GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 24: Making The News

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "The Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Negotiations

Chromedome finished working on Paxos, then walked over to Specter, still wearing his blood-covered smock and yellow rubber gloves.  The ripper made it clear that he needed payment, and that this wasn't a safehouse.  Specter took out his agent and wired him the eddies, then dialed The Peacock and said they'd be out of his hair soon.  As the doc shuffled away, Peacock answered and welcomed Specter back into the land of the living, then asked after the status of the other two; Specter replied "Mad, but physically fine".  They chatted about the safehouse in Little China that they'd checked out with Jar, then The Peacock said they'd bring the AV around soon and hung up.

City Center had closed their airspace after the crew's activities an hour ago, so they were forced to detour around through Westbrook, which also started to close its air space just as they made it across the river into Arroyo.  They landed in the parking lot of the department store and headed over to retrieve their companions.  The sign said "CLOSED", but Jar did the secret knock on the front door to get "CD" to answer.  Chromedome gave Jar an elbowbump (he still had on the blood-spattered rubber gloves), and led them into the waiting room, mentioning he was looking to get them outta there as soon as possible.

Specter gave them a wave, then The Peacock went over to have a chat with Emma.  They apologized for the gunshot wounds/kidnapping/brain surgery, but she was understandably hostile, and refused to acknowledge that they were her sibling.  The Peacock claimed that they were just looking out for Mary Jane, but Emma scoffed and asked how street criminals could provide better medical care than one of the big three corps in the city.  When they talked about doctors, did they mean more people like "Chromedome"?

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 23: Emergency Brain Surgery

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "The Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Takeoff

Jar broke into the electronic locks and hotwired the AV while Paxos and The Peacock dragged Specter and Emma aboard, followed by Mary Jane on the stretcher.  Paxos tried to Jam all the trackers in everyone/everything, but failed due to the euphoria from the uppers she was on, which meant Jar was going to have to do some open-brain surgery (with only a first aid kit) to disable/remove everything before they switched to the getaway AV under the overpass in Japantown.  He started on Mary Jane as The Peacock throttled up the thrusters and they lifted off.

A single large drone shot out of a magnetic launcher and opened up with a hail of fire from its gun, but The Peacock was able to put sufficient distance between them for it to be ineffective.  As they flew away, something in Mary Jane's skull started beeping, and Jar shouted for The Peacock to turn around: she had a cranial bomb installed and it looked like it was rigged to blow if she got too far away from Militech Tower.  They took the AV back into a circling pattern around the tower to stall for time, but Jar would need 8 minutes, which was an eternity when fleeing from armed drones.

More drones were launching every minute from the launchers, and soon enough an entire swarm was after them, but The Peacock outmaneuvered them with ease with the luxury AV's superior handling and speed.  It was all going too smoothly, so nobody was surprised when an NCPD attack helicopter swooped up from the skyscrapers and commanded them over the radio to land or be fired upon.  Rather than landing, The Peacock went off in a tighter spiraling pattern around and down the tower.  Trying to keep up, a pair of the severely-outclassed drones rammed into one of the AV landing pads on the side of the tower, sending it plunging down to the streets below.