Characters:
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner
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.
Paxos tried to hack one of the drivers, but between the distance, speed, and plethora of other targets getting in the way, couldn't pull it off. Peacock continued to swerve wildly, avoiding most of the hail of gunfire but Emma landed a precision slug in the gas tank. As the needle rapidly drained to empty, Specter stuck his head back out the window and fired his last rocket: this time, it collided with the SUV's engine block, sending up a giant plume of smoke.
Their car was going to take a bit to slow down from 70mph, but they needed a new ride, and Peacock coasted it up alongside a woman who had pulled over. Specter jumped out and punched a hole in her window, which Peacock shot their stun gun through. Unfortunately, she wasn't totally subdued, and upon seeing this, Peacock dropped the stun gun, drew a heavy pistol and shot her dead. While she convulsed, they ripped her out of the seat and onto the asphalt.
Jar and Paxos, meanwhile, popped their old ride's trunk and frantically carried Scarlet over to the new car. Just as the Militech SUVs were catching up, they all finished piling inside and sped off as the Peacockmobile went up in a cloud of smoke. The Militech goons got a bit overeager and fired off long bursts of gunfire, but mostly missed, and a pair of rifles even jammed. Even so, Specter took a bullet to the torso and probably questioned whether he should upgrade his leather armour.
He retaliated with a burst from his own rifle, which sent oil flying out of the engine, causing the SUV to careen off the elevated highway in a ball of fire as the driver lost control. Meanwhile, Paxos breached into the system of the second driver and started working on shutting down his eyes. To make things easier, Peacock eased off the CHOOH and pulled back to alongside the remaining SUV. They tried to talk to their sister but it was apparent she couldn't understand him over the roar of the engines.
As the driver's cybereyes shut down thanks to Paxos' hackery, Specter hit him with a spray of bullets for good measure, and the crew sped off into the night. They ditched the stolen car in Northside and hustled the bound and gagged Scarlet through the streets to Medved Imports, giving The Raven a call only a few minutes before their arrival. The Raven was pissed when they arrived on foot, shouting that it would bring the heat, but the PC's just dropped Scarlet on the floor and (after receiving the shards with their pay, of course), they left.
Laying Low
Peacock just went back to their place while the rest of the crew took the NCART to Warsaw's phone in Rancho to arrange for a safehouse. Sure enough, their stunt the night before had made the morning screamsheets, and they needed a place to lay low for a while. Warsaw had the perfect place for them: the basement of the abandoned YumSnaxx factory. The best part? It was right on the side of the highway where the shootout had happened. ("They'll never think to look for you there! Who would be so stupid? And that's why it's genius!").
Before dropping off the face of the earth for a few weeks, Paxos gave her boyfriend, Mithradates, a call. It was 3AM and the call woke him up, but there was no time for pleasantries: she told him he had to leave their place ASAP and go find somewhere else to stay for a while. She'd be off the grid and he shouldn't try to contact her. Just before hanging up, he told her that someone had slid a letter under their front door. On closer examination, it had the Militech logo in the corner. Paxos told him not to open it, said goodbye, and then followed the others down into the safehouse.
While the others bunkered down in a dingy basement for three weeks, Peacock just laid low in their relatively luxurious two-bedroom apartment. They were kept appraised, and it seemed like the NCPD were hot on their trail even though they'd gone into the safehouse, so they cut their losses and went home for another week, figuring that after a full month they'd be okay to get back to biz.
Upon returning home, Paxos examined the Militech letter (with forceps, while wearing a gas mask) and found that it contained a simple message: "If you're ever looking for more stability and security from the dangers in Night City, consider joining Militech!". It was signed by Cedar Stein, a mid-level exec in recruitment. They'd kept tabs on her even after the move, which wasn't necessarily surprising, but it was annoying. When she finally turned back on her agent's connection, she also had over 100 missed messages, all from one person.
The Big Leagues
Lin Ru, her Kang Tao "partner", had apparently wanted to get in touch because he "has a job for you :)", which quickly turned into "hey, uhh, you alive?" and "Yo my boss is pressuring me to get this done, where are you?". Paxos gave him a ring on the holo and Lin answered immediately. He said they didn't have time, so they were going to be foregoing the traditional "meet and greet" and fixer to get to the point: they were going to rob Konpeki Plaza.
Though it was famously secure as the heart of Michiko's faction at Arasaka, the cruise missile hit two months prior had left some openings in security. Plus, he had a pair of tricks that'd make things easier, a worm that'd open backdoors to make hacking easier, and a "big distraction" he could use when the crew called for it. For such a high-priority job, the pay would be 10keb... each. Paxos haggled another 4k out of him, then asked for the details.
While he didn't have any more intel to pass along, Lin had some info on the target: a bioware brain mod ("So you're lookin' for something pink and spongey"). He passed along a photo which, sure enough, showed what looked like just a chunk of brain matter. It would need to be refrigerated, which should narrow down their search. Paxos examined it a bit more closely and realized this was an advanced version of the prototype they'd klepped from the BioDyne truck months ago. Maybe they'd worked out the encephalitis by now?
Lin continued that this was ASAP but there was technically no hard deadline. And again, if they needed a distraction on the day of, Paxos could just call him on a secure line, and he'd create a big distraction. It might bring in some more heat later, but it'd get 'em out of Konpeki alive. Drop-off point was the deep-freeze of a SCOP'n'Slop Downtown.
Notes:
Peacock has 3 sisters, two of whom are Enemies (Jane, Emma), while the last is a background mystery (Mary-Jane).
Pat Watson is apparently a reference to a Skullgirls character. The player figured he needed to make a fighting game reference after Jar's character came up with the much more obvious "Braxton Jiggs".
The woman in the car is the first innocent person anybody in the crew has gunned down in cold blood.
They left Paxos' stun gun at the scene of the murder, with Peacock's fingerprints.
Jar did fire his shotgun occasionally during the chase but missed every time. Skill-12 couldn't deal with the -7 (or worse) range penalties they were at most of the time, not to mention Bulk.
Rolled randomly to see how Scarlet was after the shootout(s) and she never got hit (a natural 6).
The PCs know that Militech is cooperating with one of the branches of Arasaka, but they don't really know which, and they don't know which branch Emma Watson's with.
Paying for a safehouse is very expensive (2k/week), but greatly reduces the odds of the cops/corps tracking you down. Or, it should, but they rolled extremely well, so 2/3 weeks were unaffected.
There was some discussion on shared cost of living, which is banned due to balance concerns (though it would be funny for the min-max on this to be a giant polycule). PC-PC cohabitation is ruled as impossible because they're all larger-than-life personalities who clash on many core beliefs, but what stops PC-NPC cohabitation between eg Paxos and her bf? The answer we came up with is that if they live together, the other half of the rent still has to be spent on something, and it was suggested that it be spent on date nights. Must be pretty fancy at $1k/mo.
Specter wondered if the "distraction" was that missile drone they'd sabotaged two missions back.
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