Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Maria: An ex-Russian Commander who now spends most of her time drowning her sorrows.
Charis aka Pixie: An intelligent, good-looking, self-medicated medtech. She is usually delusional. But she's getting better.
Scotty: A Ripperdoc whose shop is being used as a base. He's very popular with the local gangs for obvious reasons.
S.A.R.V.: A nearly psychotic boosterganger recently kicked out of Maelstrom. This guy is armed to the "fangs".
Tat: A quiet solo. No one knows much about him.
Neo: ex-poser ganger. Netrunner that is usually wishing that he wasn't in RL. (Real Life)
Black Plague: A quiet old solo with more than enough experience and an interesting past.
O'Flaherty: Scotty's uncle. He runs a bar a block from Scotty's place. He also harbors IRA terrorists and supplies them with weaponry in his free time.
Aunt May: Black Plague's dead aunt turned psychotic AI. She was a little weird before her mind went through the blender (aka Soulkiller alpha). Now she thinks it’s her job to "fix" the world.
RAS: RAS was picked up when the party attacked Maelstrom. He is SARV's only friend and has been the only thing that has kept him alive for these 28 years.
Everyone is hanging out at the Ripperdoc station towards midnight. There's a couple run for more ammo made, never hurts to be prepared. Maria, decides to take the opportunity to head out to the local bar, O'Flaherty's. Pixie gets bored and decides to join her. Maria idlely thumbs through advertisements for apartments as she watches the outside with little interest.
The rest of the party is settling down to sleep when Tat hears a chopper approaching. He is obviously too tired to care. About a minute later everyone is aroused from their half-sleep when the room is filled with floodlights.
A loud speakerphone voice announces, "Come out with your hands up Black Plague. We have you surrounded."
First, Scotty sets up a distraction by calling some of his juveganger friends next door. "Hey, there's a whole bunch of hot babes with big guns outside that want to see you." Nine of them sprinted through the door before they ever realized who the 'hot babes' were. The cops quickly tamped them all down with net guns and stun batons.
Next the party followed standard operating procedure and began to look for the nearest sewer access. Scotty opens up his trapdoor to the storage cellar. The plumbing in his Ripperdoc station was redone after the construction of the building so all the pipes ran along the outside of the bare concrete walls. There is no manhole in the basement however the toilet sits right on top of the main sewer access that goes to the building.
SARV tears off the toilet and pinches of the stray water pipes spraying in his face. Tat uses his new grapple arm to swing down and judge the distance to the bottom. The tunnel is about 3 feet across and rimmed with sewage and gunk the hole way down. The bottom is 9 feet down and no taller than it is wide, looks like we'll be crawling the hole way.
Upstairs can be heard the sounds of the police breaking in doors and windows, trashing the place looking for the culprit. Scotty decides to save anything he can unfortunately all the cyberlimbs are too big. He grabs a handful of syringes labeled "sedative". Then the group heads down the sewage-covered hole. Tat is leading and it's pitch black so he has to depend on Scotty's cyberoptic.
The group continues down the tunnel on hands and knees. SARV's back is scraping the ceiling the entire time. Neo has taken off his coat and has it wrapped around his cyberdeck. They are heading north, then the tunnel dodges left then right again. Soon there is a tunnel heading up. Tat climbs up it. Feels a bolt on the underside. From below Black Plague calls to keep going and follows suit. They pass another passage and stop at the third one. Tat heads up and uses Scotty's monoblade to cut off the bolt. It falls down on Scotty's head with a "thump, ow!"
Tat pears through the slit and sees what looks to be another storage cellar. This one is filled with wine, beer and assault weaponry. No people. He heads up to the top and everyone follows, happy to be out of the sewer. Everyone is drenched with sewage as they stand around trying to figure out where they are. Black Plague spots a menu labeled 'O'Flaherty's'. Scotty heads up the stairs and stops at the security door. SARV grabs a big, long box that says 'Grapes' on the side. Scotty knocks on the door, "Hello, is anybody there?"
Soon the owner appears at the door, "Scotty! What the frack are you doin in my basement! And why in heavens name are you covered in poo?" he asks with a thick Irish accent.
"Could we use your showers?"
"Well I can see why. Alright you can use the showers but... hey! Put my guns down." SARV refuses indignantly, looking like some nightmare of a child holding onto his favorite teddy bear. "If you don't put that down you aren't using my showers!" SARV gives up with a sigh and puts the guns down.
Meanwhile upstairs Maria has been watching the police show up and tear apart Scotty's building with mild amusement as she drinks her Vodka. She is making light talk with Pixie as they watch the helicopter fly again over the hordes of police in riot gear with their tanks and APC's. Seems a bit of overkill but it’s amusing. "Well they should be in the sewer's by now. I wonder if we should go meet them or if we should wait for them to shower off first." Pixie obviously doesn't know what Maria is talking about. She's just wondering what the alcohol is doing to her cells right now.
The group gets washed up by diving into a pair of showers with their clothes on. Well at least they don't stink quite as bad now. Maria greets them and Scotty asks if his uncle might have a tunnel. "Of course I doo you bonehead, how else do ya think I'd get my guns out of here." He leads them down into the basement and rummages around in one of the boxes. Then he closes the box and stands up to watch the nearby shelf of wine roll away to reveal a long tunnel. "This beauty heads to the Firing range just over there. I'll let ya out at the oder side." When they reach the other side of the long doorway O'Flaherty pulls out a card and swipes it through a crack in the wall. The door begins to open and O'Flaherty takes off, happy to be rid of them.
The group takes a look around inside the range. An Arasaka guard eyes them suspiciously but he's paid to ignore that particular spot on the wall. He spots SARV and walks over to him. "Hey, can I see your cyberware registration card." SARV pulls out a sewage covered Taco Hut business card from his pocket and slaps it down in his hand. The guard looks at it in disgust/horror and carefully hands it back to SARV. He tries desperately to wipe off his hand without touching anything.
"Here, Vodka makes everything better." Maria offers him the bottle she'd been holding. He quickly takes it and pours it over his hand, says thanks and hands it back. Maria just stares at him in horror and tries to decide whether or not to kill him. The guard returns to his rounds and soon disappears around a corner. Tat pokes his head outside and spots two cops a block over. There is a helicopter making a patrol around the area. Tat times it right then takes off, trying to be as quiet as possible. Everyone successfully gets out. Neo is the last person and as he slides by silently the metal door slams shut. They scurry away and no on seems to notice.
The group heads North for another five blocks on foot. They finally arrive at an apartment that Maria has rented for the evening. Everyone settles into the apartment and quickly falls asleep. Neo stays awake, more anxious to get back in the Net than to do something as mundane as sleeping. He plugs in and begins thumbing through various data structures. News archives, wanted ads.
Black Plague is rattled awake by Neo. "You have someone waiting for you." BP looks around in confusion. Neo holds up a pair of plugs and BP jacks in. The room suddenly disappears and he is in a completely white throne room. In the center is an elderly woman who has a goddess aura to her. He recognizes her as his psychotic aunt turned AI. "Ah, the Shamed One has returned to me. I hope you liked my little toys I sent you."
"You're the one that's responsible for the Cops? But why, I thought I was on your good side."
"No, you have associated with someone on the bad list. You will now feel my wrath."
"What? Who's on the bad list now?"
"You took a job with Arasaka 97 days ago. Since then you have not proved your worthiness. You have done nothing but cause destruction to the Mother Earth."
"Ok, well how do I redeem myself?"
" By helping to make the world a better place."
"How do I do that?"
"I tire of your drivel. You have 48 hours to live. Now go."
Black Plague is violently kicked out of the Net. Neo is cursing and slapping the acrid smoke off his cyberdeck. Black Plague returns to sleep.
A couple hours later Pixie is awakened. "I thought you should see this." Neo hands her a sheet of paper that reads "Wanted: Charis Traekand for questioning in relation to the strike on Biotechnica." Neo told her "It gets better, did you ever know any Biotechnica officials?" Pixie thinks 'There's been so many of them I've lost count' and shakes her head. "Well, there seem to be a group that recognized you. They're looking for you right now." At least Petrochem isn't after you, then you really be in trouble." Pixie laughs nervously with a grimace. "Well, I'll let you get back to sleep. Sweet dreams."
He plugs back into his favorite game of Tank commander. 'Boy, tomorrow’s gonna be one hell of a day.'
<Cutscene>Maelstrom being attacked</cutscene>
Everyone wakes up surprisingly early. It must be hard to sleep when everyone is trying to kill you. Maria hails a cab to go get the car for the group. She avoids Scotty's place but is able to spot it from a safe distance. The police have it cordoned off and there are two groups of corp. types looking around the area and taking notes. She ID's one of them as Petrochem and the other as Biotechnica.
She drops by the parking garage and gets the SUV. Hopefully everyone will fit. Maria heads back to the station and everyone piles in, eager to get going. They start heading to the East marina area. For no particular reason other than to get away from the cops. Charis decides that this is a good time to explain the situation, however she doesn't trust SARV. Curious to see what Pixie has to say, Scotty sedates SARV with one of his syringes. He's in the back with Neo.
Pixie explains why Petrochem and Biotechnica are after her. Apparently she sterilized the Petrochem official as a sort of breaking up present. The details of which included estrogen and a new identity. Scotty pointed out the fact that they asked for Black Plague when they surrounded the building. BP explained about his Aunt and the whole "redemption" scheme.
While they were holding their discussion two armored robocabs appeared simultaneously from opposite side alleys. About the time when they slammed into either side of the SUV Plague recognized them as the cabs he'd seen at the Maelstrom building earlier. They continued slamming into the side of the car apparently trying to pinch a tire or maybe just beat up the car.
Tat tried to slash the tires with his monokatana but couldn't get the right angle. Scotty was about to give it a swing when Pixie came up with a better idea. She remembered that Pixie dust was a stimulant and a little bit would probably wake up SARV. However she wanted to get rid of it all so she dumped the entire bottle onto his face.
It sure woke him up. He jolted so hard he put a dent in the ceiling. With a quick jerk of his head he surveyed the entire situation and decided to destroy everything. First, the window and the Cab on the left were destroyed by fists and flame. The cab tires exploded under the heat and were instantly glued to the street. Next he jumped onto Neo who had the bad luck of being on the other side and opened up with three of his submachine guns on the next cab. At full-auto the windows shatter and the occupants were mostly cremated along with the robocab computer.
Two down and it felt good. Next to kill everyone else. Despite his enhanced state Black Plague was able to get the jump on him. Scotty hit him with another full sedative while everyone else simultaneously pushed him out the broken glass window. SARV hit the ground and a couple of broken pieces of glass cut his back but it felt good. With the SUV gone SARV went off to find other things to destroy but soon succumbed to the tranquilizer. After a couple of blocks RAS decides to go after SARV and keep an eye on him so he confidently leaps out of the moving car and heads off on foot.
Black Plague decided to head off to the New Harbor Mall to drop of their current car. The tires were dragging and the engine was making a weird rattling noise. He dropped it off near the parking area and the group headed off to the local Taco Hut. On the way in everyone was keeping their eyes peeled for anything suspicious. All they saw were some dorphers and a wanna-be-rocker hanging out at the drivethrough.
Inside everyone ordered lunch. Strangely enough they didn't have any tacos. Black Plague and Tat both bought 10 frag grenades each and Scotty bought four. Pixie called up a couple of robocabs and everyone heads out the door. Outside there are 5 solo-types in all white ninja outfits. They are eyeing the group suspiciously. Pixie pulls her trench coat over her head and heads out with the rest, clinging onto Plague. The ninjas are heading over to take a look at Pixie when Tat steps in front of them. "Can I help you sirs? "He asks, doing his best to look intimidating.
"No, no problem at all. Have a fine day." The lead says with a smile and pats him on the shoulder. The party quickly loads up in a cab and as Tat looks back he only sees two where there were five earlier. For the next couple of blocks they weave through town looking for someone tailing them but no one spots anything. They finally decide to go by the Ripperdoc station and check on the situation there. Maria decides to head back to her apartment.
While driving Black Plague notices a black patch of cloth on the shoulder of Tat's otherwise seamless black uniform. Using a knife he cuts off the adhesive surrounding the patch to reveal a tracker underneath. Tat takes it and sticks it to the underside of the robocab seat. They stopped and the rest of the group continued on in another cab while Tat went off in the original to go find SARV.
Soon afterwards Tat's robocab came to a halt. The power shut down and the computer stopped responding. Not even the doors would open. Then from outside he saw the original group of Ninjas in their white uniforms walk up to the cab. The pressed the open button on the outside and the door opened. "Good evening sir" The lead said as Tat stepped out of the car. One of them looked into the cab for others then looked puzzled. "We are looking for one of your compatriots."
"Excuse me? I don't know who you are talking about. Do I know you?"
"No, I'm quite sorry to waste your time." With that Tat took off down the street, turned a corner and hailed the first robocab he could find. He last caught a glimpse of one of them looking at a handheld device looking down the street then back at the robocab, obviously confused. Then he crawled into the cab and started rummaging around. Back in the cab, Tat did a full check for tracers then headed off to the East Marina to pick up SARV and RAS.
Meanwhile back at the robocab, Pixie and Neo are riding in the robocab while Black Plague drives the cab via his vehicle links. They drive within a block of Scotty's building. They see little police activity, just investigators and various corps. Black Plague decides to continue driving for another couple blocks so as not to look conspicuous. About a block away however, he runs into a roadblock at the next intersection complete with a small army of cops and a tank, plus that stupid helicopter that keeps flying around.
Black Plague pulls a quick power 180 before slamming into the jersey curbs. Immediately the cops started shooting the cab. Round after round scoured the plating as the cab accelerated in the opposite direction. Warning lights were blaring in his head. There was one that caught BP's attention. We're leaking fuel.
The cab hauled around another corner and nearly took out a building as the cops pursued. Black plague squealed around another corner and another blocked road. The cab couldn't take much more. Everyone bailed out afraid that it would explode any second. They took off on foot and almost made it to the next intersection but then cops from all four direction marched in chanting 'Hup, hup, hup'. They formed a complete circle around the group and declared, "Drop your weapons we have you surrounded." Boy, cops were sure good with their geometry.
Meanwhile, and a little bit earlier, Tat, Scotty, SARV, and RAS are all headed back to find the rest of the group. SARV is still feeling groggy but at least awake enough to kill people. Then a compass appears in his minds eye. It's pointing forward and a little to the right flashing red. It says "GO HERE" in big red, flashing letters. SARV just shakes his head and tries to ignore it. Then a message pops up: "NEO: HI, THIS IS NEO. WE'RE AT THE TACO HUT AND WE HAVE YOUR FOOD. WE'RE GOING TO EAT IT IF YOU DON'T SHOW UP REALLLY SOON." Once again he tries to ignore the annoying flashy lights.
"NEO: GET OVER HERE SO HELP ME GOD OR I'M GOING TO DELETE YOUR BANK ACOUNT!!!"
Tat looks back and says "Hmm, I wonder where we should go?" SARV points, "That way." Then goes back to trying to make the voices be quiet. Since Tat's driving the cab he decides that 'that way' is better than anything else. And heads off in that direction. Soon they approach a large group of cops. Tats is about to turn around when he realizes that Pixie, Neo and Black Plague are in the middle of them.
In an instant a plan snaps together in Tat's head. Steering the cab right towards the group, he simultaneously opens the cab door. Next, he uses his grapple-arm to snag a light post on the corner of the intersection and uses the momentum of the cab to go swinging out into the middle of the group in a wide arch. As Tat is swinging through the air he pulls out his monokatana and begins slashing surprised and confused cops. Now with no driver the cab goes out of control, flies through the cop formation, barely missing Pixie and careens to a stop nearby. Tat continues to swing around the pole making successively smaller circles while hacking away at the police force. All attention is directed towards him as the cops desperately try to shoot the fast moving target. Finally, a cop pulls out his netgun and Tatsumaru is entangled in the web and is then pumped full of tranquilizer laced needles. With the distraction gone the cops turn their attention back to the people standing in the middle of their now tattered circle.
Black Plague has to dodge a net flying at him and gets it snagged on his right hand with his gun. Neo shoots at a cop just long enough to distract him then jumps into the robocab with SARV and RAS already in it. Pixie just runs straight to the now cramped cab. Next Scotty tries to jump in but with desperation realizes there is no room. Instead he gets a foot into the cab and holds onto its Dalorian-style door with his other hand as Neo begins to pull away. Black Plague throws the net he is holding onto the cop aiming a gun at the robocab then jumps on the hood, holding onto the sides with both hands. He reaches for one of his frag grenades but is almost thrown off the car when Neo has to take evasive action.
Now free of the blockade the robocab (with people hanging off the side and sitting on the hood) drives off into the dusty afternoon.