Neon Rain
Siege, known online as n3arfuture5, is one of Edge City's most talented netrunners. He's felt most at home in cyberspace since he was a child and became a prolific hacker as a teen. Now in his late twenties, he's a virtual vigilante who does it purely for the love of the game—although the money's good, too.
While Siege lives off of his ability to steal and flip corporate secrets, sabotaging overreaching surveillance is his true passion. The exploit he's most proud of involved sending random Edge City residents t-shirts printed with unflattering images of them taken from security footage.
In doing so, Siege revealed that civilians are almost always on camera, even in spaces they reasonably expect to be private; that the resultant footage is poorly secured; and that it is possible to identify someone from the footage, even if their face is not visible. After all that, finding a mailing address and shirt size was trivial.
Siege has seen too many netrunners waste away, losing track of time and forgetting to exit he matrix, and he's seen even more who constantly up the ante, outdoing their previous stunts until they encounter black ICE that stops their heart or fries their synapses. As such, he's deliberate about maintaining his offline social life: he hosts a standing weekly analog game night, so that he has to come up for air, at least for a few hours. Though many of the friends he invites are netrunners, shop talk is forbidden while board games are underway—a rule his twin sister, Ruby, is responsible for enforcing. Theodora Fry is an occasional guest of Siege's game nights.
Ruby: level 3, intimidation and seeing through deception as level 4
Motive: Steal (and occasionally sell) corporate secrets; expose the extent of constant surveillance; spend as much time in cyberspace as possible
Environment: Uptown (Edge City); cyberspace
Health: 9
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (4 points) (see Combat)
Movement: Short
Modifications: Programming, infiltrating, and repairing computers as level 7; navigating cyberspace as level 8
Combat: If caught unprepared, Siege flees rather than fight. If he is aware of the threat, he uses one or more of the following: Siege fires a pistol with AI-assisted targeting, easing consecutive attacks on the same target.
Siege activates a swarm of small laser-shooting drones, which he can wirelessly control within long range. The drones attack once per round as a single level 4 creature.
Siege uses an action to attack a character's cybernetics or other digital equipment, causing it to fail, overheat, or malfunction.
Interaction: Siege is an affable conversationalist. If approached about a job, he negotiates thoughtfully and firmly, and will refuse any terms that seem underhanded. If an inexperienced netrunner is interested in learning, Siege will gladly offer guidance.
Use: While hacking a corporate databank, a PC finds that he data has already been manipulated by n3arfuture5.
Other Equipment: Siege carries several doses of Pixel®.
GM Intrusion: Siege takes over a character's cybernetics. On a failed Intellect defense roll, the character is trapped in a maze constructed of their worst memories until they escape with a successful Intellect defense roll as an action.