Death of a Salesman

Night City, Japan. 2065.

The dark, narrow streets run inland from the bay beneath a sky the color of a dead television screen. Perched between the towering corporate arcologies of Chiba City and the dizzying heights of the Arasaka megacomplex in Neo Tokyo, Night City is a border town of sorts. Too dingy for the corps to give their full attention but just close enough to be a thorn in their side. A veritable melting pot of cultures where people speak in jumbled mixes of Japanese, English, and African slang and home to some of the most dangerous black markets in the world. Chromed out psychos roam the shadows alongside nip-tucked corpo clone-boys and exotic joytoys, everyone looking to either spend or steal a few eddies the hard way.

Your crew is no different. For six months now, an eternity in Night City, you have run together on the razor's edge in pursuit of the all-mighty eurobuck. Your crib, a condemned warehouse in the old port where the neon floodlights are all that keep the boosters away. A motley crew by any measure, you were put together by circumstance, the circumstance of debt.

Ira Vikktor was a blackhearted son of a bitch. The kind of choomp you'd rather see torn apart by dogs than anything else. An infobroker of some great talent, he ran most of the half decent fixers in Night City and as luck would have it, he also runs you. Vikktor has a stack of the blackest of mail on each of your titanium heads and for the last six months you've been running jobs for him out of pocket. Even your wheelman Carlisle owed that jag the rims off his ride with fuck-all to be done about it.

Turn on the news choomp

Sergei opens the browser on his agent and loads the feed from N54...

...reporting live on the explosion in Ninsei, the downtown corporate metroplex of Night City, Japan. Authorities say the event took place between two and two-fifteen AM, JST. The blast leveled the thirty fifth floor of the Arasaka Ninsei headquarters, death toll is as yet unknown. In other news, NAS continues to sweep through Neo Tokyo...

Vikktor is dead choomba. Word went out 12am, hit was on. I knew he had enemies but two hours? Only one outfit I know that could have zeroed a whole floor on Arasaka soil in two hours... Arasaka.

"Are we talking chip or full on keyboard? Hey, Numa. What would you need to chip in with either of those?"

Numa is indeed able to search aerial imagery of the Silverhand Pavilion.

The meet will take place in the building with the green/yellow squares on top. It is a deliberately public place to maintain a neutral advantage.



Roughly 16 minutes from your warehouse...



(Shinozaki Park is Night City slang for Silverhand Pavilion. Believe it choomba.)

At 6am the dock ward is bustling but most of the traffic is closer to the water. The district you live in is controlled by the Yakuza, though various layers of shell companies and off shore holdings make it difficult to know that fact. The hoods that are around are all the guys you know that look out for the neighborhood.

The rentable rec room in the pavilion is a single room building with a long table in the center meant to be rented out for birthdays and parties.

Mr Brett puts in a call to his fixer, Thea, and inquires about firepower...

Numa downloads local street maps of the meet up area and spends time going over the possible avenues of egress.

Serj comes up empty on chummers that know anything, apparently the event has a fairly exclusive guest list. When he stops by the venue however he is able to see that there is a parkwide security camera system as well as two maintenance spider robots that habitually patrol the grounds picking up litter and trimming hedges. He does see that there are a number of people using the grounds for relaxation during the day.

Numa manages to find out that there are five fixers, well connected individuals of which he has never heard who were invited to the meet. Of specific interest he learns that none of the fixers invited were acquaintances of Vikktor, it seems like his assistant wanted to put as much obfuscation into the sale as possible, no chance of buyer's remorse leading back to him.

Local knowledge check

Although you are certain Arasaka owns a great deal of property throughout Japan, Mr Brett is unable to learn anything useful about the area around the meet up.

Drugs bought, homework done, the heat of the day gives way to the humid tranquility of night. 8pm hits and Carlisle drops you off at the park.

I'll be a block away, comm when you're ready to out."

There is far less foot traffic in the park now that the sun has set but a couple small groups of street punks loiter on the fringes, seeming to pay you no attention as they slot their evening braindance. The rec room is lit from within and through the window you see a thin man standing by a table set with cloth and crystal decanters.

There is a portable wet bar that has been set up with bottles of champagne and liquor that would hide the rifle nicely.

Numa steps outside the rec room and mentally switches his Smart Glasses over to scanner mode. He looks around the park in augmented reality, seeing the maintenance terminal box and jack point next to the charging station for the two maintenance spiders. One of the two spiders displays [ERROR] as Numa's vision sweeps over it.

The three street punks are really getting going now, probably right at the good part of their BD as two of them hold out their hands as though gripping pistols and whooping loudly while one of them dry-humps the air furiously.

As Numa focuses on his task, one of the punks holding a pretend gun says to whatever the dry-humps one is humping "Anata wa sono meinu ga sukidesu ka? Watashi wa tsugidesu!"

A disgusting laugh is had by all three of them.

Mr Brett spots a 9mm in the waistband of one of the punks neon yellow pants and a length of chain coiled around the arm of another. The one humping air seems to be unarmed. Chipjacks on all three of them though no other obvious cyberware.

Other than the punks and the maintenance robots the park is clear.

No mata, choombata.

Numa jacks out of the maintenance server with a grin.

Another fifteen minutes and several town cars pull upto the parking lot and disembark their passengers; five rides for five fixers each sporting a pair of bodyguards. You can practically smell the grafted muscle as the goons come your way, dark glasses on and fingers on earbuds.

A quick ocular pat down tells you all are packing heat.

The goons stop I'm front of you and turn to look at their clients as if seeking permission.

One fixer looks none too happy about this,

No, I specifically told that prick that Jack and Hammer never leave my side.

He begins to walk past you along with his muscle...

The fixer stops before Sergei's hand and the two goons swing around to stand on either side of him.

This is ridiculous, let me talk to the assistant.

The fixer looks none too happy but waves a hand and the two syntha-goons step off. He continues alone towards the rec room along with the other fixers.

Last to arrive is Jaws, who pulls up on a Maserati street bike alone. He smiles and nods to Sergei as he strolls up, helmet under his arm.

Holla choom, how's it look in there? Everyone else arrived yet?

With the team divided and everything looking secure, the participants take their seats inside and soon the auction is underway. The first item on the list is a map of the territory that Vikktor held, it's range having been parceled into three functional neighborhoods which go rather quickly to three of the bidders.

Next up is Vikktor's armored town car, an exquisite high-end vehicle with hidden turrets and a mini SAM system in the trunk. Three of the participants abstain from the bidding but the other three make feverish bids in an effort to upgrade their own fleet.

Finally the cyberdeck with Vikktor's clientele list is brought out of an armored case...

Outside, Mr Brett spots the last thing he had hoped to see; an NCPD patrol car pulls slowly into the parking lot...

Flesher turns toward the patrol car and one of the officers rolls down the window, visibly calmed by the presence of Trauma Team.

Whaddya got? Junkie OD or something?

The officer smiles coyly and takes off his sunglasses,

Slow night, gang fight earlier but already scraped that up. What's with the corpo convention? Lot of muscle for a late night pick up game.

Numa continues to gaze out towards the windows but his smart glasses are showing the WiFi router access terminal.

The first bid is made, 50,000¥.

The officer is smiling suggestively at Flesher when Mr Brett begins his tirade. Suddenly, the cops face is hard as stone...

Inside the rec room the second bid is levied against the cyberdeck...

100,000¥

The officer looks back to Flesher,

This gonk drunk or something? Want us to get him out of here?

The cop smiles devilishly and bems Flesher over his number.

Yeah still on the clock but I'm off in two hours. Shoot me a holo if you're still up.

With that the patrol car pulls out of the parking lot.

"Two hundred thousand!" shouts Jaws at the auction table and the other fixers fall silent.

"Sold to Mr Jaws for two-handed thousand" says the Assistant in measured tones,

"That concludes our bidding gentlemen, please transfer your funds to the account provided."

Jaws stands up from the table,

"I prefer to pay cash, you understand. No routing trace on cash. I'll just have to retrieve it from my car."

The assistant nods and Jaws walks to the door, glancing at Sergei as he does so and raising his eyebrows with an odd expression...

Sergei can tell the expression is meant to convey something dire, Jaw's eyes showed something akin to fear while the eyebrows seemed to convey urgency...

Sergei notices that Jaws left his helmet on his chair when he left...

The assistant impatiently waves you off without looking up from his laptop. The other fixers in the room are busy transferring payments from their agents.

Numa follows Sergei out of the rec room just in time to see Jaws fire up his street bike, no helmet on...


Jaws smiles and gives the two finger salute...


A text comes in over the group comm...


Stand clear chooms...

This is the general layout of thugs, there are five cars in the parking spots shown.

Zeta is by the tree in the parking lot

Sergei notices the two goons standing by their car are apying close attention to Jaws, one of them nods in his direction and Jaws returns the nod. The others are either smoking or chatting amongst themselves.

Carlisle returns on the comms,

You boys need immediate ex-fill?

On my way...

Carlisle responds and then...



The force of the blast hits Sergei and Numa like a truck, sending them sprawling to the ground! Several of the goons are caught off guard and hit the ground as well, everyone grasping at their ears in pain. From down the street you hear the squealing of tires...

The two goons who were standing in the parking lot seem unaffected by the turn and quickly get in their car to escape but as you climb to your feet everyone left in the courtyard locks eyes with you...

Brett's smoke pops in the middle of the courtyard and quickly fills the area...

Sergei lobs the tear gas into the center of the smoke cloud and quickly pulls back towards the parking lot along with Brett and Numa...

While the majority of the guards immediately succumb to the tear gas the two closest to the tree are upwind and manage to draw down on Sergei and Numa! They jerk pistols from their belt lines and go to work...

The pair of guards who were already in the parking lot jump into their car and fire up the engine! In one clean move they whip backwards out of the parking space and shift into drive.

The three pairs of guards caught in the gas cough and wheeze and look around through the opaque cloud Brett popped for someone to shoot at...

Sergei puts down one of the goons to the tune of an old bit of classic rock with a backing track of auto fire.

Brett lays down a spray that sends everyone in the parking lot running for cover just in time for the squealing tires of Carlisle's armored ride to hit the scene.

You lot lookin' for a fuckin' taxi or what? Let's go!

Everyone piles into the ride and Carlisle peels out just before the sirens of the NCPD are heard.

"Gonna take a bit of a roundabout lads, hope ya don't mind."

Carlisle weaves through back alleys until he hits a major avenue and hauls ass to a parking garage. Burning rubber down four levels to the sub parking level, he whips into a spot and yells "Out!"

Jumping out himself, Carlisle pops the trunk and enters a code on a hidden keypad which causes the car's paint to shift from blue to green. The nomad then leads the way to a second car parked nearby which he fires up and waves everyone into.

With the vehicle dumped the ride back to the docks is a leisurely one and Carlisle stops for cyber-burgers on the way.