The Last Song
Prompt:
A party member is approached by Lone Star for questioning. They obviously want to know the player's whereabouts, but during a time when the player was not comitting any crimes. The player has strong (or at least, strong enough) alabi's and quickly clears suspicion. Lone Star reveals that they're investigating the disappearance and presumed murder of one of the player's good friends. His gun turned up in a landfill, where an enterprising savager picked it up with an RFID scan. Realizing that he'd found a gun covered in blood and with part of its magazine left, he immediately called the police.
As far as Lone Star can tell, the blood is about a week old, and the weapon was being held when it was splattered. The blood is from the player's friend -- the weapon's owner. Of it's 10 round magazine, 6 of the bullets have been discharged. The weapon has a guncam and smartlink, but both have been destroyed. Based on the markings on the weapon, Lone Star estimates the weapon was repeatedly struck with a sledgehammer.
They have no other leads at this time.
Resolution:
The player's investigation leads him to his old friends fixer, who explains the man was doing a little side work for a Go Gang in Auburn. A lot of their members have been going missing lately, all near a Horizon operated recording studio. If the PC's do their digging on the facility, it's been responsible for recording a lot of Top 10 hits in the last several years, but is otherwise unremarkable. It's a minimum security facility, and nobody important works there (except maybe the artists during their breif visits). The facility is fun pretty much entirely by drones, who maintain the equipment and do all the heavy lifting. It has a staff of three: The general manager, the technician, and the recording engineer.
A detailed survey or espinoage of the facility during the day reveals nothing unusual. If the PC's try to meet with the staff (legitimatly or otherwise), they can meet with the GM or the technician (the recording engineer is on vacation). The GM says he has no idea what the PC's are talking about, either about the disappearances or the dead friend. If they meet with the technician, he also insists he has no idea, but he also looks severely rattled and is carring a gun -- not a pistol either, a discreet submachine gun in his duffel bag.
If the PC's push him hard, he cracks and admits that he saw one of the drones murder someone last night, and that since the drones are on a closed network (no outside matrix access), the police are most likely to think he did it. He's distraught, and obviously on the verge of a nervous breakdown, insisting that he started carrying a weapon because he's heard people sneaking around the building at night and he knows they're closing in on him. If pushed too hard, he may become incoherent. He is particularly insistent that it is not safe to be in the building after dark. If the PC's try to keep him in the building past sunset, he will become violent.
Ultimately however, he doesn't really know anything, other than the fact that one of the drones killed someone. If the PC's stake out the building that night, they can confirm that, as a pedestrian walking by the building suddenly collapses unconscious (no evident cause), and is dragged inside by one of the repair drones.
If the PC's do nothing, the pedestrian vanishes inside the building and is not seen again. If the PC's attempt to save her, they have little trouble overpowering the unarmed drones, but do not find any explanation as to what happened. If the PC's observe discreetly but do not engage, they can tell she's being dragged to one of the recording rooms. She does not come out again. Either way, the PC's examination of the building reveals two things they did not notice during the day. An EMP device has been set up in the middle of the hall, apprantly on a switch of some kind -- and that one of the recording rooms has been bricked up and is inaccessible. Previously the PC's could not see that room at all.
At that point, there are several ways the truth can come out. Deep investigation, storming the room, or something else. But eventually, the PC's kick down that brick wall, and on the other side is the recording engineers wizened corpse, still plugged into his terminal.
He was an Adept, with all the skill-boosting adept powers for Sound Recording. He threw 36 dice for that skill. He was the only man in the entire world who did. He, not the artists, was the reason so many top-10 songs were recorded here—so when he was thinking about quitting, the GM decided he had to do something to keep him here. Years ago, the GM plugged a BTL chip into the engineers console without his knowledge, tweaking it down to a barely perceptible level so the engineer would never know. All he'd know is he felt great at work and shit everywhere else—until he was literally addicted to his job.
Sadly, BTL's are cumulative, and the addiction gets worse and worse. His health gradually degraded, and he spent more and more time in the office. Eventually he lived in the office, until one day, he died at his station. Now his wretched, vengeful spirit haunts the building. The GM didn't tell anyone because his ghost still does his job during the day (and does it very well), and the GM has been cashing all of his paychecks.
But as in life, so in death, the engineer's vengeful ghost is addicted to his job. He must record. He'll do anything to record. And so at night, when the studio is silent, his spirit takes control of the drones and drags people into the building, forcing them to sing and then murdering them so they can't tell.
The EMP device was placed there by the manager in case the drones ever came for him. That way, he could press one button and disable all the machines. When the PC's come for him, he hits the switch, and the massive electromagnetic blast knocks out all the PC's gear -- from their smartguns on up -- as well as making anyone with cyberware have a /severe/ headache. But before he can sprint out the back, the distinctive ozone smell of magic hits the air, and the disabled drones get back up -- driven not by their servos, but the animating force of black magic. Adventure ends on a flight from the monster infected building where the only weapon the PC's have is the friends smashed up gun -- which without any electronics, was unaffected.
The PC's never find out what happened to their friend. His body isn't with the other corpses stuffed into the basement, and further investigation leads nowhere.
