Rache Bartmoss: the Netrunner Who Caused the DataKrash
Rache Bartmoss was the most famous netrunner of the old Net, the man whose viruses wrecked it in 2022. Here's who he was in the tabletop books, how he died, and the freezer V finds in the Badlands in Cyberpunk 2077.
Rache Bartmoss was the greatest netrunner of the old Net and the man behind the DataKrash, the 2022 collapse that killed it. He hated the corporations, spent his life running from their bounties, and left a set of viruses in the Net that went off when he died. In Cyberpunk 2077 he is a legend, and a body in a freezer. (Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk 2077)
Who Rache Bartmoss was#
Bartmoss is mostly a creation of the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop line, where two sourcebooks are written in his voice: Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net (1993) and Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout (1996). In the fiction, the netrunner Spider Murphy compiled them from what he told her. (Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net; Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout)
The Guide gives his life story. Born in 1992, he was running the Net at four years old, under his real name because he didn't know better, and was good enough by the time he realised the danger that it no longer mattered. He took jobs writing software for companies and kept turning on them. One firm that fired him had its systems fried within a week and went bankrupt, and he sold code he had written there for enough money that he never needed to work again. (Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net)
He met Spider Murphy when he was seventeen, trained her, and the two became close friends who ran the Net together for the fun of it. The Guide also notes he had no time for Johnny Silverhand, which makes Johnny's reaction to his body in 2077 a nice touch. (Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net; Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout)
The R.A.B.I.D.S. and the DataKrash#
Bartmoss planned his revenge years ahead. Cyberpunk RED says that in September 2014, when a new set of algorithms reshaped the whole Net, he slipped the R.A.B.I.D.S. viruses into it, set to go off if he died. They were meant to break open the corporations' data fortresses and spill their secrets. (Cyberpunk RED)
During the Fourth Corporate War he was drawn into the fighting. Firestorm: Stormfront has Militech ask for his help against Arasaka, and the digital ghost of Alt Cunningham persuades him to attack. RED adds that he tracked down the master program of Soulkiller. (Firestorm: Stormfront; Cyberpunk RED)
That got him killed. In 2022 his signal was traced and a corporate team raided the building where he lived. His death triggered the viruses, and they spread far beyond what he designed, wrecking most of the Net and freeing the AIs that NetWatch later walled off behind the Blackwall. The DataKrash page covers the damage. (Firestorm: Stormfront; Cyberpunk RED)
How Bartmoss lived at the end#
Bartmoss spent his last years hidden in plain sight. The 2020 books describe him living in a disguised cryogenic freezer with life support and a Net connection, in a building he had filled with corporate workers whose implants he had rigged to watch and guard him. Cyberpunk 2077 keeps the freezer. (Firestorm: Stormfront; Cyberpunk 2077)
The sourcebooks go further and suggest his body had already died around 2020 while his mind stayed on the Net, kept going by the machines. Brainware Blowout plays with this: he contacts Spider after his "death" so they can finish his guide. Treat the exact state he was in as one of the setting's mysteries. (Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net; Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout; Firestorm: Stormfront)
Rache Bartmoss in Cyberpunk 2077#
By 2077, Bartmoss is remembered as the mastermind of the DataKrash, and what happened to him is a street legend. Shards pick over his legacy, and NetWatch still brands him a criminal. (Cyberpunk 2077)
His freezer resurfaces in the side job KOLD MIRAGE. A shard explains that the contract for storing it ran out in 2075 and a courier firm dumped it in the municipal landfill in the Badlands. A strange signal, or a tip from the netrunner Nix, leads V there. Johnny, riding along in V's head, knows the body at once. Bartmoss's cyberdeck is still in there with him. (Cyberpunk 2077)
V can take the deck to Nix at the Afterlife. Nix thinks NetWatch probably killed Bartmoss and starts to decrypt it, but trips one of the traps Bartmoss left behind, and his implants start to cook him. V has to act fast, either cutting the power or jacking in to breach the deck. If V breaches it, Nix gets everything off the deck and thanks V with five quickhacks. (Cyberpunk 2077)
The landfill is a busy grave. The same spot holds the body of Dexter DeShawn, the fixer who shot V at the start of the story. (Cyberpunk 2077)
Frequently asked questions
- Who is Rache Bartmoss?
- A legendary anti-corporate netrunner from the Cyberpunk tabletop setting. Viruses he planted in the Net went off after his death in 2022 and caused the DataKrash.
- Where is Rache Bartmoss in Cyberpunk 2077?
- His body is in a cryogenic freezer dumped in the municipal landfill in the Badlands. V finds it in the side job KOLD MIRAGE and takes his cyberdeck to Nix at the Afterlife.
- How did Rache Bartmoss die?
- In the tabletop history, corporate agents traced his signal in 2022 and raided the building where he lived. His death set off the R.A.B.I.D.S. viruses he had hidden in the Net.
- Did Johnny Silverhand know Rache Bartmoss?
- Johnny recognises the body in the freezer straight away in KOLD MIRAGE. The Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebooks say Bartmoss didn't think much of him.
- What happens if you give Bartmoss's deck to Nix?
- Nix trips a booby trap Bartmoss left on the deck and starts to fry. V has to save him, and if V breaches the deck personally, Nix gets full access and rewards V with five quickhacks.
Sources
- BookRache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net, David Ackerman, Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, R. Talsorian Games, 1993
- BookRache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout, David Ackerman-Gray, Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, R. Talsorian Games, 1996
- BookFirestorm: Stormfront, Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook, R. Talsorian Games, 1997
- BookCyberpunk RED, Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games, 2020
- GameCyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red, 2020
Spotted a factual error or a primary source we missed? Email a correction. Every flagged claim gets reviewed.
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