Loay’s, and along the bottom a Net address. Torrent examines the chip, but it is of a type he does not recognize. It will not work in a standard chip reader.

Meanwhile, back home, Helios is hanging out when the power suddenly goes out. He goes on high alert, and makes contact with the other team members as the back up generator kicks in. However, it appears that the storm has knocked out all power in their area. It comes back on a few hours later.

April 29, 2038

The team learns that a high strength synthetic poison killed Webbs. Trapper figures it likely came from a Japanese biotech lab. Beyond that, the team does not further investigate the matter.

April 30, 2038

Riptide is home alone cleaning his guns when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He attempts to judo flip the person over him, but the intruder easily parries the attack. Riptide goes for a pistol, which the man makes no attempt to stop. He does tell Riptide to relax. He just wants to talk. The man is Japanese and dressed in a black suit. The man asks if Riptide has the chip. Riptide says he does not have it on him, but he knows where it is. The man indicates that he is willing to pay for the chip. When Riptide says tells him to name a starting price, the man states that he is willing to pay $100,000 for the chip. Riptide agrees without further negotiation.

With the price agreed upon, the man hands Riptide an envelope to “prove” that the offer is serious. In it are five tickets for transport to Crystal Palace. There are also hotel accommodations for two nights as well as a Crystal Palace credit chip worth $10,000. The orbital flight is in Saturday.

The rest of the team returns home to learn the news. They are surprised to learn that the tickets are in their real names. Also, the question was brought up as to how he got in without triggering any of the alarm systems.

The biggest questions are what is on the chip and who is willing to pay so much for it. However, the team chooses not to look into it.

May 1st, 2038

The team goes about their regular routines, still not feeling a need to look into what they have gotten themselves into. They do take precautions however. They make sure that one of them is carrying the chip at all times, and make sure that that person is never alone. Saito begins to wear full combat armor around the house so that he is ready at a moment’s notice.

May 2nd, 2038

On Sunday, Riptide and Zen are at the Mallplex shopping. Helios is working in the garage, while Saito is camped out in Torrent’s apartment, with Torrent who currently holds the chip.

Torrent steps out of the bathroom when the armored window in the living room has a hole punched in it followed an instant later by Torrent’s right arm exploding at the bicep. Time seems to stand still for a moment as Saito and Torrent stare at the stump where Torrent’s arm was attached just moments ago.

Then gunfire erupts outside, breaking the moment. Torrent collapses as Saito runs to him, staying below the window. Helios is on his way to investigate when one of the doors in the garage explodes. Just as he recovers his senses, two men armed with squad assault weapons begin to riddle the garage with bullets. Helios tries to return fire, but is pinned down by the gunfire.

Saito ties a tourniquet around the remainder of Torrents arm. He is stabilized but will need medical attention soon. Saito grabs the massive Arasaka WSSE/R sniper rifle and crawls out into the hallway. Helios is there trying to avoid the lead storm blasting its way through the hall. Saito is able to spot one of the assailants and takes a shot. The .50 caliber electro-thermo round punches through the man’s armor, blowing most of his chest out his back.

Helios is able to crawl back to Saito’s position. As the other man changes position to regain line of sight with Helios, Saito is waiting for him, and his next shot takes the other man down as well.

Saito decides to go back into Torrent’s apartment while Helios decides to take a look outside the garage. Outside they can see members of Death in the Afternoon exchanging fire with men armed with assault rifles.

Saito looks out the window where the shot that brought down Torrent came through. As soon as he sticks his head up, a shot is fired from the building across the street. It goes low, striking the wall instead. However, this sniper is also using electro-thermo rounds, although of a smaller size. The shot is big enough punch through the wall and go through Saito’s armor. Luckily it has spent too much energy to be lethal at that point.

This does give Saito a chance to spot his opponent. Both snipers line up their shots, but Saito gets his off first. His shot is also low, but the .50 caliber round still packs enough punch after going through the wall and body armor, that it kills the sniper.

Helios steps outside the blown out garage door and is immediately hit by a sniper round in the chest. It goes through his armor, but his enhanced musculature helps keep it form being fatal. He goes down nonetheless.

Aware that Helios is down, Saito returns to the garage and based on where Helios was hit, figures where the other sniper is hidden. Another sniper battle ensues, this time ending with Saito’s headshot decapitating the other sniper.

Saito contacts Jarvic to get an REO Meatwagon ambulance for Torrent and Helios. He then speaks to Neil, the leader of Death in the Afternoon. They had driven off the other attackers. They had questioned a survivor that they had captured, and he indicated that they were hired by a tall redhead who wants the team eliminated.

A few minutes later, Riptide and Zen returns. Saito fills them in on what happened. He first assumed it was someone after the chip, but based on what Neil told him, it seems that Alys Grant is trying to tie up some loose ends. Riptide calls Hand who knows nothing about it, but said he would look into the matter.

The rest of the day is spent repairing the damage to their home. They also check in on Torrent and Helios who are both stabilized and doing okay.

May 3rd, 2038

First thing Monday Morning, Riptide gets a call from Hand. It seems Rya Mendez got her old job back at Upstairs Downstairs and went back to work at the Bartholomew School for Advanced Studies. Either she or Jace Grant slipped up, because Alys got wind of what was going on. She then somehow figured out that Rya was the kidnapper, and decided to get some payback against the edgerunners who claimed the matter had been dealt with.

Obviously, this is an issue that cannot be ignored. However, it will have to wait, because the team, at least those not in the hospital, need to get to Oakland to catch an Orbital Air flight to the Crystal Palace. They also have to rethink their protection, as firearms are prohibited on board the orbiting station.

A three-hour drive takes them to the Oakland Spaceport, from where they take a 6 hour flight into orbit. Once in space, they board the Johnson Space Platform, where they await transport to Crystal Palace. Shortly there after, they are on an OTV heading towards the Crystal Palace. About half way through the to hour journey the shuttle shakes and depressurization warning lights go on. Luckily the team paid attention to the preflight safety briefing and were able to find their pressure suits under their seats.

All three are able to get their suits on, but now the shuttle is tumbling through space. Most of the crew is dead, due to a tank that ruptured up near the command cabin. The few crewmen that remain ask if anyone knows how to fix the damaged navigational system. Unfortunately, Riptide, who has a knack for such things, is busy holding down a hospital bed back in Night City. Zen, Saito, and Riptide take a look at the problem, but it is clearly beyond their capabilities.

So instead, they are left to wait. They continue to tumble through space for several hours before a rescue craft is able to arrive, stabilize them, and tow them the rest of the way to Crystal Palace. This gives the team time to contemplate whether the explosion was an unfortunate accident or was someone trying to make sure that shuttle never got to Crystal Palace.

Finally, in the late evening, PST, they arrive. Crystal Palace is a massive cylinder of glass and chrome encircled by numerous rings that rotate, giving the inhabited areas an impressive .7 G.

Inside looks like Las Vegas during its heyday. It’s an endless series of entertainment attractions wrapped in holoscreens and flashing marquees. Less than half of the people are locals, known as Highriders. Most people are visitors, like the team.

They check into their hotel rooms first. Saito looks through his for any listening devices, and discovers one behind a painting. He takes it and places it in Zen’s room, while everyone sets up camp in his room.

They head out and find a nice restaurant where they enjoy a good meal, which they pay for with the credit chip. They then spend the remainder of the evening at the casino. Riptide and Zen lose money at the slots, but Saito comes out ahead at the Black Jack table.

During the course of the evening, Saito notices an Italian man watching him. Zen notices a Chinese woman watching her. Riptide does not notice anyone taking an interest in him. They make no attempt to approach these tails, and instead call it a night and return to their room. They find a message waiting for them to meet in a specified room at 7:00 PM tomorrow.

May 4th 2038

In the morning, there is a knock on Saito’s door. Room service has brought a breakfast on the house. Saito tells the bellhop to enjoy the breakfast him self, and sends him on his way.

Today, they spend the day seeing other areas of the orbiting habitat. They visit the arboretum and check out some of the stores. Saito finds a cyberware store that sells sleek, but expensive orbital crystal cybernetics. He finds a cyberarm that is durable, but light weight, weighing little more than a normal human arm. The price tag is $7,000, but he purchases with the credit chip, to give to Torrent.

While visiting a bar in the afternoon, a man in an Italian suit approaches Riptide, acting as if they have meet before. He comments that it is good to see Riptide again, and offers to shake his hand. Riptide is hesitant at first, but then notices the man palming a piece of paper. Riptide shakes the man’s hand and watches as the man walks away.

Turning back to the bar, he looks at the paper and reads the message. It indicates that the messenger, or whom ever he works for is willing to pay $200,000. They are to meet in a specified room at 6:00 PM today.

They decide to return to Saito’s room to discuss their next move. After considerable deliberation, they decide to go to the meeting at 6:00 PM.

At the appointed time, they arrive at the room. A tall blonde Scandinavian woman opens the door. She escorts them into the suite, where another woman, nearly a twin, awaits. Riptide notices that they are both carrying flechette pistols.

A man emerges from one of the bedrooms and greets them. He says his name is Karl, and he speaks in a light German accent. He asks to see the chip, which they produce. He places it in a special chip reader, and after a few keystrokes, watches blueprints flash across the screen. Satisfied, he produces a credit chip and places it in another chip reader. The display indicates that the chip has $200,000 on it. He turns the chip over to Riptide.

When the team begins to question him about what is on the chip, he seems surprised that they know so little about what they are involved in. He explains that he works for the European Space Agency, and that the blueprints come from NASA. Any further questions are deflected, and the team makes their exit.

Realizing that NASA, as it appears their original buyers were, will be vary displeased to learn they sold the blueprints to the ESA, they try to book immediate transport off of Crystal Palace. Unfortunately, the next shuttle does not leave for another three and a half hours and their NASA meeting is in one half hour. They have to figure out how to lay low in an enclosed environment.

They decide the best thing to do is hide in plain sight. They decide to stick to populated areas where there would be too many witnesses. So they find themselves milling about in the Palace’s main shopping center. They keep an eye out for anyone coming their way and always keep each other in sight.

Despite the vigilance, Riptide is startled to find the black clad Japanese man standing behind him. The man points out that it is now 8:00 PM, and that Riptide failed to show for their meeting at 7:00 PM. The man demands to know why the team failed to show. Riptide admits that they have had another offer for more money.

Needless to say, the man is quite displeased. He asks if the deal has gone through yet, to which Riptide falsely replies that it has not. The man berates the team for accepting a free ride to Crystal Palace, free lodging, and a $10,000 credit chip as a goodwill gesture, only to then betray him as soon as someone comes along flashing more money. He indicates that he awaits the team’s decision, but if they do not go through with his deal, he expects to be reimbursed for all of the money they have spent.

The team then spends considerable time deciding what to do next. Ultimately they accept that their bed has already been made. Since the ESA has the data chip, they are unlikely to sell it back. Even if they did, who’s to say they have not already copied it. So they go to the room that was designated for their meeting with NASA and explain that they have taken the other offer. The Japanese man demands and receives reimbursement for the money they used. He then inquires to whom they sold it to. Riptide gives him the hotel room number. The man produces a pocket computer and looks up the room. He then chuckles and wishes the team a safe ride home.

May 5th, 2038

After an “over-night” flight, they find themselves back on terra firma at the Oakland Spaceport. By the early afternoon they are back in Night City. Bothered by the Japanese man’s chuckle, Riptide immediately tries to cash the credit chip he got from the ESA. His suspicion is realized when the chip comes up empty.

Once they are settled back in, Riptide attempts to contact Hand, but finds that the normal contact number has been disconnected. They stop at the Forlorn Hope and talk to the Professor. He indicates that word on the street is that someone turned up the heat on Hand and that he has split town.

Finding themselves in the hole financially from the NASA/ESA deal, and now without their main contact for corporate jobs, the team returns home and begins the work of repairing their headquarters.

May 6th – May 10th, 2038

The team starts working their street contacts to find out what the story is regarding the contract that was put out on them. It seems that no one is currently out to get them. Perhaps Alys felt she made her point with the last attack on their home. They also find out that Rya Mendez has been deported, and that there is a contract out on Hand. They also continue work on their home repairs.

With two of their members hospitalized, a lucrative deal botched, their home trashed, and their corporate contact on the run, things haven’t looked this bad since they first got to Night City. On the plus side, it can’t get any worse. Maybe.

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