Leath.

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One Week of Hell.
By Leath Sheales.
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Colour: Blue, Training: Any, Third Eye, SCL Increase: +0.1,
Payment: 200 credits per squad per day, Department: Housing.

Description: Patrol Centre Walk, Downtown. Disperse civilian
uprisings and promote SLA Industries. Minimum 1 week for successful
completion. Bonuses and Media coverage available for originality.
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This is the standard Blue BPN. Patrol an area. The characters (frsh
out of University) are stuck in this area for at least one week. By
the end of the week they will be begging to be allowed back into
Uptown.

Background: Centre Walk is one of the worst areas of Downtown.
Located only a couple of blocks from the wall of Cannibal Sector 3,
Centre Walk experiences cannibal attacks, carnivorous pig rampages,
manchine murders and serial killers. The residents living here have
succumbed to the pressures and at least 90% of them have joined Dark
Night for protection. These people as well as the remainder are
rioting sporadically against SLA. In addition to these problems, the
residents are also persecuted routinely by Shivers cracking under the
pressure of Wall Duty and Sleepers who come through the area. At
least one nest of Carriens is breeding in the lower areas beneath the
Walk, rising at night in search of food. As for media attention,
forget it. No news crew will be persuaded to come down to these
depths. This BPN has been deliberately given to new recruits who
don't know any better. The only bonus available to the characters
is the 10 credit bounty per Carrien head (but the characters will
probably have a hard time collecting the reward after this week).
With all these problems under the GM's belt the BPN begins.

Day 1.

The characters arrive. How they do this is up to them. No taxi
company will come near the place. Shivers are far too busy to shuttle
the characters around (unless at least one of them has some Major
Shiver Friends). Their alternatives are gauss trains or their own
transport. It will take four change-overs to get to the station
nearest Centre Walk, and even then the characters will have to walk
for over 2 hours through hostile territory to reach the Walk (I hope
they brought a navi-map!). If they take their own cars (whatever)
these will end up vandalised over the week (the extent of this is up
to you). Make note of when the characters arrive. If during the day,
a couple of civilians will be sittiing around. They all have
concealed DN pistols on them. They will not talk to the Ops or listen
to them. If possible, all civilians will avoid the Ops. For all
intents and purposes, they have walked into a ghost town. That night,
or if the characters arrive at night the Walk will be deserted. The
only noises to be heard are the buzzing of fluorescent lights and the
chitterring and whoopong of Carriens as they hunt through the Walk.
The dismal fluorescent lighting is next to useless. If thhe
characters want to see they will either need their own lights (giving
their locations away) or light amplifying/ IR equipment. Play up the
stalking nature of the Carriens. Have shadows dart to and fro. Whoops
and chitters will appear to be directly behind the Ops, but when they
turn nothing will be there. Hopefully the Ops will even get to the
stage where they are firing at shadows in panic. The Carriens of this
nest are not stupid. They will not attack the Ops if easier prey is
around (and it is), but will distract and intimidate them.

This game of cat and mouse will continue for hours or until you grow
tired of it. Then a blood-curdling scream will sound out near the
characters location and the night will turn silent. This is even more
unnerving than the Carrien calls. It shouldn't take the characters
long to to find the victims. A family of father, mother and baby have
been dragged from their apartment. Blood drips from the walls, flesh
has been torn from the victims and dropped. The scene has a Fear
rating of 12 (it's not that scary, but it has been a long and
harrowing night). The Carriens have gone for the night, having
captured their prey. They also took the family's DN pistols (2) that
the family tried to use against the vermin. Nothing much more will
happen tonight. Throw in the occassional howl to keep the characters
alert. They won't be getting much sleep tonight.

Don't forget as the BPN continues to impose penalties for each day
that the characters can't get any sleep.

Day 2.

If the characters have managed to get any sleep (unlikely) over the
night, they will be woken very early in the morning by a lot of
shouting and chanting. Day time here isn't much different to night
time. It is brighter because SLA turns a few more fluorescent lights
on, but it's still dim and depressing. The shouting is coming from a
mob of angry residents. They are sick of being victims and are taking
the opportunity to voice their frustrations with the SLA Ops there.
There are approximately 100 civilians rioting. Most are packing
hidden DN guns, the rest have CAF. A rare few have managed to pick up
SLA weapons on the black market. They are chanting "SLA? No Way!"
over and over while some of the more charasmatic individuals are
trying to incite a frenzied riot. If the Ops try to talk to them they
will accuse them of oppression, incompetance, apathy and basically
anything else they can think of. The Ops may try to calm things down,
but this will prove difficult. Violence is a VERY bad idea because
the Ops are heavily outnumbered and the sheer number of civilians
will quickly strip their armour down with a hail of bullets, also
resulting in many civilian casualties. Even if thhe Ops are
succeeding in calming the situation down, someone in the crowd will
grow agitated and fire at the Ops, inciting a panicked riot amongst
the crowd. The best bet for the Ops at this point is to flee and call
in Shiver support. Three over-tired and ciolent Sleeper squads can
respond in within twenty minutes. Two squads can arrive from the CS 3
Wall to disrupt the riot, and five APCs worth of Dispersal Shivers
can arrive within an hour. A SCAF or two may even turn up. These
Shivers will use non-lethal methods (gauss rifles, pacifier batons)
to disperse the crowd except the Sleepers who will attempt to kill as
many civilians as they think they can get away with (a pay-back of
sorts). Within half an hour of the Shivers arriving the crowd will
begin to break up as civilians flee the onslaught. About 20 dead
civilian corpses will litter the groud. The Shivers will leave them
there for vermin to pick at, as a reminder to the other rioters. The
Ops can do with them what they like. Three Shivers also lay dead.
Their squad mates will recover their bodies for proper burial.

The rest of the day can be spent pacifying any remaing civilians and
being shot at by disgruntled (and beaten) residents. The shots will
not be very accurate and should serve to unnerve the characters more
than injure them.

As night approaches and most of the fluorescent lights start to go
out the characters will receive a call from the Shivers over their
headsets. They are told that while responding to the riot there was
an assault at the wall. Several.. things... broke through before the
Shivers could fix the breach. The Ops are advised to find somewhere
safe for the night and to stay alert. Use your imagination, but it's
going to be a long night....

Day 3.

After yet another exhausting and largely sleepless night the
charatcers will again be woken at dawn by another call from Shivers.
They are told that since the Wall breach occurred while the Shivers
were responding to their distress call they have the responsibility
to 'mop up' anything that escaped in their area. This is largely a
cop-out by the Shivers, and several Operative Squads have been given
Red (well paid) BPNs to come down and kill the escapees, but if the
Ops will do more work for no extra money, SLA is happy. Of course the
Ops know none of this. Over half a dozen cannibals, one ex-war
criminal and a manchine are loose in the region of Centre Walk. The
GM can run this according to personal taste, but some ideas are
presented below:

Cannibals: These cannibals are all part of the same family unit.
Recently their hearth-fire was extinguished by a raid from a rival
family and most of their tribe slaughtered (and eaten). They saw the
Wall breach as an opportunity and some were lucky enough to make it
through. They will try to take over an apartment block near the
characters in oredr to build the new hearth-fire. The residents of
the block will become their victims. They will attempt to stun their
'food' rather than killing it immediately. They are all very
excellent kinfe fighters (Rank 8) and carry the equivalent of a SLA
blade. They are also familiar with pack tactics and effectively have
Tactics at level 5. Although they don't have much experience with
firearms they have at least Rank 1. Don't forget that most civilians
around here have a gun. The cannibals are not stupid, they are very
cunning and use a pack mentality to capture their food and kill
intruders (the PCs). The speak in their own language of grunts and
mumbles and will be impossible to reason with. The cannibals will
spend Day 3 trying to create their nest. By the end of the day they
will have captured most of the block's residents. If not stopped by
Day 4 they will fortify their nest against other predators. Note that
they will have at least a sleeping room, a hearth-fire room, a
storage room (for 'food') and a breeding room. In the breeding room
they will keep several (about 10) of the healthier females for the
purposes of mating. When these women get unhealthy or old they are
disposed of (eaten or simply killed if diseased). If not eradicated
by the end of Day 4 the will be almost impossible to get rid of on
Day 5, and will have boobytrapped the apartment block (with crude but
very effective and deadly traps).

Ex-war Criminal: Corporal William Simmons has been fighting this
fucking war as long as he can fucking remember. He has survived
through a combination of paranoia and instinct. He knows the value of
ambush and will try to take the characters (subversives, all of 'em)
this way. He also realises that he is more valuable to SLA alive than
dead, and if the Ops are able to mount an effective counter attack he
will flee, preferring to live and fight another day. It seems that
luck is running with the Ops of this one, although he will remember
them and will return some day...

Manchine: Unless extremely unlucky the Ops will not meet the
manchine. Vincent will spend the days quietly selecting victims for
their body parts. He will keep a low profile until the Ops go away or
until they accidentally stumble upon him killing a victim. Then he
will respond to the full limit of his abilities. He is basically a
sad soul who wishes to end his existence, but has powerful hide and
survive instincts programmed into his mind. If he survives, he may be
the focus of a later BPN.

Day 4.

Lull the Operatives into a false sense of security today. Except for
if they are still hunting the cannibals, nothing will attack them
today. The Walk seems quiet. Too quiet.

Behind the scenes, this is what is happening. The residents of the
Walk have grown tired of SLA, Shivers, Cannibals, and especially
these SLOps. Some of them with connections have contacted DN about
staging an attack on SLA. Towards this goal 2 Interceptors have
responded. It's a perfect opportunity for Dark Night. If it works,
it's a blow against SLA, if not, they don't lose anything. The day is
quiet because they are planning an attack on the Ops and don't want
them to learn about it. If the Ops are observant they may notice that
a lot of people are going into a certain apartment block. If they are
sneaky they may be able to learn about the attack and warn SLA about
the plot before the attack occurs. Otherwise this day will be
uneventful, but don't let the players know this, keep them on their
toes.

That night the carriens emerge again, but are content to either steal
people from the cannibals or take corpses still rotting in the
street. Therefore although the Ops will hear them, they will probably
not see more than lurking shadows and hear unnerving hoots and
whistles.

Day5.

Today the Ops will notice several civilians acting suspiciously,
looking nervously at the Ops, running away, talking then shutting up
when the Ops get near etc. Hopefully this will arouse the player's
curiosity. This is what the Interceptors want, and have planned. A
group of civilians will sneak past the characters carrying an
unidentified but bulky item. They will be spotted by the Ops but will
not appear to notice. In fact, they intended to be seen and followed.
What they are carrying is up to you, but it's nothing too important.
When the Ops follow them they will disappear inside an alley. If the
Ops follow into the alley more civilians will appear from behind them
to cut off their escape route (coordinated by the Inteceptors). Then
the attack will begin. Civilians will fire their weapons accompanied
by cries of "Dark Night forever" etc.) One of the Inteceptors will
take a sniping role (although it's difficult to get a clear shot with
all these people, so he'll probably hit a few civilians, oh well).
The only chance the characters have of surviving this onslaught is if
they break through one of the boarded up windows of an apartment
backing onto the alley and flee through the building, contacting
Shiver reinforcements as they run. If they are to survive they will
either have to go to ground or reach a Shiver base. Either way it
will take a lot of skill and luck. They are going to be spending the
rest of the day and night playing a game of cat and mouse for their
lives while the Shivers get organised.

Day 6.

If thhe Operatives have managed to survive, well done to them! With
some thought they will have alerted SLA to the presence of DN
involvement. If they didn't think to do it, then they won't be
receiving any support. If they did, SLA HQ will inform them that a
task force of Enforcer Shivers is bbeing dispatched to purge the
area. They are to wait for the reinforcements and assist the
Enforcers in purifying (read: kill everyone) the area but are not to
get inthe Enforcer's way. When they arrive, approximately 100
Enforcer Shivers will systematically go throught the Walk, killing
all those who don't have the sense to flee or who are unable to. They
will purge the cannibals from the apartment block if the characters
haven't already (taking several casualties in the process) and may
uncover Vincent (although he has likely already fled). The
Inteceptors have already deserted the civlians. The purging will take
most of the day. The characters will be required to take a Fear test
at rank 14 due to the emotionless mass slaughter (and lack of sleep).
The Ops will also be instructed to assist in 'clean up' duties
throughout the night. This involves going through every apartment
block to remove corpses and for the Ops to throw them onto SLA
recycling trucks (don't ask what they're being recycled into). It
should also involve several Cool tests for the charcters not to be
overwhelmed by the deaths (GM's discretion). Evoke the player's
horror as they witness Enforcers silently slaughtering everyone.
Scenes such as the murder of children, the violent bashing to death
of a defenceless pregnant woman etc. This is unpleasant, and the
characters should know that this is how SLA treats those who would
defy it. Once cleanup is complete, the Enforcers will wordlessly
leave.

Day 7.

The Ops are informed by HQ that today they have to assist in civilian
relocation. Droves of civilians (and maybe one or two Operatives with
Housing rank -10) will start arriving to move into the now vacant
(but still uncleaned) apartments. There shouldn't be any problems
except for petty squabbles, arguments and theft for the Operatives to
sort out. Remember thought hat these Ops have had practically no
sleep for nearly a week, and are probably falling asleep ont heir
feet, kept awake only by adrenaline and drugs (maybe). They will make
errors in judgement and will be much more inclined to violence and
anger over the slightest aggravation. At the end of this day they are
permitted to go home to receive payment for a completed BPN.
Transport is again up to them to arrange.

Conclusion.

Day 8+.

If the Ops are stupid enough to stay longer than is absolutely
necessary, hit them with everything you have kept in reserve. Flash
floods, the ex-war criminal's revenge, Vincent the manchine, Carrien
attacks, carnivorous pigs etc. will all make their lives hell. Show
them no mercy.

Aftermath.

The Ops will probably sleep for 2-3 days straight when they return to
Uptown. They have completed a very crappy and dangerous BPN for not
much money, a very small SCL increase and no media attention. Be
genrous with experience points because if they survived they've
earned them. Also, you may consider giving them a point or two of
Good reputation with SLA Industries and maybe even Shivers. In the
future, SLA knows that they are resourceful and may use them for
'special assignments' later in their careers.
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Well there you have it. A long BPN I know, and I'm sorry that I had
to split it into many small parts, but my mailer wasn't feeling well.
If anyone has any comments, or if they run it, let me know.
Leath.

Just a thought...
Leathal Weapon.