Session Date: 01/10/2025
Possible Juice replacements:
- Party contact (who Emerick convinced)
- Corpo type that is interested
- Some third contact
Wednesday, September 13th, 2045
Sulfur’s Gig
Ryne has grappled drummer that is the target. The drummer breaks free of the grapple. He’s surrounded by everyone and the fans aren’t moving to pick a fight quite yet: we are currently in control of the situation. Sulfur can tell that the fans assume this is all band beef, and the drummer is clearly perceiving everyone as a threat at this time. There’s an awkward pause with tension, and the drummer pulls the hammer back on his gun and says everyone better back the fuck up.
Sulfur tries to grapple the drummer, and the drummer tries to shoot Sulfur twice, missing both shots. Sulfur gets ahold of the drummer. There’s a close confrontation where Sulfur tries to shoot the drummer in the leg, but he misses, and Ri steps in with a facedown. Ri intimidates the shit out of the drummer, and the team strips the man of his weapons. They give the SMG to the fans, then drag the man out to the van. Sulfur handcuffs the man and explains the plan has changed and the new bands are changed:
The band van is now decoy with:
Real Van is now Net’s van:
We pile into our vans and begin to make our way to the rendezvous point.
As Net’s driving he notices a destroyed car in the middle of the road. As he’s coasting down the road he tells everyone to be ready, and he notices people hanging in the buildings on the sides of the road. The members look to be Maelstrom. For a brief second Net notices the flash of a sniper’s scope in the light, and then he feels the car start to swerve as a tire pops and spirals out of control. Net struggles with it for a moment, but regains control of the vehicle and continues to drive.
Net attempts a warning suppressive fire and manages to suppress one guy, and continues to drive as fast as he can. Seo texts Emerick to let him know that they are under fire with the Maelstrom, and then sends the location to Emerick. Emerick relays the information to Powder, and Powder begins to speed toward the area where Net is.
The Maelstrom manage to disable Net’s car and they get out, scrambling to deal with the Maelstrom before them. With quick thinking, Saint throws an EMP grenade and disables two of the Maelstrom by making their cyberarms useless. Combat continues and Net’s car is rendered inoperable.
Sulfur calls for backup from his team and someone named Copper calls back and confirms that he and one other can head over.
Combat continues.
Combat ends and Sulfur immediately points at one of his reinforcements and they head into the building to wrangle the drummer that managed to get free from the van during the combat. Sulfur finds him in a storage room and the man immediately says that he doesn’t know what the fuck Sulfur wants, but he’ll give him anything. Sulfur says to hand over the money now, which he does. Sulfur then shoots the man’s leg and breaks it, and then shoves his gun in the drummer’s face and demands where the rest of the band is.
The drummer caves immediately and gives his friends up: they rehearse in Heywood. He’s new to everything - he doesn’t know what they did to him. He quickly scribbles down the address for their rehearsal. As Sulfur takes the note, he hears a beeping noise as the drummer has some expression that looks smug, as if he’s going to take Sulfur down with him. Sulfur realizes that the drummer has an explosive implanted into him that was from the band, and it has malfunctioned so it does not explode. There’s a moment that he is surprised, and then he keels over as blood floods out of his body: the bomb didn’t explode properly, but it destroyed all of his internal organs.
Sulfur finds a piece of glass and carves the word Penny into his chest, then looks to Copper and his friend and asks them to take the corpse to the address the drummer wrote down. They take the body and go to take care of things.
Powder tears around a corner and we come to a screeching halt in the street. We all rush out of the van with guns drawn, ready for action. Net confirms that the action is over and Emerick immediately goes to check on Seo as Net retrieves his heavy pistol. Net asks if Sulfur got his guy, and when Sulfur confirms, Net asks what compensation he gets. Sulfur offers to help fix his van, and Net wants money.
Net figures out that Sulfur is acting weird, and Net asks if Sulfur’s a cop. Sulfur says he’s worse: world police. Charley steps up and clarifies that he’s CIA. Net says that he doesn’t care about Sulfur being a fed, and he deserves fair compensation. Ri steps up and says he was promised drugs. Sulfur lays the blame at Ryne’s feet, and Net agrees that Ryne fucked up.
Charley steps in between them and tells Sulfur to come clean about this. Sulfur says that he used to have a wife and a kid and some guys took up issue with his wife. They broke in and some shots were fired - Sulfur took one of their arms, but when he woke up his wife was gone, and his daughter was dead. He just wants his wife back.
Charley tells Net that he now knows why we are here, and then asks Net how much it will cost to repair the van. Net takes some time and comes up with a quote, explaining the costs. Charley sends money over to Net to take care of it, and then we all pile into he car and head back to the warehouse.
The Warehouse
Ri approaches Sulfur and says that he wants his drugs. Sulfur says he’ll get them by the end of the day, and Ri says that Sulfur got what he wanted…
Sulfur says to give him two hours and he’ll get it taken care of. While trying to convince him, Sulfur notices that Ri is clearly an addict - twitchy, on edge, ready to blow up. Ri was holding something at his side, and Sulfur realizes that Ri was likely going to pull a gun on him. Ri says that he better not be holding out on him, and Sulfur says that if he doesn’t get Ri the drugs, well, he knows where he lives.
Moving On
Emerick
Does some shopping, gets a biomonitor installed and linked to his Agent, picks up a Trauma Team executive subscription linked to his biomonitor.
Net
Does some shopping, rests a few days, works on his van to repair it.
Saint
Visits Torrent to get his arm fixed at the recommendation of Emerick, and then rests.
Ryne, Sulfur, and Emerick
Ryne hears about what’s going on with Sulfur’s predicament with Ri. He promises Sulfur he’ll take care of it, and he approaches Ri. Ri is hyping himself up at the thought of getting more of his coke so that he can go party. Ryne tells him to calm down and that he needs to get his head on straight for the concert coming up. Ryne tells Ri that he needs to wait - he will get the drugs, but he needs to wait.
Ri pulls out his gun and pushes it into Ryne’s chest, asking what the fuck Ryne is going to do about it. Ryne’s chain arm readies for combat, and Juice walks in. Ri pulls the hammer back on his revolver and goads Ryne. Ryne asks if he can punch faster than him, and Ri pulls the trigger on his gun. Ryne takes the hit.
Gunshots do not happen within the warehouse. Within seconds, everyone is inside of the living room and kitchen area, and Juice’s heavy footsteps come down the stairs. Ogre tries to full tilt tackles Ryne to get him away from Ri while Ryne deactivates his chain arm. Ogre hits Ryne and Ryne just doesn’t move. When Juice makes it down, he notices that Ryne wasn’t dispatched by Ogre, and asks Ryne what the fuck is going on.
Ryne tries to say that he’s keeping things from getting worse, but he can’t speak. Juice says that he recalls someone once touching the band, and it was the most significant punishment we’ve received to date. Juice approaches Ryne and explains that nobody. Touches. The. Fucking. Band.
Ryne dissociates completely and his blood runs red as he no longer wishes to live. He uses his chain ripper to attack himself until he falls to zero hit points. Juice says that the next person to threaten anyone in the band will meet the same fate.
He then approaches Sulfur and says that he made a deal with someone in the band. He explains that the band helped him with a job and Sulfur put up a reward he can’t even hold up. Sulfur starts to argue that he can get the kilo of coke, and Juice attempts to slap him. Sulfur manages to dodge it and Ogre comes crashing toward him, hitting him twice. Juice grows serious and says that Sulfur can’t pay Ri, so Sulfur can pay with his life, or become indebted to Juice.
Sulfur refuses and Juice beats him within an inch of his life before Emerick steps forward and begs him to stop, he’ll take on Sulfur’s debt. Juice looks to Emerick and steps in close to say that he appreciates that Emerick is stepping up, and they’ll discuss terms later. His attention turned back to Sulfur and tells him not to bring trouble to his door. Sulfur speaks back and says he didn’t, he was going to get the drugs. There’s some back and forth and Sulfur refuses to back down. Juice tells him to go get the fucking drugs, then, but don’t come back if he doesn’t get it.
Sulfur does go out and manages to get the drugs in time, thinking that this will get Emerick out of his punishment. Juice takes the cocaine from Sulfur once he returns, and Juice is glad to see that Sulfur lives up to his word. Juice says that Sulfur letting his mouth run can get him into some real trouble, and Sulfur agrees with a little smirk. Sulfur asks if it’s true that the Soviets threw potatoes as grenades, and Juice refuses to answer that. Sulfur leaves, and Juice goes back inside.
Sulfur
Rests for a week after the above misadventure, and he keeps trying his radio to get ahold of a friend of his.
Emerick & Juice
As Sulfur leaves to get the kilo of cocaine, the tension in the room is very palpable. Emerick is not let off the hook immediately. Juice actually looks back to Emerick and tells him to follow. Emerick follows Juice and Ogre to the office, with Ri coming along as well. Everyone else returns to their business as before.
When we get into the office and sit, Ogre shuts the door. Juice asks Ri how much Sulfur owes him, and Ri says he thinks it was a kilo - Emerick confirms that amount. Juice pulls a kilo out and hands it to Ri, and says that if it’s gone in a week, then they will have a talk. Juice isn’t giving it lightly: Ri owes him for this. It stays with him for a month. He won’t let Ri wash up like a piece of trash. He’s giving it to Ri for fun, not to fuck up his life. Juice then tells Ri to get the fuck out of his sight. Without hesitation, Ri grabs the kilo and leaves.
Once Ri’s gone, Juice looks to Emerick and begins to speak. He says that there’s an awful lot going on in this world, and a lot of people are looking at Emerick and wanting his help with work, and looking out for him. Emerick’s making a name for himself out there: doing work for his friends and helping them break other people out, costing Juice people in the process - all for what, some story? Juice remembers when he was a blogger looking for a quick buck. He knew how to hold a gun and use it, but now corporations are breathing down his neck, dangling promises in front of him, like the 141,175 eds he has.
Emerick’s face goes pale and he looks up at Juice in disbelief, confused as to how Juice knows about that. Juice explains that it’s easy to know when it happened: Cipher hurt a band member, and they were punished. Torrent and Emerick were good, yes, and didn’t have to deal with the addictive substances, but they were out for quite some time - time enough for Emerick to have some toys installed into him. Juice knows how to protect his assets, and any problems end up six feet under.
After an hour or so, Seo knocks on his door. Seo finds Emerick sitting on the floor, clearly not okay from his interaction with Juice. Emerick stammers out that Juice knows everything and has known everything, and Seo puts together that it was after the punishment for Cipher slapping Alice. Emerick just repeats it a few times and Seo admits he’s at a loss and isn’t sure how to fix it, and Emerick isn’t sure it can be fixed.
The two fall silent and Emerick leans up against Seo, only wanting some some comfort, and Seo pulls him close. Before the two can get comfortable, Juice opens Emerick’s door and tells Seo to meet him in the office. Seo gets up to go and Emerick manages to grab his hand, staring up at Seo as if asking him to stay. Seo just reaches the decision to stay before Ogre comes in and grabs him by the shoulder to move him to Juice’s office after all.
Emerick publishes his story revealing what Mr. Steele and Audun Bredall have been doing when nobody was looking, and it does very well, reaching a city-wide readership. The story live on Sunday, sometime on Monday Ida Mueller calls him and comments on the story. She compliments his story and how the facts were presented and the threat was dealt with. She wanted to show that she appreciates the work he’s doing and wires him another 30k.