| NEW MEXICO COPS, SESSION FOUR a Cyberpunk 2020 game run by Gary Astleford |  |
NEW MEXICO STATE POLICE OUTLINE #4 Ok... the next game. What shall we do? Well, last game, we had the obligatory "lights in the sky" bit. Mrs. Combs tried to turn her hubby into a man-sized piece of Swiss cheese. Twitch and his smuggler buddies came and went. The cowboy nomads rode into town, and are looking hard as blue steel. And finally, we had those two drunk NCO's try to get some poontang from the Tumbleweed's unwilling waitresses. What a day that was. What's up for this game? 1) Lights in the sky. Same shit, different session. Obviously, these became a regular feature of the game. Every night, the lights would come on. Every morning, they'd go off. We came to take them for granted... until the next game. More about this later. 2) Colonel Tagge Air Force Colonel Tagge shows up in an armored HumVee with two armed MP's. He marches into the office, or up to the nearest cop, and asks, "Who's in charge here?" Everyone looks at Ingles. Tagge is a scary individual. He is 5'10", and weighs in at a lean, mean 160 pounds. He has cotton-white hair, and one green eye. That is to say, his left eye (as well as the left side of his face) has been replaced. Think Breetai with white hair, almost. The left side of his face has undergone extreme cranial reconstruction. The flesh around his jaw is scarred; however, he has no other skin/hair on the left side of his face to speak of (his ear is also missing). A gun-metal skullcap was installed, as well as an artificial eye (red, of course).
Colonel Kevin Tagge (USAF) Administrator of Army Testing Grounds, ex-Delta Pilot Age: 38
Handgun +5 Basic Tech +4 Athletics +3 Electronics +4 First Aid +3 0G Maneuver +8 0G Combat +6 EVA +2 Space Survival +6 Spaceplane/Shuttle Pilot +8 Astrogation +6 Intimidate +4 Leadership +6 Pilot Fixed-Wing +6 Brawling +4 Melee +4
Small History/Personality - Tagge was one of the best Delta pilots until his craft was hit by a missile in the Euro-American Conflict of 2008. He survived by crawling into a rescue bubble, but at a terrible cost - his left arm and most of his face had been horribly wounded. He underwent months of surgery and treatment, but when it was all over he was forced into a desk job earthside, maintaining the joint army/air force testbeds in New Mexico. Tagge is grim, proper, and ruthless; he is also a good tactician. Tagge walks in, stares everyone down. He asks about his men, since he's heard that they are in the custody of the NMSP. Same day service, by jove. Anyway, he'll probably be denied. He'll ask about the circumstances surrounding the arrests. He'll ask to see the men. Once all this is over, he'll ask for a word with Brant in private. In short, he'll ask for his men back. He'll promise that military justice will take its course. He'll ask Brant not to waste anyone's time with the formalities of sending the boys north. He'll even go so low as to offer a favor in return for Brant's cooperation. Failing this, he'll mention that he can quite easily go over Brant's head. If he's completely rejected, he will leave standing tall, without a word or glance behind. This was perhaps the most intense moment in the entire game. Picture, if you will, the Colonel entering as though he owns the station. Sgt. Ingles (Brant) meets him midway, and then the shit hits the fan -- two men, both determined to have their way, one with enough military power to have the station and all the officers within it blown away at a single word, the other with nothing more powerful than a Militech Mk IV at his disposal, but who knows the law is on his side. At this point we did not know if the Lt. would make it, as she was in ICU in Santa Fe when Tagge showed up at the base, so Brant had to consider the fact that the two Army guys might be facing homicide charges. No dice were rolled, but this goes down as the tensest, most classic confrontation in my entire roleplaying career. Brant didn't back down. Now, if Brant lets Tagge take the two guys (which I REALLY doubt), Tagge will be much in Brant's debt. What this debt could consist of is up to Brant, I suppose. However, if he doesn't get the men, he'll be fairly displeased, though not at all angry. He'll call his superiors and try to get things done. His superiors, in turn, will reply that (for the sake of public relations, etc) the boys should burn. Tagge is concerned because the soldiers have knowledge of confidential material and activities. He'll let them go if he has to, since they'll end up back to him about a week or two later, anyway. Either that, or more likely, he'll set up a few snipers and blow the boys new assholes when they're shipped north. And that's exactly what happened. Tagge left. The Army men were held at the station pending orders from our higher-ups (who were suffering from the consequences of Tagge's behind-the-scenes maneuvering, though we didn't know it at the time). By the time word came down, Maitland had been released from the hospital, jacked up on speedhealing drugs and endorphins, and the Army guys were scheduled to be taken up for arraignment on the same AV that she flew back in. So, we have Maitland, climbing out of the AV with both of her arms wrapped up (remember, she broke the thumb on the other arm trying to put together that damned Fliedermaus). We have the two Army men, looking hangdog and pathetic in their jail clothes and restraints. It's a hundred degrees in the shade, a mini-dust devil kicking up from the AV turbines, and blindingly bright from the noon sun. We're all deaf from the AV, so, in perfect silence, the head of one of the Army men explodes into a rain of red gore. Everyone freezes, and then, as though in slow-mo, we hit the dirt. But not fast enough, and the second Army man goes down. No more shots were fired, and though we canvassed the area immediately with our AV, we found nothing. I can imagine how antish and ineffectual we must have looked to the Army sniper, scrabbling around trying to pick the second guy's brains up out of the dust. 3) Phillip Mahr calls the station. "There's somethin' movin' 'round in my corn. It attacked one of my men, so git yer asses out here and shoot the fucker." This'll happen at around nine o'clock at night, which won't make for happy people -- the workers are tired from working all day, and want nothing more than to relax. Story is, one of the workers was out taking a leak when a spidery clicking thing sprang out of the corn and jabbed him a couple of times, then took off back into the corn. Jerry Grimes is my number one man for the injury. He'll be crying bloody murder when the cops arrive. As it is, he's got two bloody holes in his body - one in his thigh, about six inches from where his dick is, and the other in his lower abdomen. The holes are about a centimeter across, and remind anyone taking a closer look at them of the holes you can make in an apple with a straw, where the piece in the middle is removed. Miller will be looking him over when the characters arrive. Mahr tried to get some of the men to go into the corn and find whatever it was that got Jerry, but they're all too scared to go. It's not an alien in the corn, my friends, but a small spidery botanical robot with a severe malfunction... or is it programmed funny? Whichever, it's running around with a modified version of its "pest control" software running. It will use sharp, hollow tubes used to sample soil in order to do away with any pests that get in its way (including the cops). The tubes do 1d6+2 to any body location hit. The John Deere Botanical Spider Droid
The droid has ten legs, five on each side. Once all legs on one side are destroyed, the creature can only walk in circles with its non-functional side acting as a pivot in the dirt. A hit in the sensor array that destroys it will render the droid "blind," and it will strike out randomly. Main body hits must inflict a total of 20 SDP before it stops functioning. If it takes more than 30 SDP, the programming circuits will have been destroyed. The critter has a movement score of 8, and is about a foot in diameter, with the legs sticking out an additional foot on each side. It has a base 10 chance to hit with its tubes, and can make two attacks per round. It also has a nozzle in its "face" which can spray ten "shots" of an industrial strength pesticide which will cause vomiting, blindness, and possibly death if ingested. If the critter is "caught" or "killed," it will be found that Louis Rogers' name is laser-etched on its belly. If questioned, he will state that yes, indeed, it is his equipment, but he doesn't know how it got to the other side of town, much less why it was attacking anyone. After all, Tina Livingston is in charge of his bots. If questioned, she won't admit to anything (though if anyone rolls a human perception roll of 15 or better, they'll know she's hiding something). Truth be told, she sent the droid over as a practical joke against Jerry, but she didn't know it would turn so ugly. This is all true -- she didn't think it would do any harm, since it was programmed to come back the next morning. This could lead to her dismissal from Louis' farm, and possibly her arrest by the players. We'll have to see. If the bot isn't totally wasted, and someone checks its programming, they'll find it's running a modified version of a pest-control routine that increases the pest size to human configuration. Specifically, it was modified to attack anything under 5'3" in height, and since all of Mahr's workers were over 5'5" tall, there wasn't much chance of it going after anyone besides its designated target, Jerry Grimes (coincidentally, 5'3" tall... ). Let me emphasize, since it's important in the next part, that we did not know this little bit of height trivia! To add insult to injury, its pesticide reservoirs had been refilled with cat piss, so Jerry got a hefty dose of Nature's finest fragrance. Ingles (Brant) and Burke (Joe) got the duty again, so, on a windy, moonlit August evening, they ventured into Mahr's 12' genengineered cornfields to track and capture something which just might be an escaped alien from the nearby Army base. You can probably imagine the scene. It's a full moon, the wind rushing through the cornfields, and these two officers (scared shitless) are creeping through the rows, pistols drawn, jumping at every insect movement and owl hoot. Of course, what they don't know is that the bot has been programmed to ignore them, since they're over its height restrictions (5'3", as you recall). However, they're trying to be smart, and so they're crouching, weaving, and bobbing as they move through the field, and so the bot's getting confused -- now they're targets, now they're not. It gets closer, and they freeze and stand up, and it loses interest... and they crouch, and it comes back. It's only a row or two away when they decide the search is fruitless, and stand up to start laughing at each other for being such pussies. As they stand, it stops. But they hear it rustling and ticking, just a few feet away, and they instinctively crouch back to back to reduce their profile. And, of course, that's the trigger it needs to launch its attack. Two freaked-out officers exit cornfield a few minutes later, dragging the destroyed remains of a John Deere Botanical Spider Droid behind them. We examined it, as Gary had suspected we would, and tracked it back to Tina, and wormed what she'd done out of her. Jerry pressed charges... actually, the little bastard tried to shoot her, and after we broke THAT up, we took her back to the station on an assault w/deadly weap. charge. She remained in custody until the end of the game. 4) The matter or Lt. Maitland's medical bills is covered below. Lt. Maitland's Medical Bills
TOTAL COST PER MONTH: $623.00 per month Unusual for a Cyberpunk game in that a character had to make payments on a limb she didn't even want. 5) The newbie will come up with Maitland, or shortly before. His name is Paul Charlemaigne, known by his friends as "Char". He is/was a paramedic with a unit in New Mexico, but due to some trouble he has been reassigned almost permanently to the Crossroads project. Name: Paul "Char" Charlemaigne, Paramedic/Medic Age: 28
Streetwise +5 Fast Talk +4 Awareness +4 Biology +4 Diagnose Illness +4 General Knowledge +4 Gamble +5 Library Search +3 Brawl +2 Handgun +4 Medtech +5 Cryotank Operation +2 Pharmaceuticals +2 Cyberware - Biomonitor, Neuralware Processor, Pain Editor, Chip Socket, Total HC - 7.5 Advantages/Disadvantages - Greedy (-4), Strong Stomach (+3) Small History/Personality - Char was put into an administrative limbo when he shot a young boy at a crime scene. He and his unit had responded to a call for help involving shots fired. He went in a little bit edgy. The boy, a ten-year-old, had run from the shadows suddenly, and Char fired without thinking. The local authorities hushed up what might have been a circus for the media by blaming the boy's death on those involved in the original crime. Nevertheless, his license was revoked and he was left without a job, to wallow in his guilt. When the Crossroads project came about, Char was notified that he was being assigned to it, far away from the prying eyes and ears of News 54 or WNS. Char carries his service pistol, but he never loads it anymore. It's more for looks. He's also developed a small problem - he can't sleep without taking a soporific, and he can't wake up without taking a stimulant. He has a small supply of these pills with him at all times. He's glum, with a macabre sense of humor. He's not happy with where he is, and he's not shy about letting you know, either. He's not a cop, and will stress this if ordered to do something he's against doing (like loading his gun or helping with an arrest). He dresses in a blue paramedic jumpsuit.
On To Session Five |