Cyberpunk 2026: A Trip Around The Bay pt 2

Continuing Adventures of the Gang in San Francisco, 2145!

 With arrangements made, the PCs chartered a small boat out of Las Luces, captained by Captain Frank (a friend/former contact of Grind). The boat made way for the Farallon Islands, ostensibly for deep-water shark fishing. Once out at sea, the boat doubled back and deposited the party into a small inflatable raft with landed on Ocean Beach. The PC's hid their excess gear in the thick trees of the Golden Gate Woods and made their way deeper inland. Ruthliss and Bones remained with the raft as a "base camp" (players were absent). In the woods, the advance party encountered a crazed hermit, who attacked without provocation, but he was easily dispatched. After this, they headed east, concealed by darkness and the thick woods. Turning south, the party picked its way quietly and without incident across Sunset District, noting some inhabited areas and some places where the ground itself had collapsed in the Big One of 2126. Nevertheless, they safely reached the cover of  Sigmund Stern Grove, an elevated park with dense cover and a good view of their target, the SFSU Campus. They found signs of a camp and a struggle on the hilltop, but settled in to closely examine the campus under cover of night. 

Grind and Latch, using Grind's thermal scope, realized that the campus was actually home to at least a village-sized community and that the buildings that still stood were inhabited. Fortunately for the PC's, their target (the science building) was actually quite close to where they were. The whole group had to carefully pick their way through a wooded rubble field densely laden with amateurish booby traps of the "Home Alone" variety. The PC's easily made their way to the north end of Thornton Hall and entered. On the south end, they encountered a pair of locals sleeping in a room and subdued them with duct tape. The man was relatively simple, but the woman entered some sort of irrational rage state, far beyond simply "angry"; bulging eyes, throbbing veins, animalistic rage. Slipknot found the entrance to the underground bunker some 15' underground down a steep ladder. The group entered the Deep Future Archive, their ultimate destination.

Down in the bunker complex, they found it in a dangerous state - the roof had collapsed in several places, much of it was flooded with up to a foot of foul water dripping from the ceiling, and several chambers were covered in possibly toxic mold. One room, whose ceiling had collapsed and opened onto the surface, was full of soil, fungus, and guano, presenting a hideous, squirming cave ecology. Soon enough, the party split. One group attacked the archive's technical problem, while the security element guarded the entrance. 

Moments later, the security element (Grind and Latch) found themselves inexplicably locked in close combat with some sort of crab-like war machine, the size of a washing machine, with pincers, a cutting laser, and thick armor. The whole party had walked right past it, as it was disguised as rubble and trash, and activated once they were distracted. The melee was furious, and everyone involved was getting battered, sliced, or beaten. The tech team quickly found what they were looking for, and Charlie grabbed the Project Rabbit Hole files off the racks. On the way out, Azrael grabbed another five platters containing information of interest to collectors; they will be worth $50 x d6 before haggling with any relevant collectors. 

Once the whole group was engaged, Azrael fired uselessly at the crab-bot with her pistol. Slipknot, less discreet than some other adventurers and professional killers, shot the thing twice with his unsuppressed assault rifle, disabling the crab-bot and briefly deafening his teammates. Slipknot quickly removed the thing's cutting laser arm, because "Hey cool, laser!", and Grind grabbed the thing's eyestalks as trophies... the eyes were actual cyber-eyes, probably with ID# and brands stamped on them.

In my head movie, Latch slowly turned around and faced the ladder up to the surface; even with his ears still ringing from rifle fire in the tunnel, his canine senses let him hear shouting above them. The barbarous SFSU locals knew the PC's were here, and it appears they were trapped in the bunker.