The ultralight's propellers are whisper-quiet as we dip below the smog layer, a bullet aimed at the heart of the city. Wendy's scrambler does its job - a patrol drone illuminates us for an instant and I feel my gut tighten, but the drone keeps moving, mistaking us for a low-altitude ad-sat. I stack a few more hopes that ReGene's scanners can be spoofed this easily. I'm counting on it.

The ultralight is our ace in the hole, pulling double-duty as our getaway ride. I'm playing it fast and loose, the way I like it. BB told me the ultralight came from Greater Arizona, that they used it to snipe water poachers who couldn't hear it coming until it was too late. We hit an updraft from the weather patterns created between the buildings and Wendy sways on her tether as she clings to the fuselage.

Wendy. I wouldn't be in this if it weren't for her.

Forty-eight hours ago she drops into my lap when I'm fresh off an eight-day bender of virtual amphetamines as your friendly neighborhood Net jockey for hire. I haven't seen her in four years. I'm riding the end of my last adrenomax cycle when she calls me, panicking that someone's out to flatline her.

The guy who fumigates the Friskie's Sandwiches with this machine pistol convinces me she's telling the truth.

The adrenomax finishes its last cycle just in time to stop us from getting flatlined but I get lucky and we get out alive with a little bonus.

We head for BB's, sweet lovable BB, cyborg supersoldier-turned-mechanic, and I pop open the disk, almost losing the best parts of my brain to a pair of loaded bots and their Rem. Nothing an information specialist like me can't handle, but what I find on it blows me away. Plans, biomedical data, blueprints for a full-conversion cyborg beyond anything on the market. A hybrid. A killing machine.

From there everything goes to hell.

Wendy calls up Laudine, a goddess, an oracle with her gene-sculpted finger on the pulse of every whisper, every rumor in the city. She can tell you anything, everything, but her price always cuts. She strings me along, feeding out just enough information to keep me guessing and my world drops out from under me.

Wendy had the disk before I found it, Laudine tells me. She had it and she was on the run from those two guns. Laudine names her price then, she wants a copy of the disk. I'm backed into a brightly-lit corner when BB pings the base of my neck and asks if I wouldn't mind scooting outside to help him out with the gunfight on Laudine's front lawn.

I ditch out on my tab and the two of us get out alive, but not before Wendy pulls my appropriated gun on me and tells me to fork over the disk. She can't bring herself to flatline me so I leave her breathing on the curb without the disk and vaporate in BB's ride while he's still in lizard-brain mode.

BB's neuroplastic pills stretch his brain back out of its Nestle-sponsored lizard mode and he introduces us to some lotek freegers. More to the point it turns out his one-time streetdoc recognizes the hybrid and names ReGene as the zero-zero. It was Dr. Saldana's baby once - when his team couldn't produce he had to dodge a permanent dismissal and ended up in the blight along with Clarence and his crew.

But someone finished the job, someone ReGene's renegade CEO Julia Rose brought in to work on a project so black her own corp banned it.

Wendy.

BB and I make for Yuji Chernobyl, small-time mob boss and the guy who signs my paychecks. I use his Net to dive as deep as I can looking for something we can use against ReGene but something finds me.

From the way she acts I can't tell if she's a bot or a human, but the signature tells me that Julia Rose wants me dead whether or not she remains in charge of ReGene. I catch a warning about two partial hybrids Julia Rose has on a leash and find out the mermaid wants vengeance before she tells me to surface, that it's too late for everyone else but they don't think they can touch me.

When I surface Yuji's guard is dead and he's gone, along with BB. My phone rings the next instant, and the voice tells me if I want to stop BB from getting flatlined I'm going to walk into the top floor of the ReGene building and hand over the disk.

I call Wendy on the mermaid's advice and to my surprise she wants back in. Wendy comes clean, as clean as it gets. She tells me she made the hybrid viable, she overcame the last problems that had stopped Saldana. A conscience isn't healthy but she picked one up at the end. Wiped their computers and ran. Mercenary that she is she took the last copy in case she needed some quick credit. She needed me to crack it open.

And here we are.

LEGO QUEST

YES

HOMEWORK CAN WAIT

"There it is," I call out to Wendy over the hushed FWUTFWUTFWUT of the blades, as the illuminated helipad on the roof of the ReGene scraper drifts into view.

She gives me a thumbs-up and tugs on the latch connecting her hundred-meter tether to the fuselage, giving it one final check. "Ready."

Equipment check:

1 machine pistol
1 lotek revolver
1 rig with case
1 disk with hybrid plans
1 copy of a Net bot armed with brain-destroying Rem
1 scanner-spoofing ultralight with limited autopilot
2 100-meter cable tethers with harnesses

Jack has implanted hyperconductive neuromotor enhancers installed by Dr. Saldana that make him able to perform superhuman feats of reflexes.


What now?

>>>/toy/2850478

I made an invite thread on /toy/ since people have suggested letting them in on this.

>>18799464
Thanks for the invite!

Let's land on that roof.

>>18799464
Have they seriously not been in on this? Poor sods.
We need another blank fake disc.

>>18799508

I drop lower, almost into the brightness of the lights, close enough to see two guards watching the roof elevator. They can't hear me even from this close, but any lower and I'll lose any chance of surprise I have.

What now?

>>18799592
>We need another blank fake disc.

You can have one, although there's a good chance that the old switch-the-disks trick will work this time...

>>18799599
Either have jane drop down and kill them silently or shoot them from the chopper if that isn't practical.

>>18799626

Wendy unclips the machine pistol and waves it in the air as another updraft hits us.

"Hold it steady."


Roll a d12 and link to this post!
For our /toy/ friends, put noko dice 1d100 in the email field exactly as I wrote it!

>>18799672
>noko dice 1d100

FFFFFFffffffffff... long day. Put noko dice 1d12 in the email field.

rolled 5 = 5

going for a quick quiet kill

rolled 12 = 12

>>18799708

>>18799725
Excellent format mate

rolled 11 = 11

>>18799723
>>18799725
>using nokodice so nobody can see if you were actually rolling a d12
I seriously hope you brickmen don't do this.

>>18799723

The machine pistol lets off a BRAAAP that manages to catch one of the guards in the chest before the shot goes high.

Before the other guard can react-

- his brain disappears in a flash of light.


What now?

rolled 12 = 12

>>18799804
>>18799838
Mow down the sexy people!

Which means them!

>>18799844

His partner does a St. Vitus Dance of involuntary kinetic rebounds as the machine pistol cuts him to ribbons. The thought occurs that they might have biomonitors but with both of them flatlined it's too late to worry about that.

What now?

>>18799893
Praise Wendy for shooting with such precision from some range on an odd platform with a tiny gun firing many bullets, then land on that roof. Stealthily.

>>18799893
Land on the roof. Time to go looking for Ms. Rose.

>>18799904
>>18799908

"Nice shooting."

She thanks me, and there's that something in her voice. No time for that now.

"Am I going in with you?" she asks as she starts to unfasten her harness.

"Hang on a second."

Are the two of you going in together or splitting up?

rolled 5 = 5

>>18799953
Together! It'd be silly to split up now.

"Let's go."

>>18800024
>filenames
Now's not the time for sex, you craft sod. I have to stop giggling first.

The voice on the phone told me to go to the top floor. Technically this is it, although I have the feeling this is more of a service area. The elevator descends and locks into place at the end of a hallway terminating in a right turn. No guards, thank Buddha, just a mechanical panel of some kind.

What now?

>>18800120
Watch yourself. If they wanted you here, there'll be an ambush ahead- probably more of those damned half-chrome corporate ninjas. Still, there's nothing for it but to move forward... proceed with caution and twitchy fingers on your triggers.

"Stay behind me."

"I can take care of myself."

It's not chivalry, it's my neuromotor enhancers. If anything pops up I want a clear shot at it.


... Roll a d12 and link to this post, please!

rolled 10 = 10

>>18800196
Rolling.

>>18800273

At the last instant I jerk to a stop, neuromotor implants grabbing my muscles tight. Behind me Wendy nearly collides with my back.

"What?" she hisses.

I recognize the control panel. Informer Security model A-29 control board. Used by the haves, corps, everyone. If it's here, there's some kind of alarm system in our immediate future.

It's also connected to their internal security Net.

What now?

rolled 3 = 3

>>18800326
It's time to jack in. They'll never expect it.

>>18800326
Gotta jack in. "We won't get any farther undetected while their system's up. Watch my body while I work, and maybe we'll be able to ghost through here."

>>18800452
>>18800482

"Keep an eye on things for a minute." Wendy smiles at that, and maybe if the neuromotors weren't running I'd accidentally smile back.

The rig cable unspools silently and I find that place at the base of my skull where I'm not meat.

Then I hold my breath and dive.

>>18800452
"They'll never expect it" has officially become the OPPOSITE of "For the spirit of adventure!"

Whoa, heavy net. I can feel the system weighing me down like I'm swimming in liquid glass. The thought crosses my mind that I could increase my overflow if I needed the edge, but if anything I meet is packing Rem I can kiss my days of wiping my own ass goodbye.

The little info I can pull out of my surroundings is that there are three subsystems I can get to from here. The pressure sensor on the floor around the corner, the internal phone lines, and interestingly enough... the sprinkler system.

Pick a system, any system!

>>18800610
Internal phones. We can throw a tap on them and track others' communications, which might save our ass.

>>18800639

When I was a juvie my friends and I used to reconnect peoples' phones in strange and interesting ways. Someone would try to call their grandma and end up getting Internal Security for the Nation of Florida.

I head out past the area where the securigoons have access and into the unmarked wild of encrypted lines. For eons of milliseconds I drift through a snow-white void, feeling my way along like a blind man...

Then a facsimile of solid ground materializes under my feet and an Angel of Death appears in front of me.

oh shit it's the lego cyberpunk quest

haven't seen one of these threads since forever

It gives me an extremely intrusive scan, and I hope my fraudulent IDs hold up. I've only heard rumors about these things. They're designed for one purpose: deliver a high-frequency Rem straight at you.

And it's in my way.


Roll a d12 and link to this post for whatever you do!

>>18800775
>haven't seen one of these threads since forever

It's been less than two weeks!

...but I wish I had more time to run them.

>>18800804

Prepare an emergency logout in case it attacks.

rolled 2 = 2

>>18800832

Herp, forgot to roll.

rolled 11 = 11

>>18800804
Can I spoof it somehow..?
maybe throw up a mirror of itself?

>>18800832
Roll it!

>>18800857
>>18800850

Once I'm in there's no easy way out, just the process of swimming back up to the surface. Instead I try something else and make use of the faster transfer rate Wendy added into my rig, creating a copy of as much information as I can pull out of the Angel's profile and throwing it back up in front of my own signature.

Imagine my surprise when it works.

>>18800951
hopefully it (and others like it) will leave us alone now.

I leave the Angel to contemplate its own navel and put out a general access request and it's there. Their entire comm system is open to me.


What will you do now?

rolled 1 = 1

>>18801006
Can we find Rose?
do a communications log search to find her in the building?
- and how to get there in the least shooty way?

>>18801032
I puke in my mouth a little as Wendy yanks me back to meatspace and I cough out a "What?"

rolled 12 = 12

>>18801095
So much for my cutting edge ICE

rolled 4 = 4

At the end of the hall an armored giant raises a shotgun and something in his head whines.

Roll a d12 for whatever you do! If it's shooting or dodging Jack rolls two dice!

Roll another d12 for whatever Wendy does!

>>18801107

rolled 3 = 3

>>18801113
Wendy uses face explosion

rolled 5, 6 = 11

>>18801113
Since I have the reflexes I might as well shoot.
going for a headshot or wherever it will mess the hardware and wetware up most

>>18801131
Wendy fires off another burst but he moves like a ghost despite his size and the rounds spang off the walls above him.

>>18801138
My head throbs like an adrenomax kick as the neuro implants do their work. The hallway slows down, the giant rises in slow motion.

One shot's all I need.

rolled 9, 11 = 20

>>18801235
come on

rolled 3 = 3

He opens his mouth and a metallic squawk comes out as a jet of lightning erupts from his robotic eye. His body convulses and stands back up like it's on puppet strings and he turns, smoke pouring from the hole in his face and raises the barrel of his shotgun.


Roll for whatever you do!

rolled 12, 5 = 17

split the rolls... one for one last shot as I dive for (2nd roll)cover.

I also have to go in RL and pick up drunk fools before they become self inflicted roadside homicides.
Good luck!

>>18801250

One more for good measure through the missing hardware and another through his meat eye puts him down.

>>18801288

Even dead he doesn't let go of his shotgun. Until Wendy blows his hand off.

It's a safe bet they know someone's here.

"Can you get back in their Net?" Wendy picks up the shotgun, holds it up and sights it.

"I might be able to get in. From there, who knows." The Angels will be out in force.

No going back now.


What do?

Hmm... looks like it might be time to wrap it up for tonight. I meant to start about 90 minutes earlier, but I took a nap beforehand. Turned out I was more tired than I thought.

Hmm... perhaps we can finish BLOCKOUT tomorrow night; if not, there's always next week!

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=lego%20quest

Like always, the thread is archived here.

I'll be up for a little while, but otherwise goodnight and thanks for playing! If this thread makes it to tomorrow night I might make more use of it.

Thanks again for another classy thread LQ.

>>18801971
Is that... a picture of a Legonaut in real life?

Shocking!

Why did I miss this?!

Reading right now.

bump

I am giddy with anticipation.