READY FREDDY
Expenda kneels near K-ROL, "I'm sorry Kay, I thought this would be easier. We'll get you righted soon." She then turns to Jeth, "I'm nervous. I don't like being where I don't belong." The infared threads a laser barrel onto her pistol, her hands shake slightly. "Your team needs you Jeth."
"TENSOR, tell me what portion of your maximum speed we're using now," she orders to the hoverbot.
Without sound or vibration, Tensor accelerates from a leisurely walking pace to a moderate walking pace. Tensor replies, “Affirmative. Maximum speed.”
They are crossing the field steadily. The rest of the team is no longer visible on the trail ahead.
On the trail…
Sinda rolls her eyes and gives Mal a sarcastic salute. Unfortunately she doesn't think he noticed.
She deliberately slows down, she’d rather just let the others be targets, and she finds herself scanning not the path, but the shaggy poles and the spaces between. She has an urge to run through them and see what havoc she can cause but she tamps down the urge...for now. She figures that if someone was under attack and wanted to hide something valuable, it's not gonna be on the path, or in a shelter or whatever. If it were her, she'd hide it in something unfamiliar but not expected. She may just have to skip away, with or without Barb.
Cadav, still getting used to getting around with one eye, is focused on not falling down as his depth perception is almost non-existent. He pauses every few steps and listens for movement hoping to hear something other than his own team. He also does a head count and checks on the rest of the team members he can see. (Mal, Phoenix, Sinda, Barb… plus the bots Wilt and VLaD. There is no sign of Jeth or the infrared stowaway.)
Catching back up to Mal, Cadav quietly asks “Do you think you can tell how many of them there are?”
Mal looks thoughtful for a moment and then points to the floor with his rifle. “Just one set of footprints.”
Mal moves forward a bit further, then crouches down and signals to the others to move a little closer and crouch down as well. Cadav, Barb and Phoenix all crouch down with Malcolm. Barb hangs back a little, with her eyes on her toes. Phoenix wears a goofy grin and is almost vibrating with excitement. Sinda is still a dozen paces behind and seems intent on examining something off to the right. Wilt is outside the huddle, but bends over so that the visual sensors above his barrel body hover above the rest of them, looking down into the group.
Malcolm throws a sneer in Sinda’s direction and decides to continue without waiting for her. With the others gathered close, he whispers to them, “There is some sort of building up ahead. Keep your eyes open and be ready.”
He then turns and continues moving towards the building in a low crouch, looking back to make sure the others are following. Everyone is following in roughly the same formation as before, except for Sinda, who IS following, but now at a much greater distance. Phoenix claps twice as he stands up and announces, “Abso…LUTELY ready! Let’s do this!” Only when Mal and Cadav whip their heads around to glare at him does he realize he was shouting. Phoenix tries to look apologetic, but he’s still grinning.
Up ahead, there is an immense banging noise as if something very large and metallic just slammed into something that was not metallic.
BANANA SPLITS
"Jeth," Expenda tries to get his attention. "Sir, we're getting behind. You stay here with Tensor and K-ROL. I'll run on ahead and get them to wait for us." She then hops off the side of the hover bot and sets off at a fast jog to try to catch up to the team. She's watching the woods ahead for signs of trouble.
"It's okay," Jeth calls solemnly after her, "we're on an important mission." He looks around, suddenly realizing that some of the group has gotten away, which explains Expenda’s departure, but... "But our equipment... we need it! Can we get any of these bots to carry things?" Jeth steps off the back of the hover-flat and heads back to the transport, to make sure no important items have been left behind. "Let me get the rest of it!" he calls back to Expenda and anyone else who can hear.
Pam turns to look over her shoulder, and sure enough, Jeth has hopped off of Tensor and is just about to the train car. However, she also notes that Tensor has picked up speed now that the two clones have hopped off, and it is just about keeping up with Pam as she jogs.
K-ROL (still on her side on Tensor and only a few meters behind Pam at this point) says, “I’m okay here, hon.”
Jeth rounds the corner of the train car and sizes up the situation, trying to figure out how to carry the most stuff. The crates are pretty big, and he’s sure he could get one of them, but not two. But then he spots a smaller, open crate still in the car. If he stacked that on top of a big one, this would be no problem. Jeth scoops up everything he can readily grab—if it looks like a weapon or a tool or food, he drops it into one of the two crates, mostly leaving behind the extra clothes and such when he runs out of room. He slaps a lid on the big crate, but doesn’t find the lid for the smaller one, so he just sets it on top and lifts the whole affair. It’s heavy, but he thinks he can still manage a fast walk for however long it takes to catch up to the hovery thing.
In the woods…
Cadav looks for cover, turns to Mal and the others and says “I‘m taking cover. That sounded very large…and metallic.” Cadav scurries into a crouched position behind some sort of thick, short greenery. He checks his pistol to make sure it is ready to fire as well as the rest of his gear.
However, at the loud metallic noise, Barb lost her footing in her crouch-walk and tumbled forward rapidly. She tries to get her feet under her but just stumbles forward until she falls onto Cadav. Cadav staggers a moment, but doesn’t lose his footing. Barb follows this with what she thinks is hushed but is a fairly loud, "SORRY! Sorry. Sorry sorry... sorry. So sorry." Cadav has been pushed forward into the green tangle of whatever it is, and finds to his dismay that it A) rustles very audibly and B) is very pokey and scratchy, leaving him with faint, not-quite-painful scratches on the exposed skin of his face and arms.
Trying to be both cautious and quick, Mal tries to ignore his bumbling team and semi-hurries forward towards the building, without waiting to see if the others are getting their shit together. Vera is up in a ready-to-fire position. Shortly, around a bend in the trail, the pole structures come to an end, revealing another clearing, although not nearly so large as the last. The path of compacted floor continues up to a building. The main portion of the building looks like two or three floors, and it is constructed of a rough, brown, unpainted material. It has a single, gray, steel door set in the side facing the trail. There are also what look to be windows, but they have more of that brown, rough material fastened over them, preventing access. On the side of the main building, there is an attached structure made of metal that appears to be intended for vehicles and/or loading, because it has a very large door on it (also facing this side) about four meters wide and almost three tall. It has handles at the bottom that look as if the door is one intended to slide upwards. All the floor within about a meter of the metal portion of the building looks to be poured concrete. Mal has been most concerned with what might have made that banging noise, and now he’s sure it must have been this large metal door slamming shut into the concrete floor.
Mal also notices that one of the white drones that were part of their mission equipment is hovering ten meters up above the clearing.
DUELING DRONES
Cadav tries to remove himself from the green pokey cables and then tries to help Barb to her feet. He looks toward Mal and whispers that he is going to help Barb, then he pulls out a notepad and quickly writes on it
“You have damaged hearing and you are shouting. Please do not yell anymore. There is something big and metal clanky sounding coming this way and I’m afraid you will give us away so let’s both be quiet and listen. I can barely see and you can barely hear, so let’s stick together and maybe we can be useful.”
He hands her the notepad and the pen.
She takes it and reads the note. Barb responds with a slow, confused blink and whispers, “Sorry.”
Cadav now checks his gear again making sure nothing was dropped and that his equipment looks to be in good order.
Mal ducks back behind the last of the pole structures for cover, and calls to the drone for give him a sit-rep and video playback of the most recent 60 seconds of security footage, to see if he can get a look at what might have gone through the large door. He turns on his AI charm power, hoping the little drone is able to deliver what he wants while outside the bounds of Alpha Complex.
The drone immediately drops to hover about 2 meters off the floor near Mal—just barely inside the clearing. Mal can feel the bot’s confusion as a tickling behind his left eye. A small video screen on its underside (mostly) lights up with a color video showing the green spreading tops of these poles. The drone’s camera was angled to record mostly downward and slightly ahead of its motion. Mal can see one or two points of red through the green that he assumes were his team. Then the camera pans rapidly over the building in the clearing, and Mal can briefly see a very tall, very thick white-clad figure in some sort of power suit standing inside the attached metal portion of the structure just before the door rapidly closes. The video has no sound, but all of that makes sense. The final closing of the door isn’t in the recording, because the camera immediately pans to the line of poles and the team standing on the path. It ends with Mal himself waving for the drone to come down.
The drone screams at Mal in a distinctly angry female voice, “What the fuck, man?! Are you seriously trying to…” but it is cut off by a burst of automatic gunfire coming from above it. The other white surveillance drone (apparently not purely for surveillance) is firing a slugthrowing weapon at its twin from above. At least one bullet hits its target, but the extent of the damage (if any) is not immediately apparent.
In Mal’s head, he feels the drone’s mind completely shut off. He no longer has any connection or influence with it.
The drone’s voice shifts and becomes almost whiny, “Whoa! Whoa! Truce, dammit. I got this.” And the drone begins to reverse away from Mal, but it wobbles as it does so.
[Behind the scenes: The two ultraviolets here each have control of one drone. The drones follow commands and provide extra eyes for the competitors (as well as some backup muscle if shit goes sideways). Realizing that her drone was going rogue, Medd-U-SAH-2 has commandeered the drone and is now running it manually.]
Phoenix charges past the rest of the team with his laser in one hand and his truncheon in the other. “It’s gettin’ away y’all! Apha Complex… FUCK YEAH!”
[Here I allow a moment to react. Mal is still on the trail just outside the clearing. Phoenix is two steps past Mal into the clearing. The drone is another two steps beyond that and accelerating. Cadav and Barb are in the bushes just behind Mal. Wilt is in the middle of the path behind them. Sinda is a ways back, but her attention definitely been drawn to the action.]
Meanwhile…
Pam nods in response to K-ROL and keeps heading in the direction she saw the rest of the team. She grits her teeth in frustration that she couldn't keep one Red clone on task for ten minutes. She gets to the treeline and the path where she saw the team disappear. Behind her, she can hear K-ROL saying, “Tensor dear, follow the infrared clone.” Tensor responds, but his voice is lost on Pam. Pam follows the path cautiously, and in moments, she can see Sinda. Sinda is standing in the middle of the path, watching something ahead of her. Pam can make out Wilt ahead of Sinda and then glimpse of red uniforms farther ahead through the trees. A female voice way ahead that she doesn’t recognize is yelling something angrily, but Pam can’t make out the words. This is followed by distant sounds of automatic gunfire. She can however clearly hear Phoenix shouting, “Alpha Complex… FUCK YEAH!”
Meanwhile, vol. 2…
Jeth hoists up the two crates. Even with his crooked blue arm, he handles it well. The arm seems to work fine and there’s no pain—it’s just a matter of getting used to the angle. He jogs slowly back around the car and slowly pans his gaze around in confusion, looking for any sign of his team. Finally, he spots K-ROL still lying on Tensor. They are just to the right of that path leading out of the area way across the clearing. Tensor seems to have bumped into one of the thicker poles. Tensor backs up a meter or so, and then moves forward again, bumping into the same pole. And then again. Each time, Jeth can see the greenery farther up the pole shimmy with the impact, and the effect is vaguely mesmerizing. Jeth’s never seen anything quite like it.
HANG IN THERE
Jeth pauses for a moment, enraptured by the shimmering green trim atop the pole. He jogs across the clearing to the path into the poles and greenery that Expenda had been heading for. As he passes Tensor and K-ROL, he calls for them to turn and follow him. "They're getting away!" he shouts. "This stuff is heavy."
Tensor replies in its gravelly voice, “Following.” And turns to do exactly that. K-ROL adds with an air of relief, “Oh, thank goodness! Stupid hoverbot won’t listen to ME, will ya?”
Jeth heads down the path in pursuit of his companions as quickly as he can manage, laden down.
With the rest of the team…
Cadav decides it is probably best for him stay put and crouches in the bushes alongside of Barb. He writes her a note that says, “It’s probably best to not get involved. How many drones did we bring?”
Mal also stays put, watching. He thinks Phoenix is an idiot and will wait to see if he gets himself killed, or at least provides an opening that Mal can take advantage of. The two drones appear to be the twin white surveillance drones that came with them on the train. Mal reaches out to the second one up above, but neither drone seems to have a mind. There is no consciousness that Mal can connect to to try to influence them. Knowing that the first one absolutely DID for a while is extremely disconcerting for him.
Wilt crouches down next to Cadav and Barb. The tall medbot asks Cadav, “You seem to have scratched yourself quite extensively on the… uh… stuff you are in. I have prepared some antibiotic spray for just such occasions.” Wilt raises his tool-arm which now ends in what looks like an aerosol sprayer attachment and aims it at Cadav’s face.
Phoenix prepares himself and makes a desperate flying leap at the white drone just as it begins rising. The leap is near superhuman, covering an amazing amount of ground before Phoenix actually manages to grab onto it. His pistol hand has found secure purchase on one of the four arms that extend out to hold the propulsion fans. Somehow, the pistol is still hooked around his trigger finger which is bent back awkwardly. The other hand is now free as he dropped his truncheon during the leap. Due to the extra weight, the drone tilts and begins lurching unevenly towards the tall metal garage door, even as it continues rising. The drone is clearly trying to miss the building, but it’s going to be a very near thing.
At the sound of gunfire, Pam gets off the trail and into the underbrush. She grabs a rock and lobs it to land about halfway between her and Sinda. Sinda looks around, startled, with her pistol swinging wildly around. There behind her, just off the path, is Expenda. That black-clad infrared looks like a fully geared up troubleshooter (except not in red), and she is waving for Sinda to come join her amongst the poles and greenery. Expenda seems anxious.
SUCKER
Mal will continue to monitor the situation to see what the drones and Phoenix will do, all the while trying to keep an eye on the building for any signs of an attack or other movement. He’s also looking for a way that might be best to approach the door of the building, and deciding whether he really wants to gain entrance. This side of the building has a single door on the larger brown portion of it, and several covered windows. The coverings appear to be nailed haphazardly over the windows. The metal portion has the large garage-style door.
A scared Cadav grabs Barb by the arm and yells “It’s the Med-Bot! RUN!” and he runs as fast as he can away from Wilt with Barb in tow, right into the clearing and towards Phoenix and the drone.
This clearing is not nearly so large as the last. The path of compacted floor continues up to a building. The main portion of the building looks like two or three floors, and it is constructed of a rough, brown, unpainted material. It has a single, gray, steel door set in the side facing the trail. There are also what look to be windows, but they have more of that brown, rough material fastened over them, preventing access. On the side of the main building, there is an attached structure made of metal that appears to be intended for vehicles and/or loading, because it has a very large door on it (also facing this side) about four meters wide and almost three tall. It has handles at the bottom that look as if the door is one intended to slide upwards. All the floor within about a meter of the metal portion of the building looks to be poured concrete.
The drone is wobbling, with Phoenix still holding one of its fan-arms. The drone manages to clear the metal portion of the building, but Phoenix does not. Dangling by one hand now, he does little more than flail about and holler incomprehensibly. The edge of the roof catches him in the middle of the back. There is an audible crack, and Phoenix releases the drone. The drone’s fan is twisted at an angle now, and the drone starts to flip end over end. It disappears over the top of the roof, but there is no sound of a crash.
The second drone remains hovering above the clearing, although it now rises up quickly to hover much, much higher than the top of the building.
Phoenix’s torso is draped over the slanted roof while his legs dangle over the side. His feet are easily four or more meters from the floor. A bubble of pinkish energy two meters across forms around Phoenix.
Wilt chases Cadav into the clearing with his sprayer attachment extended. “It’s just antibiotic spray, I swear! It only stings for a second! Now show me what a big boy you are, and maybe I have a sucker for you!”
Sinda, who was about to take off into the poles had been planning to use the others, and the drones as a distraction to explore on her own. However, having someone like Expenda (or Barb) by her side, might not be a bad plan. There’s commotion up ahead, and all of it sounds like bad news.
She looks at Expenda, and heads purposefully towards the other woman, moving at a pace that is more urgent than panicked. She doesn't want to draw attention to herself and learned long ago that looking like you belonged at a place often made you fairly invisible. Normally she does this by acting bored, annoyed, and/or aloof, but fuck, important and busy works too.
She lowers her pistol as she walks towards Expenda, to try to make her less anxious, but does not put it away. When she reaches the other clone she says, "You called?" In a slightly less annoyed than usual tone and raises her right eyebrow questioningly.
Expenda nods her head. She's holding her own pistol so it doesn't threaten Sinda. "Yes Ma'am, we're in danger," she says in her timid voice. "Out of sight, maybe we can shoot them first. Maybe we can find out where they came from."
Expenda waves at Sinda to follow her and then heads into the poles, angling to approach the clearing cautiously from somewhere other than the main path. Pam uses her stealth training to move toward the sound of combat and try to set up a cross-fire. She'll keep aware of Sinda in case the other clone feels like doing something stupid, like shooting her.
Sinda is amazed at how quickly and silently Expenda disappears into her surroundings, almost ninja-like.
Pam nestles in behind a tree at the edge of the clearing, well off to the right of Mal’s position by the path. The path they were on empties into the clearing off to her left, and she can see Mal taking cover behind another tree there.
Jeth, still carrying his crates, gets far enough down the path that he can see some of his team. Sinda is off to his right, off the path and among the poles. She is watching something farther away that Jeth can’t see. Up ahead, the path turns a bit, and Jeth can see a flash of red uniforms and hear Cadav yelling, “It’s the Med-Bot! RUN!” He sounds panicked. Jeth clearly sees Wilt’s tall robot form moving very quickly to chase whoever’s uniform that was (probably Cadav).
Tensor is moving agonizingly slowly down the path. It keeps bumping into the poles, but is still following. K-ROL still lies silently on the hover-flat’s platform.
BAD OMENS
Sinda spots Expenda up ahead, crouching behind a tree at the edge of the clearing off to the right. Trying not to appear too eager, Sinda eventually strolls up beside her, trying to stay behind cover without looking like a dork. VLaD still hangs on to Sinda’s shoulder. He hasn’t moved since she placed him there, but still makes occasional comments.
Cadav, armed with his pistol and seeing Wilt gaining on him, releases his grip on Barb’s arm and continues to run as fast as possible. He banks to the right and runs around the right end (where the metal portion of the building is), doing all he can to avoid Wilt’s “help”. Barb stumbles and falls to the ground on the concrete in front of the metal garage-style door, directly below Phoenix’s dangling feet. Wilt leaps easily over her in pursuit of Cadav shouting, “Hold still, citizen! You don’t want those scratches to get infected!”
Around the corner, Cadav reaches the backside of the building with Wilt only a step behind and pulls up short, because there’s someone there. It is a figure entirely clad in white—which in Alpha Complex would indicate someone of ultraviolet rank, the high programmers. The figure is well over two meters tall and extremely bulky in what could be described as some sort of thickly padded haz-mat suit. It’s not that, but that’s the general size and shape of it. The figure’s face is hidden behind a black visor. There are no markings on the suit at all. The figure is facing the other way and is carrying a very large firearm of some sort. It is bulky and long, and two thick, flexible metal tubes run from the sides of the of the weapon to a backpack the figure is wearing. Hearing Cadav and Wilt round the corner, the figure immediately swings the barrel of the weapon around to face them.
[The pause here for your response is the moment just before the barrel is lined up with your position.]
With Vera in a readied position, and ignoring Phoenix, Cadav and Barb, Mal moves in a quick crouch towards the door of the building, watching for any movement behind the window coverings. Mal ends up to the right of the door, making sure to stay below any windows. He listens at the door for any obvious noises, trying to see if there are any gaps around the edge of the door that will allow him to see into the room for possible movement, but no such gaps exist. Slowly, he reaches for the doorknob to see if it is locked.
The moment he grasps it, he is violently electrocuted and dies instantly. But for the witnesses…
Holding the knob, Mal’s body suddenly goes rigid and begins to tremble violently. After what seems like a full minute, but was probably much shorter, Mal releases the doorknob and collapses. A shell of pink energy surrounds his fallen form.
"This is bad," Expenda whispers to Sinda, "real bad. It looks like Phoenix is dead. Malcolm is dead. Cadav and Barb are in trouble. Jeth said he was going to get more supplies. What do we do Ma'am?" It's obvious that she's just barely holding her composure against overwhelming fear.
VLaD says, “Oh this is juicy then. I loves a plan.”
Pam activates her memory erasing power at a very low level. She's going to be doing some things that an Infared would never do here in a few minutes. For the moment, she's going through her equipment and planning to make a move toward the house that will minimize her risk of fire from the snipers that might be hiding behind those window covers.
Jeth watches Sinda disappear through the woods and decides to keep to the path. Better for Tensor that way. When he reaches the end of the path (with Tensor and K-ROL still following), he finds himself on the edge of a clearing. This clearing is not nearly so large as the last. The path of compacted floor continues up to a building. The main portion of the building looks like two or three floors, and it is constructed of a rough, brown, unpainted material. It has a single, gray, steel door set in the side facing the trail. There are also what look to be windows, but they have more of that brown, rough material fastened over them, preventing access. On the side of the main building, there is an attached structure made of metal that appears to be intended for vehicles and/or loading, because it has a very large door on it (also facing this side) about four meters wide and almost three tall. It has handles at the bottom that look as if the door is one intended to slide upwards. All the floor within about a meter of the metal portion of the building looks to be poured concrete.
Barb is out there by the building. She’s laying on the floor in front of the big sliding metal door, she is working to regain her feet. Above her, a red clone lays motionless with its torso on the roof and its feet dangling over the edge some four meters over Barb’s head. The red clone (maybe male? Cadav or Phoenix?) is surrounded by one of those pinkish energy bubbles. Similarly, Malcolm is laying on the ground in front of the door to the brown part of the building. He is also motionless and also surrounded by a pink energy bubble.
I’LL TAKE THAT BET
Wilt is in the middle of shouting, "C'mon, take your spray! And I've got lots of flavors of suckers! Red, blue, lime... everyone loves lime!" and projectile shooting lollipops at Cadav - without the wrappers, of course – when he spots the white-clad figure, Wilt stops immediately behind Cadav. He whispers to Cadav, "Twenty credits says this isn't going to end well." Two suckers get stuck in Cadav’s hair, and one to the back of his uniform.
Cadav, however, drops prone on the ground with his hands over his head and fingers interlaced just as the strange white clone pulls the trigger. Wilt is immediately covered with a burst of burning liquid. The docbot is wreathed in flame.
Wilt realizes that several critical systems are overheating, and to his dismay, his internal safety measures start spraying coolant all over his pharmaceutical reserves before ministering to Wilt’s primary functioning. He tries to override it, but his positronics immediately shut down to prevent permanent damage. Wilt is functionally inoperable.
The white clone swears loudly in a male voice, “Oh goddamit! Just a fucking bot! C’mon! Recharge! Recharge!” The clone aims the gun down at Cadav and is impatiently banging the side of it.
Cadav is confused as to why the ultraviolet clone is here and wonders if the entire trip is a set-up.
[Gamemaster note: It is.]
Expenda goes through her pack. Unfortunately, she didn't grab any of the 'outdoor' gear and only has the troubleshooters' basic kit. (There is the infrared POD, but things are not yet that desperate.) Putting things back in place, she risks another good look at the structure and the clearing, but nothing jumps out at her. Expenda asks VLaD "do you have any sensors outside of visual? We need intel on the structure."
VLaD replies, “Oy! If only! My job is just hunting for anomalies inside ductwork. So do they give me nightvision? Radar? Sonar? Of course not! Why would VLaD need any of that when he has a perfectly good flashlight?” VLaD’s sarcasm module seems to be working perfectly.
"One thing we're not doing" Sinda says in a low voice to Expenda "is going anywhere near that building yet.” She studies the scene again quickly. “Well," she whispers "there's nothing we can do for Malcom and Phoenix anymore."
"If I even wanted to," she adds mentally.
"And Wilt is probably actually helping that idiot Cadav more than they realize," she continues, "probably safe to assume Jeth is off dead somewhere too, which leaves the three of us and Barb. VLaD, can you get close enough to Barb to speak to her at a relatively quiet tone, and tell her to crawl towards us? I don't want you stepping foot...er...claw, whatever onto that platform. I also don't want any unnecessary attention on any of us."
Sinda is agitated: pissed and scared at the entire situation and finding it hard to stay in control. She wonders in any if this shit is flammable. A fire here would not be good at this moment. Especially as she wasn't sure Expenda wouldn't out her as a mutant at a moment's notice to help herself. Although, it did always come on handy as a distraction. Sinda isn't sure what she'll do if and when Barb makes it to a point where she can meet up with them. She pulls out her POD, ensures it's on silent and turns it on, hoping it will give her some guidance, even the arrow from before. Anything to tell them where to go to get the blasted POD and get the fuck out of there. She would worry about getting it to the Leopards after her ass was safe back inside.
VLaD, still on her shoulder, says, “Oh! Funny story about that. It seems I can’t move my limbs since the impact back at the train. K-ROL says she can patch me up, but she’s laying on the side with all my parts. Of course!” Pause for effect. “Told you it was a funny story, right?”
Jeth is scared by the sight of all the pink bubbles and hurt clones. He wants to help Barb, but first he digs through the gear he's carrying, looking for something he can use to keep the med-bot at bay if it really has gone haywire. He sets the crates on the hover-flat next to K-ROL in order to search through them and quickly comes up with a heavy sledgehammer with a thick rubber head. Jeth then goes to pick the crates up again and realizes ponderously that maybe they’re just fine on Tensor. He heads over towards Barb, telling the bots to follow him. "Follow me again. She needs our help, hurry!"
Jeth enters the clearing from the main path. He holds a large, heavy sledgehammer in front of him, ready for anything. The Tensor hover-flat follows Jeth slowly. K-ROL is laying on her side on Tensor, along with two of the equipment crates. Jeth is clearly headed towards Barb.
Before Jeth can reach her, there is a faint whistling from above, and a 2-meter diameter sphere of pink energy drops from the sky and slams into Barb who has just recovered her feet. Barb is crushed quite messily, and the concrete beneath her body cracks from the impact. The energy field disappears, revealing Phoenix-R-ITE-4, who is now sitting in Barb’s pulpy remains. Phoenix blinks to get his bearings when a new energy bubble quickly surrounds Barb’s corpse, with Phoenix still inside it.
LIGHTNING NEVER STRIKES
Cadav reasons that this obviously ultraviolet clone will be impervious to his lasers, so instead he unsheathes the long stiletto blade from his truncheon handle as he lunges toward the white clad aggressor. The white-clad clone’s attention is occupied watching the weapon recharge, which Cadav can now hear beeping slowly. Cadav easily dives in under the napalm-hurling device (or whatever it is) and slashes at the clone’s thigh.
Where the blade contacts the white exo-suit, it leaves a deep purplish stripe across the surface of it, almost as if Cadav had painted the material with his blade.
The clone feels the contact and jumps back. He looks down at this purple mark on his suit and says, “Seriously?” He raises his hands up over his head, one of them still holding his weapon, now aimed at the sky. The weapon buzzes, causing the clone to look up at it and repeat, “Seriously?!”
Cadav continues stabbing at his opponent, but the blade never penetrates and instead just slides off harmlessly. Cadav’s attacks don’t leave any more marks on the suit.
With his hands still raised, the clone says, “Fine!” and suddenly disappears. Cadav detects a faint odor like burnt chocolate.
Out front…
Phoenix sits in the bubble with Barb’s body, realizing he is trapped. “Aw HEL Sector, man! Somebody help me outta here!”
Jeth is confused. There’s too many hurt/dead teammates here. At least Phoenix seems safe in that bubble. Jeth saw Wilt disappear around the far side of the building, so that’s where he goes. If that docbot really has gone crazy and the rest of the team is in danger… well, best not to think too hard on it.
Coming around the building, Jeth finds Wilt standing still, and Cadav laying on the ground in front of him. Wilt’s torso is so hot it is almost glowing. Jeth can feel the heat emanating from the docbot from a couple meters away. Cadav is holding a long knife and is facing away from the bot. Cadav appears confused, but unhurt.
Jeth says, “What happened? Are you okay?”
Pam is confident that Phoenix and Jeth never saw her or Sinda. With Jeth running around the building, Pam sees her opportunity. She uses Jeth’s distraction as an opportunity to strike Sinda at the base of the skull hard enough to stun her, causing the other woman to stagger momentarily. She then spins the barrel off Sinda’s laser pistol, which falls to the floor, and runs off across the clearing, following Jeth while hopefully staying relatively out of sight.
She pauses at the back corner of the building. Ahead of her Jeth has stopped running and is standing next to Wilt the docbot. Wilt’s torso is hot enough to be glowing slightly. Wilt is standing still and Pam notes that he has no lights lit up. Cadav is laying on the ground in front of the two of them. Cadav is holding a long stiletto that he seems to have drawn from the handle of his truncheon, and facing away from the other two, looking confused. None of the three of them are looking in Pam’s direction as she peeks around the corner.
Sinda has a moment of fuzziness. She suddenly feels as if she just woke up. The back of her head hurts, but she is still standing in the same spot she was before, VLaD still perched on her shoulder. She notes that the pistol in her hand no longer has a barrel on it. Glancing down, she sees the red barrel laying at her feet.
In her ear, VLaD is in the middle of talking, “…you like that. Hey! You should maybe go after her? Hello? Citizen?”
A whistling noise from above marks the arrival of another pink clone-delivery bubble. With horror, Phoenix looks up and sees that it’s headed straight for him. He screams and flinches and puts his arms up uselessly. Surprisingly, the incoming bubble slams into the bubble that covers Phoenix, and then bounces off into the sliding metal door next to him. The huge sheet of metal buckles inward at the impact, causing the bottom corners to pull upward, leaving substantial gaps underneath.
The energy bubble disappears, and Malcolm-R-NLD-3 slides down the newly dented door to land on his feet on the concrete. The impact knocks the body of Phoenix-R-ITE-3, which had been hanging from the roof and now falls on Mal and knocks him to the floor. Mal is shaken, but does not appear hurt. The Phoenix body rolls to one side and lays there on the concrete surrounded by its pink protective field.
Mal finds himself on the concrete in front of the metal portion of the building. Right next to him is the bubble containing the dead clone of Phoenix-R-ITE-3. Right next to that is another bubble containing a squished and pulply-looking dead red clone, and sitting in the clone’s remains, also inside the energy field, is a very alive Phoenix-R-ITE-4, who waves at him in a resigned fashion. To his right, at the front door of the brown portion of the building, Mal spots yet another bubble containing his own previous clone. None of the rest of the team is in evidence at the moment.
From the perspective of those out back…
From the front of the building there is a horrendous noise like the wrenching of metal. The boom of it reverberates through the building, causing the outside walls to visibly vibrate for a moment.
CLOSE CALL
Cadav sheaths his knife looking around for whatever it is that’s burning and turns to Jeth speaking breathlessly “I was trying to get away from Wilt, then when I rounded the corner there was an Ultra-violet clone trying to napalm me, but I ducked. I couldn’t even scratch them. It was purely in self-defense you know…” Cadav keeps his distance from Wilt.
Cadav spots Expenda peering around the corner of the building with a laser pistol leveled at his head. His eyes go wide in horror, but too late.
From cover, Pam shoots Cadav in head. Cadav spots her at the last moment and his eyes go wide, but he is dead soon enough. Pam doubts his memories will include this when he returns. 'Nobody is going to sneak around with hidden weapons but me,' she thinks to herself.
Ginning up some tears and rubbing her face so she looks like she's been crying, Pam tucks her laser into her belt behind her and steps out where she can be seen a moment later.
Expenda comes running from around the corner, wailing. "Oh! Thank Friend Computer I found you!" Expenda's tear-stained face splits into a wide grin when she sees Jeth. She runs to him (kicking the stiletto away from Cadav's corpse) and hops up onto the big clone's chest, wrapping her arms around his neck like a child. She blubbers into his shoulder, obviously terrified by all the violence. "You have to get into the structure! Malcolm said so!" Then she drops to the ground, seemingly embarrassed at her display of emotion and physical contact. With her eyes cast down, she waits for Jeth.
A pink protective energy field rises up to envelop Cadav’s corpse.
A beat later, the Tensor hover-flat comes hovering around the corner and parks itself next to Jeth. K-ROL still lays awkwardly on Tensor’s flatbed. Two equipment crates are on the vehicle with her. K-ROL asks, “Oh my! What happened to Wilt?”
On cue, Wilt lights up and swivels his head around. “K-ROL! I got broiled!” Wilt’s self-check reveal that everything seems to be in working order, except for his arms. The tool-arm is fine, but his grasping/manipulating arms report bearing failure and warn that any attempt to use the arms may result in permanent damage. He radios this report directly to K-ROL who replies by radio, “Get me back on my wheels and I can fix that in a jiff.”
In the woods…
Sinda is confused and angry. Angry at Phoenix for squishing poor Barb. Angry at Mal for his shitty attempts at “leadership.” Angry at Expenda for disappearing again. And… where DID she go? And how the hell did her laser barrel jump off her pistol like that?
Careful not to spill off the immobile VLaD, Sinda squats slowly and thoughtfully, picking up her laser barrel while trying to sort out whatever in HEL Sector is going on here. A glance tells her the barrel is still full and unfired, so she screws it back on to her pistol, and steps cautiously out into the clearing.
Mal glances back at Phoenix momentarily, then sprints over to his previous clone to recover Vera and his other belongings. As soon as he touches the body, the protective energy field disappears. With Vera slung over one shoulder, and his LASER pistol readied in his right hand, he rummages through the dead clone’s pockets with his left hand to retrieve the rest of his gear, including his brown wrist band. He quickly checks the body for any signs of what caused his death. All the while, he keeps alert, glancing around to watch for anyone, friend or foe.
The only clue his a stripe of burned flesh across one palm of his clone-brother’s corpse. He guesses that he probably tried the handle on the door, but it was electrified. He glances at the doorknob and is satisfied that it probably was the culprit. But it doesn’t really matter too much. With the substantial gaps he saw open beneath the large sliding door, he has decided he will make that his point of entry. So after confirming (or debunking) his hypothesis, Mal will head back towards Phoenix and the large sliding door, where he will plan to lay on the ground near one of the gaps, keeping his body behind cover, and looking through the gap to ascertain what threats are past the door.
Mal gasps in panic as he gazes into a large room with six of the bulky, white-suited clones inside. He immediately realizes that these are just empty suits, but the momentary adrenaline rush has his heart hammering. In the dim light, it looks like this is some sort of storage/maintenance area, with large machines, hoists, hoses, tubes, extra parts, etc.
Mal also quickly realizes that the greatest danger is actually behind him.
Barb’s new clone-delivery energy bubble drops from the sky barely a meter behind Mal and just a couple steps from the bubble where Phoenix waits patiently. It hits the corner of the concrete and shatters huge chunks of it, kicking up a small cloud of dust and debris. Coughing and hacking uncomfortably, Barb-R-RAA-2 stumbles out of the dust and inadvertently walks into the bubble around Phoenix.
The energy immediately disappears, and Barb is horrified to realize that Phoenix is sitting in the middle of the squished and pulpy remains of Barb-R-RAA-1. Phoenix looks extremely relieved to be free, and by way of thanks, he winks and points at Barb-2 and says, “Hey!... Don’t lose your head!”
Sinda watches all of this from about 20 paces away.
[RETCON: Should have been in the last move. Through everything else that happened, the hoverflat Tensor (a large hovering flatbed-bot) floated slowly across the clearing and around the building. The maintenance-bot K-ROL was laying on her side on Tensor’s flatbed with a couple of equipment crates next to her. Tensor and its load are now out of sight.]
OUTBACK
Sinda glances up trying to figure out how to get some sort of sign to Barb-2. She can't think of anything that won't also get the attention of that moron Phoenix. Sinda figures that pompus ass is the last one she wants hanging around her. If she didn't already want to end him for landing on Barb, just his damned hair would make her want to blast his ass.
"Ok, VLaD, we're getting the fuck out of here. Right now." She starts running as quietly as possible back into the poles, trying not to dislodge the little bot. She tries to formulate a plan as she runs, sending sparks and fire in the wake of her panic. All she can come up with is trying to circle round the back of the metal building structure and seeing what the deal is there. It's better than nothing and she can always adjust her course on the fly. As she runs, she hisses to VLaD, "OK bot, I'm gonna need you to tell me what happened with me, Expenda, and my blaster. I seem to have blacked out or something for a hot second when what's her name got smashed into neatloaf" She'll have to figure out some way to get back to Barb later, if she and VLaD make it to later that is. Sinda scans the thicket of whatever these are for Expenda as she runs. She knows she can't trust Expenda, but figures that finding her is at least a goal.
VLaD says, “It was pretty nifty, doll. She whacked ya upside the head with a billy club, then spun the barrel off your laser, neat as ya please, and then she was off across the clearing like a jack-o-bot while you just stood there grinning like she just told you ya won the sweepstakes. She got some moxie, that one.”
Sinda peers though the poles from the back side of the clearing, and sure enough, there’s Expenda standing behind the building, looking all soft and weepy. She’s with Jeth and Wilt and K-ROL. K-ROL is still lying on her side on the Tensor hover-bot. Jeth is just staring around looking dumb. The bots aren’t moving. This side of the clearing is closer to the building than the other. Sinda’s maybe 20 paces from Expenda and the others, but still (she thinks) fairly well hidden.
VLaD whispers, “K-ROL’s asking Jeth to help her stand up. Her tool arm’s trapped under her. I don’t think that sack of lug-nuts has any clue what she’s talking about.”
In the front…
Phoenix immediately starts gathering his gear from his dead clone as he starts asking, “First things first… is everyone oka…” He trails off when he finds his comb. “Oh dammit! My hair!” He spends about 30 seconds combing some goop into it before finally saying, “No really. So is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt? Do we have some sort of plan?”
Meanwhile Mal is spending this time shimmying underneath the bottom edge of the sliding door, on the side where it looks to have pulled up the most. He does his best “belly crawl,” like he had heard the military guys talking about, then moves along the inside wall of the building. This whole metal add-on building is just a single large room. The suits seem to be some sort of powered exo-suits. Three of them look to be complete from the outside, although it is hard to see where one would get into them. The other three are in various states of disassemblage. Huge pieces of each are missing, although it is hard to tell if they are being repaired, just being built, or are being stripped for parts. All six suits have dirt and varous types of scorch marks on the outside of them.
On the far side of the room are two large metal bins with various suit parts. Not all of them look to be of the same type as the ones Mal is looking at. On the back wall are racks of various tools.and other sundry component pieces. On the wall where Mal is there is a door that seemingly leads into the main portion of the building. There are no other doors or windows. The ceiling is high and peaked with just the skeleton of a set of rafters supporting it all.
Barb is also gathering her stuff and scanning around her for any sign of the others—especially Sinda. She doesn’t spot anyone but notices some kind of sparks or maybe small flames in the poles past the edge of the clearing. They come in small flashes that seem to be moving around the edge of the clearing and to the back side of the building.
Out back…
Expenda looks from Wilt to K-ROL to Jeth, waiting on orders. "We ought to find Malcolm," she says, wiping away tears and a runny nose with her sleeve.
Pam is using this time to carefully look at this portion of the structure, trying to see where Ultraviolet clones might have gone in. There is a back door on the brown portion of the structure, and more boarded up windows, but no other way in to the metal addition to the building. Pam keeps clear of Cadav’s corpse is stays aware in case his new clone comes crashing down near here.
Jeth is merely looking confused. K-ROL finally says, “Jeth, sweetie? Citizen? Is there any way you can do ol’ K-ROL a favor and help me sit up here?”
When Jeth turns to look at K-ROL, Expenda quickly picks up Cadav’s truncheon with its secret stiletto inside and tucks the whole affair into her uniform.Statistics: Posted by Mike — Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:32 pm
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