GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 17: Job Interview

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Plans Within Plans

Peacock reached out to an old buddy, Walker O'heron, who owed them a favour and learned that the passkeys held by Kazumi Kanata and Yorinobu were probably the zetatech K-series, but when Paxos dove into the 'Saka net to confirm this, she got zapped by a black ICE databomb that had been left in the financial documents.  Flames shot out of her neural port and cybereyes, but she was able to jack out and then put out the fires before they got any worse.  Still, it put her in the hospital for a few days while she got skin grafts.  While she was recovering, she went through the photos Jennifer Thracker had taken from inside Arasaka Tower and compiled what useful information she could.

Peacock, meanwhile, went to Corpo Plaza with the intent of observing the tower security and maybe lip-reading employees on smoke breaks but unexpectedly struck gold: some HR employee was going on a rant to a coworker in Reconciliation Park (while never once turning away from where Peacock was watching!) about how a whole bunch of security staff had jumped ship to one of the other factions over this conflict with Kang Tao.  Apparently, Arasaka was hiring, and for once they were looking explicitly for non-japanese applicants with no scruples to become bodyguards for mid-level execs.

The next day, Peacock came back when work let out with a badge scanner hidden in a laptop bag to get some credentials for the techies to work with.  They had to get almost right up against people to scan them, but that wasn't a problem with the crowd.  While that was happening, Paxos was scouring Arasaka press releases, hoping she'd find something that would require the execs to access the data vault on their own.  Unfortunately, the closest thing she found was Yojimbo Kageki 3, a video game that wasn't due for digital release for several weeks.  Even if it was in the vault, it was past their deadline anyway.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 16: Request of the Clone

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Personal Details

Paxos sent her boyfriend, Mitch, into the bedroom and gave him a pistol "in case", then buzzed over the intercom to ask the clone at her door what she wanted.  The young girl said she was looking for Ruby Lang, a woman who might lived here at one point.  Maybe she knew her?  Paxos asked why she was looking for her, and the clone said she needed her help with a job stealing software from Arasaka.  Paxos examined the girl on the camera for a bit then Pinged her to scan for weapons, but ultimately figured she was sincere (and unarmed) and let her in.

The clone looked like she was 10 or 11, but clones almost always aged at an altered rate, so that didn't mean much.  They sat down on the couch and, after Paxos confirmed that she was Ruby, the girl made her request.  She wanted Paxos to steal a program from Arasaka, and in exchange, the girl would give her legitimate credentials to a corpo datafortress.  Paxos eyed the girl warily; while it depended on the corp, those credentials were tens of thousands of eddies at the minimum.  Before agreeing to anything, she wanted to know who the clone was working for, and how she'd found her.

She insisted she'd come on her own and was only working with her sisters, and that she'd found her name and old address in a collection of files available to someone called "Ruslan Sokolov" that had been left behind by an employee who had been terminated.  There had been some sort of shakeup, leaving Sokolov out of the picture but the data was still around, and she'd gotten access.  With that, she'd gone to Paxos' old landlord and was able to get her current address with a bit more investigating.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 15: Fencing a Brainchip

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Layin' Low

By the time the crew left the safehouse and walked out into the cool rain, it was already halfway through October.  They decided to keep a low profile through to November to give the heat some time to clear before they took on any new jobs or tried to fence the bioware.  Once that was done, they went out shopping for new gear and furthering their goals; Peacock in particular picked up a heavy tech pistol so they could punch through armour.  Specter bribed the front-desk employees of the No-Tell Motel to let him know when someone worth blackmailing came through so that he could send a gang underling to take incriminating photos.  Paxos did more research into Peru to get a sense for the local language, and also started learning Spanish.

Peacock, meanwhile, started carjacking people to get some vehicles for their taxi company.  A risky proposition, but they didn't see any consequences so far.  During the day, they would look into the shard they'd gotten from Jennifer Thracker several months ago, the one about the Militech operation that had been cloning their sister Mary Jane, and came out with two names.  Jackie Wu, one of Specter's many ex-girlfriends, was a Militech exec in charge of the cloning program, and had provided their Mary's DNA.  Rin Shimamura, an Arasaka scientist (and recent defector from Yorinobu's faction to Michiko's), had provided the patents and formulae needed for the brain implants and the firmitas anti-psychotic.

They decided to start looking into Shimamura, as she was lower ranking, and tracked down someone at Arasaka who might know more: Bonya Slade, who was Jar's ex-lover.  Specter continued strengthening the Wingless Dragon Gang's position by stealing a shipment of cyberware from Maelstrom and planting it at a Tyger Claws hideout.  The death rate in Watson doubled overnight.  Paxos did another course of luxury therapy, and felt much better about all the killing.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 14: The Konpeki Plaza Heist

Characters:

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

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Getting In

While the others were out shopping, Paxos got a cybereye installed to make use of Chyron.  With their disguises in place (except for Jar, who as usual wore his signature white leather vest and matching pants), the crew boarded a motorboat on loan from Peacock's Nomad family and took it out into the bay.  Peacock shut off the engine and used the waves to maneuver it into a concealed location along the Arasaka Waterfront.  Everybody put on their borrowed scuba gear, put their gear into the drybags, and dove into the murky, polluted water.

Specter found the maintenance pipe entrance and cut off the bars of the grate, then the crew swum inside and up into the belly of Konpeki Plaza.  When they emerged inside the raw concrete maze of B3, Paxos and Jar were exhausted, but with no time to rest, the crew stripped off their wetsuits and re-equipped.  Peacock was keeping watch and saw an Arasaka heavy walking towards the maintenance corridor they'd arrived in.  At their insistence, Paxos, half-dressed in her stolen Danger Gal outfit, waddled over and started hacking into the commnet.  She only just finished breaking in before the guard arrived, and was able to send him away with a spoofed message from another guard asking to be relieved.

The crew finished getting dressed and headed out to the elevators with Paxos in the lead, Pinging and Controlling cameras to hide them as they walked past.  The rest of the floor seemed to be empty of personnel, so they arrived without further issue.  Specter pried the doors open then climbed up an emergency ladder two stories to B1, followed by Jar and Peacock, while Paxos kept watch; the cooler they'd brought along for the bioware was just tied off of Specter and clanged against the B2 doors, probably drawing attention.  Jar also struggled and slipped, kicking the door on his way past.

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".