[The Story]

The aftermath of the gang's shootout at the Star Mall continues as Bob is taken aside at the precinct by his superior, Captain Murdock Burns. The force knows Bob is friends with Vincent, and while Vincent is only connected to Codex and Sids tenuously, the association could be dangerous for Bob warns Captain Burns. "You've been with the force twenty years, Bob, and you've got a good record. Don't let Vincent take your life from you if he's into something shady. IA is going to be watching him, and that may put you under their looking glass too." Bob solemnly accepts the warning from his friend, and exits the office with the specter of disaster hanging over him.

Yet if Bob thinks his evening is working out badly, Jade's is working out to be worse. She returns to her apartment to change and head out to the bar and as she opens the door, she's smashed in the stomach with a pry bar. Blackness engulfs her, and when she wakes up, she's tied to a chair. A striking Asian man with two menacing friends looms over her. He introduces himself as Aristotle, and describes a scene where his brother, a cashier at a Tex Mart in South Night City was violently killed by a gang attack last week. Being a Buddhist, he must find his brother's body and perform the rites that will allow it's spirit to rest lest it haunt the city restlessly. Of course, when his family arrived on the scene, all of the bodies were missing. What was a brother to do? Jade quickly rats out Jesus, and Aristotle produces a bag of bloody teeth in reply. "Yes, we talked to him. He suggested I talk to you since my brother didn't have a donor card." Jade paled. "Look, I just want my brother back. Convince your friends to help me, and I'll leave you alone when I have the body. If you don't help me, I'll execute every last one of you." Jade nods grimly, and Aristotle unties her. Now very amicable, he escorts her to her bike where he has parked beside her, and they leave together for the bar.

The atmosphere at the bar is relaxed and pleasant. Racy is eager to show off her bike's new paint job, and everyone is flush with their latest paychecks. Boxes of Smash flow freely. Racy, Bob, Fix, Angel, Jack, Jenny and D (fresh in with his new bike) head outside to see Racy's bike to find Jade and Aristotle pulling up. Jade introduces him, and he greets everyone. He admires Racy's bike, and then offers to buy them all drinks as they listen to the story of his brother.

He sounds sincere, and most of the gang are eager to help, but two things prevent their complete buy in: they fear the body of Aristotle's brother might not be in any recoverable condition after selling it to the mysterious Philippe last weekend, and there is a tense reservation in Jade's manner that suggests something isn't being said.

Angel secretly calls Dale, and Dale replies that he regretfully can't help her since he's tied up with work. Now if she could help him deliver a package downtown... Angel and Racy grab their helmets and race to South Night City to pick meet their contact, Burnham.

Back at the bar, D picks up on something, and decides to lay everything out in the open. Aristotle gives an anecdote about sinking the remote control boats of rich kids with a homemade ramming ship he and his brother made when they were kids in Hong Kong. D says he lived in HK as a child, and once his RC boat was sunk just like that. Offering to let bygones be bygones, he offers his hand to Aristotle and Aristotle accepts. That's when D shoots Aristotle with the gun hidden in his cyberarm and things start going down the tubes.

Aristotle recoils in pain and runs for the door. D shoots him again, clipping him in the leg. Jenny screams for D to stop and for Jack to stop him. Jack, perhaps paralyzed in shock or unwilling to move against his friend, does nothing. Aristotle races out the door, and Fix bursts out of the bar in pursuit. Fix tackles Aristotle in the parking lot and pins him to the ground. D rushes out followed by the rest of the gang, and a fierce standoff occurs, with D playing up his vengeful hair trigger temper. Fix stalls, but then decides to take a risk to try to knock Aristotle out or immobilize him further and injects him with a biotoxin. Unfortunately for the gang, it kills him outright.

The gang decides this would be a great time to run for it, and abandons the body right there in the lot as they peel out with their bikes. D takes Aristotle's bike since it's nicer than his, and fix takes Aristotle's wallet.

In South Night City, Racy and Angel pick up a disk from Burnham, just as a security company SUT surges around the corner after him. The girls mount their bikes to ride for it, but Racy's biking skills are still weak and she is quickly Run down by the SUT and spills on the street. Luck has it that she isn't run over and the men in the SUT get out and start shooting. With no fighting skills of her own, Racy takes a bullet in the gut and though Angel's armor is too tough for the men's handguns, her bike isn't and it's shot out from under her. The men take the disk from Racy, get back in the SUT, and drive away. Angel calls in a Trauma Team, and begins spinning a story of a violent attack and sexual assault to the Trauma Team rep.

Uncertain of what they're up against, Fix investigates Aristotle's apartment to find out about him. He finds a single room apartment in a corporate burbplex with a security guard. Apparently, Aristotle lived alone. So where is the family Aristotle spoke of? On other fronts, Racy gives a statement to a recorder at the hospital somewhat different from Angel's, and it looks like Jack is in the doghouse with Jenny, who's appalled both at Fix's and D's behavior earlier as well as Jack's unwillingness to intervene and save that man's life.

[GM Notes]

This game, I was experimenting with having more simultaneous plot threads. Since this isn't so much a mission-oriented game, they characters will be more loosely connected than a standard adventuring party. With that in mind, I took some inspiration from ER and came equipped with a bunch of storylines that I could jump between when the characters inevitably split up. I had something for Bob, getting some heat from IA, something for Jade, making new friends all the time, and something for Jack, continuing troubles with his SO.

Having a little something personal for a bunch of the characters kept things lively I think. However, I'm still having trouble illustrating the story themes I came to the table to present. Still, the nature of the game makes it easy to dovetail other dangers into the plot even as they diverge from the ones I've set.

***

One thing I've found about RPG groups is all you have to do is spook them, and they'll shoot everyone in sight and run for the hills, as if killing all the witnesses eliminates the evidence. What concerns me about this particular panic killing is that it may unleash a storm of retribution that may cost them all their lives. Certainly they'll have to beg Abdul to let them in the bar again, but will they be able to drink in safety ever again?

I'd set Aristotle up to let Jade play though the question of loyalty. Aristotle quoted Heinlein by saying the noblest thing a person can do is put their mortal body between their loved ones and danger. Would Jade be able to assist Aristotle for the good of her friends? Obviously the tension was too much for her. This wrecked my plan to hang the threat over her head for a while, but now I have a much more horrible threat to hang over everyone's heads. I don't blame Jade, since it is pretty realistic that she wouldn't be able to completely cover her anxiety and that she would seek the gang's intervention against reason to escape the immediate threat Aristotle represented, even if it means that down the road, they may all get killed if Aristotle wasn't bluffing.

This creates an interesting story thread for upcoming games. It won't do to massacre the gang wholesale, but determined stalking and perhaps picking off a character or two a session will put a chill on things for them. Then again, maybe nobody will show at all. Maybe Aristotle had nobody that could carry out his gruesome threat. The pervasive fear of potentially being hunted down should be cool, especially watching the difference between characters who did the bodyjacking and those who just hang out with them.

Jack didn't help them steal and sell the bodies last week, but he's got problems of his own. He's the only gang member with a SO and she's getting ready to kick him to the curb because he hangs out with psychopaths and he didn't stand up for Aristotle in front of Jenny, who was totally convinced of the man's sincerity.