ACT 1: The Watcher
Session 1: Night City Blues
[June 22nd, 2021]
In the turbulent bustle of Night City, six edgerunners prepare to meet. The night is growing dark and the burning red sunset screams across the western sky.
TUNNEL: We see the first edgerunner enter a dirty dive bar in Old Japantown, a dangerous neighborhood known for the violent gangs like the Yakuza and the Tyger Claws. The man is Nepalese with short, neat hair and an arrogant swagger as he enters the bar and order his usual drink. He sits down at a corner table and the bartender brings him his double tequila. The man is named Tunnel on the street, his real name has eluded most people. He is a fixer who has connections and contacts all over Old Japantown. He is quite gifted at finding things people want and connected two or more contacts for mutual benefit, with Tunnel always getting a slice of the action.
00ZONE: The next man to enter the bar is a tall, somewhat wiry hacker with colorful techhair flipped into a spiky front, he is decked out in techy clothing that shimmers with glowing lines. He carries a laptop in an armored box. His name is Wyrth Pierstrom, but everyone calls him 00Zone on the Data Pool. He is a netrunner and hacker, more at home in the perilous depths of cyberspace that walking through the social interactions of ‘meatspace’. He orders a cheap bourbon and joins Tunnel at the table.
STITCH: The next man to enter the bar is a tall, well-dressed dark-skinned man. He has a very clean and neat suit and short, neat hair. He strides over to the table, ordering a gin as he sits down with others. He is Zayne O’Heron, or better known as Stitch on the street. He is a very skilled ripperdoc, one who installs and repairs cybernetics for those that can’t go to the traditional clinics and hospitals. He has much knowledge of medicine and applied surgery.
BRICKS: The next man who enters has an average build as is dressed in black nomad leathers with the insignia of a rat tearing apart a snake. He has a red mohawk running down his head. He is Ward Banks, or better known as Bricks. He is a member of the Rodentras nomad clan that smuggles a lot of synthdrugs into Night City from LA to the south. He is quite the skilled driver and can always out maneuver others on the road. At least when he isn’t back home enjoying his mama’s cooking. He orders a whiskey from the bar and joins the others.
LION LUTHER: The next man to enter seems very straight laced and unaccustomed to dingy dive bars. He wears a basic outfit and has short near unadorned hair. He is Leon ‘Lion’ Luther, a former Sergeant of the Night City Police Department. He uneasily sits down with the others, trying to show that he means them no harm.
SEEKER: The last to show up is a young African man with cornrows, one of which is a bright color. He has a loose, Bohemian dress style as he comes forward. His arms and neck are covered with tattoos, many of which are illuminated faintly. He orders a beer and looks at the others. He seems eager to prove himself as he approaches the table.
.
The group of men begin to chat at the table, they talk about the old times. About a month ago, four of the people at the table, Tunnel, 00Zone, Stitch, and Bricks, were involved in a train heist to steal cargo crates from the Red Chrome Legion, a neo-fascist gang. The crates had been previously stolen by Militech, the largest corporate weapons manufacturer. However, about three weeks ago, a video was leaked on the Data Pool that shows the group, dubbed the Trainyard Bandits by the media, murdering Detective Brutus Heston.
It seems Brutus was trying to steal the crates too as part of a betrayal on his own corrupted deal with Militech. When the edgerunners killed Brutus, they were taking out a corrupt cop, however, the media played it up like they murdered a brave detective trying to do the right thing and recovery the stolen goods.
After the video leaked, they all became wanted men. Tunnels’ two bodyguards, Croc and Zero, were murdered by the police just last week. All four of them have been in hiding, trying to avoid the NCPD. Seeker wished to meet with them, telling Tunnel that he wants the truth to be told. Seeker found it fishy that the video leaked so readily and was so quickly picked up by Night City News. He wants to tell their side of the story.
Meanwhile, Lion Luther was framed a week ago by Srgt. Darius “Swandog” Swanson of the NCPD, who was working with Brutus on the Militech scam. Lion found out about the deal and tried to expose him. It backfired. Darius pinned the whole thing on Lion and the NCPD came to his home to arrest him. He fled, but his girlfriend was arrested and convicted for assault the police. She was sentenced for “rehabilitation” at Ekazian Penitentiary. Lion contacted Tunnel, since he knows they both want revenge on Darius.
As the meeting proceeds, the group accepts Lion’s viewpoint and why he was seeking their help. 00Zone, however, was still quite skeptical of Seeker, not sure of the young media was up to the task of telling their story. 00Zone explains that he has discovered who leaked the video, by a netrunner friend of his, named Sigma. It was Ganoth, a former friend of his and also a skilled netrunner, who is out to hurt 00Zone and may have kidnapped his sister. However, 00Zone was able to trace the messages and found a warehouse in the Little China Marina as the likely location. As they are discussing it, however, red and blue lights blast across the small windows of the dive bar.
Joe Bailey, the bartender of Squibs, leaps over the bar with his shotgun and tells Tunnel and his team to run out the back door. The group does so, funneling out into a wide alley between the many businesses on the block. However, they find that an AV with flashing lights circles overhead and numerous police officers are coming towards them.
The group immediately drops into defensive positions as they draw weapons. The cops charge in, shooting at them with little questioning. The edgerunners begin to shoot back. Seeker is conflicted as he did not want to get enmeshed in the story he was trying to tell, but he has little choice but to shoot back. The edgerunners kill three cops as they charge through the alley. They then face off against three more. They brutalize two of them with sprays of bullets, and send the last one scrambling over the fence at the end of the alley.
The AV flies overhead and rains down bullets, but 00Zone easily evades the spray. Unsure of what to do, the team rushes towards two nearby cars and break into them. They try to start them and get them going as the pile in. 00Zone tries to hack into the gate’s control circuit. Bricks manages to get the car started, but Lion throws a smoke grenade that explodes in the car. Tunnel manages to fish it out and throw it at the remaining cops, distracting them. Bricks gets the gate open and 00Zone speeds it up as he hacks it.
Stitch gets the other car going and Seeker pulls 00Zone into the backseat. Stitch flies down the alleyway as the two shoot from the rear. Bricks tries to do the same, swerving past the cops,. but accidently hits one of them with the car. Tunnel and Lion shoot at the cops as they fly down the alleyway. The two stolen cars screech down the back-streets of Night City with Bricks expertly swerving through narrow alleys and Stitch driving more carefully and blending into the crowd.
Tunnel calls his best car flipper, Quatro, and convinces him to take them in for a trade. They drive the stolen cars to his garage in Old Japantown and Tunnel is able to haggle and trade them for one bulky six-seater. Meanwhile, 00Zone pops into the buildings Data Pool connection and finds a secure call from his netrunner friend, Sigma. She relates that she has found Ganoth’s crypt-tag all over the Data Pool, like a massive AI was streaming every camera feed in the city. She warns them that Ganoth is looking for them. She also tells him that a video of their confrontation with the cops has been posted to the Data Pool as well. It does not show they very favorably. Seeker resigns to write a new story to undo some of the damage.
Bricks then drives them out of there and they head to the ruined building in the Hot Zone where 00Zone has been living the past couple weeks.
.
Session 2: Drone Warehouse in Little China
[June 29th 2021]
The edgerunners stay at 00Zone’s makeshift bunker in the heart of the old Medical Center in the Hot Zone. They are able to rest up as Stitch tends to their wounds. 00Zone and Bricks repair everyone’s kevlar armor and ensures their weapons are ready for a fight. Tunnel takes some eurobucks down to a night market run by the Tyger Claws in Old Japantown and picks up a few grenades and more ammunition for the team. Seeker tries to write a story defending their good names against the backlash of the battle with the police. However, the well-written story doesn’t get up-voted much on PopMedia and the story falls relatively flat. It seems the public prefers to think of them as no-good cop-killers.
The team discuss how Ganoth would be able to pull-off such a powerful program on the Data Pool to track them. They decide that either Ganoth is working with someone at Ziggurat, the powerful communication corp that controls the Data Pool, or he has an elite team of netrunners at his disposal. 00Zone feels confident that if they can find the node that is running the AI tracking them, he can put an end to it.
After a couple days, the team decides to seek out Ganoth and his warehouse in Little China on the marina. Tunnel is able to get some intel on the building, and learns that it was once used to manufacture drone electronics before the 4th Corporate War and the pocket-nuke was dropped on Night City. It has been vacant since. The edgerunners head to the warehouse at night to avoid being seen by the tracking network. They find a large stone wall surrounding an old warehouse. Stitch spots cameras at the entrance gate, so the team heads north along the alleyway.
00Zone uses his grapple-gun to climb up the wall and help the others over. As they slink alongside the building, everything seems quiet. A tall, 25-ft high one-story warehouse stands on the northside of a large yard with an old parking lot/loading dock in the south. Stitch heads towards the parking lot and is spotted by a flying drone.
The drone buzzes into view as its camera points at the edgerunners and lights illuminate them in the shadows. Another couple drones fly around the corners and fire guns at the edgerunners. The team bursts into action, firing at the air drones and trying to out maneuver them. Lion Luther gets shot in the leg and takes a nasty wound. The team is able to take the drones down and Stitch gives Lion a temporary stint for his leg.
The team circles the building as 00Zone scans with his virtuality goggles to find a NET interface. He eventually finds one at the front entrance on some access panel for the warehouse’s door. As 00Zone jacks into the access panel, two more armored drones burst out of the windows and attack the team. The team takes cover behind the ruined cars in the lot as they blast at the drones. They manage to take them both down, but Lion Luther takes another painful shot to his gut and can barely move around. Stitch is able to stabilize him for now.
Meanwhile, in the NET, 00Zone moves quickly through the virtual world as he activate protections and booster programs. He comes across a skunk and killer Black ICE, but manages to slide away from them. He faces off one-to-one with a Hellhound, but thankfully, his new insulated wires protect him from burning his meat-body. He destroys the hellhound and gains access to the control node for the warehouse door. He spots some more dangers ahead, but decides it isn’t worth it. He opens the door and jacks out of the interface.
The team rushes into the warehouse and search around. They find many empty crates and broken parts. Tunnel then spots a SMG turret pop out of the floor and fire at him. He rolls away, taking a few minor hits, as the others blast the turret apart. Then, out of the nearby door, a dark-haired man steps out. It appears to be Ganoth. He throws a grenade that explodes upon Seeker, 00Zone, and Lion Luther, setting them on fire. They take cover and put out the flames as Stitch and Bricks charge at Ganoth. Stitch misses Ganoth at point-blank, and Ganoth retaliates with a deadly sword cut as he tries to flee back into he room.
Tunnel follows Ganoth and blasts him from afar as Bricks and 00Zone take him out in melee. As Ganoth collapses, Bricks notices that he is a cyborg, completely machine. This was a fake Ganoth. 00Zone heads into the next chamber where computers and servers churn with fans as they continue to run the tracking program. 00Zone is able to stop the program. As he does so, he gets a message: “You’ll have to do better than that, – Ganoth”
The camera then follows the source of the message to a dark basement hidden somewhere in Night City. A massive room filled with servers are churning away with long cable running to the center of the chamber, where the cables wrap into smaller cables, into smaller wires, into thousands of single copper wires, that end at tiny needle-like electrodes implanted inside a human brain, encased in a large jar filled with some clear liquid.
The edgerunners find a bunch of ammunition and weapons, suggesting there may have been more people here at one time.
.