Characters:
Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner
Hanging Out
Jar and Specter finished tying themselves off to the grapple gun ropes, and Jar climbed out over the balcony. He lost his grip and slipped, falling past the window of the 32nd, before the rope caught him and he found himself dangling just beside the broken laser-link. It was hanging by a cable, but the mount was still affixed to the building's exterior. After reattaching it, he called Nightingale to align it, and, after patching her through to a live-feed from his cybereye and busting out the laser level in his toolhand, they successfully re-established the connection. The rest of the crew reeled him back up to the 33rd floor, and they left Megabuilding H6 substantially wealthier than when they entered, with 6th Street none the wiser.
Over the next few days, Specter recruited some local punks to join his "gang" by showing off the rocket launcher, only for them to vanish a couple days later. Eventually he tracked down one of the kids, who bluntly asked him if it was true that he'd gotten his old gang killed. After a pause, Specter explained that he'd been sent to kill a guy who turned out to have friends in high places, "so kinda but not really", and that was good enough to get the other initiates to show up again.
Jar, meanwhile, moved into as proper an apartment as one could find in Pacifica, landing a suite at the Mirage hotel, which had security provided by the Voodoo Boys. They also hashed out a deal where he kicked up a share of the profits from his ripperdoc work. While walking back from his old place after getting everything picked up by movers, he spotted a gang of seven or eight punks in the distance wearing blazing neon pink and walking towards him. After a moment, he recognized the leader as his arch-nemesis, Anthony Gunderson, who raised an arm and pointed at him. And then the gangers all drew guns.
Not liking the odds, Jar ran off around a corner and towards the coast, hoping to loop around and make it to the safety of the Mirage. The gangers gave chase, but while a few fired off wild shots, none came close to hitting him, and they quickly fell behind the surprisingly nimble techie. One of the gangers went down on all fours and leapt forward with cybernetic legs, only for them to explosively fail on landing. A steel synthetic shinbone flew into another ganger's chest, and that ended the chase. Jar turned around and mocked them before sprinting away, Gunderson shouting threats as he did.
Out of spite, Jar bought a bunch of bootleg jean shorts and bedazzled them to say "ow my legs!" on the ass. He handed them out to people, and somehow started a small fashion trend in Pacifica. Once he was more settled in, Paxos and Peacock came by the clinic to get 'ware installed; both got a skillshard socket, but Peacock also picked up a Chyron mod for one eye and an internal agent plus the audio suite to handle it. Paxos would spend the rest of her time unwinding by scrolling some "nature" BDs, which definitely showed pure, unedited nature that still existed, and weren't just CGI.
Date Night
While Paxos was out for a relaxing drive along the coastline with her boyfriend Mithradates in his taxi, the cheapest date possible, she got a call from Olivia Milka, an old nomad friend, and her former clanmate. She hadn't left the clan on good terms, but the two of them got along well enough. Paxos reluctantly answered the phone, and Olivia was straight to business: a smuggler by the name of Jackstadt was on foot in Wellsprings and needed out of the city, now. It seemed someone had gone 'psycho and was after him.
They'd have to bring him to the Sunset Motel east of the city, and there was a bonus for it being an emergency. The pay was too good to pass up, so Paxos agreed, apologized to Mithradates, and called the rest of the crew. Jar was bored on the rooftop of one of Nightingale's pharmacies on a date (turns out an AI is somewhat restricted in where they can go), and he was more than happy for the excuse to leave. Meanwhile, Specter had been watching the CFL (Cyber Football League) with his roommates, and Peacock had just been wandering Arroyo, so they had no real plans to cancel.
Everybody met up in The Glen, where Peacock picked them up in their car, and then they were off to Wellsprings. Paxos called the number Olivia had given her and set it on speaker, and a panting Jackstadt answered. He was on the edge of panic and it took him a while (and some prompting) to get his location: the pedestrian footpath under Market St. He yelled at them to step on it because"Jenny's dead, man!" and that "she's still after me, I know it!".
Peacock floored it and wove dangerously in and out of traffic while Paxos gave them directions on a shortcut that went down some alleys. Just as they were closing in on Market St, Jackstadt started shouting profanity, and gunshots rang out over the call. They could hear him take off again, and after some jostling and heavy breathing, he gave them the new location: the elevated road over Berkeley and Bay. While Peacock took the car onto the sidewalk and up a pedestrian staircase on two wheels, Jackstadt muttered something about "a lot of blood".
As the car slid to a stop, an overweight latino man in only a blood-covered undershirt and underwear half-ran half-stumbled over to them; his chrome left cyberarm was hanging limp, while his right, meat arm, was holding his agent in a death grip. Specter got the door just in time for him to tumble into the back seat. As Jar worked to stop the bleeding, the others spotted a woman, fully naked and bleeding from the eyes, levelling a handgun at them. Specter was shocked to realize that, although she'd had some cosmetic surgery, that was definitely his old girlfriend who'd mysteriously vanished, Scarlet!
Peacock gunned it and left Scarlet in the dust as she futilely opened fire, then they merged onto the ring road and headed for the interstate and the Sunset Motel. Along the way, Jar removed a large shard of glass from Jackstadt's pelvis and quickly bandaged the wound, then rebooted his cyberarm. Paxos took a closer look at the programming and determined that the arm had been hacked with a Shut Down program, meaning they would have needed LoS. The whole time, Jackstadt rambled his way through his story several times.
He'd picked up a joygirl and gone to the Wild Blue Motel. Everything had seemed fine until every circuit in the room overloaded and she started weeping blood. His arm went limp, and then she was coming at him with the shard of glass. He jumped out the window into a pile of trash. Tried to hail a cab but nobody would pick him up. Called Olivia. Ran into Jenny, but her head exploded, and the joygirl had a gun now. He'd picked up the joygirl and gone to the Wild Blue Motel...
Specter interrupted to ask if he'd met the joygirl before, but no, he'd just picked her up off the street. Paxos noted that this kind of thing happened all the time in action BDs, so it wasn't a surprise. Through further questioning, they learned that Jackstadt was a smuggler for 6th Street, and ran the Militech border checkpoints fairly frequently. When Paxos explained that there had to be a hacker, he had no idea where one could have been, and guessed maybe they'd been out the window. Maybe it had been a trap? He'd ran some stolen Militech goods to a Kang Tao agent in the Badlands a while ago, but nobody should've known about that! Out of caution, Paxos hacked into his Agent and wiped the record of their call.
Too Quiet
The interstate was pretty quiet, and soon they pulled up to the Sunset Motel in all of its cracked yellow plastic glory. Disconcertingly, the lights were on, but there were no signs of anybody around, and there's always people at the Sunset Motel. Paxos ran a Ping scan but didn't pick up anything other than the obvious. As they sat in the car, a cool breeze whistled through the air and a vending machine hawked its microwave tacos. Right as they decided to leave because it was too spooky, two cars and a van pulled up from offroad.
Paxos recognized their colours as Olivia's clan, and said as much, but hid in the backseat, unwilling to face her former clanmates. Jar got out instead and after the traditional Nomad greeting of "Giddy up there partner, rattlesnake in the back of the boot", they handed over Jackstadt to the leader, Rio. He noted that something wasn't right here, gesturing at the Motel, and the Nomads boarded back up and drove out into the east. At the sound of two cats fighting in the distance (Specter: "Oh shit, those are extinct"), the crew followed suit and, after a short detour to a dead drop in a ghost town to pick up thier eddies, headed back into Night City.
Downtime
Over the next few days, Peacock signed a lease to an actual apartment in Little China, with running water and everything (luxury!), but when they went to move their cars into the building's parking, discovered that the one with the ram plate was missing. In its place was a notice from the Santo Domingo district parking enforcement division, stating that the car had been towed due to being parked illegally, and to contact District Administrator Felix Chudwell with any questions.
Chudwell was the dirty politician who had entrapped the rest of Peacock's clan, the Birds of Prey, with drug smuggling, and was the reason they were all still behind bars, and he seemed to have it out for them personally. Peacock then had to spend the next several days filling out various paperwork and being generally given the run-around before finally getting their car back from impound. After that, they went to prison and bribed some guards to pass along an agent and other goods to his clan who were locked up.
Paxos spent a week researching and buying hair dyes, new outfits, and other things to help her change her identity when she eventually left Night City. Jar tricked out his cybereyes with some new attachments and spent a few days recovering. Specter went out and poached some Tyger Claws underlings for his new gang. Another week passed with no jobs rolling in, so they continued to kill time. Peacock joined the underground street racing circuit and started to build a reputation. Paxos was able to ransomware a Biodyne server and get a couple hundred easy eddies. Specter went to therapy (read: skyped a therapist and took prescribed drugs).
Finally, Peacock of all people got a call from Wakako Okada, a well known fixer out of Little China. She had a job, a bounty hunt, and they were to meet with Suzie Q, the head of the Mox, at Lizzie's in Kabuki. The money was good, so they agreed. Later that day, everyone assembled outside the club. When Specter tried to walk in with his rifle, Maki just shook her head, and he once again turned around to go wait in the car.
Notes:
Some of the PCs enemies from chargen have started to appear, which is always fun. After the last session, Specter's player had asked when they were going to show up. Little did he know...
The Voodoo Boys were forced to drop the strict xenophobia after V killed all their best hackers and the entire leadership.
Jar succeeded at every chase roll by 5+, while the gangers failed every roll.
Skillshards give a +3 to any skill (provided you buy the shard for 300eb), but it can't boost it over 18. It's still a pretty good deal.
Mithradates, Mitch to his friends, has had cosmetic surgery and 'ware installed to look like a classical greek hero. He was actually willing to drive along on the mission but Paxos asked him not to.
Jar and Paxos both have the Nomad background, and Peacock is still a Nomad.
There was a lengthy discussion about bribing a fixer to lower their Heat, but Specter and Jar were against it.
Peacock monitored the infonets after their job and learned that Scarlet was never apprehended.
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