CY_BORG: VIP Abduction

[Stormbringer]

It's just another morning in CY.

Today, poison dust-winds from G0 are blowing across the city, spreading all kinds of radioactive toxins and nano-parasites in their wake.

In The Arcs district — an island in the middle of Lake Gravel between North and South Central — a stolen taxi is illegally parked in a backstreet behind a food court.

Inside the vehicle, four low-life punks sit eating their breakfast: a mixture of maker-made street food and off-brand powder beer. It cost them their last five creds. Now they're broke. But at least their bellies are full.

For the moment, at least.

Their self-appointed leader — and owner of the taxi — is former gang-goon, Zola. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat is Doze, a 'gearhead', a machine-wizard, with an experimental laser-cannon-fitted, crab-legged crawler-drone packed in the boot. In the rear seats are a couple of thugs called Sen and Volley, mostly along for the ride.

As they noisily guzzle the remainder of their grub to the beats of the 24/7 'oceanwave' channel that Zola insists they listen to on the car's Net radio — windows closed to avoid exposure to the G0-dust — they're suddenly hit with with a fresh ad-bomb in their RCDs. This one's from Tulles & deVerte: a South Central based corporation specialising in lifestyle products, restaurants, fashion, entertainment and drugs. The advert is for a new variant of their wonder-drug Vurt: experience up to six hours of powerful shared hallucinations! Only 350¤ per dose!

The advert is broadcast via the Net to every RCD in the city simultaneously, including the rider of a cyberbike who happens to be racing down the street at extraordinary high speed at that moment. Distracted by the ad, the rider swerves and wipes out, crashing into a lamppost with a terrible noise and a cloud of neon smoke. The rider goes flying through the air like a rag-doll, bouncing several times off the road, before landing in a broken heap just yards from Zola's taxi.

The bike itself goes skidding across the street, titanium shell grinding against the the asphalt in a shower of sparks. Then it hits the wall of a building and comes to a sudden stop. The Vurt advert finishes and vanishes from each RCD as quickly as it came.

[Wrathbone]

Sen wants Vurt. He needs Vurt. That way lies the truth - he feels it in his bones.

He watches the biker crunch and snap across the street and wonders how much his bones would sell for.

[Animalmother]

Volley wonders if the twitching body of the hapless biker has anything cool and possibly retro on him. He convinces himself that the bikers pockets must be filled to bursting with obsolete, but valuable tech and he must get his hands on it!

[Sly Boots]

Doza ignores the disgusting, squishy organic bits and pieces of the rider and stalks towards the stricken cyberbike, curious if there's any interesting salvage to be had.

[Mantis]

Zola is irritated that this has interrupted his totally unsolicited lecture to his new goons on how if you want to ride the Oceanwave you've got to realise it's a whole lifestyle choice and not just about the music.

He winds the window down on the driver side of the taxi just a little bit and calls out to the biker.

"Yo, you really ate the dirt bro. Still got a pulse out there, chromehead?"

[Animalmother]

"That guy has a Pulse!? The 3rd gen holo-player with the integrated neuro link VR upload that fried users brains and had to be recalled! That's worth a ton of creds now!"
Volley scrambles out of the cab in a fit of barely contained excitement to rifle through the poor bikers tattered jacket.

[Stormbringer]

Volley: roll a d66 (2d6, one is the ten dice, the other the one dice) to see what the dead biker has upon their person.

Doze: roll a d20+3 (testing Knowledge) to see if the bike can be salvaged.

Everyone: roll a d20 -/+ your Toughness stat so see how you fare being exposed to the sickly breeze of G0-dust.

[Animalmother]

4 & 5 on the 2D6
12 - 3 on the D20, so 9.

[Mantis]

14+2 on the toughness check.

[Wrathbone]

8 for toughness.

[Sly Boots]

12+3 = 15 for the knowledge check

12 on the toughness check.

[Stormbringer]

Volley & Sen: the pass mark for the Toughness test is 10. Do either of you wish to spend a Glitch to auto-pass that Toughness test, or will you allow yourself to succumb to the effects of the G0-dust, and save your Glitches for later?

+ + +

Rifling through the biker's clothing, Volley discovers what might be the real cause of the accident: a pocket flask of booze!!

Doze, meanwhile, examines the cyberbike, assessing it for damage. Cyberbikes are sturdy machines; their reinforced titanium shells capable of withoutstanding vast amounts of punishment. This one's easily fixable. A bike like this can fetch between 5-20k¤! Enough to pay off one of your debts! Or to spend on some serious cybertech...

[Sly Boots]

I may have misunderstood how the money works lol - 5-20 doesn't sound like a lot, my backpack cost 5!

[Stormbringer]

I meant to type 'k' after the numbers...

[Animalmother]

I also misunderstand the numbers and chose to forget any damage I might have taken.