Part 17: Re-Enter the Matrix

Part 17 - Re-Enter the Matrix










Home sweet home. The news is already running a story about the recent murder at the warehouse, so some journalist is probably "friends" with officer Aguirre.



In the cyberpunk future even gray old janitors rock impressive mohawks. It's not all bad.



Hello we're back from wading through bodies and confronting dead children, hope you guys slept well and are having a nice breakfast

Cherry Bomb and Coyote are ignoring us because they're jerks, so we chat with Kluwe and Kubota.



What's the word around town, Mr. Kluwe?

There's been more talk of the Ripper killings. Some people say they're hate crimes on account of the victims all being human.

Various racial issues are going to come up fairly often, most commonly in the context of discrimination towards orks and trolls. Any parallels to real world problems are sure to be purely coincidental and this LP will steer well clear of dwelling upon such things.

There's more to it than just that.

My thoughts exactly, people are just too quick to label something a hate crime. Check the census, the city is still 66% humans. Close your eyes and throw a rock, you're more than likely to hit a human. Doesn't make it a hate crime. Still a crime though, and that should be enough.

If we close our eyes and throw a rock, our chances of hitting anyone at all will probably be about 15% and even that's assuming they're standing right next to us.



I'll leave you to your business, ma'am.

Next!



Well, kyou has been pretty tsukareru but we'll probably be daijoubu, Kubota-sama.

Long night.

[She looks you over, noting the signs of your nocturnal activities. She nods.]

Any run you can walk away from is a good run.

So I've been told.

I can tell you've been busy and I can see by the look on your face that there is something you need. Is this about the Ripper?

Could be. I won't know until I get something analyzed.

I understand, I will unlock the piano so you may go downstairs. Someone down there should be able to help you, if they're awake. It is likely that you will visit the Matrix before the day is done.

The games usually do a pretty good job keeping characters sounding natural but some parts like this sudden Matrix mention feel pretty clunky. In general writing is amongst the things that improve noticeably in the later games.

May I take a sausage?



Things are looking up!



With our questionable sausage-like products in hand, we head down.



This whole part will make a Big Deal about this being our first ever foray into the Matrix, and it'll all feel a little silly since as a decker we've been there once already. This is one of the reasons why I often feel like the side mission to find Gino either didn't originally exist or maybe took place later in the game.







Downstairs is even more sparsely populated than the main floor, but seeing as Van Graas is here, our first order of business is to drop off the paydata which caused us so much extra trouble earlier.

Not as much trouble as for the other team, of course.



I've got a... flight recorder.

Wouldn't happen to be an Ares flight recorder, would it? Some very powerful buyers are looking for that right now. I can get rid of it for you, for say, 20%? That leaves 2,000 for you.

With the Corporate etiquette we could ask for 2,500 but it doesn't make much of a difference this far in.

Deal.

Pleasure doing business.



The only other people here are Fry and Johnny Clean who are hanging out over at Castle's for some reason.

Also someone please dispose of that severed arm already. Doesn't this place have like three janitors?



Yeah yeah, look, we're two whole games away from the luxury of getting regular sleep and even there it's not gonna be a great experience. Give us a break here.



Where's Doc Castle?

Asleep, I assume. Do you need a medkit or something?

I need someone to analyze a DNA sample.



Oh, right, obviously. I'm sure the science checks out on that.

[He brightens.] I just read a journal about it so the information's still fresh. Frankly, it should be easy. What do you want to know about it?

The owner's identity.

Ah, that's beyond me. All I can get you is the gene code sequence.

But that's where I come in. David, if you can get me that code sequence I'm pretty sure we can track its owner down via a Matrix run.

I'm not sure why these people we've talked to like once before are so incredibly eager to drop everything to help us, but hey.

Will do! Let me have the DNA you want to test.

We hand over the blood sample.

Amazon, when David gives me the sequence, I'll jack in and help you trace the blood sample back to its source.

If this works, I'll bring back more than just a sample.

Uh, whose blood is it?

Could be the Emerald City Ripper.

Could be some stray dog in which case we'll look real stupid.



I just got a second wind! Meet you at my rig, Amazon.

Before we do so, we take Fry up on his offer as he has updated his inventory since last time.



The most notable addition is the Fuchi VirtuaX which is the second best cyberdeck in the game. It's more of a luxury purchase than a necessity and meeting the skill requirement to use it burns some precious Karma we could've used on improving our drones, but we'd be a poor excuse for a decker if we didn't jump at the chance to always use the latest hardware. We also grab some level 2 programs to replace our old ones.

Oh, and we sell our old deck, programs and some other junk which nets us about a thousand nuyen total.



Nothing else to do here for the time being, so we head on over to Clean's Computer Corner™.



I'm really impressed with his results, considering it was his first attempt, he was utilizing an unproven technique he's read about in a science journal, and he was working from memory on minimal sleep.

Wait, he's done already? It's been like a minute and a half!

Sounds fascinating. If there's time later, maybe you can tell me more about it.

Amazon's all about that nerdy science stuff though.

Yes! Maybe we can sit down with David and he can share his research. But let's stay focused.



We have 4 available dialogue choices here which are all Decking skill checks, one each for 0, 1, 2 and 4 Decking. As far as I can tell there's no difference between the last three, but at 0 you will only tag along with Johnny as an observer rather than an active participant.

Our Decking skill is 5, so...

I'm pretty damn good.



Great. I'll come with, just in case any IC decides to crash our party.

Let's see how our janitor friend can contribute to our electronic expedition.





In an excellent ego boost Amazon outskills even the legendary decker himself, though he is significantly better at using ESPs which we've completely ignored. His other stats are obviously irrelevant here, but he'd make for a decent pistol-slinger should he ever see real action.

He comes equipped with the Renraku Kraftwerk cyberdeck and one Attacker ESP.



And his janitor outfit, of course.

But let's get this over with.









Thank you Johnny, hadn't noticed. JC here acts as our Matrix guide but as I already went over the mechanics during our last cybertrip, I'm not going to repeat them here.



The only aspect I didn't really get into last time is the alarm system. Alarm accumulates as you spend time in the Matrix and if it ever hits maximum, you get some unpleasant Black IC business thrown at you. It's unlikely to ever be a major concern, but it's worth keeping an eye on to avoid any nasty surprises.

Funny thing by the way, I intentionally triggered the alarm in order to show off the IC it summons but uh



In a terrifying twist, some bug caused it to appear in the real world rather than the Matrix, putting everything we know about the nature of cyberspace into question.



It was even possible to attack it, though it would've taken a real long time to bring it down since its 175 IP acted as normal HP. At least it didn't fight back.

In the process I also discovered that the safehouse has the final boss theme as its combat track. Very dramatic.



Anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Get it? Programming?

Ah whatever, we pre-emptively buff ourselves up with Shield and Sniffer before heading through the archway.



Our first target is on the other side, guarded by a duo of White ICs of the melee and ranged kind supported by a White Sentry IC which specializes in powering up its friends.





At level 2+ Degrade is a very handy program to have as it overrides the pesky Shield buffs used by White Sentry ICs and makes the targeted enemy hilariously vulnerable to all attacks. It always hits, has no cooldown, and works especially well with ESPs if you're into using those.



I'm not, but for the sake of showing it off here's Johnny cyberconjuring up his gooey Attacker ESP friend. It can bind enemies in an area to the ground for a turn with some kind of cybertar.



Anyway, from here on out I'm only going to cover Matrix combat very broadly as it's not especially interesting. I don't mind it as much as some people do, but the lack of visual and mechanical variety does make for dull reading. Amazon alone is more than a match for most cyberthreats and having two people like we do here is pretty much complete overkill.



Let's see what we got.





100% match to a... dead man? Let's keep looking.

What did the deceased surgical assistant name his business after he went independent?

The Dead Man's Stitch.



There are two more archways to check. We'll go for the northeast one first.



The autopsy records located here are guarded by a couple of ranged White ICs on small separated cyberislets. Note Amazon's 99% hit chance even from this distance.





Yeah.







This just keeps getting weirder...

Reading this report is completely optional, which is why we came for it first.



Behind the third and final archway is what we need to actually proceed, this one watched over by two melee and one Sentry ICs.







You know the deal.





I'm not an expert on suicides as I've never committed one, but mutilating your own face beforehand seems a bit strange and highly unnecessary.



Now that might be something we can go on. Let's regroup in meat space for a bit.

Let's.



You can only leave the Matrix safely by returning to an entry/exit point, but it doesn't really matter here since there's no actual combat going on.



This is a bit of a confusing line and I'm not entirely sure who Johnny's referring to. To my knowledge we haven't met anyone we've factually known to having had worked with chop shops outside of Dresden, and we definitely haven't talked to Clean about it at any point. Maybe I'm just missing something obvious.

The NewsNet says he left his estate to his psychiatrist, so maybe finding out who his psychiatrist was will give us our next clue. My gut says, we can deck in to the medical board's records and reverse trace to find this doctor. You in?

Punch it, man.

Yeah, we're not quite done here yet.



As before, we buff up in the entry area before heading forward.



This area introduces a new type of enemy, the White Sparky IC, which is quite possibly the least threatening name in existence.



Their gimmick is that they spend their initial two turns charging up, first to 50% and then to 100%...



...and on their third turn they hit someone for heavy damage. In theory this makes them important targets to bring down first, in practice they're usually a non-factor as even in the rare case where they do manage to charge up their attack it's not a guaranteed hit. It took 5 turns of idling just to get the above screenshot, during which we could've killed it some ten times over.



Like so.





We have three time frames to search for here. Let's start from 2020 - 2030:





This would've been roughly a decade after the Awakening, so Silas must've been amongst the earliest babies with what would become known as UGE, Unexplained Genetic Expression. Namely, elven and dwarven babies birthed by humans.

The data for 2030 - 2040 is missing or corrupted, so we move on to "2040 - Present".





Got a name now - Dr. Holmes? Let's keep going and find out where he works.

We head through the lone archway on the other side of the room.



The next and final area is our official introduction to the spiky Black ICs. As Johnny helpfully points out, these things actually deal direct HP damage to the jacked-in decker which makes them considerably more dangerous than the White ICs we've seen so far. Luckily spells and even Medkits used by someone in the real world are perfectly capable of healing the damage they inflict, and they're rarely encountered as long as you don't eat an alarm.



With no external combat going on and thus there being no other threats to our HP, its role here is largely just to show off that Black ICs are a thing that exists. We bring it and its weak buddy down with ease.









A mental hospital, of course. Our next destination couldn't have been some nice neighborhood veterinary clinic or something, could it.

Bingo. Back to meat-space again.



That's too many instances of the word "meat" in too short a time frame, game.







Sure enough, while we've been cruising on the information superhighway things have gotten busy again on the outside. We get 6 Karma for discovering the Ripper's identity, which means...



...we reach the long-awaited milestone of Drone Combat 6. This is where the real rigger party starts as our drones now have 3 AP each, for a total of 6 AP's worth of mechanical murderin' per turn. A second AP upgrade can be unlocked at Drone Combat 9, but there won't be nearly as much game left by the time we (hypothetically) get there due to the heavy Karma requirement.

For now, let's report our findings to Fry.



Any luck in there?



We have the opportunity to do some reasoning here. Well, have YOU figured it out yet?

Really though, it doesn't much matter what you answer here as even if you keep getting it wrong Johnny will just keep correcting you. Might as well cut to the chase.

Maybe Silas faked his own death.

That's a distinct possibility. What was it that we saw in the autopsy report?

The face was so mangled that they had to use dental records to identify him.

It was officially filed as a suicide, but that more than likely just means that there was nobody to pay Lone Star enough for them to put actual effort into the whole thing.

Good catch. That matches up with something I've seen runners try... It's easy enough to find a body shop that'll make a replica set of teeth for you. Find some schlub off the streets no one will miss, swap the teeth and throw the heat off your trail for a while. Luckily I've never been that desperate.

But why would he need to go to those lengths? Did the police records have something linking him to a different crime?

He had a prior for unlicensed plastic surgery.

True. Wouldn't look too good on someone's record if they wanted to become a doctor. I think this is beginning to come together... The late Silas left all his belongings to a doctor.

His psychiatrist, in case you already forgot.



I should go find this "Dr. Holmes" and ask him some very pointed questions.

Please pay him my respects, I always find that high caliber rounds get the message across. You should clearly hire some friends and go loaded for bear. I side loaded a ton of valuable data from those Lone Star matrix nodes, so here's your cut.

That's another 4,000 nuyen added to our account for a total of 10,000.

We could ask Johnny to come with us but he refuses, and it's not like he'd be super useful outside of the Matrix anyway.



With the main plot stuff out of the way, we start our traditional shop & chat tour from Gruberman.



Just in time. I've got a whole slew of new toys in from a supplier back east. Factory fresh and still smelling of their mother's gun oil. Maybe there's something in this batch that you'd be interested in?

Smelling of what now

How long you been in the trade, Buster?

Well let's see here. I left CalFree on July 8th, 2038, at 6:13 in the morning. It was a Thursday.

I checked and it's true, it really is a Thursday.

From there, I wandered a bit. Plied my skills as a merc in a half dozen different wars, official or otherwise. Never did take to running the shadows like some of the boys I knew. Too subtle for my tastes, I suppose. Surely there was no shortage of full-scale engagements to be had, so I didn't want to work. Might still be doing it today if I hadn't lost the arm.

Let me guess, boating accident?

[Buster lets loose a raucous laugh that seems at odds with his prim exterior.]

It was all so stupid. Some Azzies were lobbing smokers behind our lines, more to mess with us than anything. I decided to toss one back. And didn't it just figure that the one I grab ain't a smoker. I got it off, but only just barely. Shredded my old arm but good. Got plenty of other scars to remember the moment by as well, but the arm was the big one.



But if there was a grenade which was both about to blow and close enough for you to grab, surely ignoring it would've been worse than trying to toss it away. You're not very good at life lessons, Buster.

Now if I haven't given you reason to doubt my professional competence, how about we talk turkey? What can I get you?



His talk of having new toys wasn't just empty words as his weapons selection is now quite impressive, including tier 4 and even tier 5 weapons in the case of pistols.

Of course we don't really care about that, because more importantly...



We finally get access to Class B drones! Between this and the recent drone AP upgrade, Amazon's firepower has taken a significant leap. We'll take a more detailed look at what they're all about once we find some suckers to test them on. For now, know that they shall henceforth be known as Crow and Pascal.

Buster also now sells Advanced Drone Repair kits of which we grab a couple just in case, selling off our old ones.



Good thing we got sausages.



Mersmann is as quiet as ever but he's also selling a lot of new outfits, most of which aren't pictured here. While one or two are direct upgrades from what we currently have, Amazon has grown too attached to her tourist getup to let min-maxing separate her from it.



We continue having no real use for anything magical, but we'll keep Aljernon company for a bit anyway.



Dark clouds surround you, my friend. But perhaps there is something I could provide that would help with whatever weighs so heavily upon you?

What's new in the world of magic, Aljernon?

The spirits are stirring. Something has upset the natural order. There is something new... different.

Seems there's something new every day. What is it this time?

Would that I knew. The spirits speak in riddles, they leave me with more questions than answers. But there is something new out there. Something not born of life, as other spirits are.

Eh, probably has nothing to do with us. We're but a step away from solving this murder case and getting rich and then that'll be that.



Please, can I be of service to you today?



While we're not going to buy anything, I figured I'd show off the fact that Aljernon already sells adept abilities all the way to Chi Casting level 10, not reachable for anyone except for dwarves.



Castle's our last stop.



I'm not one to talk, but you look like drek. Afraid there isn't much I can do about that.



Man, I really do want one of those.

Everything all right here, doc?

Here at the Union? Yes, fine. I'm just getting back myself. Days here tend to be slow, so I volunteer at a medical center on the other side of Touristville. And I had a rough shift.

I imagine most shifts in the Barrens are rough ones.

By any measure, yes, they are. But today was especially difficult. I didn't hear all the details, all I really know is what came in on the lips of the victims healthy enough to still speak. Apparently, one of the Barrens gangs incurred the wrath of the local Seoulpa Rings, leading to a rolling shootout through the city streets. Several bystanders were injured.

The Seoulpa Rings are Korean organized crime syndicates centered in Seattle.



And we were left to pick up the pieces, of course. But enough about my troubles, let's hear about yours. Tell me what ails you.



Castle now sells Advanced Medkits, so we grab one because why not.



On the cyberware end of things she only has one new addition, but what an addition it is. Wired Reflexes With Reflex Trigger is pretty much a no-brainer for any street samurai who can afford its high price. Amazon doesn't spend enough time in the line of fire to really justify spending 5k on it right now, but we might come back for it later.



Mr. Delilah is also conveniently located down here today.





As I mentioned in an earlier update, the pool of available runners is shuffled between missions. Most of them remain the same from before, but we do have a couple of new faces too.



As the game progresses the available runners go up in both price and ability. Gallowglass for example now has higher stats and access to the Fireball 1 spell.



While we're here, I also figured I'd point out this curiosity. One of the available shaman runners is capable of casting the Quiet Bomb spell which to my knowledge does nothing whatsoever. Apparently there used to be some kind of a stealth mechanic in the game which was eventually scrapped, leaving weird remnants such as this and silenced weapons.



Anyway, Shannon will be coming with us again as she seemed very eager to meet Mr. Ripper and also asks for no payment which is a definite bonus. Savoy Machetti is also in as both dwarves and physical adepts have been very underrepresented so far. Our magery will this time be taken care of by the uh, "Queen of fear and Empress of pain", Verbena Vie.



Maybe this place will turn out to be a perfectly respectable establishment with patients treated with care and respect?