GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 13: An Appropriate Amount of Preparation

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Legwork

Paxos started off the research into the Konpeki Plaza job by looking into 'Saka public records to see if there were any third-party cleaning or maintenance crews they could infiltrate, but no, they did everything in-house in typical zaibatsu style.  However, they did have contracts with two security companies: the obvious internal one, but also a contract with Danger Gal, Michiko Arasaka's business.  Meanwhile, Specter and Peacock took a harbor tour to inspect the hotel from the water.

Specter successfully convinced the captain to get closer to "the building that got hit by a cruise missile" because that was "badass", which made it easier for Peacock to spot the submerged sewage pipes, which seemed to be relatively unsecured; they'd just have to cut through some bars.  The ground level was a no-go, with a veritable swarm of turrets, cameras, and guards.  Equally foreboding, they saw nobody leave or enter via the main entrance the whole time they were on the boat, which suggested they were highly insular, and sneaking in pretending to be a janitor was probably a tall order.

Jar, doing the bare minimum to pose as an electrician, went to get records from the city and sweet-talked a clerk into giving him the sewage and electrical layouts for the docks around Konpeki.  They were outdated, but with Specter and Peacock's expertise, Paxos was able to determine (roughly) how everything should line up on the inside of the hotel.  There'd be a pipe they should be able to squeeze through going through part of subbasement level 3, though they'd have to cut their way out.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 12: Hot Pursuit

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

High Octane

The crew briefly discussed whether they wanted to hand Scarlet over to the mob, but it quickly became apparent that nobody objected too strongly, so they got back into the car and started to drive back into Night City.  On a stretch of highway in Rancho Coronado, an SUV changed lanes to be in front of them, then opened its rear hatch, revealing a trio of gunmen.  Two were heavily-armored with rifles, while the third was a woman with a third arm (giving her two on the right shoulder), wearing only light athletic wear, ponytail flapping in the wind: Peacock's sister, Emma.  All wore the navy uniform with yellow highlights of Militech.

She fired a slug at the Peacockmobile, but Peacock swerved to the side, avoiding it, and the chase was on.  A second Militech SUV ran up from behind and more armoured goons opened fire while hanging out the side windows.  Peacock floored it and hopped over the lane divider into oncoming traffic.  While the SUVs followed suit, they were steadily losing ground.  While the rest of the goons opened fire but mostly just scraped the paint, Emma opened fire with the smart SMG in her third hand, the gyrojets arcing over the car to collide with the hood, hoping to disable the engine.

As they wove through other drivers, the Militech goons still managed a few lucky shots, and Emma sent a slug at their tires, but it bounced off the rim.  Peacock turned hard to the right, taking them onto the on-ramp to the elevated highway, and into Charter Hills.  Traffic got increasingly bad as they got further and further into the city, and while a slug from Emma slammed into Paxos' torso, her runner suit stopped it, and Specter responded by returning fire with his RPG, though the driver dodged and the rocket spiraled off harmlessly into the sky before exploding.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 11: Tracing Scarlet

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

A Chat With Gold

Casey Gold's gold-plated fingers and noseplate made the origins of his name obvious, and Jar went into his shop to talk with him.  Posing as a friend who was worried about Scarlet, he asked if he'd seen her.  Casey eyed Jar up and said that he had, and that it had been crazy.  She'd been off the grid for a year, then showed up out of nowhere three nights ago to rob the place.  He'd come in with a shotgun and caught her with vials of immunosuppressants in one hand and a half-eaten scopburger in the other.  By the time he'd realized who she was, she'd drawn a handgun and started blasting, yelling incoherently; the only word he'd made out over the gunfire was "Arasaka".

He dove for cover, and Scarlet took off in the confusion, leaving only a pile of MacDonnell's wrappers and partially eaten burgers.  Jar asked (technically Paxos did, but only Jar was in the shop) if the suppressants would have any RFID trackers, but Casey winked and said he picked up a lot of things second-hand, if you know what I mean.  As for how long the suppressants would last, he had no idea.  Last time she'd been in, she'd just had a 'deck and some minor stuff like eyes, which meant the vials she'd grabbed would last her months.  But if she had new chrome?  Who could say.

Having gained all the info they could, the crew piled back into the Peacockmobile and drove to Northside to check out Scarlet's old apartment, which Specter had remembered after some time to think on it.  On the way, Jar examined the security footage they'd taken from outside the brothel and determined that Scarlet had gotten a whole lot more 'ware in the last year: a neural port, hidden holster, three shard slots, and what looked like some sort of modified doll suite.  Paxos asked if that could turn her into a remote-controlled assassin, to which Jar answered "Maybe".

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 10: The High Seas

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Setting Sail

Before nightfall, the crew finished up some last-minute preparations.  To avoid the freighter's sensors, Jar covered Peacock's speedboat in radar absorbent paint.  Specter picked up some smart glasses with night vision lenses.  Paxos went over the shipping manifests to see if there was anything else worth grabbing, but it was slim pickings.  There was merch for the Night City Corsairs (the city's football team), a lot of bulk seafood, various athletic wear, mostly shoes, and several dozen containers of rice.  

Under heavy cloud cover, they boarded the speedboat and set out for the Chim Bồ Câu, and several hours later Peacock brought them alongside.  It was an older vessel, and thick layers of paint suggested it had been renamed multiple times.  Specter fired a grapple gun at a railing above and then climbed up.  At one point he lost his footing on the slippery surface, but he managed to make it to the top without falling into the drink.

Once up top, he moved to the shadows, careful to avoid the tiny gecko drones that were watching for intruders, and started looking through the stacks of crates for the ones they were interested in.  40 minutes later, Peacock comm'd to ask what was taking so long, and finally discovered that Specter had gotten distracted and had just been marveling at being on a boat for the first time.  They snapped him out of it, and he got back to searching for their containers, but couldn't find them.  After a bit of debate, Paxos climbed up another rope to the deck.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 9: Child Protective Services

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     Absent
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Preparations

Paxos dug around some more in the Militech Genetronics systems, injecting fake security IDs and editing the work schedule as she did.  According to their intel from Jennifer Thracker, the guards rotated out every 4 hours, with those in the control room switching to patrol and those on patrol going home, which meant two members of the crew would be in the control room entirely unsupervised.  With some further digging, she found and downloaded a bunch of encrypted files related to the black site, which she'd crack later.

Meanwhile, Peacock learned through continued observation that the cleaners were from Squeek-E-Kleen, which was an external contractor.  They also saw that the researchers were dropped off and picked up by "taxis" that were definitely just undercover Militech shuttles, meaning they were only on the street for maybe a total of two minutes a day, which would make establishing some line of communication difficult.  Paxos probed around the systems for Thracker's corpo apartment, but unsurprisingly it also had heavy security: the weak point was definitely the black site.

Paxos got around to cracking the files she'd grabbed, and there was some useful data.  In addition to invoices that revealed what exact model of security equipment was used, they also contained a pile of safety and operational procedures.  The children were referred to as "biological equipment", and if they died they were to simply be removed by the cleaners.  Specter and Paxos got biomonitors installed, as all the guards were supposed to have them, though theirs wouldn't be connected to the Militech systems.  Peacock went and grabbed some rope, handcuffs, and duct tape ($1 a roll?  What a deal!) from "Kidnaps R Us".

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 8: Headhunting

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     Absent
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

No Rest For The Wicked

While the others divvied up the take from the last job, Peacock took their new van back to the warehouse where they were storing their vehicles and gave it a tune up.  Or, that's what they wanted to do, but they quickly found out that it would need a full engine replacement; it was a miracle it had made it all the way from Pacifica.  After that, they bought a trailer and towed it and the van out into the Badlands in a concealed box canyon for their family to hide out after the inevitable jailbreak.

The others were annoyed when they were informed that Fred Runt, a street kid techie that Jar was acquainted with, had just flooded the market for cheap cyberware.  They elected to wait it out and split the 'ware between Jar's place and Paxos' place, though they still fenced the guns for a few hundred each.  Paxos and Specter then did a weeklong therapy regimen each, which Paxos really ended up needing, because her apartment flooded.  Most of the cyberware was good, though a couple eyes were ruined, but a bunch of furniture and clothes had to be repaired while she lived out of a hotel for a few days.  The guys the landlord called in to do the work were confused because apparently the damaged pipe had been cut clean through with an angle grinder (Paxos: "Militeeeeeech!").

While she was still dealing with the fallout of the flood, Paxos also broke worked on breaking the encryption on some NUSA government databases to prep her new identity.  Peacock slotted a news shard and picked out a date for their family's jailbreak: during a big parade when the NCPD in Santo would be busy elsewhere.  Specter meanwhile went to Thumbs, an old buddy of his who ran a sex dungeon, and scored some used couches and a sweet sound system for his gang hideout, which helped get some new recruits.  In exchange, he had to act as muscle for a drug deal going down in Kabuki with the Tyger Claws, which ended up being uneventful.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 7: Ow My Legs

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Breaking and Entering

After a slight detour to pick up a replacement agent for Paxos from a vending machine, the crew returned to the Luxura Hotel, and by the time they got back it was around 3AM.  While the others discussed how to go about searching a 30-story tower, Specter vanished (except for his floating clothes) using his Chameleon Skin, then went in and scouted out the lobby, which was empty.  There were a couple security cameras but they were all obviously destroyed, either aiming down or just lying on the ground amid the piles of garbage bags.  The lobby was open to the sea air, the all-glass exterior having long-ago been destroyed, and everything was corroded and moldy, the walls covered in bright pink grafitti.

It looked like the main elevator was still in working order, and there was a staircase they could take if it wasn't.  Specter returned and they decided to try to find a squatter on a lower floor to tell them what areas of the hotel the gang controlled.  Taking the stairs, they prowled through the second floor, eventually finding a locked hotel room, and Jar picked the lock using his tech hand.  When they opened the door, it jangled a primitive alarm made of tin cans full of cutlery and the inhabitant, a haggard looking bearded man, grabbed a shotgun and yelled at them incoherently.

Jar closed the door and they decided to just scope out the building one floor at a time, going from the top down.  The elevator was even more nasty than the lobby, the shiny metal walls dulled from layers of brown grime.  Floor 30 was a ruin, partially collapsed, with basketball-sized holes in the walls, probably from that helicopter strafing run a year ago.  They crept down the stairs to the 29th floor, which was similar, except that there were patchwork security cameras watching the stairs, and the bank of rooms across from them looked to have been repaired.