8Z4

8Z4
Part of Meatgrinder
Date 2086-12-06 GM Asmodeus Location UV Host on the MCT GlobeNet Grid Status Threat Level: Semi-Prime
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Glenn	Mitsuhama Computer Technologies	Grid Overwatch Division
Samsara Huntress Lace Monitor	Hachi-Zetto Security Hyourinmaru IC	DemiGOD
Casualties and losses
3 points of edge burned	3 Spiders flatlined	None

Summary

An urban legend on the MCT grid is explored and uncovered for a shadowy patron. The exact details of the jumble of data are unknown for the runners, but it sure meant enough to warrant a stellar payday. Runners experienced a zombie apocalypse in Atlanta!

Background

See Meatgrinder for more info. The Johnson known for these hard gigs has expressed interest in Hachi-Zetto for a while now and thanks to a previous team's efforts at Mount Ooe, recovered critical access codes to try inserting teams into Hachi-Zetto for espionage.

The Meet

There is no meet. The runners wake up not knowing who they are, all humans, in a run over office building in Atlanta. Outside are the walking dead by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, and the team begins collecting supplies to survive. They only know that each of them had paper notes in their pockets stating Jared went AWOL somewhere in Atlanta. Find him and get the recon data from him.'

The Plan

Not having much to work on, the team gets their bearing on the circumstances and gets basic supplies, surviving close encounters with the walkers and recovering a handgun in the process. They begin noticing activities of other survivors and intend on meeting the guy to hopefully get more information. During this time they make notes: the bandits can move among the zombies without being attacked and the walkers turn into sprinters at night.

The Run

As they evade zombies and bandits, the team find another survivor named Glenn who claims to have known of a Jared in the city and that he left graffiti in the MLK park. Getting that far east is a difficult task, causing the team to scavenge a police station while Lace stays back and tries jury rigging radios together a bit better as well as collecting a toolkit together. The scavenging duo of Huntress and Samsara barely avoid being overwhelmed by a walker hode and leave with shotguns and armored vests, heading underground into the sewers to get past a huge walker formation blocking their way. Once they reach the park, they find a USB stick in a hidden stash and aim to make their way to the police station to access it thanks to the station's backup generator still creating electricity.

Although the bandits seem to be aware where the runners are at times and offer to meet up and negotiate, Lace manages to buy them time by promising a meeting 'with the whole team' during a tense stand-off. She burns that goodwill by not showing up, instead betting everything on going around the walker hordes and booking it to the police station. Once there, the team finds the data which contains key phrases unlocking PAB-programmed memory blocks in their heads. The runners remember who they are, the Sixth World and their mental abilities noticeably enforce their physical abilities. More notably, they understand now that they were hired for a five figure sum to find this intel found by a previous spy and extract with it from one of the exit icons in the ultraviolet host. They see two potential places where the exit could be: the Atlanta CDC laboratory or Fort McPherson.

To prepare for moving in either way, they head to a nearby mall and commandeer a bus along the way, driving it into the underground parking lot and looting a hardware store to begin augmenting it into a certified zombie mulcher truck. As they attempt to communicate with Glenn, however, they find that their friend who is still convinced the UV host is real hasn't opened his radio in a while. At least, he's not responding. Lace Monitor expertly modifies the car to become effectively immune to the walkers and as they prepare to leave, a 13 foot tall amalgamation of meat and machine crashlands in front of the mall, calling in artillery strikes on the mall that lets hordes of walkers inside. The team evacuates in a truck and rams the creature dead in one amazing charge.

Fort McPherson at first appears occupied by US Marines, though they open artillery fire on the team once the runners attempt to make contact. Having picked up Glenn on the way, they're convinced that this is not a good place to be and may be the bandit hideout. Instead, the three runners + Glenn make for the CDC, finding one of the bandit trucks in the yard and using the key card they find there to access the installment. Elevators take them down into some kind of military complex and Glenn realizes it's sculpted differently than the rest of the host, finally waking up into his true identity as an independent hacker who was curious of the urban legend and was trapped in the host for months. The team makes their escape with seconds to spare before reinforcement spiders arrive, almost dying in the process due to a demiGOD in the complex being nearly immune to most attacks - technomantic enhancement made the persona nearly immune to the conventional arms the runners had at their disposal, closing blast doors to bar the demiGOD's way as he still had to work within the boundaries of the sculpting.

Aftermath

Glenn, a very grievously injured Huntress, a shot up Samsara and frantic Lace jump through the portal icon and wake up in the meatspace with the spy data stored on a datajack. The medics had administered novocain to Huntress to keep her in the fight. Due to Glenn being a stranger and not one of the hired guns, is nowhere to be found, likely waking up in an apartment somewhere in Neo-Tokyo. The Johnson congratulates them and offers them all the promised services. Their bodies appear mostly untouched, barring the biofeedback all of them had to resist to some degree.

Rewards

(Semi-Prime, 58 RVP; runtime of 12 hours so max of 2x mult to base 40 RVP cap, well within margins)

• 86,000 Nuyen (43 RVP)
• May trade monetary rewards for gear rewards, see below.
• 10 Karma (10 RVP)
• 10 CDP (4 RVP)
• 1 Street Cred for completing a Meatgrinder (1 RVP)
• Chain Link tattoo for completing a meatgrinder

Gear Reward Options (up to base avail 19)

• Betaware Augmentations (with Records on File with the Johnson's group) or Alphaware Augmentations (no strings attached)
• Vehicles (corpsec included
• Vehicle & Drone Modifications
• Identity-altering/concealing gear (synthskin masks, Faceless, fake SINs)
• Skillsofts & Autosofts
• Cyberdeck & RCC Upgrades
• Dongs and Dongles