Remove ads

Skitterdoc 2077

Reader mode
So that was a great chapter! My theory is that Jean and Ruslan have been planning to betray Taylor for a while, ever since they realized how amazing her drugs were. That's why Taylor that they had stopped back from the brink of cyberpsychosis, because they had been putting on their friendliest faces to get in her good graces.

Whoever at Biotechnica decided to betray them did it because information leaked from Jean and Ruslan's side while they were setting up the kidnapping deal. Though Taylor really should have just hired a chemist there.

And I'm pretty sure that soldier that Taylor carjacked was one of her bodyguard team. He's going to get so much shit.
 
SpiraSpira said:
Thanks to Metaphorical Grapevine from SB we now have a cover art for the story, which he gave me permission to use in other sites as well. I included the lowest res version on the first page, but he made a really high-res version as well, they are all linked below:

super hi-res (13Mb)

Low res (3Mb)

Lower res (1.3Mb)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

So, front to back:

Taylor
Mrs. Pegpig, origami unicorn
Kiwi, Gloria, baby David
Jean and Ruslan, Himiko and Evelyn(?), Mercy and maybe Bandbox, Hiro
?, Johnny, ?
Mr. Jin?
Wakako
William I guess
Grandma Astor?

There's a few I'm not sure on, as you can see.
 
I'm curious how the debrief on both biotechnicas side and on the asters side is going to go lol.

Also explaining to Gloria that she got shot cause people think they are dating lol
 
Copied from a post by Metaphorical Grapevine (The Artist) on SB


from front-to-back, left-to-right:

Taylor

Kiwi, Ms. Pegpig, Gloria, Baby David, Hiro-chan,

Jean, Maiko and Evelyn (I really doubt they kept the same hairdo for like 15 years though!), Mercy

Ruslan, Mr. Kobayashi (I know he's a very minor character but I just really like his concept), our boy Johnny (I gave him the Cocktail Stick from the game for fun. Also the cup noodles he's eating is from that collab with Nissin. I doubt you can see it at the current resolution though), Biotechnica rep (I just wanted a corpo antagonist somewhere in there), Random TT guy (Just supposed to represent the rest of TT)

Mr. Jin, Wakako (Feel I went a little overboard with her snake motif)

William (I sketched him as a blond guy with a sword but he wasn't intimidating enough, so you get cyberninja with a bit of organic look- didn't remember any Astor family from the lore so that logo on his chest is just supposed to be an stylized A)

Grandma Astor's Avatar (this was how she was described right?)

Taylor's Shard (It ended up looking more like one of those Brethren Moons from Dead space than continent sized organic supercomputer but I don't consider that a bad thing!)
 
ViperhawkZ said:
So, front to back:

Taylor
Mrs. Pegpig, origami unicorn
Kiwi, Gloria, baby David
Jean and Ruslan, Himiko and Evelyn(?), Mercy and maybe Bandbox, Hiro
?, Johnny, ?
Mr. Jin?
Wakako
William I guess
Grandma Astor?

There's a few I'm not sure on, as you can see.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, the top one is a Netrunner Avatar. Not Taylor's avatar, since she uses an owl. Maybe it is a Ghost AI, or something to represent Chuwurgeon? Edit: Ninjaed by a repost of the artist
 
Last edited:
SpiraSpira said:
I wrote it this way to be ambiguous, using the word "shifted", so that the reader is not 100% sure what happened so that there are two alternatives:

1. He was an experienced merc, and saw that Taylor was going to have the first and best shot, so he changed his expression to the affable and friendly grin he always shared with them as a way of saying, 'Aww shucks, ya got me.'

or

2. His expression did not change at all, but it shifted in Taylor's perception with the memory of his once friendly mien being superimposed in her mind right before she shot him.

I'm not going to say which is the correct interpretation because either is plausible, and it depends on your opinion of what both Taylor and Ruslan were thinking at that moment.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh I thought he achieved something to fuck her over that we couldn't quite see just yet
 
corblimey said:
by the way, what are the 2 red rectangles on Gloria's cheek?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
According to a tweet from Talsorian, it's Fashionware that carried over from the tail end of the Time of the Red, they like the lines you also see on peoples faces in 2077 are known as EMP Threading, and "many thought they helped protect against EM interference with implanted cybernetics."
 
corblimey said:
My money on Ruslan and Jean working with the Biotechnica middle manager.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't think so. The way I see it, the same problem that forced this round-about exchange with the drug would also apply to any deal over Taylor herself, once you have possession, you don't need to pay. If the pair had betrayed her to Biotechnica already, the Corpo would have no reason to actually pay them for her later.

Also if they sold her out before hand to Biotechnica, the Corpo wouldn't have lost two rapid tactical response teams (perhaps a few dozen men and a dozen vehicles). They'd have just had the two make them pull over shortly after leaving the hotel, or just let her leave and black bag her in her civilian identity a few days later.
 
doug89 said:
I don't think so. The way I see it, the same problem that forced this round-about exchange with the drug would also apply to any deal over Taylor herself, once you have possession, you don't need to pay. If the pair had betrayed her to Biotechnica already, the Corpo would have no reason to actually pay them for her later.

Also if they sold her out before hand to Biotechnica, the Corpo wouldn't have lost two rapid tactical response teams (perhaps a few dozen men and a dozen vehicles). They'd have just had the two make them pull over shortly after leaving the hotel, or just let her leave and black bag her in her civilian identity a few days later.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I assume they didn't tell the corpo who she is. All M&M knew was Ms. White is (according to Ruslan and Jean) the inventor of the antibiotics and the anesthetic they stole, Mr. Ruslan and Jean know her real identity and those two will sell her later for boatloads of cash and new identities. I'm sure he intended to shaft them when they brought Taylor, Gloria and David. If his soldiers managed to kidnap her during the car chase he'd forget about them.
 
SpiraSpira said:
Thanks to Metaphorical Grapevine from SB we now have a cover art for the story, which he gave me permission to use in other sites as well. I included the lowest res version on the first page, but he made a really high-res version as well
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If you could extract just Taylor's head from that, or get it direct from the artist, might it make a good icon for the story? Story icons (AKA 'custom thread header icon') can be fun...
 
Last edited:
The cover art is glorious! Love it! And it feels epic and as if it is part of the story. Many thumbs up.
 
SpiraSpira said:
Thanks to Metaphorical Grapevine from SB we now have a cover art for the story, which he gave me permission to use in other sites as well. I included the lowest res version on the first page, but he made a really high-res version as well, they are all linked below:

super hi-res (13Mb)

Low res (3Mb)

Lower res (1.3Mb)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Wow just wow that is some professional looking work. For a second there I thought it from a second season of the anime. Think I'm going to keep that looks awesome.
 
SpiraSpira said:
I'm not going to say which is the correct interpretation because either is plausible, and it depends on your opinion of what both Taylor and Ruslan were thinking at that moment.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I feel like the latter is more realistic. With them swinging their guns to aim at each other, is there time for Ruslan to realize he's the slower one, much less smile at it?

On the topic of revenge, I wonder how far she can go with it. There's at least four parties here: Biotechnica, the original manager, the manager that showed up, and the possible third party that Ruslan and Jean were trying to sell Taylor to.

Was the new manager someone who tried to usurp the first one, or simply a patsy used by the first one for plausible deniability? Taylor, if she's going to get revenge, should figure out which of these two is the one she needs to hit.

What doesn't make sense is going after Biotechnica itself. Especially in terms of hitting it on its bottom line, regarding patenting one of its major products, is making her an enemy of and a person of interest to something much larger than she is. Taylor is relying on security through obscurity to a large degree and sacrificing that for revenge against the wrong target is stupid.


Related to this, I'm wondering if the interaction with the British manager was a lead in for a future arc. It's all good and well if things work out for them, but if things go bad will they expend the resources to track her down for revenge and for 'impersonating an agent'? I'm just not certain how badly the deal would have to go for them to push that far though.
 
Last edited:
Euphemism said:
What doesn't make sense is going after Biotechnica itself. Especially in terms of hitting it on its bottom line, regarding patenting one of its major products, is making her an enemy of and a person of interest to something much larger than she is. Taylor is relying on security through obscurity to a large degree and sacrificing that for revenge against the wrong target is stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, it is stupid to go after Biotechnica. Tiny bug against elephant. And, you don't want to upset the rest of the elephant herd, either. But, unfortunately, if Taylor idly speculated on ways she might do so, even knowing it's a really, really, bad idea, her shard-let will cheerfully give her possibilities. Because, [DATA]!
 
SpiraSpira said:
He grabbed his Stetson from where he kept it on a hatrack he bought just for this purpose, settled it comfortably on his head, and started moseying his way over to Doc's clinic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
SpiraSpira said:
He cleared leather before the man's eyes even met his own, and the scoundrel had barely the chance to look surprised before Johnny put a bullet right between his eyes, painting the Doc's door with the no-good varmint's brains.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
SpiraSpira said:
He was a saint of the gun and the sword, but of crying children, he was much less skilled.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You had a lot of fun writing this part of the chapter, didn't you?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top