Astral Projections – Tag, Cyberpunk RED Medtech

In the Time of the Red, many people want to outrun, rise above, or just plain forget their pasts. Tag, however, is a young Edgerunner who can’t recall her past – and hopes that what she doesn’t know won’t harm her, or the team who became her family.

Eight years ago, Trauma Team Alpha-two was dispatched to the site of a firefight and explosion. Instead of the cardholder they found a few corpses and a badly injured girl of about ten. Assuming the cardholder called them for the child before fleeing or being killed, A2 scooped her up for treatment.

Sheik, the Doctor, replaced the left arm of the girl, who said her name was Angel, with a lavender covered medical grade cyberlimb. But she couldn’t tell him anything else. Not who she’d been with, where she came from, or how she’d ended up in the middle of a firefight.

Meanwhile, the team pilot, Kabuki, and security officers were making inquiries for family. They had no luck, in spite of getting a couple local Medias and a Rockerboy interested. The song he wrote can still be found on the local Data Pool. Kabuki even sent word to the port, thinking that she might have been connected to a sea Nomad clan, since she appeared to be a Pacific Islander of some type. (Hawaiian, it turned out.) As Angel recovered physically, the Team hoped she would recover at least some memories. She never did, not even with the aid of therapy.

The tough security officers, The Twins, took Angel under their wings, insisting she would be the team’s mascot. (Humanity Loss Therapy really can work wonders!) Antonna and Deanna, The Twins, began teaching Angel the important things for life on the Edge – from self-defense and shooting to style.

Soon everyone called her Tagalong, or Tag, as she was never far from a team member. A good thing, since the Trauma Team pulled her out of some dangerous situations, while The Twins’ reputation discouraged others from preying on her. Sheik was first skeptical about the arrangement but went along, as he also didn’t want to see Tag alone on the Street.

Curious and intelligent, Tag soon took an interest in the Trauma Team’s work and Sheik apprenticed her. Tag started with basic sciences and maths before tackling her mentor’s old medical texts. Within a year, Tag was using the basic tools of the trade – airhypos, dermal staplers, etc.

Now around 18, Tag recently became a Registered Cryosystems Operator, and is now the Medical Assistant on the Trauma Team that saved her years ago. She’s quite proud of those accomplishments and is learning surgery and pharmacy from Sheik.

Tag does have a life besides medicine. She likes a good party or a high energy concert. Her favorite escort is her old friend Kabuki the AV4 pilot, who is only a few years older. Tag wants an input/output relationship with Kabuki but doesn’t know how to bring it up, and that is one question she isn’t asking Deanna or Antonna!

Like every other Edgerunner, Tag needs side gigs to make bank. She accepts patients referred by Fixers, working out of Sheik’s “office.” Tag will go on jobs but is cautious. Mostly only when her teammates are also part of the crew, but sometimes with people they have vetted. She and The Twins once impersonated a Corp Netrunner and security!

While Tag aspires to be a good ripperdoc, she isn’t overly cybered up herself. Except for her arm and fashionware, which she loves, Tag only has installed only what she really needs. Currently that is neuralware and interface plugs, for med gear and her new smartgun. Tag finds virtuality goggles useful as well. The young med tech is weighing smart glasses vs. cyberoptics.

Oddly, Tag’s lavender cyberarm is “only” medical grade although most people assume otherwise. But she doesn’t need the kinds of upgrades the “fully loaded” limbs can take – although she might get one, in her signature lavender, once she can afford an integrated medscanner or other medtech tools.

There is another reason she hasn’t upgraded, one she and her mentor keep to themselves. Since Tag was a child when she got her cyber arm, it had to be replaced several times as her meat body grew. Those “revisions” upset her as other procedures she’s observed or assisted at never have.

The on other thing that bothers Tag is the lack of memories. She says, it’s not a problem. But, since the world isn’t a kind or pleasant place, she secretly fears there are people who know who she really is – and that they aren’t people she wants to meet…

Design & Play Notes: Tag started out as a re-write of a medtech I created for the original Cyperpunk rules, way back in the 20th Century. Like any good PC she went her own direction and is a very different character from that 30-ish year old Cyber-psycho Squad Medtech. Tag’s relationship with her mentor is similar to that between Alita Battle Angel (movie adaptation) and the doctor that took her in. Have fun with Tag. As always switch around, or redo anything that doesn’t fit your Dark Future style. Especially the way the 4 ranks in the Medicine Role Ability are allocated, and what drug/s she can synthesize.

Art: Character art © 2021 by me, Linda Whitson

Disclaimer: “Tag, Cyberpunk RED Medtech” is unofficial content provided under the Homebrew Content Policy of R. Talsorian Games and is not approved or endorsed by RTG. This content references materials that are the property of R. Talsorian Games and its licensees.