Seattle Update 01: Nyx Genetics Records

SEATTLE UPDATE 01: NYX GENETICS RECORDS
Written by: Detrius Played on: 16 Sep 2012

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This was an update I sent to my players after a hiatus. The intent was to remind them of where they were at and what they were up to prior to our break from the game. It also let me fill in some of the details they had earned in capturing the Nyx Genetics files and the Mercury Express hard drives.

Its been a little over two months since you took down the Dragon Head of the Red Fenghuang Triad, Kaguya Hime. Its been even longer since you broke into the labs of Nyx Genetics and confronted Dr Lukas Strughold.

You’re not sure what the fallout of those actions will be, but you’ve been keeping your heads down just in case. When you’ve feel you can risk it, you pick up the odd side job to pay rent and your bills. By and large though, you’ve been stuck indoors.

You’re in the living room watching the Seattle Screamers, the Seattle Urban Brawl team, stomp the Denver Thunderheads when your commlink beeps, indicating you’ve received a message. Detrius has been spending most of his spare time at his offsite apartment, for security reasons he says, digging through the data you pulled from Nyx Genetics. Significant security encryption has slowed him down. Beyond that, filtering the sheer amount of data for useful info is no small feet. After three months of work, though, he’s sent you his findings.

As an added bonus, I get to flick a little setting lore at my players at the same time.

“Oye, chums. I’ll be heading back soon, but I thought you’d be interested in what I’ve found. You showed back up at Nyx Genetics back in December 2072, just before the new year after you disappeared from Denver. Chekhov showed up almost two months later, part of a separate group of patients. No mention how they got you there, just that you were delivered through the usual channels for the Marahal Program. You left the facility at the beginning of July 2074, just a week before you popped back up on the grid.

“As Bear knows, he’s been there a couple times over the last few years. Once for his ‘inauguration’, then a couple of times for ‘routine maintenance’. They seem to have struggled a bit with augmenting astrally active subjects. That’s probably why Chekhov has only minimal additions.

“While you were there, it looks like they mostly cyberware upgrades, though it looks like there might have been some genetic modification too. It looks like Cho had some pretty significant skin grafts, though her records don’t say why she needed them. Its a little hard to piece together the data from the different departments, there’s a lot of ‘not letting the left hand know what the right hand doeth’ going on. Most of the departments are separated and kept in the dark to the others’ activities.

“Marius got a lot of psychological analysis, brain scans and physicals separate from what the rest of you got, I think its related to Project Gemini back in the 40’s and 50’s. They were using cloned fetuses to try to isolate and reproduce specific traits to physically and psychologically superior soldiers. The downside was the shear amount of time it took to raise a clone to maturity. They ran the program for over fifteen years before it was canceled, Marius’ group was the last batch.

“Besides the amount of time and resources it would take to grow even a squad of soldiers, it looks like the program was beset with problems. The rejection rate on the cloned fetuses was pretty high and the older clones prooved to be less stable than desired. There was a high rate of genetic defects that appeared later in life, cancer, immune system deficiencies, uncontrolled muscular growth and even sudden, sporadic death. Of those who were still fit, psychosis ended up being common; depression, PTSD, uncontrollable rage, even auditory and sometimes visual hallucinations. I think they were checking Marius for any symptoms to minimize any chances that the augmentations might push him over the edge.

“The primary focus of your visit, however, seems to be the bonds. From what I’ve been able to piece together, Kaguya Hime visted Nyx Genetics several times. He was working with their scientists on behavioral control program. He’s probably the one who gave you your bonds, it doesn’t look like they were getting the results they wanted with their hardware experiments. The short version is, you guys weren’t the first. They’ve been running some of these experiments for the better part of the last decade, but its just been the last year they’ve gotten it refined to the point that they’ve started fielding some units.

“There’s not much information on who with, that’s also another department. But, with that extra bit of information, I’ve been going back through the Mercury Express drives you pulled. It looks like Matthew Sparks handled a couple other groups like yours over the last couple years, hiring them out as psuedo-Shadowrunner teams. Besides you, it looks like they all ended up dead.

“Ultimately, the application of the project seems to be either military or maybe even for high level corporate security. The files don’t say who greenlighted the project, but they must be a big spender. Certainly bigger than Mercury Express, the Triad and the street gangs you’ve been tangling with so far.

“Whoever it is, you can be sure they’re not the kind to let this go. I’m sure you’ll be in for some trouble still.”

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