(New? Start at Part 1 here.)
Downtime, Barbecues, and Chases
For the next day, the edgerunners took care of their own, personal business.1 Maven decided to tinker with the REO tracking device at her tiny tech lair and workshop in Little China. However, it was a straightforward piece of machinery, so she put it back down. It was really a game of hurry-up-and-wait until the jacket resurfaced and caused the tracker to ping again.
She wouldn’t admit it to the crew, but the firefight at the self-storage place (her first) had shaken her up more than she had expected, even a day later. Maven reached for her braindance wreath and popped in a meditation shard she bought at a market in Kabuki. Sure, those shards were usually overpriced, woo-woo scop sold by dubious holy-persons, but they made her feel better. She needed the confidence boost.
“Gotta live in the moment…and breathe…” her optics lit up as the meditation BD began.
***
Wrench went to see a ripperdoc he knew out in the Badlands.2 The doc sometimes did business out of the Sunset Motel, a roadhouse of sorts and the last stop out of the city before the open road.
He could have gone back to the Aldecaldo’s camp for aid, but Wrench had been part of a small faction of rebellious youths that followed in the footsteps of the the hot-tempered, Panam Palmer, who didn’t agree with the clan patriarch's way of doing things. It was a matter of pride: he would make it big in the city, like old Santiago did, or die trying.
The doc took a look at the nomad’s bruised ribs and chuckled: “Yep. You got a couple of fractured boys all right. I can bandage you up and give you some spare painkillers, but you’re gonna have to take it easy for a while. I don’t want to see you here again any time soon, you hear? There ain’t more painkillers for you if you do!”
“Sure.” Wrench said. “I’ll relax.” Wrench’s idea of “relaxing” typically included drinking at the motel’s bar, followed by a fight or two in the parking lot as a chaser. His ripperdoc knew that too, hence the admonishment.
***
Downtime for Hardpoint wasn’t exactly restful, either. Running into Spike had drug up a lot of bad memories. To be fair, Spike wasn’t even responsible for most of them, but thinking about her somehow made those bad memories worse.
This is why she found herself at the local, 2nd Amendment range. It was like meditation for her, except loud, and with flying lead.
***
The only one who had anything resembling a good time was Thorn. His teenage cousin was having a birthday party in Santo, where the rockerboy's family managed to get back on their feet after they were kicked out of the megabuilding they lived in.
That was the good news. The bad news was that they had his uncle, who held the rank of "Sarge" in 6th Street, to thank for their good fortune. That meant the gang pretty much owned their asses.
Too many people are willing to sell their lives out for safety, he thought. Whether it’s a megacorp, a government, or a gang, selling out is selling out. It was one of the messages he tried to get out through his music, if anyone was really listening. Being independent can be risky, especially in Night City, but it was something you couldn't buy with eddies…or maybe you could. He became an edgerunner to make his own money: to propel Thorns on Roses to the top without any corpo label backing. Sticking it to the powers that be on a gig was a bonus.
Despite the 6th Street crowd, the birthday barbecue was fun. Thorn played a short concert for them, “unplugged” (if you could call a cyber guitar and AudioVox implant that.) Even the rowdy and drunk 6th Street gonks shut up and listened when Thorn began to strum chords on “vintage acoustic” mode. They nodded their heads to the music and lyrics, but they didn’t really understand them, even his young cousin, who turned 16 today. He would probably be joining the gang soon. Thorn let his rage and sadness at that thought flow through his performance.
***
Wrench picked up the edgerunners the next morning and the crew headed to the NCART station in Vista Del Rey in search of Dalton’s mainline. Maven had reported no ping from the device as of yet, but they still had this lead to go on.
Although they tried to arrive early, the crew became stuck in Night City’s legendary, rush hour traffic. It was hot in the nomad’s vehicle, and everyone was starting to get testy.
Thorn broke the tension with the obvious: “We could have just taken the train, choom." Maven giggled and even Hardpoint cracked a smile, but Wrench wasn’t in the mood. The diluted painkillers barely held back the hangover, let alone the pain in his ribs.
He grunted: “It ain’t my fault you people live like a pack of SoyDeenz in the city! Open road is the way! Nothing holding you back, not even the wind; smells fresher too!” The nomad smiled to himself, lost in some memory, but the rest of the crew didn’t really get the image, packed in the van like those "Deenz."3
They finally arrived to the NCART station at the corner of Congress and MLK towards the end of rush hour. Wrench haphazardly dumped eddies in a parking meter, and ran to catch up to the rest of the crew headed to the station. Hopefully, they could still catch the busker before her “shift” ended and she left.
The station was dim, and dingier on the inside than it seemed on the outside. The official story was that Night City had come a long way in the past 30-40 years since the Time of the Red, when radioactive fallout from the nuclear blast that brought down Arasaka towers coated the sky, the rain, and the city itself in a toxic, bloody shade of crimson. The City Center and parts of the surrounding areas had been rebuilt entirely, but if you looked hard enough, you could see where things were just fresh, neon-lit paint jobs to cover up urban decay going all the way back to before the 2020s. Like an aging joytoy piling on cheap chrome to cover up the ravages of time.
The station was mostly empty save for a few, late stragglers trying to catch to the next train in vain. The crew heard the sound of a guitar accompanied by singing, and followed it to its source: a young girl with platinum blonde hair that reflected the pink, neon light of an advertisement behind her. She was sitting on a blanket at a spot where she could catch the attention of passersby with her music.
Wrench said: “You go talk to her, Thorn, since you seem to speak the same language. Hardpoint and I will keep an eye out for trouble. Maven, you go with Thorn and watch his back.”
Thorn and Maven approached the busker and waited patiently for her to finish her song. Maven dropped a couple of cash eddies in her guitar case. Thorn clapped, and said: “Preem! Never heard that song in a folksy version: might flow better if you go easy on that F chord change, though." The rockerboy cringed inwardly when he realized that he was thinking out loud.
The busker looked a little annoyed at the criticism, but her demeanor changed when she recognized the rockerboy. Besides, he sort of had a point – her heart hadn't really been in the performance:“Wait...you’re Thorn, aren’t you? I just downloaded your last single, Spire to the Stars? It really rocked! I’m Summer,” she smiled and extended her hand.
“Thanks!” Thorn smiled back and shook her hand. His ego had been stroked, which was nice, but he hated being recognized so easily while edgerunning. Maybe he needed to try a different style? Really thought combat zone chic would do the trick. Guess not.
The rockerboy said: “Listen, I don’t mean to scare you, but we’re looking for your boy, Dalton. He’s in some trouble and we’re trying to find him before it finds him, if you catch my meaning."
Her face creased with concern. It seemed to Thorn that she had genuine feelings for this guy, but the busker confirmed this with her words. According to her, Dalton was a rare sweetheart; nicer than any of the gonks she’d met in Night City, especially as a member of the Mox. They’d been together for about three months. He even dropped by about thirty minutes prior to bring her some breakfast.
“Aww…that’s so sweet!” Maven said with her head cocked to the side and a dreamy smile. One of the young tech's guilty pleasures was cheap, mass-produced romance virtus. She was a virtual gonk for them, you could say. Not like those weirdos who spend all their time (and money) at sketchy, BD shacks, though; she knew her limits...or thought she did.
Thorn continued: “Well, we’re not after him, so you two are safe as far as we’re concerned. We’re just looking for some stolen stuff; a few weapons and a yellow jacket with a green design; heard he might have it.”
“That’s right.” she said. “He gave it to me; said it was supposed to be a symbol of our love, which was sweet of him, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him yellow isn’t my style. I sold it to some corpo that was here just before you showed up. He offered me me 500 eddies for it. What a gonk! It ain’t even worth half that much! So of course I handed it over. We’ll need that money if we’re going to make it, Dalton and me. Love’s all that matters, but the eddies help, you know? He’s right over there.” Summer pointed in the direction of a man in a badly-tailored business suit waiting by the blue line platform to Glen North and Megabuilding H1, but the man's eyes widened when he noticed the group staring at him. He turned his head and saw Hardpoint and Wrench approaching from opposite ends of the station.
Thorn was about to thank Summer and encourage her to continue with her music when Hardpoint shouted: “He’s running for it!” Maven was still dazzled by the story of the star-crossed lovers. Wrench growled: “Shit! Don’t just gonk out! Get him!”
The group chased the fleeing corpo into the next NCART train, which had just arrived. They barely made it inside as the automated voice called to “please stand clear of the closing...” Wrench forced them open with his Gorilla Arms and the group ran in.
The train was pretty crowded, despite the end of rush hour, and it was hard to make out the corpo in the colorful mass of people. It didn’t help that some gonk decided that "sharing is caring," and blared the latest Us Cracks from a Fuyutsuki boom box just as the edgerunners tried to squeeze by, startling them.
“PON-PON SHIT, PON-PON SHIT, PON-PO…"
Wrench smashed the boom box with a hammer-like motion of his cyberfist. The gonk, who had been nodding his head enthusiastically to that annoying, NC Top 40 number, looked up in outrage, but swallowed his anger when he saw the nomad’s size.
Hardpoint managed to spot the corpo as he was opening the door to the next car. The edgerunners followed after him.
This one wasn’t as crowded, but the corpo managed to slip behind some large, scop-fed gonk in a dirty, teal tank top and trillby hat that was a little too small for his head. The husky man had risen from his seat to wait for the next stop, blocking the way. What happened next was like something out of a nature show, which is really the only way you get to experience wild animals…or any animals, these says (weird, animal simulation virtus notwithstanding.)
Wrench stepped up to the corpulent gonk and glared at him. The gonk then sized up Wrench with his own, close-set eyes, and a furrow of his carbuncled brow (the hat made sense now.) No words were exchanged, save perhaps a grunt or two. After a tense moment, the gonk realized that he was not the apex predator in the car, and stepped aside for the nomad. Hardpoint spotted the opening first and dashed through after the corpo, bounding over a set of seats to tackle him before he could reach the end of the car.
The corpo shrank underneath the glint of one of the Hardpoint’s Mantis Blades. He gave up the detes, and the goods, quickly, blubbering something about just being middle management, and not knowing anything else. He claimed that he saw an opportunity to get ahead at Arasaka by buying the jacket and took it. Hardpoint wasn’t buying it, but the puddle of urine forming on the train car’s floor worked better than any lie-detecting implant to confirm the corpo was being mostly truthful.
The edgerunners let Mr. Pee-Pee Pants (Maven’s name for him) go at the next stop, but they kept the briefcase. Inside was a yellow jacket, but unfortunately, it seemed to be a fake, like one of those “Samerai” knockoffs. The green design had been painted on with a level of artistry and chosen medium that spoke: "high school desk graffiti," Thorn thought. However, an old, Militech Lexington pistol rolled out of the jacket and clattered to the ground. It was one of the items they were looking for! That’s one win, at least.
Unfortunately, that had been their only lead, so the edgerunners were forced to wait again for a ping from the actual jacket’s tracking device. The crew scattered to do their own things in the meantime.
***
Back in Little China, Maven worked on her custom optics. She should have been able to spot that corpo before Wrench and Hardpoint did, but maybe the calibration is off; could be a piece of dirt grinding against the small, fast-twitch fibers, or a lag in the signal due to a frayed, fiber optic connection. The only way to be sure was to pop her eye out and place it on a pod that simulated a cybereye socket. The display next to it had the real-time image of the cybereye watching the tech work while relevant data scrolled beside it. The empty, cavernous eye socket on Maven’s face made her look like some colorful pirate trying to pick the lock of a treasure chest.
After a several minutes of work, Maven was satisfied that she had made the right adjustments, and popped her eye back in. The tech sighed, reaching for the rewards of her labors: instant, oolong tea in her old Zetatech mug, Moonchies, and her favorite, café romance virtu.
***
Hardpoint found herself out of place somewhere between the City Center and Heywood, where grimy brownstones slowly morphed into sleek corpo buildings. She was dressed in a dark pantsuit a few years out of style (best she could find, and afford, at a second-hand clothes stall.) Her chooms would laugh, but she was on important business and needed to look the part.
Most edgerunners blow their eddies right after a job, but Hardpoint had her sights set on the future. Sure, she could, (and should) invest her eddies on upgrades to keep her edge, but a solo’s career is short, even if they somehow managed to live, she knew that much. She thought about what would happen after she became the top solo in Night City. The solo didn’t want to whore herself out to some megacorp as a full-time "security contractor," or a gang, like Spike had, until her chrome was so out of date that the next cyberpunk with a new Sandevistan iced her.
To that end, she went to investigate investment opportunities in some of the older buildings in this area. It was a good retirement plan, she thought. Besides, having corpo yuppies owe her rent for their tacky, catalog-furnished pads appealed to her sense of justice. She knew what it was like to have nothing…never again.4
***
Thorn spent time at his old, container “apartment” in Rancho Coronado, trying to hammer out the tune and lyrics for his next song. He had been living there since 17, when his uncle’s harsh attempts to groom him for 6th Street wore on the young rockerboy. Despite calls from his aunt imploring him to return for his mother’s sake, Thorn didn’t want to have anything to do with 6th Street, so he settled for a rusting place built sometime during the Time of the Red and ate kibble, scop, or soy paste for most meals. He had shared the container with someone special to him, which helped to offset the cost of the rent and bills, but she disappeared from his life a long time ago.
The song he was trying to work on was one that went all the way back to that time, and it had gone through many incarnations. He just never felt right about it, never satisfied, like when you have a craving, but nothing in the fridge looks good.
Thorn was interrupted by a call from his cousin, who thanked him for showing up at his birthday party and playing music for them. He was very excited to tell Thorn that 6th Street had accepted him into the fold.
“Didn’t you want to work on cars, though?” Thorn asked. “You have a knack for that.”
“That’s the preem thing, cuz!” he said excitedly. “They’re having me help at one of their garages! None of their riskier biz for now. They’re good people, you know; looking out for each other, just like our family.” He had clearly swallowed the scop 6th Street (and Thorn’s uncle) shoveled, but Thorn didn’t have the energy to naysay him. “Preem. Just keep me posted on how it goes.”
“Sure thing, cuz! Catch you later!” he cut the call.
Thorn put down his guitar and data pad, and reached for a nearby bottle of Papa Garcin rum along with a chipped, dirty cup made of “unbreakable” synthglass. That’s the kind of mood he was in now.
To be continued…5
Game Notes
1 Although the adventure suggests some downtime activities, I would ask the GM oracle to confirm what they did, with a higher likelihood if they needed to heal, repair, restock on supplies, or recover Luck. I got a couple of interrupting events, which I interpreted in ways that I thought would flesh out the characters a little in a fun way. ↩
2 Technically, a medtech friend from his lifepath.↩
3 It occurred to me later that the characters (and their player…err…me) were kind of dumb to drive to the NCART station in the middle of rush hour, resulting in that little scene.↩
4 Hardpoint’s second downtime event after the station chase turned up as a weird result with the word “investment.” This is the best idea I could come up with at the time, but her lifepath goal is about “fame and money,” so it kinda fits.↩
5 This episode was kind of a snore too, I know, but it’s building up to something, I swear!↩
Bonus: NCART N-Counters (1d10)
You can roll these to liven up any time the PCs are using the city’s public transit . You can use stats from the CEMK or Cyberpunk RED for these.
1. Average gonks (roll 1d6): 1-4 – busy people trying to push past the PCs, depending on the time of day; 5-6 – tourist(s) with VR-tour shards or technogoggs.
2. Unfortunates (1d6): 1-3 – garden-variety homeless, or wine-o looking for a handout...earn your karma for the day; 4-5 – an “End is Near!” type or religious proselytizer; 6 - It’s a BD gonk skezzing out on their virtual opiate.
3. Busker. Roll 1d6. On a 5-6, the busker is actually a hologram with a QR-like code that leads to their CitiNet site where one can donate or purchase their music.
4. Juvenile delinquent (1d6): 1-2 – it’s a graffiti artist, but characters with cyber-optics can find hidden messages in the reactive spraypaint; 3-4 – a pickpocket or purse-snatcher. Roll 1d6, on an odd result, they’re targeting one of the PCs; 5-6 – it’s a pick-socket looking for shards instead. Roll 1d6 same as with the pickpocket.
5. Gangoons! (1d6:) 1-3 – 1d6 members of a gang appropriate to the district, loitering and looking for trouble; 4-5 – 1d6 gangoons about to fight with 1d6 others (could be a beat-down if one side is grossly outnumbered,) 6 – It’s a gang war! 2d6 gangoons from the district are in a firefight against 2d6 outsiders from a different gang.
6. NCPD! Roll 1d6: 1-4: 1d6 officers patrolling the station; 5-6: 2d6 officers (some which may be robots or drones,) on a manhunt.
7. Corpos (1d6) 1-3: a sad-looking, worn-down sarariman going through the motions: same scop, different day; 4 – a paranoid exec with twin drones to keep the filth and thugs away; 5 – 1d6 “men-in-black” corpo agents, failing to be inconspicuous; 6 – 2d6 Militech or Arasaka rent-a-cops on a manhunt.
8. Protesters (1d6): 1-3 – a few annoying ones pointing out some worthy, but hopeless cause; 4-5 – angry, in-your-face, belligerent whackjobs; 6 – It’s a riot!
9. Roll twice, and make the results fit, such as NCPD running after a juvenile delinquent. NCPD + Cyberpsycho (below) could be a MAXTAC encounter. If you roll 9 again, add a weird element, such as a corpo arguing with an AI briefcase or holophone.
10. A Cyberpsycho! Don’t forget to call Regina if you can take them down peacefully.
This material based on the Cyberpunk Edgerunners Mission Kit is unofficial content provided under the Homebrew Content Policy of R. Talsorian Games and is not approved or endorsed by RTG. This content references materials that are the property of R. Talsorian Games and its licensees.
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