GHSTR_SEQUENCE_1
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Briefing Room 5A, Site-96, 10.03am

"A vampire?” I lean back in my seat.

"In essence, yes. But- not the, not that kind."

The briefing room was small, dimly-lit and reeking of moldy ceiling-tiles. Besides the faulty halogen lights, a digital display with the neutral tones and clean-cut arcs of the Foundation insignia backlit the briefer and the hulking silhouette of a stranger in the background.

"Was gonna say. Thought the Vatican had a leash on those things."

"And we pay you to do detective work, not run around like some modern-day Van Helsing." The briefer slid a manilla folder towards me, smiling thinly at his own joke. "Ronny Heidler, twenty-six, originally based out of Lockport, last seen in Albany. We have our suspicions that he may have been indoctrinated by the Cult of WAN."

Maxwellists. They're known for luring unsuspecting circuit-junkies with the promise of hardware. Nobody bothers looking for the victims because they usually have nothing and no-one left to care.

"That'd explain the Dark-market-grade hardware. I doubt the kid had the kinda money or connections to get his hands on that sorta stuff," my partner-in-crimesolving piped up; Robert Dalton, an ex-beatcop with a personality far larger than his stout stature implies. "But what's up with the killing? Thought WAN Cult was all about 'achieving the next stage of humanity's evolution' and 'reaching divinity through a united conscience' or some shit."

"We're not planning on speculating," the briefer said. He let the statement hang in the air for a few seconds.

"…ohhh."

"…you want me brain-hacking some cultist headcase as a first run?" I asked.

"Informally put, yes, we want you to conduct a neural interrogation on the perpetrator. Should you catch him, of course. We believe it will give us insight into the group's operations as well as this individual's motives. We feel this case is relatively low-risk and would be an appropriate field-test."

Neural hacking is one of those newer tech methods the Foundation's been trying out in the last few years. At best, it's not a particularly ethically-sound practice. At worst, investigators catch the crazy. Hacking into the brain of someone, alive or dead, and reliving their most prominent memories - it's enough to drive anyone insane when you can't see the line between theirs and your own.

I've been trained to do it using simulated neural environments. Haven't had the chance to use it in the field, though. "Alright, fair enough. I take it Rob's for being my babysitter, then?"

"Due to the…minor risks associated, we've commissioned an agent from Epsilon-7. Script Sanitization; they specialise in cybernetic issues." He gestured to the large man sitting, disinterested, towards the back of the room. "Inspector Dominik Laszlo. The both of you report to him for the duration of this investigation. Do try to get along."

I glanced over and got a lock on his face; my optical interface only really confirmed what the briefer just told me. Insp. Dominik Laszlo, callsign STEEL HAND. MTF Epsilon-7 'Script Sanitization'. No other information, not even his clearance. Fun. "Anything else we should know?"

"The fine details are available for review in that file," the briefer said with a gesture of his hand. "Other than that, notify dispatch when you're headed out, and don't die. You may go."

[Fill-in needed; maybe arrival to the site, some exposition, or w/e]

The air was thick with damp and mold, moth-eaten upholstery and piss-sodden carpeting. Though the building was concrete in its Foundations years of weathering had broke it down, and the lazy chill of November air groaned through glassless windows backed by the ever-present hum of the greater City.

We advanced forward, up a flight of stairs; Rob taking point with a hand to his holster, his footsteps careful. I prowled behind, my head down and my optics attuned to the low light. Before me arcs of light rippled out at every step like raindrops on water, a fingerprint to each sound sharper than white noise.

[Connection between scenes TBA; working out key points]
[Advancing to the room they find the cultist, leading up to the scramble and fight]

There, standing in the ruddy light of an old hotel-room, a young man stood framed in the cold neon glow bleeding in through what was once windows; looked young, bewildered; a kid, almost, no older than his twenties.

" - y’alright, kid?"

His head…ticked, to the side, an unnaturally mechanical movement, his face peeling open. Skin and plating pulled away to bear robotic viscera of wires and pistons and 16-gauge hollow-pointed fangs.

[…]

In an ungraceful flourish born of desperation and fear I swung my left arm up and out, synthetic flesh and muscle and titanium and wire colliding with the open, rattlesnake maw of the crazed circuit-junkie cultist, the flesh and bone of my shoulders and back slamming into concrete under the force of adrenaline-powered steel.

We had our 'vampire'.

His metalwork ground into the not-meat of my arm, ‘fangs’ leaching chemicals; I would've cringed, if I could actually feel something past the layer of siliconized skin guarding my circuits, or in fact feel anything beyond the sharp burn in my lungs from that winding strike. In the time it took me to orient my pistol in my non-dominant hand, Rob had plugged him twice and sent him reeling, sprawling over the floor in an agonized scramble.

We were pressed for options: shoot him in the head and we'd incapacitate him, sure, but the risk of damaging any hardware we could tap was too great. The odds of crippling him,though, were conversely pretty slim otherwise; it was high-grade tech, definitely on par with our own.

He was fast rising to his feet, thick gobbets of blood that had more in common with oil weeping from his gunshot wounds. More machine than human, it wouldn't hinder him much; I wasn't so lucky, and the hardware tacked onto my brain blared a CRITICAL DAMAGE warning as the circuits in my forearm started to fail.