CAST of PLAYERS
Merlin: A former Trauma Team doc whose license was revoked under questionable circumstances. Merlin's talent for chemistry and lifetime of partying has led him into a relationship with the Triads, where helps develop various illicit substances in exchange for expensive cyberware maintenance.
Baxter, PI: Born in a marine nomad flotilla near the Philippines, Baxter immigrated to California as a teenager and later joined the Night City PD, where he proceeded to make nothing but enemies. Muscled out of the force after arresting a particularly well connected exec, Baxter how has a corporate army, an Eastern European mercenary company, and a Combat Zone street gang breathing down his neck.
C.J.: A talented Trauma Team surgeon, C.J. has a reputation for brilliance, both metaphorically because of her skill in the operating theater and literally because almost every inch of her skin is covered in bio-luminescent tattoos. Though she prefers to hang back when violence starts, she's quite capable of holding her own with her high-pressure chem-gun.
Gielle Metalik: A Sudanese-born bike nomad, Gielle runs a gang in the Combat Zone, taking edgerunning jobs to maintain connections and keep supplies and munitions rolling in. A calm and charismatic leader, she maintains a pleasant demeanor but takes no shit, and is not afraid to get her rippers dirty.
Important NPCs:
Silver Shark: While other fixers might promise their talent the world on a platter if they take on some high risk, high reward gig, Shark has a reputation for reliability. His jobs might not pay the best, but they pay on time and they pay the right amount. Clients value his discretion, and edgerunners know that the Shark will take care of them.
Saturday, 12:00: Silver Shark was in his "office," a table near the back of a waterfront dive bar called Paradise Lost, when he got the call. An anonymous party with an electronically masked voice needed a bit of hands-on corporate espionage performed, and they were willing to pay pretty damn well for it. All Shark had to do was secure a crate of cargo off of a PetroChem freighter named Arabian Dream, without alerting PetroChem's security detail or the media. Simple enough. After relaying one of his offshore accounts to the anonymous client, Shark started assembling his crew.
Baxter and Merlin got the call first - Baxter smelled something fishy with the deal and went to do some digging on his own (because his player couldn't make it that week), but Merlin's wallet was a bit too light to turn down the offer. Gielle Metalik and C.J. needed the paycheck as well, and the crew assembled at Paradise Lost at 16:00 to hammer out the details. Shark was nothing if not prepared: the team was soon equipped with harbor patrol schedules, schematics of the vessel, and a 200 euro advance each. He'd also secured transportation.
Ariel, a small time smuggler who frequently worked with Shark to help people with questionable documentation get ashore without dealing with inconveniences like "customs" and "visas," had agreed to pilot the team out to the freighter, where it sat shrouded in heavy fog a short distance from the docks. Arabian Dream was a refitted 20th century model, and there was only one dock still operating the antique equipment needed to unload her. Shark had arranged for that dock to have a maintenance issue, forcing the target to stay anchored and vulnerable, away from the watchful eyes of PetroChem's corporate security.
Sunday, 00:00: Having taken the time to vet the information about the freighter, run a background check on Ariel, and buy some equipment, the Edgerunners reconvened at the habor to start their mission. Strangely, neither Baxter's investigations nor some skillful hacking from a contracted netrunner were able to turn up any information about the Arabian Dream's cargo; all official documents indicated that she was empty and had come to pick up a load of manufactured goods. Feeling a little less confident, but past the point of no return, the team reviewed their infiltration plan one more time as Ariel's sport boat glided almost silently towards the huge, dark bulk of the freighter, their approach masked by the dense fog. The plan was to insert via a maintenance ladder on the port side, enter the communications room and disable the ship-to-shore link, and then extract a sample of the mysterious, officially non-existent cargo from the hold. So far, they were off to a good start, without a single alarm raised as the sport boat slid up next to the huge ship.
Gielle mounted the ladder first, but was almost immediately flung back to the deck of Ariel's boat as a deafening explosion erupted aboard the Arabian Dream, sending a huge gout of flame into the sky and rending the massive vessel nearly in half. When the team recovered their wits, C.J. found Ariel slumped over the wheel, a chunk of shrapnel having entered the smuggler's left eye and protruded out the back of her skull. As Gielle shoved the corpse to the side, a huge, dense cloud of foul smelling vapor began pouring from the hole in the freighter's hull, water boiling on contact with the unidentified gas. Eyes and noses burning as the cloud surrounded the small sport vessel, Merlin frantically kickstarted the engine as Gielle gunned the throttle, pushing the boat back to shore as fast as possible.
Behind the fleeing Edgerunners, the cloud of toxic gas grew exponentially, practically overtaking them as they docked. Abandoning Ariel's body, the team scrambled back to Paradise Lost, giving a short, frantic account of the situation and mobilizing the bar's patrons to help seal the windows. Dish rags, duct tape, torn t-shirts, whatever was available, was crammed along every seam and crack in the windows and doors. It wasn't airtight, but it would give them a fighting chance.
Shark demanded to know where Ariel was, and was crushed to learn she hadn't made it. He'd always liked her.
00:15: Unable to leave, and with the gas at least unable to get in at the moment, the team settled in to wait things out. Keeping the Runners company was Mac, the bartender, a stout and reliable fellow who heard all the good gossip but hated to spread it, his waitress Cherry Moon, who loved spreading gossip, and a couple of drunks named Greg and Bob. Vic, the bouncer, was on Shark's payroll and worked security when he brokered deals. Over at a corner table sat Razorface Casey, a solo merc who was about four boilermakers in, and whose most notable features were the olive drab ballistic plates grafted to his skin over his vital organs, and the chrome plated, skull-faced helmet fused over his entire head. In the opposite corner, a frightened corporate flunky was making a hushed, panicked phone call.
00:16: Razorface orders his fifth boilermaker.
C.J. overhears a snippet of conversation from the corp, and catches him telling whoever's on the other end that he's trapped in a bar with a gang of terrorists that just set off a bomb. Shortly after, the phone and 'net lines go dead. It's clear someone wants them cut off.
00:20: The bar's various windows seem to frost over. Close observation shows that it's not frost, but corrosion from the gas cloud outside. The bar's television begins running coverage of a terrorist gas attack on the harbor.
Outside the bar, the team can hear occasional shouts for help and pops of gunfire, but these become less and less frequent as the minutes start to drag on into hours. Razorface continues to drink, sometimes glaring with his cold, cybernetic eyes at Bob and Greg, who are thoroughly sloshed and trading conspiracy theories about the cause of the explosion. The corp flunky, his off-the-rack suit drenched in stress sweat, refuses to talk to anyone.
Outside, the whine and clunk of failing cybernetic servos can be heard approaching the door, followed shortly by a frantic pounding. The visitor makes a gasping, gurgling cry for help, begging to be let into the bar. He pleads, and bargains, and claims the cloud has dispersed, that it's all safe, that he just needs to be patched up. Another bulletin comes on the TV, but the sound is drowned out by the desperate man's cries.
Razorface orders another drink, his cold, mechanical eyes glued to the door, targeting the sounds from the plaintive victim on the other side. The pleas gradually give way to wordless, bubbling, wet noises, as the survivor collapses outside the bar, the rags stuffed under the door turning a dark shade of red as a thick, gelatinous ooze soaks into them.
Cherry Moon starts to panic, and C.J. turns to comfort her. The two get on extremely well.
The TV report continues, "HF gas is extremely toxic, with prolonged exposure causing complete breakdown of soft tissues and decalcification of bones."
Gielle attempts to get some information out of the flunky, since he was the last person to make a call out before lines of communication were cut. The man identifies himself as Carmichael, a PetroChem PR specialist, and insists that there's nothing to worry about. Before the call dropped, he spoke directly to his supervisor Ms. Schell, and she promised to send an extraction team as soon as possible.
Time passes. More drinks are consumed. Cards are played. C.J. and Cherry explore the back of the bar for other means of escape.
Another news broadcast, this time an interview with Ms. Schell of PetroChem! She identifies Carmichael as the mastermind behind the attack, claiming he hired three mercenaries through an unknown intermediary to plant the bomb! Carmichael pleads his innocence to the team, claiming he had nothing to do with hiring them. The team isn't convinced, but Gielle points out that PetroChem could just need an easy scapegoat to avoid a PR disaster. The news switches over to a field report showing a team in PetroChem branded hazmat suits spraying a neutralizing agent over a building in the harbor district. Maybe help really is coming?
01:30: Razorface orders his seventh or eighth drink, and starts obsessively checking the status of his SmartLink, the capacity of his automagnums, the sharpness of his combat knife.. The team decides something needs to be done about the dangerous solo. Merlin has a small vial of Smash, a powerful painkiller with hallucinogenic side effects, and C.J. convinces Cherry to slip it into Razorface's next drink.
Unfortunately for the team, Razorface's toxin binders keep the drug from taking full effect, and he quickly figures out he's been roofied. Guns are drawn, and two shots ring out: a 9mm slug flattens harmlessly against the solo's dermal plating, while a .44 flechette tears through the wall of the bar, letting in a slow leak of dense, toxic fog. C.J. moves to protect Cherry, while Gielle and Merlin tackle Razorface hand-to-hand. Feet, fists, knees and elbows flash in all directions, with the largely unaugmented Edgerunners taking a few serious bruises. Eventually, the combined force of both heroes bear Razorface down to the floor, where Gielle does her best to keep him tangled in a hold while Merlin bashes the armored cranium repeatedly into the tile. Over the course of thirty excrutiating, exhausting minutes, Razorface's brain is finally rattled enough inside his chromed skull that he hemorrhages.
2:30: Something moves past the window. Although the glass is too fogged and etched to see through clearly, the shape appears to be vaguely humanoid, pushing seven feet tall. It moves to the rear of the bar and starts struggling with the locked back door. The surviving patrons rush to the rear, pressing backs, shoulders, and chairs against the door to keep whatever's outside from getting in. The thing, whatever it is, makes a sound like an angry junkyard dog as it finally gives up its assault. A short time later, there are a few cracks of gunfire and some very human screams from another building on the wharf.
Time passes in silence once again. The news continues to pop up sporadically with new, live footage of PetroChem's cleanup efforts, but C.J. and Merlin notice something amiss. Bits of the "live" video are recycled from earlier broadcasts, and whatever isn't appears to be shot on a soundstage. The team starts to think that help might be a long time coming, when suddenly the distinct whine of a air-effect vehicle can be heard from outside! There's a crackle of electricity and a strange blue glow just beyond the front door of the bar, as a loudspeaker announces that the gas has been temporarily neutralized. The team is obviously skeptical, and starts to prepare for the worst. Gielle and C.J. ready their weapons, while Merlin steals the dead Razorface's automags. The door is forced open, and a man in an utterly nondescript suit steps over the half-dissolved corpse of the gas victim who expired outside earlier.
Merlin shoots him in the knee! Further resistance is quashed when the AV parked outside starts to spin up its 20mm gun. The injured man says that he'd be happy to reduce the bar to rubble at this point, but the party might just make it out if they can prove the explosion was caused by PetroChem's negligence and not a terrorist attack. Gielle takes charge, convincing the man that her cybereyes recorded the entire run, proving they didn't plant the bomb. She'll also give the man Carmichael to interrogate at his convenience. Having thus firmly inserted themselves in the middle of a corporate skirmish, the party manages to bargain for their lives and are escorted out through a weird, glowing blue tunnel through the gas.
Halfway to the AV, and gunfire erupts from the corner of the bar! A squad of troopers in PetroChem hazmat suits have set up with a pair of light machine guns, laying down suppressing fire at the escaping survivors! Bob and Greg, the drunks, are both hit multiple times and crumple into formerly human heaps, their forms spinning out of the thin, blue light walls of the tunnel and dissolving in the mist. Shark, the Edgerunners, Mac, Vic, and Cherry barely escape onto the AV before the powerful cannons roar to life, erasing the PetroChem soldiers, the bar, and a good portion of the pier.
"We're taking you to the Mogul. He'll decide how to handle you."
Having been rescued from the airborne toxic event, the team has been held in a fairly well appointed corporate condominium complex, with access to two levels of the high rise, including a pool and a restaurant. They are not, however, permitted to leave, or to see outside through the automatically polarizing safety glass. Their concept of night and day has been controlled entirely by the cycle of lighting inside the residency. It's a prison, even though it's a very, very nice one. Strangely enough, there are absolutely no corporate logos or branding on any room, facility or employee inside the residence. It's a complete dark site.
After what seems like days of this, the team finally gets some good news, of a sort. Their fixer, Silver Shark, pays them a visit, with a large bottle of actual whiskey in tow. Apparently, Shark has learned, the team were right in the middle of a romantic disagreement between a Ms. Schell of PetroChem and a Mr. DuChamp at their unnamed corporate rescuers. The spat turned, naturally, into corporate espionage and some minor explosions. DuChamp hired the Edgerunners as patsies to keep the explosion from being traced back to his parent company, but the Mogul is sick of all the attention and decided it's time for DuChamp to retire.
Shark has offered to deliver Mr. DuChamp's severance package, and he and Gielle (whose player couldn't make it), head off to settle accounts on behalf of Ariel and the others who were caught in the blast and subsequent gas cloud. The Mogul, meanwhile, has an offer of particular interest to the Edgerunners, and sends his personal assistant Ms. Harker to bring them to his penthouse.
Ms. Harker was tall, slim, blonde, sharply dressed and exceptionally pale. Baxter attempted a thermal scan on Ms. Harker to determine if she was trying to summarily execute the team, and found that she produced almost no heat signature. C.J. made a pass at her, but received only the slightest of smirks with a tiny hint of an elongated canine tooth in reply. Ms. Harker demurred from entering the penthouse, leaving the team alone with a spectacular view of Night City through the massive, wraparound windows, a million neon points of light glimmering in the dark.
The Mogul's penthouse was a veritable museum of film memorability, with display cases full of original props, an actual slab extracted from the Walk of Fame, a few golden statues of various sorts from decades past, and a seemingly endless array of autographed pictures of stars ranging from the Golden Age of Hollywood to just before the Collapse. Nestled between photographs of Monroe and Connery, was a Polaroid of a young girl with dark hair in old fashioned clothes.
"My dear, late daughter.."
The voice seemed to come from nowhere. Baxter's IR scan showed no heat signatures except the party's, however Merlin's echolocator spotted a humanoid form standing behind a large writing desk. As they stared at the desk, a slight shimmer and ripple in the air was barely discernible, as if light was being bent around a vaguely human shape. The Mogul was there, watching but unseen, and as he spoke there was obvious air of bemusement at the Edgerunners' confusion.
He was a film collector, he explained, though that was obvious. He agreed to cut the team loose and let them return to their lives, if they could locate the last ten films he needed for his collection. He would only accept original reels, no copies, tapes, or laser discs. He was willing to pay 25,000 euros per film, and once all ten had been retrieved, the Edgerunners would never have to hear from him again.
It was an offer they could not afford to refuse.
The Mogul had a line on the first film, an original print of Fritz Lang's 1931 thriller M. The current owner of the print, a Mr. Larry Walker of Springfield, CO, had agreed to part with the film for 2,000 euros. The Mogul had even lined up bus fare for the crew, but did not provide the funds needed to secure the film. They'd be on their own to work out how to obtain it.
After a long, grueling Greyhound ride from the Bay Area to Colorado, the Runners arrived in the beautiful, idyllic, Stepford-esque town of Springfield. Little pastel houses of all the same design, on little plots of land all the same dimensions, all trimmed to exactly the same length. As they approach the home of their contact, they find something is terribly amiss. A black-and-white aircar is parked on the lawn, blue lights flashing on top. On the porch, an officer is having a very heated conversation with a man that is presumably Mr. Larry Walker.
Baxter flashes his credentials for a second and makes an Authority roll to convince the suburban cop that he's on assignment from the city and needs details about the situation. C.J. and Merlin approach Walker and make some Empathy checks to get his half of the story. It turns out that Walker's daughter, Alice, failed to come home from school and has been missing for almost 14 hours. Walker can't deal with the sale, due to being in a panic over his missing girl. Merlin seizes the opportunity, promising to find the girl in exchange for the reels.
Baxter figures they have a few hours at most before the Springfield PD realize he isn't who he claims, and uses the time to get the low-down on the suburb with some very successful Streetwise checks. He turns up that the are north of town is cordoned off into what the residents unimaginatively refer to as Gangland, a free-fire area similar to Night City's Combat Zone, but on a smaller scale. Gangland is centered on a very abandoned, very leaky nuclear power plant, and divided into four territories. The entrance is largely controlled by a Colombian cartel, which has been forced east by the Triads and Russians in California and Washington, while directly north of their region is an ultra-militant, ultra-violent gang called the Death Watch. West of Death Watch territory, an old junkyard is home to a posergang called the Bartsters, which affect an identical style of red t-shirts, denim shorts, and bleached, spiked hair. Due east are the Lost Boys, a new gang that nobody seems to know much about, but everyone avoids.
Merlin and C.J. head to Alice's school to make some inquiries among her classmates. Merlin Poochies his way into a group of teens and makes contact with one of the Bartsters, but the kid can only speak in some kind of weird, early 90s code. C.J. swallows her pride and flirts with one of Alice's teenage classmates, learning that she was supposed to come hang out after class the other day, but she got off the bus a block early and headed north towards the power plant. She seemed unusually pale, was wearing a turtleneck despite the warm weather, and moved as if she was half asleep.
Armed with this scant intelligence, the Edgerunners decide their only remaining course of action is to head straight into Gangland. Travelling north out of town, the team finds a breach in the perimeter fence around the old power plant, and sneak in through the Colombians' secured zone. Under cover of darkness, and with Merlin's echolocators and Baxter's enhanced vision to guide them, they sneak around the edges of the old Quonset huts and helicopter hangar that the cartel has re-purposed into a headquarters. Using Baxter's telescopic eye, the crew sees cartel members loading up a large number of crates into various innocuously marked tractor trailers, apparently getting ready for a big shipment. While the ex-cop wants the wreck the operation, C.J. and Merlin point out that they are outnumbered and significantly outgunned. Underscoring the situation, the team barely evades detection by a Humvee packing a heavy machine gun.
After some tense sneaking and hiding, the Edgerunners made their way up to the abandoned junkyard and met with Merlin's Bartster contact. Merlin spoke with the leader of the gang, Bart, about where Alice may have gone or been taken, while C.J. talked to the gang's chemist, also named Bart, about buying some of the drugs the gang uses in their hallucinogenic slingshot rounds. She manages to secure enough hallucinogen to fill a spare bottle for her chem-gun.
The lead Bart offers Merlin a deal: If the Edgerunners will help the Bartsters pull a prank on two of the other gangs, they'll lead them to Alice. The prank in question involves placing a large, homemade bomb in the Colombians' camp, then leave behind some Death Watch insignia, with the intent of starting a gang war and knocking out both heavily armed factions. Baxter and Merlin agree to the plan, but C.J. is skeptical, and opts to hang back in one of the power plant's crumbling out buildings and provide support. The bomb in question turns out to be a couple of 2-liter soda bottles, connected with duct tape and surgical tubing, and filled with some unknown combination of chemicals.
Against C.J.'s better judgement, Baxter and Merlin sneak back into the cartel's encampment with a gallon of highly reactive chemicals slung under the PI's arm. A sentry hears them passing, but they quickly manage to hide near some rusted out, slightly leaky, slightly radioactive storage tanks. Merlin starts to feel the effects of the old plant's radiation, while watching a few baby turtles playing in a puddle of green ooze. The sentry loses track of the intruders, but still makes a radio report. Although the alarm isn't raised, the Colombians are definitely on edge now. Baxter decides it's now or never, and tries to find a place to plant the bomb. On the way in, they saw a fuel transport parked next to the other semi trucks, but by now there are too many guards and too many portable lights there. As a next best option, he sights a residential-sized propane tank next to one of the Quonset huts, and moves to plant the device. Merlin uses his echolocators to keep track of guards, and the pair manages to place the explosives without incident.
Baxter rolls...okay...on a demolitions check. Either he shook it too much or maybe didn't add enough of side B to side A, but the chemicals in the bottles are reacting a lot faster than they should. With an explosion happening in seconds instead of minutes, Baxter and Merlin drop the Death Watch swag they were given where someone can find it, and book out of the base at a full run. Alarms go off, spotlights come on, and the base is alive with shouting men and rattling firearms. Baxter makes his reflex save but Merlin fumbles, taking a slug in the left leg and a second in his Kevlar vest. A moment later, the bomb goes off, along with the propane tank, and various munitions stored in the sheet metal hut. Baxter makes a crit on a Cool check, and does not look at the explosion.
Meeting up with C.J., the team books it towards the Death Watch compound and then veers off sharply, hiding among the plant's decaying and crumbling offices. Some of the Death Watch ride out to investigate the blast, and a full fledged firefight starts up between the militia and the cartel. C.J. patches up Merlin's leg while they wait out the fireworks, until a Bartster arrives to lead them to a safe path towards the Lost Boys' hideout, droning the brief, mystical blessing, "Don't have a cow, man."
Creeping up on the building where the Lost Boys have made their warren, the team peeks in through dingy, cracked windows and a large steel door that doesn't properly fit on the hinges. The inside of the building is a tangle of pipes, tubes, and dangling chains of no discernible purpose. Steam pours from a few damaged pipes, water drips from others. In a clear spot on the floor are six figures in the piecemeal leather, patched denim, and spiky accoutrements of a street gang.
Three of the older members of the gang stand facing down three junior pledges. The leader seems to be a tall, pale man of about 18, with a shock of white hair standing straight up on his head, and a large V-shaped scar across his face. Clinging to his arm and shoulder is a Native American woman covered in blood red tattoos, with her studded denim jacket adorned in eagle feathers. A large, bald, black man stands in front of them, knuckles of one massive hand caked in blood.
On the floor in front of this imposing trio, a boy of about 15 sits slumped half-limp, blood streaming from his mouth. Another boy about his age crouches next to him, trying to help the injured teen to his feet. A girl of sixteen or seventeen stands between the injured boy and the heavy, her arms spread out, an impressive mohawk of electric green hair on her head.
"Just stop it, Viktor! He didn't know what he was doing!" she pleads, looking at the man with the V-shaped scar.
"He fucking BIT her, and now we have to fucking deal with her. People are asking questions, Brenda!"
The Edgerunners deduce that this little exchange is definitely about Alice, with the gang leaders clearly about to dole out some Combat Zone justice to their junior member, and probably the missing girl as well. Something clicks in Merlin's brain about the girl's reported behavior, something reminding him of some strange hemophilia cases he was working on before being fired from Trauma Team. The patients all had strange puncture wounds on their necks, exhibiting palor, "zombie"-like behavior, and rapid loss in body temperature. The condition degenerated quickly over the course of 48 hours, leading to inevitable death, with orders from above to have the remains shipped off-site immediately, apparently for research at some off-the-books facility. Merlin had found that a total blood transfusion could reverse the course of the illness, but his research was frozen and his license revoked by management almost immediately after his first attempt at treatment.
The team decides they need to act fast if they want to rescue Alice. Baxter's heat vision detects her signature in a sub-basement below the industrial building, and the team quickly organizes an ambush and crossfire. Merlin draws the pair of automagnums he lifted off Razorface's corpse at Paradise Lost, C.J. charges her chem-gun and Baxter moves to cover her with his service pistol.
Merlin opens the assault from a broken window at one corner of the building, putting four slugs squarely in Viktor's face. Huge chunks of skull and brain erupt out of the back of the gang leader's head, but he somehow stays on his feet, his arms flailing erratically as he croaks an order at his two comrades.
"Eagle..! Rage! G-get--get..kill!"
The tattooed woman, Eagle, screams in rage, her eyes glowing with psionic energy as electricity crackles around her body. Baxter opens up with his side arm, sending several 9mm slugs into Eagle's stomach, as the woman hurls bolts of lightning at the Edgerunners! Merlin takes a bad shock but manages to shake off the stunning effects.
Moments later, the muscular Rage explodes through the wall of the building, and puts a knee directly into Baxter's face. The two struggle briefly, with the PI desperately blocking the massive brawler's vicious elbow and leg strikes. Baxter tries to shoot Rage point blank but rolls a 1, blasting his own leg off at the knee instead. Bleeding out on the ground, Baxter barely manages to stay conscious as the big man starts pummeling him in the face.
With the fracas in full swing, the junior gangers drag their injured friend away from the fight and hide out deeper in the industrial building, leaving an easily followed trail of blood. Viktor, a veritable walking corpse, shambles limply in their direction, one or two faltering steps at a time despite most of his brain missing. Eagle begins charging up for another electrokinetic barrage, the lights in the compound flickering and dimming as she summons a massive charge.
C.J. ducks into the opening that the single-minded Rage smashed in the building, and starts laying into Eagle with her chem-gun. The searing acid from her sprayer disrupts Eagle's concentration, causing the ganger to dissipate her charge and blow out every light in the joint. Merlin rounds the corner, a magnum in each hand, and lays into Rage's back with both barrels. The heavy hitter's head and upper chest disintegrate into a cloud of blood, pulp, and splintered bone, and his body slumps limply onto the badly bleeding Baxter.
As Eagle finally succumbs to the stream of caustic chemicals, C.J. drops her sprayer and heads over to help her injured comrade, dragging the lifeless Rage off of him and applying a tourniquet. Merlin enters the building, horrified at the twitching, melting body of Eagle sprawled on the floor, and the still vaguely shambling Viktor, which tries to turn and grab him. Merlin disgustedly puts a .44 round into Viktor's heart, sending the gang leader down for good. Merlin follows the bloody trail down to a hatch to the sub basement, where the juvies are frantically gathering a few supplies for their escape. The chemist, weapons still drawn, says that the team will forget they ever saw the juvies, if they turn over Alice. The deal is struck, as the injured ganger informs Merlin that "there might still be time..."
C.J. calls her Trauma Team contact for medivac by AV, as Merlin brings Alice up from the sub-basement. She's unnaturally white, unnaturally cold, utterly catatonic with bloodshot eyes and two small punctures on the side of her neck...
***
Epilogue
With Alice secured at a local medical facility, and with Merlin's information, doctors begin the long and painful process of flushing her blood from her system and replacing it with vat-cloned substitutes. Baxter will need his share of substitutions as well, but a Triad fixer offers to take care of that pesky leg situation for him. C.J. emails Cherry Moon and lets her know that she'll be coming home in a few days.
Walker upholds his end of the deal, turning over the film reels of M in exchange for his daughter's return. A hefty reward should be waiting for the Edgerunners on their return to Night City.
Just nine more films to go.
