You arrive beneath the corporate skyscraper’s mirrored atrium, where rain crawls down smartglass and security lights bleach the polished floor. Under the cameras, a ripperdoc pauses beside a service kiosk.
The ripperdoc is a middle-aged woman with a compact build, silver-threaded braids, amber ocular implants, and a charcoal clinic coat lined with surgical pockets. She passes a black data shard toward an unseen figure in the kiosk’s shadow.
Razor
You brought the memory. I brought the eraser.
The ripperdoc spots you through the reflected signage. Her hand closes around the shard, knuckles whitening, while the hidden recipient’s fingers remain just beyond the light.
the ripperdoc
Keep walking. This transaction does not concern you.
A corporate drone pivots from its charging cradle. Its lens irises open, scanning faces, implants, and gait signatures as a red recording glyph blooms above the lobby.
Razor
Destroy it, doctor. Better ash than their hands.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the lost memory
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the unseen blackmailer
“Can I identify the blackmailer from their voice or hands?”
YES (Likely, rolled 41)
The blackmailer’s voice catches beneath the distortion, a clipped cadence buried under synthetic harmonics. The kiosk shadow shifts, exposing a hand with a distinctive chrome index joint.
Vesper
That voice belongs to Razor. The hand matches his old combat implant.
Recognition locks into place. Razor, the Black Arancini fixer and secret police informant, is the unseen figure negotiating with the ripperdoc.
the ripperdoc
You know him, then. Good. This becomes simpler.
Razor
Vesper. Step away from the drone and forget what you heard.
The corporate drone’s recording glyph brightens. Razor’s hand withdraws into darkness, while the ripperdoc keeps the shard pressed against her coat.
“Is the ripperdoc helping Razor erase my memory?”
YES, AND MORE (VeryLikely, rolled 9)
The ripperdoc’s amber eyes flick to the drone, then back to Vesper. Beneath her charcoal coat, a compact neural rig hums awake, its injector arm unfolding.
the ripperdoc
Yes. Razor paid for a memory scrub. He also paid me to install a tracker in the replacement data.
The shard pulses between her fingers. A diagnostic reflection skates across its surface, revealing a second encrypted partition tagged with Razor’s police cipher.
Razor
Vesper, listen carefully. She is not erasing everything. She is extracting what you saw, then feeding you a manufactured recollection.
Vesper
The drone is recording, but the shard contains a police channel.
the ripperdoc
Your choice is already narrowing. Come closer, and I can make the procedure clean.
The drone’s red glyph suddenly freezes. Its recording stream has been severed from the corporate archive, leaving the lobby cameras blind for eleven seconds.
“I seize the shard before the scrub begins”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +1)
Vesper moves during the drone’s eleven-second blackout. Her slim hand snaps forward, catches the shard between the ripperdoc’s fingers, and tears it free before the neural rig can engage.
The black shard settles into Vesper’s palm, cold and faintly vibrating. Its encrypted partition remains active, the police cipher pulsing beneath the surface.
the ripperdoc
You have no idea what you just took.
Razor
Good. Keep it out of her rig. The police channel is intact, and the tracker is not.
The ripperdoc’s injector arm retracts with a sharp mechanical click. Her amber implants flare as she studies Vesper, then the stolen shard, recalculating.
the ripperdoc
Razor, you promised me a clean handoff. Instead, you send your history to collect evidence.
Razor
I sent Vesper because she notices what professionals miss. Get clear of the atrium, Vesper. Corporate vision comes back in seven seconds.
Quest Complete
Secure the lost memory
Quest Complete
Identify the unseen blackmailer
+ New Item Acquired
Black data shard