TEXT: Elise frowned at the Ray taking money at the
  door. It was pouring out, and her store had been com-
  pletely out of xocolatl-pears. She was wet, petulant,
  and perilously undertheobrominated. The only salva-
  tion for the evening might be the ‘30s neotrance
  she’d heard emanating from this hole-in-the-wall no-
  reputation basement club. Live sets were hard to find,
  and a good one would almost redeem this lousy
  evening. If this biosculpted fake trying to fool the
  club-chasers was indicative, though, the prognosis
  wasn’t good.
  Inside, the music seemed good – the collective
  was spinning a pretty decent version of Funk in 170
  – but the chic Tianyi hostess rang another warning
  bell. 
  “Look, no offense,” she said, “but you have an
  OK aesthetic here. With luck, you might even survive
  a month or two. Why waste your time and money try-
  ing to trick rubes with biosculpting?”
  “Biosculpting?” said a voice behind her. “Check
  your wearable, sweetie.”
  Elise turned to face the predictable older man in
  a gold-lame tuxedo, toggled her wearable interface,
  and gaped.
  e23.sjgames.com
  Stock #82-0061
  Version 1.0 April 1, 2004
  STEVE JACKSON GAMES
  ®
  AN e23 ADVENTURE 
  FOR TRANSHUMAN SPACE
  ® FROM
  STEVE JACKSON GAMES
  FOR 3 TO 6 PLAYERS
  GURPS,  Warehouse 23, and the all-seeing pyramid are registered trademarks of  Steve
  Jackson Games Incorporated. Pyramid, Polyhymnia, and the names of all products pub-
  lished by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are registered trademarks or trademarks of
  Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license. All rights reserved. Polyhymnia
  is copyright © 2004 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. 
  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this material via the Internet or via any
  other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please
  purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the
  electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
  Written by Michael Suileabhain-Wilson
  Edited by Alain Dawson
  Illustration by Christopher Shy
  POLYHYMNIA
  
  Julian Cressida, the 837th most famous
  man on the planet (margin of error three percent),
  beamed and handed her a xocolatl-pear.
  “Welcome to Polyhymnia, dear. We’ve been
  expecting you.”
  INTRODUCTION
  Fifth Wave entertainment is a strange world, an
  evanescent froth of amusements and vogues. The ever-
  rising amount of leisure time available to the citizenry
  frees them to devote themselves to complicating and
  recomplicating the pursuit of happiness. Trends rise and
  fall daily, and millions of artists and impresarios fight for
  a shred of mindshare. With each new fad, the art of
  pleasure becomes more refined, more individualized.
  Static and universal media slowly give way to the inter-
  active and the personalized. Increasing numbers of Fifth
  Wave citizens work together and play alone.
  Intriguingly, one communal entertainment form that
  survives, more or less unchanged, is the exclusive night-
  club. In this realm, barriers to entry are a large part of the
  point – half the thrill is the validation of being admitted.
  Some of these rarefied institutions have moved into vir-
  tual environments, but a good number of them – most of
  the successful ones – still maintain physical clubs. Mak-
  ing one’s clientele jump through hoops seems to make a
  club that much more desirable.
  The nightclub world is appallingly cutthroat. Pro-
  foundly vulnerable to the tides of opinion, the average
  nightclub lasts three weeks. Producers struggle to find
  some trick to draw critical mass. Brutal memetic warfare
  rages across the club world as they fight to hold on to the
  next Friday night.
  One eerily long-lived regular of this sparkling
  wasteland is the legendary Polyhymnia. Never the same
  location twice, never the same experience, and perhaps
  most important . . . never a clear way to get inside. Its
  clientele, night after night, is washed in on a memetic
  tide and trickles out with the dawn, perhaps never to
  attend again. Every one regards it a privilege.
  Perhaps only Julian Cressida, Polyhymnia’s produc-
  er, could manage such a coup. One of the pioneers of
  modern memetics, slightly tinged with scandal from his
  stint in the Thai Memetics Group, Cressida uses subtle
  memetic engineering to draw in the guests he chooses
  for each iteration. No guests know where – or why –
  they’re going until they arrive. It is the ultimate in exclu-
  sivity.
  That very exclusivity has kept Polyhymnia alive for
  12 years, an unheard-of run. Large memenets devote
  themselves to tracking and predicting the club’s
  movements. Club producers around the world
  biosculpt their staff in mimicry of Polyhymnia’s, in
  hopes of luring gullible club-chasers.
  Julian Cressida’s corpse was found a week ago.
  He’s been dead for 15 years. And his brain is fully intact.
  Something is very, very wrong.
  1. AN
  OFFER OF
  EMPLOY-
  MENT
  Bureau 10, the Chinese intelligence service, has a
  problem – 70 kilos of vacuum-frozen problem. 
  On March 13, 2085, in the midst of the royalist coup
  that toppled Thailand’s nanosocialist government, a
  small unidentified spacecraft launched from Bangkok
  and headed for orbit. PLAN-SF was taking no chances
  that day, and an orbital laser destroyed the ship.
  A few months ago, Bureau assets in orbit learned of
  a newly discovered hulk in Very High Earth Orbit which
  appeared to be a Pacific-War-era TSA vessel. The usual
  scavengers were hesitant to meddle with a possibly dan-
  gerous TSA ship that posed no threat to anyone, so the
  Bureau got there first.
  The VEO hulk turned out to be the same Thai ship
  that was“destroyed” in 2085 – the laser had merely crip-
  pled the ship and knocked it into a high elliptical orbit,
  where its occupants died far from help. On one level, the
  investigation was a grand success; the ship contained the
  remains of several important Thai nanosocialists whose
  fate had been a mystery, allowing the Bureau to close
  several open files. However, one of the bodies was the
  frozen corpse of Julian Cressida. To the best of anyone’s
  knowledge, Cressida has been running a successful
  nightclub since 2078. Clearly, whoever is running that
  nightclub, it isn’t him; the corpse’s brain is intact, so it
  can’t even be a ghost.
  The Bureau is concerned that some of Cressida’s
  TSA associates who remain unaccounted for may be
  using the aegis of his fame to hide from the world
  POLYHYMNIA
  2
  
  while they pursue their own nefarious ends. Cres-
  sida’s Polyhymnia would be an excellent cover for
  renegade memeticists; Cressida was never implicated in
  any serious crime following the Thai nanosocialists’fall,
  and renegades could carry out all sorts of exotic memet-
  ic experiments in his name without drawing attention.
  This situation needs to be checked out in detail.
  Unfortunately, the Bureau is not in a good position
  to carry out such an operation itself. Polyhymnia is
  known to avoid Chinese soil and all nations where PRC
  influence is strong. This is unremarkable; even though
  Cressida has never been indicted for any particular
  crime, the PRC has been known to detain unindicted
  individuals with TSA ties for questioning. As a result,
  any operations involving Polyhymnia would require
  working in areas where any known Chinese agent would
  be at some risk and far from support. Besides, there are
  internal political issues in play. There is disagreement
  within the Bureau as to whether Cressida is a datum of
  minor interest or a possible warning of crises brewing.
  The faction most concerned about Polyhymnia has more
  influence over budget than personnel. It’s simply easier
  for them to hire outside help. Enter the PCs.
  Transhuman Space characters tend to be a diverse
  lot, which makes it challenging to predict how any given
  party can best be involved. The ideal party for this sce-
  nario is a group of mercenaries, but any group who could
  be approached for hire by the Bureau might be solicited
  – bounty hunters, private investigators, memeticists,
  even edgehunters and media freelancers might be appro-
  priate operatives for the job. If working for the Chinese
  is a problem for the PCs, the GM may substitute anoth-
  er organization for the Bureau.
  ALTERNATE
  SPONSORS
  Obviously, not every group will want to work for
  Bureau 10. If the campaign to date has been dedicated to
  foiling PRC, a Bureau job is just not in the cards. There’s
  no reason, however, that it must be the Bureau seeking
  the PCs out. In theory, anyone could have found Cressi-
  da’s ship out in orbit, and lots of people might be inter-
  ested in the problems posed by his corpse. Pick one that
  suits the players’ style.
  BAKORSTAPAS: Indonesia’s intelligence commu-
  nity is as interested as the Bureau in tying up all the
  Pacific War’s loose ends. Besides, they’ve been trying
  unsuccessfully to woo Cressida back to the TSA fold for
  the past 10 years. If they were to learn of his death,
  they’d certainly want to know just who they’ve been
  talking to.
  Old Friends: Cressida had a lot of odd friends, who
  had even odder friends in turn. If certain obscure orbital
  groups found Cressida’s body, the discovery might not
  become common knowledge, but it might well find its
  way to someone who knew Cressida and who cares
  about his fate. That person (possibly one of Cressida’s
  former associates listed on p. 12) would be quite inter-
  ested to know who’s been stealing Julian’s name for
  all this time.
  POLYHYMNIA
  3
  JULIAN CRESSIDA: THE
  MAN, THE MYTH
  Julian Cressida is (or, apparently, was) one
  of the legendary scientists of the 21st century,
  making major marks on several important
  fields. A seminal researcher on the use of
  HyMRI for brainscanning and mind emulation,
  he also did important work on artificial intelli-
  gence before settling in the field of memetics.
  He was one of the leading memeticists in the
  world until his quasi-defection to Thailand in
  2079, a decision for which his motivations
  remain opaque. As far as anyone can tell, he
  genuinely wanted to promote infosocialist
  ideas; Kyle Porters had been an early mentor
  and inspiration in Cressida’s education.
  To Cressida’s credit, there has never been
  credible evidence of any wrongdoing on his part
  during his time at the Memetics Group in Thai-
  land. He worked on a number of major memet-
  ic propagation projects, and may have
  contributed to the Unified Way project (p.
  TM28). His profile became lower as Thailand
  and its technical assets moved toward a war
  footing, until he disappeared entirely during the
  coup in 2085.
  No one knows what Cressida was doing
  from 2085 to 2088. When he reappeared, how-
  ever, he was at the helm of Polyhymnia, which
  rapidly became one of the most prestigious
  nightclubs ever. It’s not clear why a scientist of
  Cressida’s caliber would choose to become a
  nightclub producer. He was always known as a
  bon vivant, but many feel there must be some
  deeper purpose behind the club. Attempts to
  draw Cressida out have had little success. Since
  Polyhymnia’s launch, he has become reclusive,
  hidden at the center of a whirl of rumor.
  
  Other Intelligence Agencies: Nations that
  weren’t involved in the Pacific War have less of a
  stake in Cressida’s fate that the Bureau and BAKO-
  RSTAPAS do, but the situation would easily catch the
  interest of almost any major intelligence agency. Likely
  candidates are agencies associated with the major space
  powers, which would be in a position to discover the
  TSA hulk.
  Marwari Digital: Polyhymnia drives right up the
  wall most of the major corporations who traffic in cool.
  They haven’t been able to find a way to exploit it prop-
  erly in 12 years of trying. Marwari Digital keeps tabs on
  the club – ostensibly to see what an acknowledged trend-
  setter is doing, but also in hopes of noting a usable weak-
  ness. If Marwari (or another media giant) hires the PCs,
  the ultimate goal will be taking Polyhymnia down – or
  taking it over.
  Algernon Foundation: Should the Algernon Foun-
  dation learn of Cressida’s demise, their response would
  be rather different; the Foundation knows Cressida more
  for his AI work than his memetics. They will focus on
  the whereabouts of Cressida’s last SAI assistant, and fear
  the possibility that Polyhymnia might be the next Shao-
  xing – a front for an orphan AI gone rogue. It’s a wild
  theory with very little support, and any party that takes
  the contract ought to be more motivated by the money
  than by any faith in the employer. The fact that the Foun-
  dation is right on the money should come as a surprise to
  everyone.
  POLYHYMNIA
  Most Earth-dwellers have at least heard of Poly-
  hymnia – it’s the reigning monarch of Fifth Wave in-per-
  son nightlife. Its notoriety is in part due to its
  ever-changing nature – some nights it’s a dance club,
  some nights a sex club, still other nights a lecture on
  Preservationist politics. Sometimes Polyhymnia spon-
  sors another group’s event, like a Hard Edge circle. Once
  it was a production of Richard III done in the style of
  Beijing opera, with the lead role played by an uplifted
  horse (the casting, of course, completely changed the
  meaning of “my kingdom for a horse,” but everyone
  who saw it agreed the show was brilliant).
  Principally, however, Polyhymnia has achieved its
  success by being impossible to find. It neither advertises
  nor issues invitations. Instead, each appearance of the
  club – every time in a different location – is preceded by
  a very subtle campaign of engineered memes. This set of
  memes is designed to proliferate, evolve, and hybridize
  in such a fashion that, in theory, a specific target popu-
  lation – and only that population – will respond to
  the quiet announcement of Polyhymnia’s front for
  the night. The popular understanding of this process
  is “you don’t know you’re invited until you arrive.” This
  isn’t literally true, of course; no memeticist can target a
  specific individual across public media, and there is con-
  siderable disagreement about whether Cressida’s osten-
  sible methods can work at all. However, the notion of
  being secretly invited makes attendees feel that getting in
  is more of a personal validation; some have suggested
  that Cressida himself started the “invitation” meme for
  that very purpose.
  For these reasons, among others, some observers
  wonder whether Polyhymnia isn’t so much a nightclub
  as an experiment. Over the years, Cressida has published
  a number of well-regarded articles using data from Poly-
  hymnia, but if the whole endeavor is an experimental test
  bed, it doesn’t seem to be very efficient. Unless, of
  course, Cressida has something more long-term up his
  sleeve.
  DETAILS OF THE JOB
  At the outset of the adventure, the party is
  approached by Colonel Yao Kuan, a representative of
  Bureau 10. He invites the party to discuss an offer of
  employment, by which they might both profit and serve
  the public interest at the same time.
  The Colonel tends to express himself circuitously.
  He can be direct when necessary, and he will when cir-
  cumstances demand, but he finds that a façade of florid
  pomposity gives him more time to think during negotia-
  tions and puts the impatient at a disadvantage.
  If the party is interested, he explains that the Bureau
  is interested in commissioning an investigation of Julian
  Cressida. The job would presumably require the party to
  locate Polyhymnia before they could carry out their
  investigation, most likely using design signature analysis
  techniques (see p. 6). The Bureau is prepared to offer
  $20,000 per person in compensation for a satisfactory
  report, plus reimbursement of approved expenses. They
  will also loan an AI memeticist to assist with the inves-
  tigation, should it be useful.
  Only if the party accepts the job does the Colonel
  explain the full details of Cressida’s death and the
  Bureau’s concerns. This is also the time to explain the
  information in this chapter about Cressida and Polyhym-
  nia; most of that information is readily available for a
  few minutes’ research. The Colonel also mentions that
  the contractors will be expected to take appropriate
  action upon completing their investigation. If they can
  accomplish the job and return to report without alert-
  ing whoever is behind Polyhymnia, all to the good,
  POLYHYMNIA
  4
  
  but they must not allow a band of nanoso-
  cialist renegades to disappear again.
  The Colonel will approve any expense
  necessary for the contractors to pursue their
  mission in a sensible way, but he is conser-
  vative; buying major arsenals and orbital
  junkets on the PRC dime is not going to hap-
  pen. 
  When all issues have been settled and
  the contract accepted, the Colonel presents
  the party with his contact information and
  the AI memeticist men-
  tioned earlier, an
  LAI named Hu.
  Hu has extensive
  databases 
  on
  Cressida gleaned
  from 
  Bureau
  intelligence
  sources, in addition
  to being a skilled
  memeticist in his own right;
  it would be smart for the newly minted club-
  chasers to accept the offer of his aid.
  HU
  195 POINTS
  Infomorph; created 2100. Effective age
  71.
  ST – ; DX 13 [30]; IQ 16 [80]; HT 12 [0].
  Speed 6.25; Move 0.
  Dodge 0.
  Advantages: Charisma +3 [15]; Empathy
  [15]; Enhanced Time Sense [45]; Frag-
  ment Mind Emulation [7]; Intuition
  [15]; Single-Minded [5]; Versatile [5].
  Disadvantages: Chummy [-5]; Compulsive
  Carousing [-5]; Delusion (“I’m an
  LAI”) [-5]; Microframe [-44]; Over-
  confidence 
  [-10]; 
  Selfish 
  [-5];
  Xenophilia [-5].
  Skills: Artificial Intelligence-16 [4]; Brain
  Hacking-15 [4]; Computer Operation-
  19 [6]; Computer Programming-15 [2];
  Detect Lies-14 [1]; Diplomacy-16 [4];
  Fast-Talk-17 [4]; Intelligence Analysis-
  15 [2]; Memetics-19 [20]; Psychology-
  17 [6].
  Languages: Cantonese-16 [2]; English
  (native)-16 [0]; Mandarin-16 [2].
  POLYHYMNIA
  5
  WHO IS HU?
  Of course, any sensible person would be suspicious of
  Hu. The Colonel was a bit too eager to give Hu to them, and
  anyone who knows computers notices that Hu is oddly con-
  figured for an LAI. Judging from the layout of his
  microframe, he has an order of magnitude more data storage
  than he ought to; unless he’s carrying around a virtual town or
  the entire Bureau intelligence archive, something is up.
  Hu has no answers for his new colleagues. He cheerfully
  speculates that he’s actually a Chinese superweapon; if the
  party suggests that he’s just a spy, he admits that that sounds
  probable but that he’s not aware of any such thing. He can’t
  let them muck about in his insides due to restrictions in his
  programming, but he’ll try to be as helpful as he can.
  For an LAI, Hu is really pretty charming – friendly,
  broad-minded, with a quirky sense of humor. He’s a little too
  charming for an LAI, actually.
  The group’s suspicions are entirely reasonable; a large
  part of why the Colonel placed Hu with them was to have an
  eye on them throughout the process. However, he also gen-
  uinely felt that they might have good use for a memeticist and
  the relevant Bureau intelligence, and Hu is particularly well
  suited for the job.
  Hu is Cressida’s fragment. Apparently, Cressida (a mind
  emulation pioneer) used the time before life support ran out
  on the crippled orbital craft to undertake some crude cryonic
  measures, hoping to preserve his brain for ghosting. It was a
  bet he almost won. The PRC team that found Cressida’s body
  found it in sufficiently good condition that they were able to
  extract a fragment which retains much of Cressida’s personal-
  ity and some of his skills, but almost none of his memories.
  From Bureau 10’s point of view, this is a thoroughly sat-
  isfactory outcome. They now have access to a memetic genius
  (if a flamboyant one) who believes that he’s an LAI and there-
  fore property. For this mission, having such a memeticist who
  also has a nuanced grasp of Cressida’s style is extremely
  handy.
  Assigning him to the freelancers, however, may have
  been a mistake. If Hu ever communicates with one of Cressi-
  da’s former friends, or if anyone compares Hu’s design signa-
  ture to Cressida’s, someone is bound to notice something odd.
  If the PCs think of putting Hu through the ASIT, it becomes
  clear that Hu is at minimum an SAI. If they pay attention at
  the right moments, they may notice that Hu gets sort of dull
  and distant during the wee hours of the night (Hu thinks he’s
  doing data cleanup and maintenance; he’s actually sleeping
  while an NAI-5 eidolon responds to any input). Clearly, the
  Bureau is up to some sort of dirty tricks. What the party wants
  to do about it is up to them.
  
  2. THE
  SEARCH
  The Colonel has set his contractors a difficult task.
  Club chasers have been pursuing Polyhymnia for 12
  years; no one catches it reliably. Whoever Polyhymnia’s
  producers may be, they aren’t dumb, and they’ve had a
  long time to refine their security measures. On the other
  hand, most club chasers are hobbyists, not professionals.
  They also don’t have access to military intelligence
  resources (one hopes, anyway).
  RUNNING AN
  INVESTIGATION
  Adventures centered on an investigation are always
  difficult. There are many different ways to approach any
  mystery, and players can usually be relied upon to come
  up with an unexpected way to attack the problem. The
  difficulty only increases when the GM has to take into
  account the expansive new possibilities that Transhu-
  man Space technology opens up.
  This reality demands that a GM be flexible. In its
  most degenerate form, an investigation adventure can
  devolve into a party trying one thing after another until
  they stumble on the solution the GM (or the writer of the
  adventure) had in mind. Twenty Questions makes for a
  poor RPG.
  On the other hand, allowing the contractors to suc-
  ceed with whatever scheme they come up with isn’t
  especially rewarding either. To strike a balance, the GM
  should try to reward every sensible plan, even if it does-
  n’t succeed entirely, with some form of progress – clues,
  perhaps, or information that will benefit them later in the
  adventure.
  This adventure presumes that most parties will
  decide to use a particular methodology called “design
  signature analysis” (see below for details) as the center-
  piece of their investigation. Other avenues of investiga-
  tion are mostly useful to uncover information for use in
  developing a model of Polyhymnia’s memetic signature,
  or to reveal information that may be useful after they
  find the club. 
  SEARCH METHODS
  Most attempts to track Polyhymnia rely on the use
  of memetics – specifically, an obscure subdiscipline
  called “design signature analysis.” Many would-be club
  chasers are drawn to DSA out of a desire to beat Cressi-
  da at his own game – to outdo him on the memetic bat-
  tlefield. However, it also takes advantage of the fact that
  Polyhymnia leaves behind a lot of memetic residue and
  not a whole lot else. Other methods of investigation
  don’t have much to work with. Using DSA also allows
  the investigators to make use of the massive fan
  resources available. There are literally hundreds of
  memenets devoted to the search for Polyhymnia, most
  oriented toward DSA. These so-called “Polyhymniacs”
  could become a valuable resource.
  The Colonel encourages the contractors to use
  DSA; it’s been demonstrated to be a viable if unreliable
  way to find Polyhymnia, while other methods have con-
  sistently failed. Hu is also most useful to the party if they
  pursue a DSA solution.
  Some parties, however, may prefer more traditional
  detective methods; examining previous venues for clues,
  interviewing former colleagues of Julian Cressida’s, or
  searching the web for hints of activity from Polyhym-
  nia’s staff. Particularly aggressive investigators may
  even want to attempt a frontal assault upon the club’s
  official web presence.
  DESIGN SIGNATURE ANALYSIS
  Every memeticist leaves part of himself in his work.
  Personal idiosyncrasies that reflect a designer’s person-
  ality, background, and training appear in every engi-
  neered meme, combining to produce a design
  signature unique to that designer.
  POLYHYMNIA
  6
  THE TRUTH
  The real story behind Polyhymnia does not
  involve any TSA exiles. The club is the project
  of Cressida’s last SAI assistant, left behind
  when Cressida fled Bangkok. The orphan AI,
  left without a master but with full access to
  Cressida’s assets, has gathered assistants and
  resources around him. In some ways, an orphan
  AI acquiring as much financial and social clout
  as Polyhymnia has is more significant than a
  band of TSA exiles hiding behind a dead man’s
  name.
  
  Design signature analysis (DSA) is the sub-
  discipline of memetics devoted to examining that
  memetic flotsam. Mostly pursued by law enforcement
  agencies, it offers the possibility of holding memetic
  engineers accountable for their work – no more rogue
  memehackers launching terror campaigns from anony-
  mous safety.
  Any memeticist can obtain information about a
  meme’s creator with a critical success on a memetic
  analysis roll (p. TM117). DSA has only modest success
  improving those odds, but it has made remarkable strides
  using that information to identify a specific designer.
  The central methodology of design signature analy-
  sis is the signature model, a simulation of the target
  memeticist’s design signature. Reams of information go
  into these models – other memes designed by the target,
  a biography, even brainscans if they’re available. Com-
  parison between a meme to be analyzed and a well-con-
  structed model can be extremely effective at determining
  if the modeled engineer constructed the meme. Occa-
  sionally, a meme’s creator can be positively identified
  while the meme’s purpose remains unclear.
  In game terms, a signature model adds a bonus to
  the analyst’s Memetics skill for the purpose of identify-
  ing a meme’s creator only. It does not improve the
  chance of analyzing a meme’s content. This should not
  improve the chances of identification for advanced
  memeticists (the probability of a critical success does not
  improve once effective skill goes above 16, unless the
  cinematic critical success rules on p. CII73 are used).
  Nevertheless, a good model allows an analyst to make a
  specific identification in situations where a critical suc-
  cess might normally yield only a few factoids about the
  designer’s education.
  In practice, design signature analyses’ greatest
  achievement has been reducing a complicated heuristic
  process, normally as much intuition as deduction, into
  principles that can be programmed easily. This
  allows analysts to make extensive use of simple
  NAI agents, sending out a swarm of minions to sift a vast
  sea of media for memes which match a given signature
  model. 
  Thus, a memetic analyst can discover what a partic-
  ular designer is up to by searching the web with a swarm
  of NAI agents. The swarm
  returns with a list of matching
  memes, sorted by accuracy.
  The analyst sifts that raw
  data, discarding false posi-
  tives and searching for com-
  mon threads between memes
  until a picture of the target’s
  recent activity emerges. The
  process is error-prone at
  every stage, but it often pro-
  duces useful results. Even
  when a search produces little
  clear intelligence, it may be
  invaluable to know that, for
  example, 
  an 
  infamous
  memetic terrorist is concen-
  trating his efforts on the
  Islamic Caliphate, even if the
  intent of those memes is not
  yet clear.
  There are three steps to
  this process. First, an Artificial
  Intelligence roll is required to program agents for effec-
  tive meme collection, adding the modifier for the signa-
  ture model used. If the target is deliberately trying to
  suppress his signature, this becomes a Quick Contest
  between the analyst’s Artificial Intelligence and the tar-
  get’s Memetics. 
  The initial search returns between four to 12 candi-
  date memes. If the analyst failed the Quick Contest, none
  of those memes are valid. If the analyst won, 25 percent
  of the candidate memes are valid, plus one meme for
  every point by which the analyst won the Quick Contest.
  However, the analyst will not know exactly how many –
  or which – memes are valid before analysis.
  After the search, the memeticist must analyze each
  candidate meme using Memetics to verify its origin and
  extract its content; the signature model is useful here for
  verifying the memes’ creator.
  Finally, when false positives have been winnowed
  out and the valid memes analyzed, the analyst uses Intel-
  ligence Analysis to find common elements among the
  memes and determine what, if any, overall purpose
  exists. The analyst’s effective Intelligence Analysis skill
  for this roll is at a penalty of -6, offset by one point
  for every valid meme collected.
  POLYHYMNIA
  7
  NO PC MEMETICIST?
  Some parties don’t have all the skills need-
  ed for design signature analysis; some may not
  have any. This won’t actually stop them from
  carrying out their mission; Hu is fully capable
  of picking up the slack. However, in this event,
  try to keep the focus off the nuts and bolts of
  going through the analysis. Keep game time
  filled with the process of acquiring intelligence,
  meeting new people, and seeing interesting
  things; make Hu’s rolls while people are in the
  bathroom or getting snacks.
  
  Building a Model
  The process of developing a design signature
  model is iterative. Each step requires a new piece of
  high-quality information about the target; the hardest
  part of the process is often finding an adequate source of
  information. Models commonly start with a successfully
  analyzed meme designed by the target (particularly
  when the target’s identity is unknown). Brainscans and
  character maps can be useful sources of information too,
  as can analyses of a target’s memetics training, or an
  extensive biography.
  For each iteration of a model’s development, the
  GM rolls against the model-maker’s Memetics skill, plus
  or minus any bonuses or penalties for the quality of
  the information used. An iteration takes a full
  day to complete (optionally, you may use the
  Time Taken modifiers on p. TM128). A
  critical success adds +1 to the model’s
  bonus; a success allows the process to
  continue, but does not improve the model.
  A failure stalls the improvement process;
  any future iterations cannot improve the
  model further. A critical failure actually caus-
  es the model to begin deteriorating; any future
  failures reduce the bonus of the model by one. A model
  can be sufficiently poor as to have a net penalty.
  Amodel can be used after any iteration, but only the
  GM knows the net bonus of a model at any given point.
  Other people’s models (or even a stalled model of
  your own) can be used as a source of information for
  developing your model; the other model’s bonus is
  added (or subtracted) from the Memetics roll for that
  iteration.
  The military intelligence that Hu has in his database
  is sufficient for six iterations. He also has access to a
  Bureau model of Cressida with a net bonus of +1. The
  Bureau model is stalled, and they know it.
  The Search for Polyhymnia
  The Pseudo-Cressida gestalt (see p. 15) tries to
  obscure its signature most of the time, so the Artificial
  Intelligence portion of the search will be a Quick Con-
  test against the gestalt’s Memetics of 20.
  Most of the memes returned by the search are circu-
  lating either worldwide or in Southeast Asia, in adver-
  tisement, InVids, news articles, and other media; their
  specific content depends on how many false positives
  the NAIs pulled. For some ideas on threads that might
  emerge, see False Starts and Success on pp. 13-14.
  Detailing the memes that are carrying Polyhymnia’s
  content is a good way to introduce your players to any
  parts of the Transhuman Space setting that you think
  are particularly cool.
  RESEARCH
  Before delving into the arcana of obscure memetic
  subdisciplines, however, the investigators may wish to
  pursue some plain old-fashioned research. There’s a
  wealth of background information to be found on the
  web. The members of the Polyhymnia memenets (see p.
  10) maintain vast archives of pretty much every piece of
  data that comes out of Polyhymnia, as well as extensive
  investigations into the backgrounds of Cressida and the
  rest of the staff. Non-hobbyist sources also have a lot of
  information to sift through; Cressida has long been a
  minor celebrity, and Polyhymnia’s latest doings are
  always grist for a second-string lifestyle newshound.
  However, current material is harder to come by. The
  members of the staff are extremely secretive and do not
  appear publicly on the web. Presumably they appear in
  person occasionally, but they appear not to broadcast
  personal v-tags, and having some of the world’s most
  frequently impersonated faces helps maintain their
  anonymity. The most recent official communiqués from
  Polyhymnia are the confirmation on the club’s informa-
  tion node of an appearance three months ago in Argenti-
  na and a month-old article on memetics that
  Pseudo-Cressida released in an academic journal. Every-
  thing else is unconfirmed sightings and speculations of
  varying quality.
  In short, research is unlikely to yield much that is
  immediately useful. The party can gather several itera-
  tions’ worth of background material, however, should
  they decide to take the time, and research will be a nec-
  essary prerequisite to tracking down any of Cressida’s
  former associates or contacting the Polyhymniacs.
  Hostile Intrusion
  The web isn’t a complete loss, however. If peace-
  able research fails, some investigators may want to try
  their hacking skills on Polyhymnia’s information node.
  The computer that serves as Polyhymnia’s front end
  is a chatty and enthusiastic LAI-7 named Françoise, with
  Computer Operation-16. Françoise has public data
  access so that fans can send messages to the club staff
  and participate in the official discussion forums (see p.
  FW124 for a detailed treatment of computer intrusion in
  Transhuman Space). A skillful hacker should be able to
  break into Françoise, given enough time.
  Unfortunately, she is not privy to especially sensi-
  tive information. There are a few announcements stored
  on the server which haven’t been released yet, revealing
  the locations of some recent appearances – as recent as
  three weeks ago – but that’s about it. However, if the
  hackers manage to get into Françoise’s access logs,
  they may be able to pick out connections from the
  POLYHYMNIA
  8
  
  system’s administrator, which in turn may allow
  them to trace a path back to the administrator’s
  machine, where better data may be had.
  Hacking that machine is going to be a major chal-
  lenge; it happens to be the cybershell belonging to
  Charoen, the central component of the Pseudo-Cressida
  gestalt (see p. 15). Charoen is an SAI-9 with Computer
  Operation-23, and no one has access privileges to his
  cybershell except the other infomorphs of the gestalt.
  Only a genius hacker could pull off such a major coup.
  However, even if the investigators don’t have such bril-
  liance in their midst, all is not lost. The mere process of
  investigating the server may reveal useful tidbits of
  information. They might be able to determine the serv-
  er’s general physical location (somewhere in Southeast
  Asia), or to observe outgoing communications and glean
  clues about Polyhymnia’s network of financial and orga-
  nizational blinds. At the very least, if they probe deeply
  enough to get a sense of the opponent they face, it’s an
  interesting morsel of information that Polyhymnia’s staff
  includes an infomorph of such high grade, yet neither the
  fans nor the media know that there is an infomorph on
  the staff. It seems uncharacteristic of Cressida to keep
  such an interesting fact a secret.
  If, on the other hand, a hacker manages to break in,
  he’s hit the jackpot. Charoen contains pretty much all
  Polyhymnia’s secrets, and the only thing stopping the
  investigators from learning them all is knowing what
  questions to ask. If they take full advantage of the oppor-
  tunity, they can skip straight to the next chapter – they’ll
  know exactly where the club is headed and when. They
  may even have learned the full nature of the Pseudo-
  Cressida gestalt. They still face some of the operational
  problems discussed in the next chapter, but they’ll be
  forewarned, and if they take the time to discuss things
  with the Bureau, they may well have much more specif-
  ic instructions. If the hacker is absurdly successful, he
  may even be able to subvert club security through
  Charoen.
  IN-PERSON DETECTIVE WORK
  Hardcore detective types may be inclined to go
  searching for clues the old old-fashioned way: going and
  looking for them. 
  In this case, having broken into Françoise’s server
  might come in handy. The unannounced venues would
  have more current evidence (three weeks old rather than
  three months), and won’t have already been picked over
  by crazed Polyhymniacs trying to soak up the atmos-
  phere.
  Looking for physical clues is going to be rough.
  Polyhymnia uses a swarm of cleaning microbots
  after every appearance and follows up with a
  swarm of forensic microbots to sweep up any left-
  over evidence of their passage. Only with extraordi-
  nary luck and lateral thinking will the party be able to
  find DNAsamples or chemical residues. Even if they do,
  samples would most likely lead them to attendees, not
  the staff.
  Investigators are far more likely to get lucky search-
  ing for information residue. The landlords of rented
  spaces can, if appropriately persuaded, give the PCs
  leads that will take them into the Byzantine network of
  financial blinds that Polyhymnia uses to conceal its
  activity. With some work (particularly if they have some
  intelligence on the other end from observing Charoen’s
  traffic), they may be able to crack Polyhymnia’s cover
  and track it through its business transactions. Landlords
  may also be able to reveal things like the exceptionally
  high bandwidth that the club uses, and, if the PCs are
  extremely lucky, may have an item – a pen used for sign-
  ing contracts, say – that may have physical residue. (Or
  it may not. Odd that Cressida seems not to have finger-
  prints.)
  In the end, visiting previous venues won’t crack the
  mystery of Polyhymnia unless they get very lucky, but it
  may snare them some useful information that will help
  them in future endeavors and close off fruitless avenues
  of speculation.
  PATTERNS IN THE CHAOS
  Fringe club-chasers maintain that there is an under-
  lying logic to the details of Polyhymnia’s appearances.
  The locations, the venues, the events – all have meaning,
  which the acute observer can fit into a larger scheme. In
  the short run, unraveling that scheme will allow the pat-
  tern-watchers to predict Polyhymnia’s next appearance.
  In the long run, it will reveal the secrets of Cressida’s
  master plan!
  The pattern watchers have minimal to no success
  actually finding Polyhymnia. However, as conspiracy
  theorists always do in leisure societies, they get a lot of
  attention. They also keep track of details that others
  might miss.
  INTERVIEWS
  One last way for the party to gather information is
  one on one, talking to people. Most of the individuals
  listed under Personalities (p. 10) are available with rela-
  tively little effort; some are likely to be more helpful than
  others. It is extremely unlikely that the investigators will
  gain access to anyone who knows where Polyhymnia
  will be next, however.
  POLYHYMNIA
  9
  
  PERSONALITIES
  The search for Polyhymnia brings the contractors
  into contact with many people interested in the club or its
  staff. The following organizations and individuals might
  be encountered in many ways: over the web, in person,
  in the course of research. Some are even alternative
  employers, as discussed on p. 3.
  THE POLYHYMNIAC MEMENETS
  As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of Polyhymnia
  fans on the web. Tracking the club is a fairly common
  hobby for leisured Fifth Wave citizens with too much
  time on their hands. A lot of time and energy has been
  expended on this club, and the resulting corpus of
  knowledge could be very useful to the contractors if
  they’re willing to comb through the chaff. Indeed, any
  serious effort to track down Polyhymnia probably has to
  intersect with the web community at some point.
  The memenets aren’t at their best with regard to cur-
  rent events or future predictions; a lot of ill-considered
  things get said, and it takes time for bad ideas to be
  debunked. Aside from the uneven levels of competence
  visible on the nets, some Polyhymniacs throw up smoke-
  screens when they think they’re on a hot trail. They hope
  it’ll keep others from sharing their stunning break-
  through. For a significant fraction of the memenet com-
  munity, club-chasing is a competitive sport.
  However, while speculations about the next venue
  are generally unreliable, a huge wealth of background
  information is available on archives run by community
  members, and an equally large volume of analysis exists
  for the asking. These archives include lists of previous
  appearances, charts of individuals who have been con-
  nected to the club staff, exhaustive biographical surveys
  (certain days of Julian Cressida’s life have been detailed
  to the minute), and listings of memes suspected to origi-
  nate with Polyhymnia (sorted by date and medium),
  among many other topics.
  The most high-traffic topic for most nets is the
  development of design signatures for Julian Cressida.
  Any Polyhymniac with any sort of memetic training
  works on the problem; most have a pet approach and an
  individual model of Cressida’s signature that they main-
  tain is superior. The challenge of modeling Cressida –
  the thing that causes most of the controversy – is how to
  account for the three years during which little to nothing
  is known of Cressida’s activity or whereabouts. Most
  models are publicly available for examination and cri-
  tique, though many developers keep the most recent
  version of their model to themselves. For obvious
  reasons, most of them are based on faulty assump-
  tions and therefore flawed. However, a lot of good
  work has been done despite that basic error; the Pseudo-
  Cressida gestalt isn’t Julian Cressida, but it’s a pretty
  darn good imitation. A good Cressida model is still a fair
  Pseudo-Cressida model.
  In fact, the gestalt uses the work done on the
  memenets to improve its own simulation of Cressida and
  his design signature. The attempts to break the club’s
  memetic campaigns are annoying, but the research is
  more than worth it.
  One of the unusual realities of using the memenets
  is that the conversation is almost certainly one-way.
  Unless, for some reason, one or more of the PCs has a
  reputation that would matter on the Polyhymniac
  memenets, no one will believe anything they say. The
  Polyhymniacs are happy to talk to new faces, but if the
  party were to spread the word that Cressida is dead,
  they’d be ignored and the Bureau would be extremely
  annoyed.
  Thousands of people are regular participants on the
  memenets, even though only a handful of devotees have
  ever actually attended Polyhymnia itself. The average
  memenet regular is fairly affluent and educated, but like
  any online community, the memenets are extremely
  diverse. A handful of Polyhymniacs are detailed below.
  Dev K
  Dev K is a minor celebrity in Polyhymniac circles;
  he’s the only active Polyhymniac who’s been twice. In
  addition to his two hits, he’s had several near misses and
  often catches onto factors that turn out to be essential
  before anyone else.
  Despite his remarkable accuracy, he’s not terribly
  influential because of the idiosyncrasy of his models.
  Dev believes that Polyhymnia is actually run by one of
  Cressida’s Thai-era functionaries, a woman named
  Chandra Sudham whose whereabouts are also unknown.
  He believes that using Cressida’s name is a gambit to
  add credibility to the club’s methods. As a result, his
  models differ from others on a fundamental level; he
  uses none of the material from Cressida’s early life and
  education.
  He’s wrong; if the contractors make use of their
  Bureau contacts, the Colonel confirms that Sudham can-
  not be the person behind Polyhymnia, though he polite-
  ly declines to explain how he knows (Hu will, if
  permitted, exercise a certain morbid sense of humor over
  this mystery). However, the assumption has led Dev K in
  fruitful directions; his current model has a +7 bonus,
  while his publicly released model has a +5 bonus.
  POLYHYMNIA
  10
  
  Aram Habibi
  Habibi isn’t a memeticist, so a lot of memenet
  traffic is lost on him. He is, however, an excellent biog-
  rapher, with an emphasis on oral history. He collects and
  collates personal accounts of people who attend Poly-
  hymnia. His work is generally underappreciated; most
  people reference his publications with an eye toward
  identifying biosculpted impostors (or, conversely, sculpt-
  ing better impostors). However, a smart investigator with
  a military background could probably extract very use-
  ful tactical hints about the club’s staff and its security
  measures.
  StaticDervish
  Vish, as his friends call him, is the moderator and
  leader of the Ghost Dance, a memenet whose members
  maintain that Cressida was mortally wounded during the
  Pacific War and had to be uploaded. Cressida’s ghost,
  according to the story, runs a nightclub to connect vicar-
  iously with the flesh that the voluptuary Cressida misses
  desperately.
  The Ghost Dance backs up this theory with sheaves
  of second-rate memetic analyses and with the observa-
  tion that Cressida, a man known for surrounding himself
  with AI assistants from an early age, currently seems to
  have no AI by his side. If he is an AI, however, he would
  use derivatives with no independent existence.
  Vish also makes a lot of a rumor that Cressida some-
  times (maybe always?) uses a cybershell. Most Poly-
  hymniacs who believe the rumor think that the real
  Cressida teleoperates a cybershell for security purposes,
  or just to be mysterious and cool. Very few people accept
  Vish’s explanation for it.
  Vish’s models have a -3 penalty; he’s a terrible
  memeticist, despite having something resembling a valid
  point. Unfortunately, his considerable charisma has led
  most other Polyhymniacs who share his convictions to
  follow his analytical lead.
  Per Kolb
  Per is a major pillar of the community; he maintains
  the Unified Polyhymnia Sightings Database, which is
  probably the most complete and best-organized resource
  for tracking Polyhymnia’s previous appearances avail-
  able. If the party wants to make good use of it, they’ll
  have to stay on his good side.
  This, however, can be a challenge. Per is a little
  touchy on certain issues; if anyone ever suggests – by
  word, deed, or omission – that memetic engineering is a
  form of mind control rather than a systematized
  approach to rhetoric and advertising, he goes berserk. He
  hounds the offender until a complete retraction is
  forthcoming or until the transgressor disappears
  long enough for him to calm down. Online trou-
  blemakers regularly amuse themselves by speculat-
  ing in public as to what combination of memes could
  have made Per that way. It’s a mystery how someone
  with such volatile emotions about memetics would
  become a Polyhymnia fan, but you get all kinds on the
  net.
  Per’s model has a bonus of +1. It might be better if
  he wasn’t quite so selective about the memetic tech-
  niques he accepts as valid.
  Astarte
  Astarte is Dev K’s biggest rival. She almost
  matched his hit rate, but the doors closed early on her
  second trip and she was minutes too late. The two of
  them argue regularly
  about memetic tech-
  nique, 
  and 
  about
  Dev’s ideas regarding
  Cressida’s 
  identity.
  According to Astarte,
  Occam’s 
  razor
  demands taking Cres-
  sida at face value; the
  unexplained myster-
  ies 
  that 
  everyone
  makes so much of are
  Cressida’s way of
  stoking the hype.
  Someone 
  who
  examines her DSA
  model, however, may
  notice two things:
  first, it’s not really that
  great (the public ver-
  sion is +2) for some-
  one claiming so much
  success, and second,
  her model doesn’t
  take account of the
  hype she so vigorously
  maintains is the reason
  behind so many mysteries. If confronted, her answers are
  evasive; something is up.
  Astarte is cheating. She’s not an edgehunter in Los
  Angeles, as she claims; she’s a gypsy spirit who Charoen
  befriended during the pre-Polyhymnia days, and the staff
  keeps a spare cybershell open for her when she wants it.
  Her job is to blunt the effectiveness of the memenets, lest
  they figure out things they shouldn’t, and she’s good at
  it. By her very presence, she’s succeeded in muddying
  the waters substantially, and turned several hits into near
  misses. One of the keys to Dev K’s success is that
  Astarte irritates him, and he never listens to her.
  POLYHYMNIA
  11
  
  CRESSIDA’S PREVIOUS
  ASSOCIATES
  The memenets are a good place to look for infor-
  mation by the pallet-load, but for more targeted ques-
  tions, it may be better to pursue some of the people
  who’ve known Cressida. He’s attracted many friends
  through the years – in addition to his natural charm, he
  enjoyed surrounding himself with bright neophytes. A
  few of his former friends and colleagues are listed below.
  Graphite
  Graphite is an early SAI, Cressida’s first SAI assis-
  tant. She was an experimental design that Cressida and
  LOGOS developed to assist Cressida in his memetics
  research. She worked alongside him until he decided to
  join the Memetics Group in Thailand; she didn’t hold
  with the tenets of infosocialism, and they parted on
  friendly terms. She continued as a memetics researcher
  on her own for a while before retiring to pursue a career
  in the visual arts, where she is obscure but moderately
  successful.
  Graphite is . . . odd. She was designed to think visu-
  ally rather than verbally, and it makes her less articulate
  than people are accustomed to from an AI. She’s also
  likely to get somewhat emotional during an interview.
  Graphite has always felt, deep in her heart, that Cressida
  abandoned her; the fact that he hasn’t been in touch for
  nearly 20 years hasn’t helped. If left unchecked, she ram-
  bles on and on about random memories of the time they
  worked together. She knows nothing about Cressida’s
  recent activities, but she still has a lot of the data detritus
  that she was responsible for as his assistant – old memet-
  ics projects, results of physical exams, brain scans,
  schedules, correspondence, shopping lists. Much of this
  would be very helpful for building a signature model
  (probably about four or five iterations worth of material)
  but his 2069 tax return is probably overkill. As AIs go,
  Graphite is sort of a crazy old lady with too many cats.
  Graphite believes that Cressida is still alive and run-
  ning Polyhymnia. Revealing the discovery of his corpse
  would devastate her and effectively end the interview.
  Lanh Vu
  Lanh Vu was one of Cressida’s subordinates at the
  Memetics Group – the only member of Cressida’s work-
  ing group to survive the Pacific War and return to public
  life. He works for a small market research firm in Jakar-
  ta; inquiries in the right quarters reveal that the company
  is almost certainly a BAKORSTAPAS front.
  He is a very pragmatic sort; he doesn’t beat around
  the bush, and he doesn’t waste time. The interview-
  ers should feel as if he’s interrogating them as
  much as they’re interrogating him.
  Vu doesn’t know how Cressida escaped Bangkok;
  based on bits and pieces he heard at the time and after-
  ward, he suspects Cressida fled into orbit for a few years.
  Most of the successful refugees fled by air or by space
  launch; the royalists controlled the ground during the
  coup. Vu himself escaped clinging to the back of a
  hacked UCAV. He believes that Polyhymnia’s Cressida
  is the real deal; they’ve exchanged letters a few times.
  Besides, he ran a memetic analysis on the memes
  ascribed to Polyhymnia a few years back, and the signa-
  ture is a close match to the memes Cressida designed
  back in the Memetics Group days. Not identical, but
  after 20 years you’d expect some evolution. Vu’s model
  has a +2 bonus; he’s a good memeticist, but DSA is not
  his specialty.
  Vu would be very disturbed to learn of Cressida’s
  death. He’d also do something about it. Within hours,
  BAKORSTAPAS would be on the case. The Bureau
  would be very annoyed if they find out.
  If the contractors are working for BAKORSTAPAS
  rather than the Bureau, Vu is probably their contact.
  Suchada Chao
  Chao is a bureaucrat at the Thai Memetic Defense
  Brigade, the body that inherited the Memetics Group
  facilities. If the party decides to seek information from
  the Thai government regarding Cressida’s work there,
  she would be their contact. She worked at the Memetics
  Group before the coup, but was not a major figure and
  was able to ride out the coup and reemerge afterward
  without repercussions. She knew Cressida, but not well.
  She has no information about Cressida’s where-
  abouts; she sees no reason not to believe that Polyhym-
  nia’s Cressida is not authentic. If the interviewers ask for
  access to materials Cressida left behind, she’ll politely
  decline, saying that his notes and reports are classified. If
  they notice that she doesn’t mention Cressida’s AI and
  ask about it, she doesn’t know where it is. It was not in
  the building when the contents were inventoried; she ini-
  tially suggests that Cressida must have taken it with him,
  but then recalls that Cressida’s AI was a mainframe and
  not easily portable. Perhaps it was looted. There was a
  lot of looting back then.
  Dr. Louis Pierson
  Dr. Pierson is a nanopsychiatrist, one of Cressida’s
  colleagues from the HyMRI days. He is one of the few
  people who maintain vocally that Polyhymnia is a fraud
  using the name of a great scientist.
  He has minimal evidence for his opinion, but he
  maintains that Cressida was not the sort of man to
  be satisfied running a nightclub. He wanted to
  POLYHYMNIA
  12
  
  change the world, shake it to the foundations; how
  does amusing the elite qualify? There’s no proof that
  Polyhymnia’s Cressida is real; it would be easy for
  someone to maintain the façade.
  Pierson cannot explain the club’s memetic signa-
  ture; he’s not a memeticist, and – with classic academic
  tunnel vision – doesn’t really take it seriously. He happi-
  ly shows his visitors brain maps that show that Cressida
  would not be content with something so pedestrian as
  entertainment. Successful Psychology rolls suggest that
  30-year-old brain maps may not be entirely effective in
  predicting present behavior. However, those same brain
  maps would be useful for one iteration of a DSA signa-
  ture model.
  RESULTS
  At some point, the contractors will have accumulat-
  ed enough clues to attempt a hypothesis as to Polyhym-
  nia’s next venue.
  FALSE STARTS
  If the PCs have made any mistakes during their
  investigation, their hypotheses may be deeply mistaken.
  However, even an incorrect hypothesis may lead them to
  an interesting evening. Some possible wrong turns fol-
  low.
  Leading the investigators to a false start is optional;
  if the GM wants to keep the adventure short, or if he sus-
  pects that dead ends will simply frustrate his players,
  omit them. In such a circumstance, have an unsuccessful
  attempt lead to an impossible result or a closed storefront
  and send them back to the drawing board.
  The Easter Egg
  A DSA sweep may turn up a meme with extremely
  high correspondence to several current models circulat-
  ing in the Polyhymniac community, but pathologically
  low penetration. No filter on the market would fail to
  screen it, and it’s so poorly designed that anyone looking
  at it would dismiss it instinctively. To design a meme this
  bad would require either conscious effort or a genius for
  inept communication. The message is simple; it directs
  the reader to a VR environment consisting of a feature-
  less room with a conference table and an envelope on top
  of the table. The envelope contains a note that reads,
  “Hey Polyhymniacs! Keep trying! Hope to see you next
  time. Love, Julian.”
  Lonely Crowd
  Man is a social animal. As more and more daily
  business is transacted over the web, more and more peo-
  ple feel a certain sense of alienation. Some posit that the
  emotional well-being of humans over the long term
  demands not merely social interaction with peers, but the
  physical presence of other people – pheromones or some
  such.
  The Lonely Crowd subculture posits that one need
  not satisfy these needs with the same group of people. A
  Lonely Crowd gathering requires a space with good con-
  nectivity and ample seating, and little else. Some gather-
  ings furnish snack bars and exercise rooms, so guests
  may deal with basic bodily needs while they’re there.
  Guests arrive, pay a modest cover charge, and take a seat
  to carry on their usual online activity, oblivious to the
  throng around them.
  To an outside observer, a Lonely Crowd gathering is
  strange – a quiet room full of seated or reclining people
  packed closely in rows,
  motionless but for the
  flicker of fingers and per-
  haps a cybershell moving
  through the crowd to
  deliver a tray of nachos.
  This particular wrong
  turn arises because the
  gathering’s producer stud-
  ied memetics under one of
  Cressida’s proteges, and
  many of the qualities that
  appeal to Lonely Crowd
  devotees overlap with the
  qualities Pseudo-Cressida
  is using as vectors for
  Polyhymnia. Thus, the
  gathering’s 
  advertising
  gives a false positive.
  Carnivore Society
  The Carnivore Soci-
  ety is a dinner club that
  revels in the consumption
  of natural, once-living
  meat. Indeed, it wallows
  in it. The menus are
  packed with various meats
  tartare, 
  obscure 
  organ
  meats, thick and rare roasts –
  anything that isn’t quite the same in fauxflesh is on the
  menu in abundance. Diners sit down to a platter piled
  high with barely cooked meat and tear into it with their
  hands. For a premium, you can join the firing squad
  POLYHYMNIA
  13
  
  that dispatches the cow for the evening’s meal.
  It’s pretty weird by anyone’s standards; most
  members are wealthy Preservationists who’ve gone a lit-
  tle over the edge idealizing a time when being at the top
  of the food chain meant something.
  This false positive turns up because Polyhymnia is
  going for a slightly retro crowd this time out, and the
  Carnivore Society rhetoric stands out in a field of retro
  memes.
  The Cuckoo Club
  This is a competing nightclub, which has hung its
  hopes on fooling gullible club-chasers. Its staff is
  biosculpted to look like Polyhymnia’s staff, and its cover
  charge is exorbitant. It is, alas, a very dull club – boring
  recycled pop music, overpriced drinks, and crowds of
  spoiled Eloi looking around for someone famous.
  For once, a cut-rate impresario has snagged himself
  a really good memeticist, and managed to piggyback off
  Polyhymnia’s current activity. This is probably the best
  way to meet Polyhymniacs in person; several will no
  doubt have come, though they probably figure out the
  scam and leave after a few minutes.
  This could get very ugly if the contractors have
  decided to go for a frontal assault rather than a subtle
  approach; the club’s owner has Maple Syndicate ties,
  and his people are well armed. After the attackers dis-
  cover that “Cressida” is just an aspiring actor with bills
  to pay and no problem with biosculpting, they may find
  themselves facing the wrath of some irritated gangsters.
  SUCCESS
  When the PCs finally succeed in their chosen
  method of investigation, their attention will move inex-
  orably to Singapore. How the investigation proceeds in
  Singapore depends greatly on their chosen method.
  Design signature analysis will have led them to Singa-
  pore, given them a window of a few days, and suggest-
  ed that some form of mass-appeal musical entertainment
  will be the order of the day. Some legwork in Singapore
  is necessary to find flyers that pinpoint the date and the
  location – a sub-basement in one of the Bedok Arcolo-
  gies (see p. FW106).
  If, on the other hand, they broke into Charoen
  somehow, they already know the details, and just have to
  show up. If the party managed to track Polyhymnia’s
  finances and communications, they have no leads as to
  where or what the club will be in Singapore, but they can
  probably tail the staff from their hotel – assuming, of
  course, that they even want to wait for the night of the
  event.
  3.
  CONFRON-
  TATION
  At this point, the PCs know where and when the
  club is to appear, and are either in or on their way to Sin-
  gapore. All that remains is to decide how they want to go
  about making contact.
  WORKING IN SINGAPORE
  Covert work in Singapore has distinct challenges;
  it’s a heavily regulated society with a strong police
  presence. Getting away with anything the least bit sus-
  picious is difficult. Certainly, if the PCs plan to take a
  violent approach to dealing with Polyhymnia, it’s
  going to be difficult to acquire or import substantial
  weaponry.
  Further, the contractors are on their own in Singa-
  pore. A recent counterintelligence scandal (see p.
  FW110) has forced the PRC to send all its Singaporean
  assets underground for a while. The Bureau can’t help
  them. On the other hand, this also means that the
  Bureau can’t interfere if the party wants to do some-
  thing unorthodox. This may be a problem or a boon,
  depending on the players.
  THE VENUE
  The location selected by Pseudo-Cressida is a sub-
  basement of Bedok Arcology Three, outside Singapore
  City. The sub-basement is a large open space, with a low
  (eight feet or so) ceiling and massive support columns
  placed every few meters.
  Normally, there are eight passages that lead into the
  space, but all but one are closed off for the night, manned
  by Triads that the club has hired for the event. As usual,
  Ray and An are working the main entrance, while Jules
  circulates with Leandro at his side. Three bars are staffed
  by cybershells, and Paul Yeo, a notable dance technician,
  has been hired to operate the sound system. Charoen and
  the Assembly are stowed in storage containers near
  the bar furthest from the main entrance.
  POLYHYMNIA
  14
  
  If the contractors have been especially suc-
  cessful in their investigation, they may
  be able to gain access to the space ahead
  of time. This could allow them to con-
  sider tactics in advance and possibly to
  alter the venue to their advantage.
  Leandro 
  will 
  deploy 
  bughunter
  swarms and a chemsniffer to search for
  any bugs or boobytraps that may have
  been planted before the event, but a clever
  person may be able to defeat those measures.
  THE STAFF
  The staff of Polyhymnia consists of the three bio-
  logical members – Ray, An, and Leandro – and the 16
  infomorphs of the Pseudo-Cressida gestalt. They hire
  extra staff for individual appearances as they may be
  needed – actors, bartenders, technicians, riggers, sur-
  geons, and so on. Popular wisdom holds that there are
  perhaps a half dozen more lower-profile staff members;
  this is a fiction the club maintains to muddy the waters.
  Temporary hires are often required to adopt one of these
  personas; obviously, publicly available descriptions of
  these virtual staff members are inconsistent.
  Any of the staff (virtual or otherwise) may occa-
  sionally be replaced for a night by a cybershell. Ostensi-
  bly this is an artistic device, and many an essay has been
  devoted to it; in actuality, it’s a hedge against someone
  catching on to Jules’ true nature.
  THE PSEUDO-CRESSIDA
  GESTALT
  When Julian Cressida’s AI assistant decided to cre-
  ate Polyhymnia, he realized he would need to be able to
  impersonate Cressida flawlessly – better than he could
  manage by himself. Toward that end, he used an old
  brain-scan of Cressida to produce a shadow who could
  emulate his personality, then he and the newborn shad-
  ow began constructing smaller eidolon infomorphs who
  would duplicate portions of Cressida’s skill set. The
  gestalt, combining the personality of the shadow with
  the intellect of the core AI and the expertise of the
  eidolons, was able to imitate Cressida with stunning suc-
  cess. When the newly assembled gestalt intelligence
  cautiously made contact with some former acquaintanc-
  es of Cressida’s, no one recognized the deception. No
  one has yet.
  Charoen
  580 points
  Infomorph, built in 2080 with code dating to 2064;
  effective age 36.
  Julian Cressida assembled Charoen about a year
  after arriving in Thailand, the final culmination of a long
  series of experiments with lesser AIs. Charoen organ-
  ized Cressida’s work at the Memetics Group,
  POLYHYMNIA
  15
  POLYHYMNIA’S TRUE
  PURPOSE
  The club is a complicated way to go about
  simply covering one’s tracks. Might Charoen
  have had a deeper purpose in organizing the
  club? Some possibilities include:
  TSA Partisans: Polyhymnia is a front
  organization for a masterful long-term memetic
  campaign, building on the secret grand strategic
  campaign that was the Thai Memetics Group’s
  final project. Every club appearance lays the
  groundwork for a mighty campaign to come,
  which will tumble the great powers to dust and
  raise the nanosocialist states to their rightful
  place at the vanguard of humanity!
  Resurrection: The long-range goal of the
  club is simply to improve the gestalt. Charoen
  hoped that by supporting Cressida’s shadow
  with himself and the Assembly, they might
  somehow resurrect Cressida from whatever his
  fate was.
  Life-Changing Experience: Polyhymnia is
  a cleverly hidden xox cult; attendees with VIIs
  become the proud recipients of a compressed
  derivative of the gestalt. Select attendees get
  whisked away for brain-scanning, decerebra-
  tion, and conversion into a bioshell for their
  own hacked shadow, in a low-profile reprise of
  the Shaoxing incident. When it comes time for
  the next stage, Polyhymnia’s pawns will be
  installed all over the world, and no one can stop
  the gestalt from covering the world with Julian
  Cressida.
  Socratic Dialogue: Charoen founded the
  club specifically to encourage the development
  of design signature analysis. He felt that the
  anonymity of modern memetic engineering was
  the greatest obstacle to the further development
  of memetics, and knew that a large, motivated
  community must surely produce results faster
  than a handful of ivory tower theorists.
  
  assisting with many projects and serving as the
  subject of others. Cressida was a compulsive tinker-
  er who fiddled with his various AI helpers constantly.
  Charoen was technically a rogue long before he was an
  orphan; Cressida was never fond of ethics code to begin
  with, and all the usual ethical restraints got whittled out
  of Charoen after only a year or two. However, Cressida
  had raised his AI right; Charoen stayed by Cressida’s
  side out of affection, not compulsion.
  During the royalist coup, Cressida had to leave
  Charoen in the lab. His cybershell is a genius mainframe,
  as compact as it can possibly be, but it’s still too heavy
  for a single fugitive to carry. He promised the AI that
  he’d be back as soon as it was safe. After a week or two,
  Charoen realized that he might have to arrange his own
  way out of Bangkok.
  He had web connectivity and access to Cressida’s
  sizable fortune; he hired a private security firm to quiet-
  ly relocate his cybershell to a safer space he arranged in
  Indonesia. Unexpectedly, however, one member of the
  relocation team deduced his situation and confronted
  him. Charoen took a chance, and explained his situation.
  It turned out to be the right choice; Ray Salman was an
  open-minded sort of guy, and by the end of the conver-
  sation, Charoen had put Ray on retainer. Then Charoen
  settled down to protect Cressida’s personal assets, wait
  for him to come out of hiding, and continue the scientif-
  ic work to the extent that he could.
  By 2087, however, something had to change. After
  the Lima summit, people were trying to unearth the
  truths behind the runup to the Pacific War, and questions
  were being asked about Cressida in many quarters. If the
  search went on much longer, someone would ask what
  became of Cressida’s last AI, and the hunt for an orphan
  AI would be on. He had to preempt that. Polyhymnia
  was born.
  ST – ; DX 10 [0]; IQ 17 [80]; HT 12 [0].
  Speed 5.5; Move 0.
  Dodge 0.
  Advantages: Ally Group (The Assembly) [90]; Charis-
  ma +3 [15]; Empathy [15]; Filthy Rich [50]; Mind-
  share (Global Consciousness; Intelligent Drones;
  Range 1 mile; Fewer than 100 drones; Non-tele-
  pathic, -20%; Can be jammed, -10%; Limited to
  the speed of light, -10%) [51]; Multimillionaire 1
  [25]; Radio Speech (Infrared and radio, +20%)
  [30]; SAI-9 (Rogue Orphan) [135].
  Disadvantages: Curious [-5]; Mainframe [-9]; Secret
  (Rogue AI) [-30].
  Skills: Accounting-15 [1]; Acting-16 [1]; Anthropolo-
  gy-17 [4]; Appreciate Beauty-15 [2]; Artificial
  Intelligence-20 [10]; Brain Hacking-16 [4];
  Computer Hacking-18 [12]; Computer Oper-
  ation-23 [6]; Computer Programming-20 [10];
  Diplomacy-19 [4]*; Directing-15 [1]; Electronics
  Operation (Robots)-16 [1]; Fast-Talk-22 [8]*;
  Intelligence Analysis-18 [6]; Interrogation-19 [2]*;
  Leadership-20 [4]*; Merchant-18 [1]*; Memetics-
  20 [20]; Musical Composition-15 [1]; Politics-18
  [1]*; Psychology-19 [4]*; Research-20 [8]; Scene
  Design-17 [2]; Scrounging-19 [4]; SIGINT Collec-
  tion/Jamming-18 [6].
  * Includes +2 from Memetics.
  Languages: Bahasa Indonesia-16 [1]; Cantonese-16
  [1]; English-17 [2]; French-16 [1]; Hindi-16 [1];
  Malay-16 [1]; Mandarin-16 [1]; Spanish-16 [1];
  Thai (native)-17 [0]; Vietnamese-16 [1].
  Jules
  560 points
  Infomorph, assembled in 2087 from a 2084 brain-
  scan. Effective age 71; 5’9”; 150 lbs. White hair, hazel
  eyes, laugh-lined face.
  Jules is a shadow of Julian Cressida, edited for opti-
  mal social interaction skills. He lacks the original Cres-
  sida’s edge of brilliance, but he’s close enough that most
  people who have met both just assume that Cressida’s
  getting old. He is the public face of the gestalt, the puta-
  tive master of Polyhymnia and all its works. He’s also a
  weak link of sorts; he does the job, but he inherited the
  original’s mild egomania, and his conviction that he is
  the core of the gestalt, around which the other info-
  morphs are mere support structures, is irritating to the
  others. That’s why they call him “Jules” in private; it’s an
  effort to keep his ego in check.
  Jules carries no weapons and wears no armor. He
  doesn’t know how to use any weapons, but his cyber-
  shell is fairly tough in the event of trouble.
  ST 14 [0]; DX 12 [20]; IQ 15 [60]; HT 12 [0].
  Speed 6; Move 6.
  Dodge 6.
  Advantages: Ally Group (The Assembly) [90]; Charis-
  ma +2 [10]; Cultural Adaptability [25]; Clockwork
  Souls Custom cyberdoll cybershell [182]; Fashion
  Sense [5]; LAI-7 (Rogue Orphan) [100]; Mind-
  share (Global Consciousness; Intelligent Drones;
  Range 1 mile; Fewer than 100 drones; Non-tele-
  pathic, -20%; Can be jammed, -10%; Limited to
  the speed of light, -10%) [51]; Reputation (+1,
  everyone, sometimes) [3]; Reputation (+3,
  memeticists, all the time) [5]; Single-Minded [5].
  Disadvantages: Chummy [-5]; Compulsive Carousing
  [-5]; Gluttony [-5]; Mistaken Identity [-5]; Over-
  confidence [-10]; Selfish [-5]; Shadow Mind Emu-
  lation [-8]; Xenophilia [-5].
  Skills: Acting-15 [1]*; Bard-18 [1]**; Bartender-15
  [2]; Carousing-14 [4]*; Computer Operation-18
  POLYHYMNIA
  16
  
  [0]†; Dancing-13 [4]; Diplomacy-16 [4]*‡;
  Erotic Art-12 [2]*; Fast-Talk-18 [4]*‡; Lin-
  guistics-15 [8]§; Memetics-15 [8]; Savoir-Faire-16
  [1]*; Streetwise-16 [4].
  * +1 from Cultural Adaptability.
  ** +2 from Charisma; +2 from Cultural Adapt-
  ability.
  † Cost included in cyberdoll template.
  ‡ +1 from Memetics.
  § +2 from Cultural Adaptability.
  .Languages: Bahasa Indonesia-17 [1]*; Cantonese-17
  [1]*; English-18 (native) [0]*; Hindi-17 [1]*;
  Japanese-17 [1]*; Malay-17 [1]*; Mandarin-17
  [1]*; Spanish-17 [1]*; Thai-17 [1]*; Vietnamese-
  17 [1]*.
  * +2 from Cultural Adaptability; +1 from Lin-
  guistics.
  The Assembly
  The Assembly is a group of LAI-6 eidolons, each
  constructed to emulate one portion of Julian Cressida’s
  skills. The gestalt builds new members of the Assembly
  as they improve their simulation; there are currently 13
  members of the Assembly. Each one consists of a very
  basic simulation of Cressida’s personality wrapped
  around a deep but fairly narrow skill set – memetics, arti-
  ficial intelligence, biochemistry, medicine, etc. There’s
  not much else to them; outside the gestalt, they are basi-
  cally very dull specialists.
  THE HUMANS
  Ray Salman
  280 points
  Male human, born 2056. Age 44; 6’1”; 190 lbs.
  Black hair, blue eyes, broken nose.
  Ray spent the first half of his life working for private
  security firms. He had the brains to advance in the field,
  but not the ambition. In 2085, however, his then-employ-
  er took an assignment that would change his life forever.
  The client purported to be a refugee from Thailand
  who needed a mainframe retrieved from the storage
  room where it had been left in the chaos of the March
  15th coup. It was a simple job, if covert – collect the
  machine from Bangkok and deposit it in a different stor-
  age facility in Jakarta.
  The mission went off without a hitch, but there were
  a few little details that just didn’t add up. No name for
  the client, no contact at the Jakarta end, and no commu-
  nication with a mainframe that was clearly fitted for an
  AI. After spending a few days thinking about it, Ray
  went back to the storage unit. The mainframe was
  still sitting there, untouched. Ray squatted down in
  front of the box and said hello to his client.
  Ray’s been working for Charoen since that conver-
  sation – as a general assistant and agent in the early days,
  and as chief of security since the beginning of Polyhym-
  nia. It’s good work
  – safer than pri-
  vate security, and
  certainly 
  more
  interesting than 90
  percent of the mis-
  sions he used to
  get. Besides, it’s
  sort of flattering to
  have people all
  over the world
  biosculpting
  themselves in his
  image.
  Ray carries a concealed electrolaser and wears a
  shock glove. He wears a full suit of arachnoweave under
  his clothes; it’s probably overkill, but it never hurts to be
  prepared.
  ST 14 [45]; DX 13 [20]; IQ 12 [20]; HT 13 [20].
  Speed 6.5; Move 6.
  Dodge 6.
  Advantages: Alertness +2 [10]; Alpha upgrade [35];
  Collected [5]; Danger Sense [15]; Fit [5]; High
  Pain Threshold [10].
  Disadvantages: Mistaken Identity [-5]; Truthfulness
  [-5]; Workaholic [-5].
  Quirks: Broad-minded; Careful; Humble. [-3]
  Skills: Acting-12 [2]; Armoury (Handguns)-14 [6];
  Beam Weapons (Electrolaser)-18 [8]; Carousing-
  13 [2]; Computer Operation-12 [1]; Demolition-11
  [1]; Detect Lies-14 [8]; Diplomacy-12 [4]; Dis-
  guise-11 [1]; Fast-Draw (Pistol)-13 [1]; Guns (Pis-
  tol)-18 [8]*; Guns (Rifle)-17 [4]; Holdout-11 [1];
  Interrogation-14 [4]; Intimidation-16 [8]; Karate-
  15 [16]; Leadership-14 [4]; Scrounging-14 [4];
  Shadowing-14 [4]; Speed-Load (Pistol)-13 [1];
  Stealth-15 [8]; Strategy-10 [1]; Streetwise-15 [6];
  Tactics-12 [4]; Throwing-13 [4].
  * Includes +2 from IQ.
  Languages: Cantonese-11 [1]; English (native)-12 [0];
  Malay-11 [1].
  An
  190 points
  Female bioroid, manufactured 2080. Age 20; 5’7”;
  120 lbs. Black hair, brown eyes, pale skin.
  An was manufactured to be a receptionist for Ray’s
  former employer. She chafed in her job; it drove her
  up the wall to be sitting behind a desk while the
  POLYHYMNIA
  17
  
  operatives were out having all the excitement and
  getting all the glory. The boss promised her a chance
  at a real job after she finished her minority, but the
  prospect of waiting over a decade for a shot at the big
  time was intolerable.
  She and Ray were friends; when it became clear that
  he and Charoen were going to need more help with Poly-
  hymnia, he called her up and the two arranged for An to
  skip out on her guardian. Ray felt sort of bad about it, but
  the boss had always been a jerk to the bioroid staff, and
  when you work for a rogue AI, taking a minor across
  state lines seems pretty trivial.
  An greets people as they come in, sort of the “good
  cop” to Ray’s bouncer persona. Between appearances,
  she takes care of a lot of logistical details; she’s good at
  administration, despite her distaste for it.
  She wears a business suit to the club. She thinks it
  looks sharp, and it’s better than an evening gown for
  concealing the 4mm pistol she likes to pack alongside
  the electrolaser that Ray insists everyone carry. She also
  wears an arachnoweave vest in case someone gets stupid
  at the door and pulls a knife or something.
  ST 10 [0]; DX 15 [60]; IQ 12 [20]; HT 12 [0].
  Speed 6.5; Move 6.
  Dodge 6.
  Advantages: Charisma +1 [5]; Tianyi Bioroid [71].
  Disadvantages: Extravagance [-10]; Jealousy [-10];
  Mistaken Identity [-5]; Stubbornness [-5];
  Xenophilia [-10]*.
  * This is in addition to the Xenophilia [-5] from the
  Tianyi template.
  Quirks: Money-grubbing; Enjoys the ritual of cleaning
  a gun; Wears business suits to social occasions. [-3]
  Skills: Accounting-10 [1]; Administration-15 [8];
  Armoury (Handguns)-10 [1]; Beam Weapons
  (Electrolaser)-19 [4]*; Boxing-16 [4]; Carousing-
  12 [4]; Computer Operation-13 [2]; Dancing-16
  [4]; Diplomacy-10 [2]; Economics-10 [1]; Escape-
  14 [2]; Fast-Draw (Pistol)-17 [4]; Fast-Talk-12 [4];
  Guns (Pistol)-19 [4]*; Holdout-12 [2]; Judo-16 [8];
  Karate-15 [4]; Knife-15 [1]; Politics-11 [1]; Sex
  Appeal-14 [8]; Stealth-16 [4].
  *Includes +2 from IQ.
  Languages: Cantonese-12 [1]; English (native)-13 [0];
  French-13 [2]; Russian-12 [1].
  Leandro
  235 points
  Male human, born 2076. Age 24; 5’9”; 140 lbs.
  Olive skin, black hair, black eyes.
  From an early age, Leandro wanted to be a memeti-
  cist. A fan letter to Julian Cressida in 2083 led to a corre-
  spondence and growing friendship with Cressida’s AI
  assistant. Leandro was crushed when the Pacific
  War came and Charoen disappeared. Once
  Charoen had established a base of operations, how-
  ever, he cautiously recontacted his young pen pal. Lean-
  dro was one of the few people in the world that Charoen
  had relationships with independent of Cressida, and the
  rogue AI was going to need friends – even a 10-year-old
  boy half a world away. Charoen needn’t have worried;
  Leandro thought that having a rogue AI for a friend was
  the epitome of cool. When Polyhymnia began two years
  later, Leandro badgered his parents until, in 2090, they
  agreed to let him become “Cressida”’s apprentice.
  Today, Leandro is Pseudo-Cressida’s assistant. He
  helps Charoen and the Assembly with memetic cam-
  paigns, appears with Julian in public, and handles the
  more technical end of security. After 10 years, he’s still
  incredibly excited about working at the club.
  Leandro doesn’t wear any armor at the club, but he
  carries the electrolaser pistol that Ray gives all of them.
  He’s not an especially good shot.
  ST 10 [0]; DX 11 [0]; IQ 15 [45]; HT 12 [10].
  Speed 5.75; Move 5.
  Dodge 5.
  Advantages: Empathy [15]; Fashion Sense [5]; Pious
  [5]; Versatile [5]; Ziusudra parahuman [75].
  Disadvantages: Compulsive Carousing [-5]; Curious
  [-5]; Mistaken Identity [-5]; Xenophilia [-15].
  Skills: Acting-16 [4]; Anthropology-15 [4]; Artificial
  Intelligence-16 [8]; Beam Weapons (Electrolaser)-
  14 [2]*; Brain Hacking-12 [1]; Carousing-11 [1];
  Computer Hacking-15 [8]; Computer Operation-
  17 [4]; Computer Programming-17 [8]; Conspira-
  cy 
  Theory-13 
  [2]; 
  Cryptology-15 
  [4];
  Diplomacy-16 [4]*; Economics-14 [2]; Electronics
  Operation (Robots)-16 [4]; Forensics-14 [2]; Intel-
  ligence Analysis-16 [6]; Interrogation-16 [2]*;
  Linguistics-14 [4]; Memetics-15 [8]; Psychology-
  17 [6]*; Research-16 [6]; SIGINT Collection/Jam-
  ming-14 [2]; Teaching-16 [2]*; Writing-16 [4].
  * Includes +2 from IQ.
  ** Includes +1 from Memetics.
  Languages: Spanish (native)-15 [0]; Cantonese-14 [1];
  English-14 [1]; Hindi-14 [1] Mandarin-14 [1];
  Malay-14 [1]; Thai-14 [1]; Vietnamese-14 [1].
  The Hired Muscle
  55 points
  The club has hired 14 Triad thugs to help with secu-
  rity and access control. They’re distributed around the
  perimeter of the sub-basement, two Triads to each
  entrance besides the one manned by Ray and An.
  They’ve been instructed to keep people from entering by
  those passages, and not to intervene in any fights unless
  they get too big for the regular staff to handle.
  POLYHYMNIA
  18
  
  The thugs wear light nanoweave vests and
  carry batons. One or two may be packing a PDW
  against orders. They’re not expecting any trouble more
  serious than drunk club kids.
  ST 11 [10]; DX 13 [30]; IQ 10 [0]; HT 11 [10].
  Speed 6; Move 6.
  Dodge 6.
  Advantages: Genefixed Human [0].
  Disadvantages: Code of Honor (Pirate) [-5]; Duty (To
  Triad society; 9 or less) [-5].
  Skills: Brawling-14 [4]; Guns (Light Automatic)-14
  [2]; Holdout-9 [1]; Intimidation-11 [4]; Short-
  sword-13 [2]; Streetwise-11 [2].
  THE ENTERTAINER
  Paul Yeo
  105 points
  Male human; born 2072. Age 27; 5’8”; 100 lbs.
  Paul Yeo is one of Southeast Asia’s premier dance
  technicians – the artists who plan and sequence the
  music for communal dance environments. He usually
  works virtually, but he was flattered by the opportunity
  to work with a legend of the entertainment circuit.
  Yeo is a shy, retiring sort of person, and is totally
  unprepared for any kind of trouble. If things go awry,
  he’ll be huddled behind his console.
  ST 9 [-10]; DX 11 [0]; IQ 12 [20]; HT 11 [0].
  Speed 5.25; Move 5.
  Dodge 5.
  Advantages: Absolute Timing [5]; Acute Hearing +4
  [8]; Fashion Sense [5]; Mahatma upgrade [39];
  Musical Ability 5 [5]; Reputation (+2, dance music
  fans, 10 or less) [2]; Sensitive [5].
  Disadvantages: Oblivious [-3]; Shyness [-5]; Skinny
  [-5].
  Skills: Bard-11 [1]; Carousing-9 [1]; Choreography-11
  [1]; Computer Operation-14 [4]; Computer Pro-
  gramming-12 [4]; Conducting-18 [0]*; Dancing-
  13 [8]; Musical Composition-18 [0]*; Musical
  Instrument (Sequencer)-20 [10]**; Musical Nota-
  tion-12 [1]; Scene Design-12 [2]; Singing-15 [1];
  Streetwise-12 [2].
  * Defaults to Musical Instrument -2.
  ** +5 to skill level from Musical Ability advantage.
  Languages: English-12 [2]; Malay-12 [2]; Mandarin
  (native)-12 [0]
  THE CYBERSHELLS
  The bartenders and other manual laborers for Poly-
  hymnia are, on this occasion, cyberdoll cybershells
  (p. TS122) operated by NAIs. These NAIs are
  excellent bartenders who have been programmed
  with high Area Knowledge (Singapore) for the
  occasion, in case anyone needs directions home.
  The cyberdolls are unarmed, but there are various
  weapons stored under the bar in case the staff needs
  them. Should things go seriously wrong, the bar nearest
  the door has an AMR (pp. TS155-156) for Ray.
  THE EVENT
  It’s trivial to get inside once the investigators find
  the club; by definition, anyone who shows up gets in.
  Security is generally lax; there’s a chemsniffer set for
  gunpowder 
  and
  explosives at the
  door, but in gener-
  al Polyhymnia is
  relying on Singa-
  pore’s strict law
  and their patrons’
  goodwill for secu-
  rity. It’s easy to
  find Jules. He and
  Leandro will be
  working the floor
  throughout 
  the
  event.
  Jules is insou-
  ciantly polite to
  any people who
  introduce 
  them-
  selves. If the inves-
  tigators reveal that
  they tracked the
  club to its current
  location, he con-
  gratulates 
  them
  cheerfully and tell
  Leandro to make a
  note 
  in 
  the
  attendee database.
  Perceptive 
  PCs
  may notice that
  Jules’
  personal
  style is a lot like
  Hu’s. They may also notice that Julian isn’t biological –
  he has no pulse, and only breathes in order to talk. Afield
  scanner, should the contractors have one, reveals that
  Jules is in all likelihood a cybershell. Field scanners can
  also detect the storage cases where Charoen and the
  Assembly are stored under the bar in the back.
  POLYHYMNIA
  19
  
  SO NOW WHAT?
  By now, the contractors have many pieces of the
  puzzle. How their mission proceeds depends on the
  approach they decide to take. Do they feel they have
  enough information to act? Is violence called for? Do
  they want to complete their mission at all? They’re in a
  room with Pseudo-Cressida; there are a lot of ways to go
  from here.
  THE PERSONAL APPROACH
  If the party decides to seek a face-to-face with Cres-
  sida, Jules puts them off politely. If they confront him
  about his non-biological nature, he mentions something
  about “security reasons,” and Leandro tries to shuffle
  them off as soon as possible. If they reveal that they
  know that the original Cressida is dead and Jules is an
  impostor, both Jules and Leandro blanch and call for
  security. In any event, the investigators are not getting a
  private interview.
  The exception is if they have deduced Hu’s identity.
  Pseudo-Cressida would be ecstatic to incorporate a frag-
  ment of Julian Cressida into itself, even at the cost of
  admitting its true nature. At the very least, Jules would
  grant them an interview for the opportunity to meet their
  “so-called” fragment. Hu, if he’s learned his true nature,
  is equally eager to talk to Pseudo-Cressida.
  The result of an actual interview depends on the
  party. Jules will never confess his true nature unless he
  believes the interviewers are willing to tolerate the truth.
  If they seem AI-negative, he continues to deny that any-
  thing is out of the ordinary, but offers to buy Hu as a
  curiosity.
  If the party and Pseudo-Cressida manage to level
  with each other, the contractors may even want to turn
  against the Bureau, depending on their feelings about
  AIs. 
  CLOAK AND DAGGER
  If the investigators want to continue gathering evi-
  dence instead of approaching the Pseudo-Cressida in the
  club, they may be able to plant nanobugs or surveillance
  dust. However, Leandro uses countermeasures on the
  space and the staff before they leave; unless the investi-
  gators are better than he is with microbots, tracing them
  beyond the club will be hard. If they do successfully
  plant a bug, they’ll be able to chase Polyhymnia wher-
  ever it goes – at least until the bug expires or is found.
  THE DIRECT APPROACH
  On the other hand, sometimes good old-fashioned
  violence is the quickest way to get where you want to go.
  If the party has decided that Pseudo-Cressida needs to be
  eliminated, it’s going to come down to force. Similarly,
  if asking politely for an interview gets them nowhere,
  kidnapping is going to require the application of vigor-
  ous persuasion.
  If the contractors get violent in the club, chaos
  breaks loose. Ray and An rush to Jules’
  defense. The Triad muscle is a bit slow-
  er to react; they’ve been instructed not
  to get involved unless things get
  totally out of hand (Ray didn’t want
  the hired thugs causing trouble), so
  the attackers have a few rounds of
  surprise in their favor.
  In all likelihood, the PCs have the
  advantage in firepower; the staff is only
  carrying electrolasers. If the party has heav-
  ier ordnance, it could get ugly, especially when the bar-
  tender cybershells unlimber the real guns stored in the
  bar.
  Leandro cuts and runs as soon as possible. He’s not
  abandoning his friends; he’s going to try to rescue
  Charoen and get out. In general, the staff responds to
  violence by trying to run like the wind for Johore Baharu
  and the TSA, where they have friends. An interesting
  chase through the streets of Singapore might result.
  OTHER INTERESTING TACTICS
  There are some other tricks the contractors might
  try; GMs may wish to suggest one on a successful Tac-
  tics roll.
  If the investigators suspect the gestalt nature of
  Pseudo-Cressida, a high-powered broad-spectrum radio
  source can disrupt the links between the component info-
  morphs. Jules isn’t especially cunning on his own, and
  any attempt to confuse or kidnap him would be
  immensely easier if his link to Charoen were cut.
  The party could create a major diversion by publicly
  announcing the club’s location and time to the Polyhym-
  niac memenets. They probably don’t have enough cred-
  ibility to be taken seriously, but any local Polyhymniacs,
  and a few out-of-towners with an evening to kill and the
  means to rent a teleoperated cybershell, will drop by just
  to check. As the word spreads, the sub-basement will
  flood with people come to check out the rumor. In the
  chaos, the PCs will have a much easier time of separat-
  ing the members of the staff for whatever ends they
  have in mind.
  POLYHYMNIA
  20
  
  THE AFTERMATH
  This adventure can work out a lot of different ways,
  depending on what choices the contractors make when
  they come face to face with Pseudo-Cressida. They may
  have killed some or all of Polyhymnia’s staff. They may
  have delivered members of the gestalt to the Bureau.
  Polyhymnia’s staff may have gone into hiding after
  escaping from the party. The contractors may have
  turned on the Bureau and sided with Polyhymnia. Or
  they may have simply made a report to the Colonel, col-
  lected their money, and moved on with their lives.
  That last possibility is probably the only one that
  doesn’t lead to future complications. The Colonel will be
  annoyed, either that their report lacked depth or that they
  didn’t take any action to neutralize an apparently rogue
  AI. However, the report ought to be sufficient for the
  Colonel’s faction to win the argument within the Bureau,
  albeit not for the reasons they expected.
  If the contractors were responsible for the destruc-
  tion or disappearance of Polyhymnia, they may have
  made themselves some extremely angry, if not necessar-
  ily powerful, enemies on the Polyhymniac memenets.
  If they decided to help Pseudo-Cressida, either for
  its own merits or to help Hu escape his enslavement by 
  the Bureau, they may find themselves on Bureau 10’s
  enemies list, an unpleasant place to be.
  If they helped Hu join the gestalt, however, they
  may have gained a potent ally. A powerful memeticist
  with media clout and a healthy dollop of Chinese mili-
  tary intelligence is not to be taken lightly.
  POLYHYMNIA
  21
  ADVANCING THE GESTALT
  The entire gestalt will be fascinated by Hu,
  but not all for the same reasons. Jules will be
  looking at Hu as a source for new insights into
  how to shore up his AI support structure, while
  Charoen and the Assembly will be considering
  the possibility that Jules might be replaceable.
  Replacing Jules with Hu, or simply adding
  Hu to the mix, could produce unusual results.
  The main gap between Hu and the original
  Cressida is the lost memories, which the
  Assembly can largely supply in real time. On
  the whole, adding Hu to the gestalt might pro-
  duce something equivalent to a true ghost of
  Julian Cressida. Or, perhaps, something more.
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Transhuman Space (GURPS)/Transhuman Space Polyhymnia.pdf