Nick and Perry, unsettled by the implication that there was a clone of the older partner on the loose, split up again to run down more leads.
They set up a code phrase (“Crouching Tiger” … “Hidden Dragon”) in case Perry ran into Nick 2.0.
Previous Session (plus a recap of their “in-between case”) linked below. ALL MY SESSION RECAPS ARE FULL OF SPOILERS. You’ve been warned.
It was Night of the 1st day of their case. Perry headed to Runciter’s Zoological to follow-up the feather lead. Nick went to Bright Eyes Beauty Salon, as tipped by the missing newspaper clipping.
Both Bladerunners have the “Married to the Job” Specialty, allowing them to work an extra shift without needing Downtime.
Bright Eyes Beauty Salon
Nick – still wounded from the Ellis freakout earlier in the day – managed to use his connections to borrow two uniformed police again.
They arrived in separate spinners. Nick was able to call up specs of the building. The salon was on the ground floor of a megastructure. It had a front entrance, and a back exit that opened to a service hallway. The proprietor’s name was Seraphine.
Nick and the uniforms staked-out the salon for a time. Eventually, he decided to go in the back entrance. He instructed the uniforms to wait nearby out front, as if they were walking the beat. As Nick was bypassing security on the back door, the unis messaged him through his KIA that a man just entered from the street. Now listening through a cracked door that opened into the kitchen, he heard a man talking to a woman.
Soon the woman became distressed, shouting “NO DON’T!!”
Nick barged in, drawing his classic Blade Runner PK-D Blaster.
Nick saw veteran Blade Runner Ray McCoy pointing his blaster at Seraphine. Nick pointed his at McCoy.
The unis entered through the front door. Nick commanded McCoy to stand down, and the old detective did so after a moment of hesitation. He claimed Seraphine was one of the bootleg replicants, which she tearfully denied.
Nick rolled Insight. His long-time experience and instincts told him that McCoy was going to kill her, not just holding Seraphine at gunpoint.
Questioning McCoy was unsatisfying. He said one of his CIs told him Seraphine was a rogue. He refused to identify his source. Nick had a uni double-handcuff Seraphine and toss the place for evidence. But he always kept an eye on McCoy.
Runciter’s Zoological
Perry likewise staked out Runciter’s Zoological for a time. It too was on the groundfloor of a large building.
The streets were quiet this time at night. Perry entered through the front door and introduced himself to Emil Runciter.
Runciter was upset.
“So, you finally decided to show up, eh? A poor citizen victimized by a horrible crime, and it takes this long for the LAPD to show up? How do you expect to catch the culprits now?”
Perry asked what was stolen.
“My owl! Eden! She was priceless really, one of a kind. She used to be Eldon Tyrell’s personal bird. See, they simply ripped the cage open and took the bird.”
It was obvious that somebody with great strength ransacked the shop. The door had been bashed open. The stout cage bars were bent.
Whoever took the owl was connected to the bootleg replicants on the loose. (see Esper image from prior game session)
Perry successfully processed the image using his KIA’s Esper function. He got an image of the owl thief.
It was Ray McCoy!
Perry messaged Nick.
Imposter Syndrome
Nick was having an awkward discussion with McCoy when Perry’s message came through. Not skipping a beat, Nick decided on his course of action.
McCoy was being evasive. Nick told him he’d be taking Seraphine down to LAPD HQ. McCoy seemed about to object – Seraphine was his collar after all – but quickly assented. McCoy said he had a lead to follow and would be down to the station soon.
Nick was fine with that. He and the unis left in their spinners.
As his spinner took to the air, Seraphine, secured by handcuffs to a large ring, finally lost her patience.
“What the fuck is going on here?!
“This afternoon you come down here, all sketchy, wanting biosculpt? I sent you away, and now you come back and you’re a cop? What kind of fucked-up sting is this?! I didn’t do anything. And your pal was going to straight up kill me!
“This is bullshit! What the fuck is going on here?!”
Nick was processing this. Clearly, this was another sighting of his clone.
He demurred, telling the woman that the situation was complex, and would all get sorted out.
Nick wasn’t anywhere as cool as he let on. If Deputy Chief Holden found out there was a clone Nick on the loose, real Nick would be detained immediately. And something was really off about McCoy, who he’d known distantly for decades.
LAPD HQ
It was nearly dawn when Nick and Seraphine arrived at the massive police station.
Holden met Nick as he was escorting Seraphine. He updated the Deputy Chief, omitting details about twins and sketchy McCoy.
As a uni held Seraphine, Holden pulled Nick aside, telling him what they had on Seraphine was thin, and she’d need to be cut loose. Holden left, wheezing as always.
Nick was perfectly fine with that. In fact, he didn’t even want her in an interrogation room, recording uncomfortable details.
He took custody of Seraphine. They talked in a side hallway. Nick asked her to repeat what she told “him” earlier in the day, when the clone visited. She rolled her eyes…
…but complied. Nick made several successes on his Manipulation roll.
His clone had been sent to The Aurelian, over in Animoid Row. Nick knew him well from the Electric Dreams case.
Nick implored Seraphine to lay low for a while, that things were going on that he didn’t understand, and that she was in great danger. Having stared down McCoy’s blaster already, the stylist agreed.
Ray McCoy never did show up. Perry did however, the detectives decided to crash at his place to get some much-needed rest.
Spinner vs. Spinner
They rested well during the morning of Day 2. Both recovered some Health and Resolve.
Both had uneventful Downtime event rolls. Perry even got more Resolve back.
They debated visiting McCoy’s apartment, but decided to visit The Aurelian together. As always, the worry was: These bootleg replicants were really tough, and if only one of the bladerunners ran into them, it would go badly.
On the way there, Nick spotted a tail following their spinner. He tried to lose it, and managed to increase the distance a little. It was another spinner, very similar to theirs.
…but not the same. It had an autocannon, and fired at them. A round hit their spinner, doing minor damage.
Perry lowered his window, and returned fire with his Ender Assault Rifle.
He hit despite the difficulty. The tailing spinner caught fire, but pressed on.
I required Perry to roll at Disadvantage, but he still got 2 successes, inflicting a critical hit. My brother and my son fist-bumped.
Their opponent wasn’t finished. A tactical missile lanced out, striking Nick and Perry’s spinner. They were both rattled by the explosion, but luckily the missile had mostly deflected off the side, impacting on a nearby building.
The damage was done, however. Their spinner was going down. As Nick tried to control the crash landing, Perry fired once more at their flaming pursuer, scoring hits. It too was going down.
As crashes went, the bladerunners could have done worse. They kicked their way out of the wreckage, banged-up but still in the fight. Onlookers gasped as the pair emerged, bloody, brandishing Ender Assault Rifles, marching straight toward the other crash site, which had been down another street. They could see the flames reflecting off nearby buildings.
The wreck was there, but no driver. Nick grabbed a fire extinguisher while Perry canvassed for witnesses. Nick was successful, but Perry was not.
Unis showed up to secure both scenes. Holden showed up as well, angry that his men had been attacked. But there were few answers.
Except that this burnt wreckage was definitely McCoy’s spinner.
The Aurelian
The Aurelian, blind, nonetheless blinked in surprise as the battered detectives showed up after such a long absence.
He genuinely wanted to be helpful, as Nick and Perry had done him a solid back during the Electric Dreams case. The Aurelian was a fugitive Nexus-8, and a principal behind the replicant underground railroad. The duo had let him be.
But he had little to offer. Nick’s clone hadn’t shown up yet, for whatever reason.
Scratching their heads, the duo pondered what to do. They’d promised Holden they’d go to McCoy’s apartment next shift, in the afternoon. But they were loathe to split up again, and wanted to stake out The Aurelian’s shop.
They split up.
Perry remained at Animoid Row, taking a post at an outdoor eatery.
Nick went alone to McCoy’s apartment. It was in a posh (for 2037) building. Nick was able to bypass the elevator security. The lift door opened right into McCoy’s apartment.
It was quiet in there. There’d clearly been a disturbance, as the Esper machine has a shattered viewer. Nick noted an owl feather on the counter. And a dog dish. Where was the dog?
In the bedroom as it turned out. Nick was fully expecting corpses, but McCoy was bound and gagged, likewise with his dog, who was muzzled. The room stank of urine.
Nick ungagged him. McCoy was banged up real bad, with a nasty blunt force impact on his head. He recognized Nick. Told him that he was ambushed by a guy that looked just like him, and a woman. He was real groggy.
Nick leaned in. “When was the last time you saw me?”
McCoy squinted through the pain. “Been a few years, right?”
He untied him and his dog. Perry was going to grind through another shift of stakeout at The Aurelian’s shop. Nick bundled “The Real McCoy” into his (new) spinner to go join Perry.
The scenario actually states that McCoy is supposed to go into unconscious uselessness, after spitting out the location of the endgame, but it didn’t make any sense given where N&P were in the timeline. And it’d be more interesting for The Real McCoy to join N&P.
Doubled-up
While Nick was fixing McCoy in an autodoc, Perry squinted at the shop through another cup of crab juice at the Clam Hut. He’d already eaten 3 meals at Seven Star Prawns and smelled like seafood.
The two vets joined Perry. McCoy still looked like death warmed-over, but functional. He asked the duo who they were looking for. Nick said he had a double, just like McCoy.
McCoy pointed at The Aurelian’s shop. “There’s a guy in there who looks like you.” Startled, the duo saw he was right.
Perry stormed in, confronting Nick’s Double. The replicant was dressed different, and was unwounded, but was a spitting image of Nick.
Perry toyed with him, like a cat. “Who am I?” he asked. After a pause, faux-Nick answered his name. Perry asked him the code phrase. “Crouching Tiger…?”
The Double stared at him blankly.
Perry rushed him, whacking him with a lead pipe that he always carried. The Double went down, crying out in pain, pelvis shattered.
As Perry cuffed him, Double-Nick began going into shock. The Aurelian rushed over with a surgeon’s kit, stabilizing the bootleg replicant.
Continued next session! The Conclusion of Fiery Angels.
Blade Runner RPG: What’s available
Blade Runner RPG items for sale at Wayne’s Books
The Starter Set has the first case, Electric Dreams. This beginner box is an embarrassment of riches: A basic rules book, the Electric Dreams adventure, Cards and lots of Handouts, and the special dice. Fiery Angels is also available of course.
I also sell the Blade Runner Dice sets separately, but they’re purely optional. You can use normal RPG dice; just know that 6+ is a success, 10+ a double success, and a 1 is particularly bad if you “pushed” the roll.
The hardcover rulebook and screen are great if you want to deep-dive into the system – and you probably will.
See Also:
Amazing! Never seen it. Is this a product from the late 80s? 90s?
Nope, just released this year!
Great write up ! We did the Electric Dreams and I am preparing Fiery Angels and this helps immensely. A pity that there are no equipment cards – I play with roleplaying rookies and there is a lot to take in, equipment cards would be really handy.
Agreed! Free League did weapon cards for Twilight 2000, why no love for Blade Runner?