https://datafortress2020.com/n...zone/combatzone.html



The smell in the air is acridic as always, add in the sound of gun shots and screams in the distance and you know you're in the combat zone. Law is what you make of it here and you only have a moments chance to decide what to do when that Booster on the corner starts looking at you... stare him down, put him down or cower and walk away. The choices are yours....
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:02, Wed 02 Oct 2019.

Artemis spent a lot of time at Ironhaus. Her hobbies were lifting and boxing, so that made sense. Even with the various augmentations she had, it was important to continually work out to maintain reflexes and flexibility. And of course, if you weren't improving and sparring in hand to hand, you might as well just check into an organ bank in her line of work.

She also worked there. Her job was primarily spotting and sparring. She was good enough and intimidating enough to teach the advanced boxing classes. And of course there was always helping out the FNG's not to kill themselves.  Of course, that hardly paid anything, really it just cut her gym membership and got her very cheap rent. Theoretically, lots of other people could have wiped the blood off the mat and taught the basics to people, but having someone as terrifying as her added a certain bit of prestige to the place. Plus, very few were dumb enough to abuse the equipment knowing that Artemis would snap them in half if they tried.

The equiptment was.. I mean it was mostly big metal weights. The stuff went cheap, some of it was pre-collapse, others stuff techies had bashed together for the cybered crowd. Once in a while some oldtimer would shake their head at someone bashing out 3 reps on a quarter ton bar. It was a real hodgepodge of steel.

The place had a large empty classroom with mats used for a variety of fitness classes. The anti-bacterial matting kept mold from hitting the place, but gave off a distinct weird chemical odor it had taken her weeks to get used to. It was easy to hose off. Right now it was some areobics fad craze for housewives. Later it would be a licenced Araskarate class for wannabe toughguys.

She also got real work at Ironhaus. It was just logical: if you needed to hire a couple hundred kilos of chemically and cyberneticly augmented beef to put the lean on someone, a gym in the combatzone was the natural place for it. Recruiters and low level fixers commonly posted stuff on the job boards for bouncing gigs, illegal fights or as impromptu bodyguards. But Artemis wouldn't call them solos.

Artemis was relatively new to the edgerunning scene, and had done enough of these minor jobs and scut works that fixers had started to poke around. Finally, she could get her job done and earn her place among the killer elite: the living legends, the solos who street punks whispered about in alleys, who gave even corporate execs pause, uncertain that they were safe from their harm.

Right now though, it didn't look like anyone was coming in today. The place wasn't quite abandoned, but only a few of the stalls were occupied. She'd just finished the last of her morning routine and was digging into a peanut butter kibble n whey bar and trying not to grimace. The stuff was nasty, but it was the cheapest high protein kibble she could find, and money was a constant problem given how much she had to eat. There was a lot of things she missed about her old life as an athlete, but real food was pretty high on the list.

Artemis chewed absentmindedly and took a few glimpses around the gym to see if anyone important was there today. Technically her "shift" was over in 15. She'd planned to meet her bestie Sai for lunch and a movie, but some kind of AV had crashed and now Sai was pulling an all nighter putting people back together. She saw something about a high body count earlier, but she hadn't given it much thought.

All in all, a pretty boring day. If she didn't see anyone worth talking to in 15, she'd head to the local bar and see if anyone needed a heavy tonight. Gotta keep up that hustle.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:34, Wed 12 May 2021.

Although one might now know it unless they went looking, houses were still a thing further out in the Zone. Houses in so far that they were, more or less, free standing structures. But in practice they were just as cramped, filthy and dangerous as the blocks. Even more so depending on the neighborhood. His was technically Stomp, but it was near enough to the Zoners, Elders and the Digital Renegades. He was still so new that his cover, running food shipments in and out, was still pretty solid. Everybody needed to eat after all...

This particular home was an ancient, souless, flat roofed hovel with rotting eggshell stucco, boarded up windows and a weed ridden gravel yard. The front door hung uneven in the frame where it had been kicked in at some point, and an overturned trashcan sat in the side yard partially filled with a foul looking liquid.

The one redeeming feature was a detached garage that protruded out towards the street on one side. It had long ago been converted into a small bedroom, the seams around the garage door itself duct taped from within and the wires pulled from the door motor. It was hot, oppressively dusty and home to a colony of curious spiders. What's more there was no bathroom (a plastic bucket sufficed), only a hose spigot for water and the only lightbulb had been replaced by a green tinted one at some point.

For all that, it kept it's lone occupant and his ride out of sight from the street, which is why he paid good eddies for it.

The interior did resemble a little camp site, with the mummy bag laid out and the little backpacking style gas stove with a lone pot on the fragile looking struts. The olive drab military sea bag nearby had a hand pump water filter hose protruding from it.

But off to the side stood a hard used VMW dirt bike, a "Volksrad" model that had been stripped of the more fragile parts and rattle-canned a flat tan color at some point. The flat cargo potion behind the seat was crisscrossed with faded bungee cords.

He was in the middle of pulling the air filter for the second time that week, just knocking the caked dust off really, when a slightly distorted sound crackled to life just a few feet away, his full faced Motocross style helmet.

Rip didn't own a cell. They were pricey, and they had never worked in the areas he had come from. But the flip side was that he had a decent radio built into the helmet, not that most flat landers even knew what a radio was...

Rip groaned as he reached for the helmet, picked it up and adjusted the stubby antenna that protruded from the left side. The voice within was no clearer, but he could make out the basics.

"Yeah, I'm here, sent it."

What followed was an odd, segmented, somewhat distorted conversation. It was only a few minutes long, but the intent was clear...some gonk named "Phoenix" was calling in a favor from the Clan. Not his Clan per say, but he was already in Night City and this Elder was calling the shots. "Kids" like Rip didn't say no to an Elder, any Elder, even if they were not specifically in his Family.

"Solid copy jeffe, I'm on it. Give you an update same time tomorrow. Rip out." he sighed and rubbed his face in the green light, took a deep breath and started packing.

The bag with the rest of his possessions got hucked up in the rafters, out of the light and into one dusty, cobweb ridden corner. It was not much security, but if somebody booted the door they would not see much more than a concrete pad and some oil stains.

He suited up, the full "Moto" armored look, a nylon flap holster cocked to one side about crotch level on his belt, and a sheath knife worn horizontally along the small of his back. The armor was also a mix of browns, tans and a little black and mostly unadorned.

The only concessions being a faded red "Sturm Ruger" patch on his left shoulder, and a newer looking black rectangular patch on his right that just read "JODES" in all white caps. A smaller rectangle the same length beneath it read "FOUNDER". This was sewn into some kind of backing and attached with metal grommets, evidence that he really did not want to lose it.

He mounted up, jammed in the key-card and thumbed the bike to life with a audible whine as the hydro began to flow. With a little effort he threaded the doorway, paused to kick the door behind himself shut, then jumped the curb and was on the road...headed for the Jesters turf of all things.

Family, like a lot of things, you get out what you put in

Sometimes, a workout is what you need to get work stuff out of your system. It had been one of those days.

There’d been a shootout in the morning, no gangs, just a mum disagreeing with her daughter’s choice of boyfriend, but mum had backed up her arguments with a few grenades. And then, when the shift had just ended, on the way back to the station, there had been two punks shooting at the police car. Badge would have pulled a §23, but his partner insisted on just ignoring them. One who had actually said they were “good guys paying their dues”.  So much for his hopes of escaping a corrupt corporate environment by joining NCPD.

Pushing some bars, pushing it all out of the system. The Ironhaus wasn’t fancy, nothing compared to the corporate-sponsored high school gym of his childhood, but it smelled of honest sweat and iron. He also kinda liked Artemis who usually was around.
His mood improved a littlewhen he saw her around as he entered.

"Badge." She gave a respectful nod, making sure no one was too close to overhear his nickname. She didn't expect anyone would try and gank a cop in the open, but that was not a headache she wanted to deal with, and this was a combat zone gym.
Thankfully, the gym was pretty quiet. "Good to see you."

Artemis's didn't usually think much of cops, but it was clear that 'Badge' was as good a one as you were likely to find. She only knew he was one through numerous conversations, and it was clear that he'd paid his dues from the long scar on his pretty face.

As a rule, Artemis wasn't particularly empathetic, but there were certain frustrations with controlled anger she was very familiar with herself, and Badge wore them plainly on his face.

"You look like you really need to lift or hit something. You want a sparring partner, a bag, or should I just let you get to the iron?