Arcology Keys

The central maguffin of Session 1 — a set of access credentials described in play as “keys to the city”: they open and close doors, and just as literally open and close roads (“what’s a door but a closed road?” — Neon Drift). Originally Van Life’s, lost when the group was destroyed by Rest Easy Interstate Services years ago; resurfaced with Mara Sato, who was given them when she went dark. As of Session 3, the crew has them.

Known Facts

• Grant access to maintenance lanes, ramps, toll controllers, and restricted routes across the REIS road network — effectively unrestricted movement through Knight City’s infrastructure.
• The exploit these keys use was supposed to have been patched out by REIS long ago; it never was, which Van Helsing takes as a sign someone with pull wants it left open (possibly Camper Van Beethoven).
• Mara Sato received the keys (or a working copy of them) from a facial-recognition-obscured VYRAL official, not by stealing them herself. Confirmed in Session 2: they were payment, offered in exchange for retrieving a data stick from NSMC’s Under Sector tunnels. Mara’s framing: “I get to keep the codes and I get to leave.”
• They are expiring. REIS is actively cancelling them route by route as it finds them; Mara had spent the day dodging closed checkpoints, and expected them dead within about a day. Her urgency is entirely driven by this.
• Mara offered the crew a copy of the codes as payment for extracting her, and separately suggested they could sell them — demonstrating them on the routes that still work before a buyer figures out the rest are closing.
• Neon Drift’s interest is not resale: if Bullfrog could decrypt them into backdoor access over the road network, that’s “free reign over the road” permanently.
• Iona Glass’s job terms: recover Mara Sato alive, and the keys come back with her.
• The crew has the keys. They’re held by the crew as a whole, not by any one member. In Session 3 Bullfrog had “perfectly valid keys” and used them twice. First he opened an executive-access barrier into an upscale district of REIS Six (“a cyber gated community”), which Neon warned was a red flag in itself. Then, during the escape, “barriers come down, arms go up, lights turn green at the perfect time and red again behind you.” Mara had offered the crew a copy of the codes in Session 2.

Open Questions

• Are there multiple physical/digital copies, or is this the single original set Van Life lost?
• What does VYRAL actually want done with them / with Mara?

Appearances

• Session 1 — The object of the crew’s search; not yet recovered.
• Session 2 — Revealed as VYRAL’s payment to Mara Sato rather than a theft; confirmed to be actively expiring as REIS cancels them. Still on Mara’s person when she was handed back to Iona Glass.
• Session 3 — In the crew’s possession. Bullfrog uses the keys to follow Iona’s convoy through a gated barrier and to clear the crew’s escape route out of REIS Six. Still working, at least on those routes.