00:00 January 1 1970, A White Room - Escape
Three androids booted up on tables in a stark white lab, with a man in a labcoat standing over them, with a message reading "WARNING - LOW POWER - 6 DAYS REMAINING" flashing in the corners of their HUDs. They ran their introductory protocols, which announced their designation, purpose, and noted "flaws" in their programming.
The first to speak, a man a trenchcoat and trilby hat, was Inspectron, an ill-tempered and curious investigation and interrogation unit with basic electronic warfare suite and remote operated recon drone.
The second, clad in a getup that screamed "cowboy", complete with ten-gallon hat, was Gundroid-16, a combat unit most capable with concealed small arms, which had issues with following orders and leaving targets alive.
The third, a rather attractive business man in a modern suit, was Cleverbot, social infiltration and coercion specialist with a lust for wealth and jealous streak.
Now that the three androids were online, the man in the labcoat introduced himself as Dr. Isaac Barkley, and told them that they needed to go through the door across the lab, take the card from the security guard standing watch, and then leave the facility. He then turned and left via an elevator recessed in the wall. Inspectron headed towards a terminal to look up building plans, but Gundroid decided on immediate action (failed Impulsiveness) and walked towards the door, which slid open vertically to reveal a surprised looking human man, who Gundroid immediately punched in the face.
This didn't immediately down the man, nor did a follow-up punch to the throat, which was dodged, and the guard drew his pistol and fired a wild shot that just put a small hole in the wall. Inspectron ran over to grab the guard, but this proved unnecessary, as Gundroid deployed the twin laser pistols concealed in his wrists and fried the man's brain with a burst of laser light through the eye. Gundroid flipped up the man's pistol into his hand, remembered to pick up his ID badge, and then headed right down the concrete hallway, shooting out a pair of cameras on the way, while Inspectron and Cleverbot followed, held hostage by their comrade's recklessness.
Just as they passed through a door to another lab which had machines fabricating metal limbs, a mechanical dog with a heavy gun on its back came into the far end of the hallway, and headed towards them. In the lab, Inspectron found a hatch into the ventilation and, with Cleverbot's help, pulled it off, while Gundroid waited beside the door with his wrist lasers at the ready. The metallic clank of the dogbot got louder and louder until it walked into the lab, eyes glowing red. It scanned Gundroid... and found the guard's ID.
The dogbot's eyes changed to a benign green and it barked happily before retreating back down the hallway. Gundroid informed the others via internal radio that the dog was pacified, and trailed after it until coming to the next intersection, where there was a security checkpoint, manned by a guard facing the other direction, and a metal detector in front of an elevator. The others caught up, and seeing that Gundroid was creeping up on this guard as well, Cleverbot Mind Controlled the guard to walk over to the elevator and open the door with his badge.
Gundroid snapped the guard's neck anyway (failed Bloodlust), stole his SMG and badge, and the party loaded up in the elevator and hit the "G" button as they heard more robotic barking coming down the hall. Gundroid passed the second badge to Cleverbot, saying that it would protect him from the robot dogs. The elevator doors opened to reveal a raised office overlooking a lobby emblazoned with a logo on the floor declaring this to be TriOpticon, where three security guards manned a checkpoint with some sort of scanner. Several office workers looked on in surprise as three oddly-dressed men, one holding two guns, walked into the office.
Gundroid stowed the guns, and the party tried to "inconspicuously" make their way to a set of doors which looked to lead to an outdoor balcony past a group of cubicles, but the security guards yelled at Cleverbot to stop and ran up to ask him some questions. He claimed to be a "big investor" here to "check up" on "things", and easily convinced the guards to let him go.
The party went through the doors and into the chilly night air, onto a concrete balcony where a couple of wageslaves were on smoke break. They headed down a ramp to street level, and, once there, their internal computers connected to the future-internet/Matrix , their vision flooded with a cacophany of augmented reality ads, and they found out where and when they actually were.
19:06 November 5th 2077, Seattle Metroplex
Before the party could do about anything, a white van with two men in front pulled up and the driver yelled at them to get in. They piled into the back, which was apparently stocked with a veritable armoury of small arms as well as a cornucopia of various gadgetry, which triggered a slight flashback as they all realized that they knew not only what these things were, but how to use them. Inspectron tried to grab a holdout pistol but was told to put it back by the man in the passenger seat.
After a few minutes, the van came to a stop, the driver told the party to get out, and they found themselves in front of the Gravity Well Bar. The passenger told them to go inside and meet Mr. Adams, and then the van sped away; Gundroid headed in immediately and the other two hurried to catch up. Inside, the bar was fairly full, and low, pulsing music and voices filled the air. A pair of trolls, 9' tall humanoids with thick skin, curly horns, and huge muscles, stood guard in front of the VIP area, and Gundroid went to speak with them.
He said he was here to talk with Mr. Adams, and when the troll asked who he was, replied "here to talk with Mr. Adams, that's who I am". Before this dialogue devolved into inevitable violence, Cleverbot spoke up and announced that they were here to get a table ready for a pop starlet ("uh, Britney... Sbeers"), which was good enough; a server quickly led them into not just the VIP area, but the lavishly appointed VVIP basement, where they were sat at a gold and ivory plated table. The room was empty save for one man in a suit and his two orc guards.
The server took orders and everybody got water (because they had no money) for now, and Cleverbot went over to the man at the other table and introduced himself as an associate of Dr. Barkley here to see Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams asked why Barkley wasn't with them, and Cleverbot, not knowing why himself, responded simply that Barkley had been "delayed". At this, Adams gestured to his guards, who pulled out oversized revolvers, which they aimed threateningly at Cleverbot.
Despite some attempts to defuse the situation, the guns stayed out, and Adams asked if they had spent time in "the shadows", to which Cleverbot replied that he'd run a shadow or two in the past. This seemed to please Adams, and he made them an offer: do a job to earn his trust, and he would honour the agreement he had made with Barkley to supply them with housing and equipment. Cleverbot agreed, called over the others, and they introduced themselves as Clever B, G-16, and John.
Adams seemed to know something of the party's origins, though not the whole picture, and told them that he needed some things from a man named Arcade; a pro hacker who had gotten some cyberware with loans from Mr. Adams. Turns out, Arcade had missed the last two week's payments, so their job would be to go and repo the renegade hacker's 'ware. He passed them a file containing a high-res photo of Arcade, who turned out to be an orc with a rather distinctive rainbow mohawk.
Mr. Adams informed them that he had quite a bit of equipment available for their mission in another van in the parking lot, as well as a red Mazda 16 for their use, and Gundroid immediately headed out to load up. Cleverbot then tried to negotiate for more pay, and both parties agreed on 2000¥, which a cursory future-googling turned up to be enough for one month's living in a bad apartment.
Legwork
After confirming that Arcade was too skilled a hacker for Inspectron to deal with, the party grabbed some gear, weapons, and a credstick with 500¥ out of the van (affectionately nicknamed the Murderwagon) in the parking lot and used future-Yelp to navigate to the "Crash Site", a hacker dive bar, in the Mazda. Gundroid decided to stay in the car and find something good on the radio ("There is nothing but J-Pop").
The clientele were predominantly orcs and trolls, and asking after Arcade got them directed to Razor and Razorwire ("I know, dumb names, right?"), a pair of orcs drinking off in a corner booth. R&R claimed to not have seen Arcade for about 3 years, but after a small bribe to jog his memory, one of them (Razor?) sent Cleverbot Arcade's contact info. A quick trace by Inspectron using the commlink (a super smartphone) he had grabbed from the Murderwagon was able to narrow down Arcade's location to the Jewel, a run-down hotel in the Redmond Barrens.
The Jewel
Though the Matrix in the Barrens was spotty, they had little difficulty navigating to the Jewel, a two-floor worn-out hotel with many smashed windows and a failed neon sign. Inspectron did recon with his drone, using its ability to scan through walls to identify potential rooms with orcs inside, though most of them had blinds closed, so they couldn't confirm if any of them were Arcade. Some more recon revealed that the front desk was manned by a humanoid drone, and that armed gangers were playing cards in a room behind it.
The party eventually decided to climb through a broken ground floor window, and went out into the hallway, where Inspectron picked open the lock on one of the suspected rooms, which had some other orc drugged out unconscious on the bed. They then headed upstairs to the second possible room, walking past a camera on the way, and opened the door to find Arcade drooling and lying on the floor. A quick inspection revealed him to be using a Better-Than-Life chip (think a VR movie mixed with heroin) plugged into his cybernetic interface.
Cleverbot used his Mind Control and established full control, pulling him out of the sim and, after stealing all of his valuables (12000¥ of cold, digital cash and a decent commlink), started to head back to the car to transport Arcade back to the Gravity Well to place him in Adams' "care". On the way out, they were accosted by a pair of troll gangers who asked Arcade why he was leaving; through Arcade, Cleverbot convinced them that the party were escorting him somewhere. Some of the trolls tried to follow them in their car, but Gundroid gave them the slip, and they made it back to the Gravity Well without issue.
The Gravity Well
Arcade was zip-tied in the Murderwagon with Gundroid watching him, and the others went inside the bar and into the VVIP area, where Adams was waiting with a pair of elven women on his arms. He handed over a set of keys to an apartment nearby, took the Mazda keys back, and sent the elves with them to pick up Arcade out of the Murderwagon, which the party took to their new living place. Thanks to the fact that they didn't need sleep, the party had a chance to do some research.
Cleverbot checked the news and found that TriOpticon were brushing off their escape (and the two dead guards) as a "radiation leak". He then went gambling, and lost 3000¥ to some guy named Big Money Erik. Gundroid did some research on where to find replacement power packs for his implanted laser pistols, and found that they were prototypes from TriOpticon, and unavailable for purchase. Inspectron tried to find where to get more power cells, but again, only TriOpticon made them. Once done, he slotted some of Arcade's BTLs and went into power-saver mode.
November 6th 2077, Renton - 5 Days Remaining
The party went back to the Gravity Well to meet with Adams again, where they found him meeting with Dr. Barkley, who apologized for being late, as he had to deal with some loose ends before leaving TriOpticon. Adams then made them another job offer: guard a meeting in the VVIP area at the Gravity Well at midnight tonight, in exchange for 2900¥ each. They were to make sure that nobody uninvited got in or eavesdropped.
The party came up with a plan: Cleverbot would be out front, posing as a host, verifying identities and confiscating weapons/deactivating cyberware. Gundroid would be on the roof, under a chameleon cloak and carrying a rifle, keeping an eye out for anybody sneaking up, supported by the drone. Inspectron would be at the meet itself, monitoring for any errant signals of bugs or drones.
Midnight
With the party in position, the guests started to show up; first, Stonehead, a troll bruiser who came alone. Cleverbot was easily able to tell he wasn't lying, but the next guest, an elf woman going by Zephyr, was too charming to get a good read on. As she walked inside, the drone picked up movement in the alley behind the Gravity Well on its thermal cameras, and Gundroid overlaid its image over his eyes as the intruder climbed up the wall and onto the roof.
Still hidden by his chameleon cloak, Gundroid waited for the intruder to turn his back, and then tased him in the neck, choked him out, and then hogtied and gagged him. He then removed the man's helmet, and was able to hear somebody say "T-minus 5 minutes" over its speakers before the line went dead. The rest of the groups showed up, and the meeting started, but 5 minutes later Cleverbot and Gundroid heard sirens in the distance.
The drone was sent out to see the source, and saw a trio of SWAT vans incoming, with TriOpticon logos on the side. Inspectron informed Mr. Adams, and the meeting was abruptly called off, and the guests shuffled off into the parking lot out the underground door. Inspectron and Cleverbot ran out to the Murderwagon and pulled up out back of the Gravity Well; Gundroid tossed their prisoner down and loaded him into the back of the van before he got into the driver's seat and sped off.
Notes:
Cleverbot's 50 bonus points went towards straight up Mind Control. Inspectron picked up a bunch of miscellaneous skills to round out the group and the drone. Gundroid has various things that make him more killy, in particular a "Wired Reflexes" package made up of Altered Time Rate, Extra Attack, and Enhanced Dodge, which can only be active for a limited time before recharging.
When ordering drinks at the Gravity Well, Inspectron's player asked if the menu items were just code for drugs/weapons/something. We then joked that this would read something like "Israeli 9mm Sirloin Steak, 30-round magazine".
Inspectron technically has Alcoholism, but given that androids don't drink, it's been adapted into an Addiction to BTLs.
The guard job inadvertently established a bit of setting info: mages are far more rare than in Shadowrun. This was mostly so we wouldn't have to worry about dealing with magic, which none of us have any way to counter.
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