Part One of a HARDWIRED mini-campaign.
Omar Patek frowned. There was a spread of images on McNevin’s display: body parts in a plastic tub. The organic bits were separated with a butcher’s precision, the cybernetic sockets were empty, smeared with gristle and fluids.
“They kibbled him, jacked his ‘ware, and sent him back via pedicab courier,” McNevin said.
“Charming,” Patek said. “So I take it that means ‘No’?”
McNevin smiled. “See? There’s a reason you’re in Analysis. Nothing gets by you.”
Upstairs had been looking to exert more influence on the LNK Docks. The Tsim Sha Tsui District was the first choice. They had approached the local muscle, a street gang called the VuDu8s, and opened negotiations. This was the result of the first meeting.
Anton McNevin shook his head. “The Board took one look at these and demanded, I quote, an ‘exponential response.’”
Omar Patek brought up the comms screen. “So… we’re ordering a Trash Run?”
McNevin nodded. “Sent the details to Stepan. Tell him he can go Loud and Heavy on this one. We need to break these VuDu8s. Might as well send a message to the other gangs at the same time.”
Patek pinged Operations, half listening for the pick up. “Loud and Heavy is how Stepan’s crew rolls. He’s about a subtle as a brick through your window.”
McNevin swiped through the images again. Street gangs were mean and stupid, but usually not to this degree. Something was off here. “Tell him to bring extra ‘boom’. It might be a long night.”
***
TURN 1 and 2
Agents start this game deployed in the center of the board. They’ve been dropped off via Gaki VTOL, right in the middle to deliberately draw attention and stir up trouble. Their orders? Kill 15 of these gutter punks and leave the bodies in the street.
“Sounds like good plan,” Stepan rumbles in his usual eloquent Slavic fashion. The crew hits the ground and takes a few moments to get into position before word gets out and VuDu8 gangers notice someone’s in their front yard.
“Loud and Heavy” = Ronins and a Splicer with a Gun drone.
Gangers start arriving. Unfortunately for them, they’re close to the Agents and ‘leading with your face’ isn’t a wise tactical choice.
Agents respond with precision fire and micro grenades.
Stepan smiles. First blood has been drawn and the crew is on their way to meeting their body count quota.
TURN 3 and 4
The older, more experienced VuDu8 gangers show up, trying to hit the flanks, but they’re no match against Stepan’s crew loaded with Smart Ammo and Frag Micro Grenades.
The body count is rising: Matt’s Agent takes out a trio of punks at the rear of the clinic and my Ronin lobs another frag at the bunch sneaking up an alley. Wanting to get in the action, Max’s Splicer activates his gun drone.
TURN 5 and 6
Desperate to turn the tide, the VuDu 8 Heavies show up. “Now we’ll get these corpo-scum.”
The Agents respond in kind, advancing up the street with full-auto madness. My Ronin blasts away but fails a Move roll. He ends up stuck in the open and takes a hit from the Plasma gunner.
*Damage detected but essential systems still functional.*
Max’s Drone comes to the assist and starts picking them off behind the cover of the car.
Matt and John’s Agents dispatch the pair of thug uglies at the south end of the street before moving north to help, but the battle is all but over.
The last ganger goes down. “That the best you got?” Stepan shouts.
Stepan’s crew finds a young hacker wearing VuDu8 colors cowering inside the medical clinic. Scrawny, tatted, with the perpetual eye-glaze of a long-term stim addict, she’s sporting some serious cyber-wear. Stepan sends images of her face and sockets to McNevin and Patek for ID.
“What do you want I should do with this one?” he asks.
“Bring her back,” McNevin orders. “A gang Splicer, the Dark Room will want to chat.”
“Facial-recog is running,” Patek says. “She has so much as a juvie drunk and disorderly, I’ll pull up her file in the system.”
McNevin peers at the shots of her implants. His brow furrows. “Those are mil-grade Chou Shima cyberjacks. Where did a street rat get the coin for that kind of ‘ware?”
“And where does a street gang buy a Howa Colt Mark 5 Sun Jet plasma cannon?” Patek asks.
Good questions.
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