CY_Borg (Free League Publishing)
Written and designed by Christian Sahlén and Johan Nohr
You can download the CY_litary De.file_ment solo rules here
Read how our last CY_Borg adventure ended here
For this playthrough of CY_Borg, I decided to go with one of the six classes in the core book. A d6 roll had me as an Orphaned Gearhead. Things are named very specifically in all the Borg games, but the text doesn’t define them. This evocative design makes it so that each player or group’s experience with CY_Borg will be very different while still following basic genre tropes. I interpreted “Orphaned” as someone who had been under the guardianship of a corporation and then dropped when that corp dissolved or was taken over.
Zalec was a bioengineered gearhead for GeneMalum, a company specializing in processing raw materials. She was based out of the Ports, where ore shipments would enter a corporate facility. Zalec maintained the machines that processed them so the ores could be sold to manufacturers. It was lonely work, but Zalec found a companion in a disused quadbot. The quads were used like guard dogs by GeneMalum, and this one was multiple generations behind the current models. She named it Pearl, and the drone became her constant companion.
Things took a turn for the worse during the Third Corporate Wars when the processing facility was attacked by Utagtech. Zalec attempted to help by launching the artillery installed in the building but made a mistake, and detonation occurred inside. She was horribly burnt in the ensuing fire, and Pearl pulled her to safety. Mehr, an inspector with CY_PD, found her before anyone else and saw an opportunity. He helped cover up Zalec’s role in the fire for a cost. She would owe him 17k creds and be at his beck and call.
About a year later, we find Zalec living out of a workshop space in a rundown tenement.
Zalec had Pearl on her back on the workshop table, the utility cover off, and was repairing a broken circuit when she heard the clearing of a throat behind her. She took her time to finish up with the up-ended quadbot and then turned around on the swivel seat stool. The face that met Zalec was unnaturally smooth, quite the contrast with her flame-scarred flesh. A horizontally scrolling feedscreen was lodged in the forehead, displaying headlines. It said something about a toxic waste spill slowing traffic heading east into South Central. Her guest let a slight, unsettling smile just barely turn up the corners of his mouth.
“You’re Zalec, the mechanic, yes?” the visitor asked. She replied with an affirmative grunt.
“I am Cord. Perhaps you have heard of me, hm?” he asked.
“What the fuck are you doing in my shop?” Zalec spat back at him, ensuring her ancient revolver was visible as she set it on the dividing countertop.
Cord’s smile adopted a slight nervousness, and he stepped back. “I have come on behalf of residents of Gatewood. Your reputation while employed by GeneMalum proceeds you, Zalec. Because of your work with them, the residents of Gatewood believe you are perfect to solve their particular problem.”
She looked him up and down, recognizing a washed-up influencer when she saw one.
“And they thought sending you in here would convince me?” Zalec notices he’s stopped looking directly at her as he speaks. She takes pleasure in the fact he’s intimidated.
“Gatewood is having difficulties with a military officer who has been kidnapping their children and forcing them into his ranks. He seems to be engaged in a siege of the Lilypond slums and is using their youth as cannon fodder. The residents request that you terminate Lieutenant Riz, as he is named. You can find him at The Fickle Fig on the southern outskirts of Lilypond. That’s a ramen shack he seems to enjoy.”
Zalec turns Pearl up-right, and the quadbot stretches her legs, feeling the adjustments her creator made.
“What’s in it for me,” the gearhead responds, not missing a beat.
“The residents of Gatewood recently uncovered that the Fickle Fig was built on top of a pre-war bunker. It was owned by a wealthy royal and is known to be stocked with some vintage experimental cyber tech. You are entitled to everything within the vault should you terminate Lieutenant Riz. Is that sufficient?”
Zalec figured it would be and let it be known by snorting her broken nose & spitting on the floor.
Street #1 – haunted/dark, illegal business, occult symbols, crater
Zalec finds herself on a lesser-traveled street into Lilypond. She uses the spaceport as a landmark to orient herself, the luxury shuttle like CY’s giant middle finger to the city soaking up everyone’s taxes. Cord had informed her that The Fickle Fig was not too deep into the district. Lt. Riz had yet to make much progress as he threw kid after kid into the path of the gang’s bullets.
Zalec stops when the street abruptly ends, and a massive crater begins. Some massive shelling is happening around here. She hadn’t guessed the gangs had such heavy artillery, or was this one of Riz’s missiles gone the wrong way? The journey is slowed as the gearhead and Pearl skirt the crater’s edge, and Zalec notices a tinker’s shop is open. She decides to look around.
It’s pretty cluttered inside, as all good junk shops should be. Pearl wanders around, her optics scanning items that provoke her interest. Zalec spots a battered Alliansen surveillance drone already scavenged for parts. It’s a rare find, though, and she wouldn’t mind bringing it back to the workshop, but she doesn’t have time. Just browsing.
Blink the Tinkerer
2 HP 6 Morale
Machete (d6) -d2 armor
Disposition: Tragic Style: Deathbloc
Feature: Lace trimmings Obsession: Belts
Quirk: Chews on hair Wants: Drugs
Behind the counter sits an anxious person chewing on a strand of their hair. They watch Zalec not with suspicion but with anticipation. Zalec reasons the tinkerer doesn’t get many visitors on a street as blasted as this one. She makes small talk. Blink is the name, a lacey Goth deathbloc who likes sharing their sob story about the gang wars driving away business. Ironically, he’s never had so much stock, all the scrap and destroyed arsenal left behind.
Without even an awkward segue, Blink asks, “You don’t happen to be carrying any Vurt?” Zalec hasn’t touched hallucinogens in a while. Since the burns, it’s been nothing but Adrenachrome-HST to deal with the non-stop pain.
“Damn,” the sad Goth mutters. “I would have let you pick anything in the shop for a hit. You don’t happen to know where I could get some…at a reasonable discount.” Zalec does not, and this little weirdo is making her nervous. She and Pearl head out of there.
Cutting through an alleyway, Zalec notices strange markings on the walls. Gang graffiti. It’s a blotchy series of black circles with white accents. In the center is a mouth open-wide with fanged teeth. She doesn’t like what she sees and hurries on to the next block.
Street #2 – scarred/abandoned, hill, Cult Compound, Active Crime Scene
Zalec & Pearl find an active crime scene in front of an apartment tenement, the street-facing side of which has been completely disintegrated. CY PD reds & blues light up the night, and officers keep a perimeter as news drones stream footage. Zalec decides to work her way around the back of the building without drawing attention to herself. The lady and her quadbot come across a duo of Virid Vipers sneaking out the back of the apartment building. This is who the cops are after and the ones likely responsible for the spectacle out front. Probably a hit where they used something just a touch too potent for the target.
Viper #1
HP 13 Morale 10
Virid jacket -d2 Shotgun d8
Disposition: Asks for help Style: Hype Street
Feature: unkempt hair Obsession: interactive holoink
Quirk: Giggles inappropriately Wants: Self-control
Viper #2
HP 9 Morale 10
Virid jacket -d2 Machete d6
Disposition: Wounded Style: Hype Street
Feature: abundance of rings Obsession: Graffiti
Quirk: Nosepicker Wants: Freedom
Much to Zalec’s surprise, one Viper is helping the other, who is limping from a nasty-looking leg injury. She notices the severe burns, and it seems he got caught in the blast. The helping Viper sees her and pleads, “Lady. Hey, lady. My buddy here he’s really fucked up. Can you help us? You got any Red Juice on you? We can pay.”
Zalec’s Smartwear suit, one of the few things not destroyed in the fire, could do the trick with its built-in HEAL system. She decides to bargain.
(GAM DR12 vs. Presence (-3) – 13, 17 – Success)
“I’ll let your fucked up friend there slip on this Smartwear if you fork over some Vurt. I know you’re carrying, so don’t try to be smart.”
Viper #1 nods as his friend’s head lolls back. They slip into an adjacent building after Pearl busts the door in. Zalec secures it back with some furniture, and they slip deeper into the interior of the abandoned apartment building. Zalec finds the shadows, slips off her clothes, and then the Smartwear before putting her duds back on again. She hands it to Viper #1 only after he tosses her one packet of Vurt.
The Smartwear autofits to the wounded Viper, and after a couple minutes, Zalec hears the hiss of it, releasing its cocktail of pain relievers, stimulants, and pyrvinium, speeding up the cell regen. She lets it run the whole cycle and then says she needs the suit back. Viper #1 doesn’t argue and helps get it off his friend, profusely thanking the gearhead for her help. She tells him he sounds pathetic when he talks like that and to zip it. Zalec and Pearl head back out, just minutes away from The Fickle Fig.
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