Runners
Ro Tain
Aemon Burst
Toast
Senk Gethin
Aomame 2-Chrome
Having eliminated the Thankyou threat (for now), the team decides to do the Gilgamesh Initiative lab raid, at Alice’s behest. They ram through the layered security fences, taking some electrical damage, and fight off a series of spider drones with LMG’s, before reaching the facility itself. Senk blows the front door with a missile, and they exchange grenades with 2 security guards inside. They KO them with gas, and 2-Chrome executes them in their armored booth, frustrated at not being able to break in.
Senk blows another interior door, and they advance up a killing hallway under fire from a gunport at the far end. Senk manages to get a lube grenade through the port, and they rush the door, blowing it open also. Ro eats it on the lube, as her and Aemon exchange fire with 4 of the Cytechs, who they heard rumors might be here. After a brutal slog of a fight, they finally defeat the Cytechs, with Aemon and Ro both almost killed. They manage to salvage a bit of their gear before their cranial bombs detonate.
Alice/April has snuck past them and is hacking an undamaged terminal at the far end of the room, and hollers at the team to clear the rest of the facility. Ro takes a minute while Senk blows the next door, and the rest of the team kills the scientists/techs inside to stop them destroying data. Toast paralyzes one with a truth serum, and manages to get him out before the room start filling with gas. Ro hauls the prisoner out to the van, while the rest of the team blows 2 more doors, safely passing through another killing hallway luckily without defenders this time. They find the security booth, the living area (empty of personal effects), and a security spider room, where they fight another drone and kill the spider before they notice the countdown timer.
They blow the security booth glass from the inside, and escape as the building explodes and pancakes. Alice pays them and promises paydata for sale once she has filtered out anything she doesn’t want getting out. They return to the Leather District, and 2-Chrome and Alice interrogate the prisoner while everyone else heals in the hospital. Aemon buys them a Valkyrie Module, to have a priority spot to heal for free in the future. 2C and Alice get a ton of info from the tech, who seems to have been surgically and/or chemically altered to be able to operate well outside of normal ethical/moral parameters.
They are given a ton of info about the GI and it’s founder, Thomas Roxborough, a brain-in-a-jar hacker with a degenerative autoimmune disease, who is desperately obsessed with finding a new body for himself. He is apparently currently located in Tenochtitlan, Aztlan, where he still has some friends in Aztechnology, though Universal Omnitech is his primary backer these days (he is a major shareholder). He apparently had to flee their Vancouver facilities after some sort of incident, and is apparently considering retreating to a private space station, where the micro-g will help slow the dissolution of his tumorous form. They hear that Alice and someone named KAM have been his 2 primary antagonists, and Alice trapped him in the Matrix at some point in the past, which he fears happening again.
They also find out about a huge trove of other corporate projects that GI was spying on:
-The previously known Project Vulcan: some sort of CFD experiment that is a joint venture between any/all of AZT, Evo, and NeoNET.
-Project Abyss: MCT’s technomancer/Cytech experiments out of the ECSE building.
-Diablo Gardista: AZT’s collaboration with Damon to establish the dragon Leyline, seemingly as a means to grow BADs and distribute them through lil D’s clubs and international networks.
-Project Orion: Horizon’s attempt to make Dawkin’s Initiative deep cover/sleeper agents, using CFD to set them as ghostriders, triggering a personality takeover when needed.
-Project Hammer: Ares’ effort to weaponize CFD in a projectile form, likely based in their VR training facility.
-Project Viper: Ares/Unlimitech joint endeavor to develop genetic alterations exhibiting SURGE-like qualities without SURGE-ing. Speculation in the GI file suggests this could be a cover for continued ARES efforts to weaponize insect merge forms, and is based out of their base in Nahant.
-Project Heatwave: Renraku’s anti-cyberware microwave gun. Apparently a now-standard sidearm for Red Samurai in Boston at least. Supposed to work fairly well against advanced CFD-infected also.
-Project MADAR: NeoNET/Novatech collaboration to make a magnetic deflector, to use as personal protection.
Feeling that they’ve gotten about all they’re gonna get from the scientist, they destroy his head and dump him in the harbor. Correctly sensing that they are sitting on a paydata motherlode, Aemon calls Allison Sanborn to sell the anti-AZT data, and to hopefully get info re: his parents’ death. She tells him good work, pays up, and and also gets him to set her up on a date with Senk, which goes pretty well.
They sell the rest of the info through Smedley Pembrenton III, who seems thrilled to be able to use it to build connections and bulk up his rep as the go-to fixer in Boston. He gets them a good rate, and they stock up on new gear and train some new skills. They also hear rumors that a woman in full armor approached the wall, turned translucent, and walked through a haze of bullets, before disappearing into the ground. Myth? Who knows… but the physical description is uncannily similar to Alice/April. They also hear that there has been some mysterious low-grade sabotage going on in the Leather District, but no catastrophes (or strong suspects) yet. Buster’s militia seems to be getting more pro, though, with better gear, and unit patches and such.
Toast also finds out that someone took out the crystalline entity, and that there is a large bounty out for 2-Chrome, who doesn’t exactly come clean about where it came from or why, but tells the team about her bad past with Monobe International. Toast unfortunately lets slip to Bozeman that he runs with 2C, which might get out. They debate helping Velenthial out with her assassin problem, but decide to hold off and do a job for Aiden Wagner first: rescuing people from the MIT&T Containment Zone!
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