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On paper, Neuralite is a small freelance neo-genetic research farm. Anyone digging into the company’s background will quickly figure out that they’re actually just a cut-out corporation for Cognite, allowing the hypercorp to perform black book research projects with greater deniability. (Actually proving that would be a completely different ball of wax, of course.)

RESEARCH (-20): Research into Neuralite may also turn up the fact that six months ago, through a dummy subsidiary, they obtained a contract to provide security for the Nova York Water Treatment Facility. (This is odd because it’s way out of their area of expertise.)

NEURALITE OFFICE: The Neuralite facility is a large sphere hanging from one of the “bauble spindles” in Nova York. (A spindle-scraper with a multitude of spheres hanging from it.)

PERSONNEL:

• Eric Radom, CEO (pg. 16)
• Laura Panna, COO (pg. 16)
• Lysander Vangelis, Lead Researcher (pg. 17)
• 8 Research Scientists (NPC File 1, pg. 13)
• 6 Tech Support (NPC File 1, pg. 16)

Lysander Vangelis may already be onsite at the Water Treatment Plant (see Node 5).

SECURITY:

• 2 Security Troopers on guard in the Lobby. (NPC File 1, pg. 15)
• Security AI
• Guardian Angel

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NEURALITE SECURITY AI: Aptitudes: 10, INT 20. Skills: Beam Weapons 40, Hardware: Electronics 30, Infosec 40, Interface 40, Professional: Security Systems 80, Programming 40, Research 20, Perception 40.

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GUARDIAN ANGEL: Movement 8/40, Max Velocity 80, Armor 14/12, DUR 40, WT 8, Rotor

+5 REF, 360-Degree Vision, Access Jacks, Chameleon Skin, Eelware, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Vision, LIDAR, Light Combat Armor, Neurachem, T-Ray Emitter

Laser Pulser: DV 2d10, SA. (Stun Mode: DV 1d10, SS, biomorphs make SOM x 2 and synthmorphs make SOM x 3 test. On failure, lose next action. Critical failure paralyzed for 1 turn per 10 points of MoF.)

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MODYA SURVEILLANCE: Neuralite has been monitoring Modya since the incident at Black Light. Modya herself is covered in taggants from a hive which has been hidden in her apartment. (See Node 2.)

• One workstation in the Work Farm is dedicated to the surveillance work.
• The tech assigned to the surveillance (and the fork of his muse actively monitoring it) could answer questions about it.
• Accumulated footage is also stored on Neuralite’s servers.

LAB A: Lab A was where the epsilon primer and epsilon psike-out was developed. The lab has recently been cleared out and sterilized. (The chemicals were moved to Node 5 for dispersal and Neuralite is beginning to position themselves for plausible deniability.)

LAB B – CELL CULTURES: Lab B is analyzing the epsilon primer and epsilon psike-out in active cell cultures and also from samples taken from test subjects (both null results and active results).

• These cell cultures can confirm that Neuralite is behind all of the recent incidents. They can also be used for medical analysis (see Node 3).

THE PLAN: The full report of Neuralite’s plans, the time they plan to release the epsilon psike-out, and the fact that they already have installed the mechanisms necessary at the Water Treatment Planet (Node 5).

• Full plan available from Neuralite’s servers.
• Questioning Eric Radom or Lysander Vangelis (they know everything).
• Researchers won’t want to violate their NDAs (severe consequences), but can confirm all the scientific data about psi-epsilon operner. Each researcher also has a 50% chance of knowing one detail of the plan.
• Each tech support member has a 25% chance of knowing one detail of the plan.

Go to Node 5: Water Treatment Plant

Go to Part 1

Given the nature of the investigation, there’s a lot of evidence that can be subjected to medical examination. In general, there are three broad results to be obtained (although they can be obtained from a variety of sources):

• MODYA DNA: The DNA from Modya’s morph (which can be easily traced to identify her, leading to Node 2).
• EPSILON PRIMER: Once isolated, the fact that the epsilon primer is a binary compound is easy to identify.
• EPSILON PSIKE-OUT: Like the primer, the fact that the epsilon psike-out is a binary compound is easy to identify. In addition, the psike-out possesses a unique set of artificial polymitotic cells. A Research (+20) test will identify these cells as having been originally developed by Cognite. Cognite then transferred the patent rights for these cells to Neuralite five years ago (leading to Node 4).

For each additional sample of a given type available for analysis, provide a +10 modifier to the test.

Further analysis of either the epsilon primer or psike-out can be performed as a task action (1 day), with a success indicating that the character has identified the general principles of what the chemical’s function is. Halve the required time if a character has access to both compounds.

MODYA’S BLOOD/TISSUE: Blood or tissue samples taken from Modya contain both the epsilon primer and the epsilon psike-out. (It also contains Modya’s morph DNA, but if they’re taking tissue samples from her the PCs have probably found her already.)

PROTOPLASMIC VOMIT: The protoplasmic vomit contains Modya’s DNA and epsilon psike-out.

FABBER CHEMICAL RESIDUE: The chemical residue in the drink fabber is epsilon psike-out.

CELL CULTURES FROM NEURALITE LAB: These contain both the epsilon primer and the epsilon psike-out.

WATER SAMPLES: Samples of water taken anywhere on Nova York will contain epsilon primer.

Go to Node 4: Neuralite Office

Go to Part 1

Modya can be found either at work (a small suite of BdNY offices in the center of Tower Babylon) or at home (a single-room coffin+ apartment buried in the skin of Metis).

• A taggant thumb hive was secreted into the cushions of her couch by Neuralite agents; she herself has several taggants on her.

DESCRIPTION: A mousy-featured flat with a bob cut of dark brown hair.

ROLEPLAYING:

• Russian accent.
• Scared, traumatized, frightened, and confused.
• Constantly thirsty. She will repeatedly offer to get the PCs drinks and will frequently fetch herself another glass of water.

BACKGROUND:

• Modya was an infugee until eight months ago when BdNY pulled her out of cold storage for her actuarial skills.
• Hasn’t been socializing much. Her coworker Tanya finally convinced her to come out to the Black Light. Tanya never showed up. (This is a dead end: Tanya got invited to an arthouse orgy and ditched Modya without even the courtesy of a mesh ping.)
• Modya has been spending most of her spare time and credits trying to figure out what happened to her husband’s ego; they’d been transmitted off Earth at the same time, but her file had been shuffled around so much that she has no idea where he might have ended up.

NOTES:

• Blood or tissue samples from Modya can be subjected to medical analysis (see Node 3).
• Modya is constantly thirsty because she has subconsciously manifested the High Pain Threshold psi-chi sleight (Eclipse Phase, pg. 224) due to the psi-epsilon primer. She has to keep drinking the water because otherwise the primer wears off and her body, having acclimated to the psi-chi, interprets the result as severe pain.
• This morning, Modya was questioned by employees of Neuralite. They claimed to have been hired as a freelance investigation team following up on the Black Light incident. Modya told them she left before the incident and they seemed to accept that.

Go to Node 3: Medical Analysis

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Located on the 276^th sunward floor of the Harrington Torque, one of the kilometers-tall spindle-scrapers that criss-cross Nova York.

INTERIOR

The interior décor is black-on-black with every single item limned in a blue light. In the UV spectrum, however, the club is a polychromatic disaster; a nouveau style that’s being referred to as “invisible pollocking”.

GHOSTS: Those subscribing to the Black Light’s custom AR channel (for a nominal fee) will find that the club is “haunted” by a number of spectral blue spirits who float here and there. These are all delta forks developed from egos that only survived the Fall as vapors.

LAYOUT: There’s a hemispherical bar area with tables studded across the floor. The dome of the bar is a dance floor designed for people wearing grip-pads. There are also two lounge areas (one for VIPs). The employee-only area contains a kitchen, storage, a break room, and the manager’s office.

ACTIVITY: During the day, the Black Light is largely deserted with just a few desultory drinkers. At night, the bar and lounge areas are thickly crowded. (The recent incident only created a sensation and increased the club’s demand; people are reporting that real ghosts are haunting the place.)

INVESTIGATION TEST – BAR: Will find the protoplasmic vomit (see below).

INVESTIGATION TEST – KITCHEN: Will find the component recently added to the drink fabber (see below).

CHARACTERS

MANAGER – EVANDER MOON: A gruff man in a splicer morph; blue, pseudo-prehensile dreadlocks and a slight potbelly. He’s convinced that the whole thing was a prank; some sort of “living art” piece somebody is prepping in anticipation of the Intergalactic Art and Culture Show. More than happy to take the free publicity, though.

BARTENDER – PAULA BANWIN: Friendly face in a dark-skinned splicer. She’s still badly shaken by what she experienced during the incident (which included a detailed vision of her watching TITAN drones kill her family and her original body… events she has no memory of because she escaped Earth as an infomorph fork before they happened).

Paula keeps a lifelog. She’s been teasing the events of last night and hasn’t publicly released all the footage, but they would function as surveillance footage (see below).

CLUE – SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE

Can be obtained from the club’s security system, Paula Banwin’s lifelog, or possibly from other witnesses.

FOOTAGE: Average night at the club. Then all the lights spark brightly; people in the room and various items are clearly drawn towards a point near the center of the hemisphere (as if drawn by a strong gravitic field). People are clinging to tables or to each other and screaming. A few items implode, sending dull shards of safe-glass and ceramics careening around. Then, abruptly, its over; gravity reasserts itself and everyone falls (albeit slowly) towards the floor.

PERCEPTION (+30): One person (and only one person) is unaffected (Modya Oborskaia). Modya remains at her table. Her eyes are wide, but her pupils are rolled back to reveal only the whites of her eyes (which slowly turn red).

Rolling the footage back will reveal that Modya had just arrived and taken her first drink. (The drink was, of course, made in the drink fabber, see below.)

Rolling the footage forward will show that, after the incident, she stumbled away and vomited into a modern art piece that’s been extruded from the wall of the club. (The protoplasmic vomit she spewed up is still there, see below.)

CLUE – DRINK FABBER

Located in the kitchen. Standard model, but a strange, fluted canister made from some sort of black polymer compound has been added to it.

CANISTER: The canister was installed by workers from Neuralite and added epsilon psike-out to everything the fabber made. It has an inventory taggant attached to it that clearly identifies it as coming from a Neuralite storeroom.

Surveillance footage can reveal the person installing the canister. If successfully traced, it will turn out to be Neuralite employee named Evren Nissel (he knows nothing; he was just told to install the canister).

OPENING THE CANISTER: The canister is completely sealed except for the intake and output valves. Breaching the canister will trigger a self-destruct unless an encrypted passkey is broadcast. If the canister is opened, the chemical residue inside can be subjected to medical analysis (see Node 3).

CLUE – PROTOPLASMIC VOMIT

Located in a modern art piece that’s extruded from the wall of the club. Modya vomited into the art piece after the incident.

The vomit is semi-gelatinous and looks something like a decaying jelly fish. In substance, it’s made up almost entirely of protoplasm – as if a huge mass of cells had their plasma membranes stripped from them.

The vomit can be subjected to medical analysis (see Node 3).

Go to Node 2: Modya Oborskaia

FIREWALL BRIEFING

SUMMONS: PCs are summoned to Nova York. No indication of what their mission may be. Fake IDs are not required, although caution never hurt anyone.

RESEARCH (-20): May allow PCs to pick up some of the details from the briefing before arriving.

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: Hosted in a VR simulspace as soon as the last PCs’ transport is close enough to mitigate transmission delays.

HOST: Depicted as a featureless shadow. Infomorph in a heavily secured eidolon using a suite of kinesic-denying software.

ITINERARY: Firewall has been tracking a series of apparent async events on Nova York over the past six weeks. Rumors or confirmed reports include:

• A telepathic blast allowing someone to summon medical assistance for someone injured in one of the nickel mines.
• A beaten wife causing her husband to collapse through sheer anger. (The muslim community on Nova York is interpreting the incident as a punishment of sin.)
• A series of minor robberies which may have been aided by post-hypnotic suggestions. (Although traditional cyberbrain-hacking may be the actual culprit.)
• Everyone in an area reportedly “sharing the same thoughts”.

Firewall’s initial suspicion was this might be evidence for a new async. Or possibly an async gang trying to expand into Nova York.

Over the last ten days (which may have been while the PCs were in transit), however, there have been three major incidents:

• Over the course of a week, roughly a dozen people were struck with complete and total amnesia. (They’ve been restored from backups. Medical examinations have found no physical cause for their condition.)
• Twenty people in a Banco de Nova York facility simultaneously experienced a “shared delusion” in which they all dived into the caldera of Olympus Mons.
• A fifty-foot-long section of corridor in the Skin was found transmuted into gold.

A fourth incident – the most significant to date – occurred last night at a club named the Black Light.

• Initial reports suggest a massive incident featuring Casimir force repulsion. To date, only exsurgent asyncs have demonstrated the ability to manipulate the Casimir effect.
• The Black Light is located on the 276^th sunward floor of the Harrington Torque, one of the kilometers-tall spindle-scrapers that crisscross Nova York.

The Black Light Incident represents our best lead. Your mission is to identify the cause of the Nova York Events and, if it represents a threat, put an end to it.

BACKGROUND – NOVA YORK (9 METIS)

Nova York is described in detail in Rimward, pg. 26. This section is a brief summary of information from Rimward and also contains original material pertinent to this scenario.

• Population: 500,000 (third largest habitat in the belt)
• 9 Metis: Large nickel-iron and silicate asteroid. (Not to be confused with the moon of Jupiter by the same name.)

THE CAVERN

• CENTRAL CAVERN: Spherical, 4 km in diameter, 200m beneath the asteroid’s surface.
• LIGHTING: Huge light tubes in the outer walls. At night, the lights of the buildings cause the surface of the sphere to resemble an enormous geode.
• GRAVITY: Microgravity of 1/140^th g. (Up and down have little meaning. Falling is irrelevant as air pressure and low gravity eliminate any risk of injury.)
• SPINDLE-SPIRES: Thousands of exceptionally tall and fragile-looking buildings that extend between 100 and 150m above the surface, with a large number that extend all the way across the cavern.
  • Durable frame, with reflective or translucent materials that play with ambient light in the cavern.
  • Residents often jump from one building to another.

THE SKIN: Refers to all the tunnels burrowing through the asteroid around the central cavern. Most of these are the result of mining, but many have been converted to low-rent housing and the like.

NOYO ECONOMICS

• NOYO: The locally produced currency. No other form of currency is accepted.
  • Value of the noyo decreases over time from the date of issue, which is meant to stimulate spending, discourage currency speculation, and prevent wealth accumulation.
  • Value of noyo is pegged to local reputation network, so people with high Noyo rep have their currency devalue at a slower pace.
  • Tends to warp the local rep economy – people tend to avoid “narcing” on their friends because it can create a negative feedback loop when money is on the line.

• BANCO de NOVA YORK (BdNY): Manages all financial transactions and is the habitat’s legal custodian.
  • Residents and businesses rent their roofs; no one owns property.

• EXTROPIAN: Other than the Noyo and BdNY, Nova York is generally extropian.
  • Private contracts for security, insurance, legal code, etc.
  • Each building is often a collective (either closely-knit or purely functional), often sharing contractural services.

NOYO CULTURE

• Cultural melting pot.
  • Wide variety of religious memeplexes.
• Heavily based around visual arts – sculpture, architecture, light-sculpting, sensory experiences, AR experiences, aerial dance routines, etc.
  • Planning to host an Intergalactic Art and Culture Show next year to draw tourists and residents.

BACKGROUND – PSI-EPSILON OPENER

Psi-opener drugs, as described in the core rulebook (pg. 325), are a variant of the Watts-MacLeod strain that temporarily imbue users with the ability to use one particular psi sleight. Neuralite (a well-cloaked subsidiary of the Cognite hypercorp) has been developing an experimental psi-epsilon opener. They’re hoping to unlock the powerful psi-epsilon abilities available only to exsurgents, but crossing the relatively benign Watts-MacLeod virus with active strains of the exsurgent virus is obviously incredibly dangerous.

The psi-epsilon opener is a binary compound: The epsilon primer and the epsilon psike-out. The opener only becomes fully active when the epsilon psike-out is taken by a primed subject.

Testing of the compound proved difficult because it had a very low success rate in laboratory trials. Neuralite’s scientists estimated that for every 1,000 test subjects they brought in, only one might actually manifest psi powers due to the safeguards they had added to the virus’ DNA.

As a result, Neuralite decided to test the compound by pumping the first part of the compound into the H2O supply of Nova York in order to saturate the population in preparation for the “activation event”. Their theory is that when they add the epsilon psike-out to the water supply in a few days, they’ll create roughly 500 powerful asyncs.

The early, minor async events in Nova York are due to an unexpected side effect from the epsilon primer: Citizens who are already asyncs (many of them minor asyncs who don’t even realize they have powers) are experiencing spontaneous and uncontrollable outbursts of psi energy.

The major async events in the last few weeks are the result of Neuralite performing isolated tests of the epsilon psike-out compound.

Epsilon Primer: The primer is essentially a complicated receptive capsid and does not contain any active exsurgent virus. This means that most people exposed to the virus are at no risk and their bodies will flush the primer out of their system within two weeks. The exception to this are asyncs, who must make a Moxie x 20 test once per day while exposed to the drug. On a failure, they’ll manifest a powerful and out-of-control version of a psi sleight. This experience generally inflicts 1d10+5 SV.

Epsilon Psike-Out: If taken by someone under the effects of the epsilon primer, the victim must make a Moxie x 10 test. (An async suffers a -30 penalty on this check.) On a success, the drug only has the effect of a normal psi-opener and psike-out (see Eclipse Phase, pg. 325). On a failure, the victim receives the permanent use of a random psi-epsilon sleight and also benefits from the effects of psike-out. Unfortunately, this also means that he victim is infected with the haunting version of the exsurgent virus (see Eclipse Phase, pg. 366). Each time they use the psi-epsilon sleight, there is a 10% chance that this will upgrade to the mindstealer version of the exsurgent virus (see Eclipse Phase, pg. 367).

ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

The epsilon psike-out is scheduled to be released 1d10+1 days after the PCs arrive. (It may happen sooner if Neuralite realizes they’re being investigated and Radom or Vangelis decide to pull the trigger.)

If the PCs fail to prevent the release of the epsilon psike-out, it’s a catastrophe: Neuralite’s estimates are off by a factor of ten (and they also don’t realize they’re creating exsurgents instead of empowered transhuamns). 5,000 psi exsurgents will be created in Nova York (emerging over the course of 1-2 weeks). At fully 1% of the population, they probably can’t be contained. The end result is that Nova York is likely to be quarantined or destroyed.

REVELATION LIST

INVESTIGATING OTHER INCIDENTS

Following up on the events prior to the Black Light is not necessarily fruitless, but there’s not much to go on:

• The people who experienced the telepathic blast have not repeated the experience (although one is, in fact, a weak async and just doesn’t know it).
• The beaten wife is currently being sheltered by her mosque. (She’s an async trying to deny her abilities due to a religious belief that they come from Shaitan.)
• There are no functional leads on the robberies.
• The people suffering from amnesia have no memory of the event (no pun intended). None of them are responsible for the amnesia and neither their egos nor their morphs have anything abnormal about them.
• There’s no indication of who (or what) was responsible for the transmutation (and the owners of the mine have sealed the area off).

Tissue samples taken from the telepath or the beaten wife contain high concentrations of the psi-epsilon opener. It’s difficult to isolate by itself (-20 modifier), but comparing these samples to other relevant samples provides a +10 modifier to those checks. (See Node 3.)

Go to Node 1: The Black Light