Chapter 5 -- Trouble on Two Fronts
SO MANY DICE TO ROLL
Outside PLC bathroom…
Dole is way past the fight or flight reaction. Fear of discovery and fear of execution are now a whisper compared to the roar of his blood rage. Dole let’s go…He let’s go of his worry his fear and his frustration. Dole succumbs to the blood lust that is pumping adrenaline through his veins. His only hope is that he can control himself like he did last time mid-transformation so that he doesn’t kill the rest of the team…they don’t deserve that…yet. His latest motto rings through the madness as he begins a primal howl: “A loose cannon is better than a cannon that is always pointed at the weak!”
But as his adrenaline surges, Dole takes another whack to the head, and he is unconscious… but not for long.
Ripp glances around quickly to see if anyone noticed, giving him another quick hit on the head to knock him out, though not quite as hard this time—she’s actively trying not to kill him. Since nobody has noticed, she then grabs him under the arms and pulls him back into the restroom. She quickly rifles through his pockets, finding the contraband white POD in exactly the pocket she suspected. It looks very much like an ordinary POD except for being white and a “uPad” logo on it. She pockets it quickly and then goes to get some water from the sink in order to revive Dole. She starts talking to him, “D-d-dole! Wake up! Y-y-y-you’re hurt!”
When she turns back to him however, he has changed. It’s still Dole, wearing Dole’s uniform with his ID badge and the YELLOW registered mutant stripe on it. But now he’s amazingly hairy—moreso than before. He has long reddish hair growing from every inch of his body (or at least every inch that is exposed). His face is freakishly elongated, and sharp white teeth protrude from black lips. Ripp has no context for this and is having trouble making sense of what she’s seeing. And then his eyes open suddenly—eyes that are bright YELLOW and full of menace.
Dole hears Ripp speaking to him, and his eyes shoot open. He is lying on his back on the bathroom floor, and he recognizes instantly that he is in hybrid form, because he can feel the adrenaline pounding. His head no longer hurts, and his mind is clear. Ripp is standing above him. She has clearly just come from the sink (the water is still running) and she has water in her cupped hands that Dole presumes she was going to throw on him. And she is clearly seeing Dole’s transformation for the first time, because the look of shock and horror is unmistakable.
PLC…
"Well, I don't think it's exactly my problem that one of your colleagues can't do their job correctly, I'm sure that something can be done to get us on our way and out of your hair" Power says with sugary tones, pulling herself up to look as tall and imposing as she can manage. "I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for hindering a mission that, apparently, the Computer thinks is pretty important"
The YELLOW clone is clearly thinking about this, when a different YELLOW clone behind him shoves a crate towards him and says, “Seriously? NOW is not the time, we got plenty of others.”
DocHall-Y sighs and produces several forms that are already filled out for Power’s request and says, “Yeah, just sign by X. Make sure you get all of them. There’s four forms there.” Power does so, and the team takes possession of their “crate.” It is made of heavy RED plastic, and looks for all the world like an oversized footlocker with a hinged lid that is held shut by numerous thick black zip ties. The crate is around 2 meters long and a meter wide and probably 60 cm or so high. It is light enough that one clone could lift it, but bulky enough that it will require two clones to move it effectively. Fortunately, it has convenient handles for that purpose.
Cue’s brouhaha…
Cue ducks behind the door and stays low as she crawls carefully over the firehoses and down the stairs. The steps are wet, but she thinks she can still move pretty quickly. She rounds the corner at the first landing and hears the shouts of clones following her and decides that with the handrails, she can move as fast as she needs to. She slips and wobbles a couple times, but surprises herself by keeping her feet under her the whole way.
Her pursuers are not as lucky. Cue can hear them bouncing off of each other and the walls, and there is a pained scream behind her as at least one of them takes a tumble at one point. She stifles her curiosity and decides not to look back just yet. At the bottom of the steps, she can hear someone… Soup?... shouting in the dorms, followed by the sound of laser fire.
Dorms…
Enn absorbs Sync's statement with surprise. He looks at her to grab her eye contact and points silently to the POD in his hand, letting her know he has been recording everything. He then makes the "take it easy" gesture with his hand, followed by a loud "HEY! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" for the benefit of the others.
Didjab barely gives Enn an annoyed glance before speaking to the whole team: "Simple job, clones--we go to the PLC, we get lightbulbs, and we replace them at the location I provided," He says. "We meet any resistance with firepower, and we get the job done."
Soup has only been barely paying attention to Didjab. Instead she addresses Enn, and says, “You need to learn to play nice, Sonny.” She then looks at Sync and says, "You are a sweet girl, but you need to be protected from the red menace." And with that she whirls on Preach with her pistol drawn, screaming, "Die Commie!" as she opens fire.
Soup gets off three shots right away, and in spite of her behavior, it’s clear that she’s good with the gun. But Preach’s compact frame is surprisingly quick—it seems he’s no stranger to a fight either. Soup’s first two shots go completely wide. The third catches Preach in the gut, but he’s angled himself so that it disperses harmlessly off his reflec armor.
This is the moment that Cue-R-IUS rejoins the team, coming off the stairs at a dead run not four meters behind where Preach and Soup are facing off. Cue shouts, “Incoming!” and with the door open, the rest of the team can now see three angry RED clones bounding down the last flight of stairs behind her with their pistols drawn.
ONE SIDED
Restrooms…
“OH HOLY FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!” Ripp screams
Ripp’s one hand goes to her laser pistol, but she doesn’t draw. She raises her other hand towards Dole, palm open and facing him, trying to calm him. A quick thought flits through her mind: Damn, I didn’t get a chance to make sure there was no blood on my truncheon.
“D-d-d-dole, y-y-you’re h-h-h-hurt, l-l-let m-m-me h-h-help y-y-you.” Goddamn stutter! she thinks to herself. She takes a deep breath to steady her nerves and says, “Someone knocked y-y-y-you out, I f-f-f-found you and b-b-brought you b-b-back in here to r-r-revive you.” All of this is technically true, just omitting the fact that she was the one that knocked him out and didn’t have to search far to find him.
Dole's eyes look crazed. He raises one arm, causing Ripp's hand to twitch on her gun, but then surprisingly, Dole presses his forearm to his bestial face... and bites himself.
And then Dole reverts to his normal, only slightly hairier than regulation, self. Gone are the fangs and black nose and YELLOW eyes. It’s just Dole, laying on the floor and looking panicked.
“Ripp! I’m sorry you had to see that. It’s part of my mutant power!” Dole says, indicating the Registered Mutant stripe on his uniform as evidence, “But I’m not allowed to tell anyone. The shape-shifting is a defense mechanism that I can’t control! It’s all rated GREEN clearance, and if anyone found out you knew…” he pauses as he struggles to sit up… “Well, I guess I don’t know what would happen.”
Ripp offers Dole a hand and helps him to his feet. Dole has a lot of blood matted in his thick red hair, and there is a considerable puddle of it on the tiles behind him.
PLC…
Nattied immediately begins directing his fellow troubleshooters to carry the case. "You there," he says, indicating Sev, "Take that side. And you, the little one,” Pow, presumably. “Take the other side. Now we're off!"
As he's directing this, Nattied works his way over the counter, elbowing in front of the next team in line. At the same time, he secretly turns on his POD for recording and leans in to talk to DocHall-Y-WUD. "So my esteemed citizens, what's going on? What is it that's so urgent? As a loyal citizen, I may be able to help. So tell me what's going on so I can know if I can help!"
And whispering to the YELLOWs: "These other guys on the team? I don't trust 'em. I mean, they can't even get the correct paperwork. Am I right? Of course I am! But me, citizens, me you can trust."
A piercing scream comes from the hallway in the direction of the restrooms. A female scream, followed by the same voice shouting, “OH HOLY FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!” at the top of her lungs.
LOUIE LOUIE
PLC…
Nattied shakes his head. "Emergencies and extreme pain are no excuse for language like that."
He points to his two teammates that he just ordered to carry the crate and says, “You two! Go investigate that.”
Power rolls her eyes. She was ready to give Nattied his moment, but he just doesn’t know when to quit. She's pretty relieved she didn't have to actually deliver on her threats to the YELLOW clone, and wonders what possessed her to even try something like that. Her frustrating interactions with that Nattied, she supposes.
Power says, “No. Sev… Pow… just get the crate and get out of the way here. Nattied… just don’t do anything. I got this.”
Power knows some of her own are in that restroom, and who knows what might be happening. She puts on a small burst of speed to get her there as quickly as possible without being obvious.
Restroom…
Breathing a bit easier, Ripp responds: “D-don’t worry, your s-s-secret’s s-s-safe with m-m-me. Let’s g-g-get you c-c-cleaned up.” Ripp helps Dole over to the sink. “W-w-would you l-l-like m-m-me (dammit!) t-t-to g-g-go g-g-get Power?” she asks. “Do you n-n-need any m-m-more help? A d-d-doctor? S-s-sorry about the s-s-stutter, it g-g-gets w-w-worse when I’m w-w-worried about someone.” She takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
Power’s tall, angular form bursts through the restroom door, her face a mask of concern. She finds a haggard-looking Dole slumping over the sink and washing his face, while a nervous-looking Ripp stands over him, one hand on Dole’s elbow to help steady him.
Dorms…
Cue jumps and rolls between Soup and Preach. "Whatever you're fighting about, forget it! It's not important! THAT'S our problem!" Cue points to the oncoming three clones.
Didjab pulls his own pistol and hunches down behind a nearby corner to get some cover. "Team! Suppress those other clones!"
He takes a moment to aim and goes for a headshot against one of the incoming clones. He takes two shots, the first catches a strangely portly clone high in the chest, and the next sizzles across the fat clone’s jaw. The wounded clone screams in an extremely high register and staggers back with a hand on his neck. Didjab drops back further, taking cover behind the next row of bunks and lockers, activates one of his explosive shells and chucks it toward the intruders.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Preach exclaims at Soup. Still turning, Preach moves in an arc towards the back of the room, knocking Cue to the floor, and placing Soup between himself and the three charging troubleshooters. In a fluid motion, Preach draws and returns fire on Soup, while coldly uttering, "You've been hanging around my fucking neck like a vulture; like impending danger." Somehow in the confusion, Preach misses with every shot.
Preach adds a small TK shove to throw Soup off balance and knock her towards the opposition clones.
Twisting and dodging, Soup backs away from Preach’s onslaught, and two RED troubleshooters charge off of the stairs right into her. This is accompanied by whatever Didjab threw exploding beneath them all. Soup and one of the other clones are killed outright (or apparently so, as they stop moving and their bodies fall to the floor). A second one has one leg shredded by the blast. She falls down howling as blood pours from the wound.
Cue is winded by the blast and her ears are filled with a cacophonous ringing.
Sync immediately retreats to the corner with her hands on the side of her head in a fetal position, and her laser pistol in her right hand. She accidentally shoots twice, not realizing the gun is in her hand. The blasts catch a bunk in front of Preach, lighting it on fire. She lets out a low groan of anxiety and closes her eyes tight.
Sync's "accidental" shot was fully intentional. Sync also throws a mental blast one of the fat RED clone with the neck wound.
The fat clone on the stairs suddenly sits down and slumps over. He is clearly breathing, but his eyes stare straight ahead, wide and unfocused.
Enn sees this as the perfect opportunity. He darts over to Sync and whispers, “We gotta go now,” and then grabs her by the arm and pulls her through a side door while everyone else is occupied. Once safely away from the fracas, Enn says, “Hold on. Gotta figure out where we’re going.” He pulls out his POD and starts punching stuff into it.
Enn is looking for a route to the local comm room where he can access the public PA system. He quickly finds what he needs, and his POD draws him a map. There is a restricted-access area off of a cleaning closet not too far away. An elevator there goes three levels down to the Comm Room. This surprises Enn as he had no idea there was anything below the dorm level.
LIKE FLIES
PLC Bathroom…
Power is relieved to see that, at least to a cursory glance, her teammates seem to be alive and whole.
Power goes to Dole's side. "What on Alpha Complex happened in here?! Dole, Ripp, are you two both ok?"
Ripp feels a little bit better now that there’s someone else present, just in case Dole discovers the POD is missing and that triggers another episode.
Looking at Power, Ripp takes another deep breath and says: “I c-c-came to g-g-get h-h-him. W-w-when he d-didn’t c-come, I came b-b-back to c-check on h-him. H-h-he was p-passed out on the f-floor outside, b-bleeding from his h-head. I b-brought him in h-here to help him c-clean up.”
Looking up at Power, Dole says, “Aww geez, I hope I’m not holding you guys up. Someone jumped me when I came out of my stall and the next thing I saw was Ripp coming in here trying to get me up. Thanks Ripp, I am glad you have my back. If you ever need help of any kind I’ve got your back”, he says with a knowing look. Surveying the restroom, Dole sees the blood (there is a largish pool of it on the tiles) and begins to worry. “Is that all mine?” he asks, a bit dumbfounded by the seriousness of the situation. “If I said I’ve had worse, I would be lying.“ Then looking to Ripp, he asks in a slightly nervous tone “Am I still bleeding? Can you guys patch me up, because I really don’t like doctors?”
For the record, it’s hard to tell with as thick as his hair is, but Dole does not appear to be bleeding anymore. Or if he is, it’s just seeping slowly.
“I am so tired, and…hungry???” Dole says. “I thought I had an energy bar here.” He looks through his bag and pats his pockets but comes up empty.
Actually, Dole is worried that maybe his attacker’s motive was theft, so he is using his hunger as a pretext to check his stuff. Nothing appears to be missing, until he pats that upper coverall pocket. The uPad! It’s gone! Dole most definitely feels the wolf coming on, urged into being by sheer panic, but doesn’t know if his body has the energy to pull it off again.
Power receives a priority text message on her POD, and she thumbs over it just to read the preview without actually opening the whole thing. It’s from Lou-B-JOB and reads, “Priority mission requires that Kay-R and Pow-R return to briefing room 2. They have been notified. The Computer has every faith in your team to complete this mission without their assistance.”
PLC…
Pow and Sev manage to carry the crate off to the side of the room, out of the way of all the lines and prying eyes. Nattied shakes his head. "How can Power not want to know what's in the crate? It could be contraband!"
He points to Sev. "Open the crate, citizen!" Sev looks doubtful, but there’s a sly gleam in his eye. “Maybe we should find out what we’re actually dealing with here.” And Sev sets about snipping off the zip ties holding the crate closed.
Simultaneously, Nattied, Kay, and Pow all receive text messages, and their PODs buzz in unison.
Nattied’s message comes from Dan-R-THR… his Alpha-Leaks contact… and reads, “OMG! Biggest. Story. Evar! Sources say that someone on your team has a WHITE POD device. Ultraviolet Clearance! Get your hands on that, and there’s no story we won’t have access to. The Find-My-POD feature’s been disabled, but we’ve got a guy sending signals to it every few minutes, so it should buzz regularly. There is nothing more important right now than getting your hands on that POD!” Nattied stares at the message for 6 more seconds before it erases itself.
Kay and Pow both receive a message directly from the Computer, “It has been brought to my attention that you are currently acting as a non-player character. Therefore, you will leave the area on some pretext, and remain ‘in the wings,’ as it were, until such time as your player decides to rejoin the campaign. A message will be sent to your team leader explaining your removal from the team.”
Kay says, “I’m supposed to report back to Lou-B in the briefing room, ASAP. Let Power know what happened.”
Pow looks surprised and says, “Really? Me too. I’ll walk with you.”
The two of them exit PLC.
Dorms…
Preach glances at the corner where the shots came from Sync, "You know what Sync... You're a mumbling, stuttering little fuck. You know that?"
Preach turns over the bench in front of him and hides behind it for cover, aiming his laser out towards the melee.
Didjab stays put, alert for threats. The wounded clone, Sync and Preach are all worth his attention. "Sync! Sync! You need to snap out of it!" he shouts, "Your team needs you!"
Didjab doesn’t see Sync at all. Potentially, she’s hiding under one of the bunks or something. He's keeping an eye on Preach, and will feed him a face full of laser if he threatens Didjab, Cue or Sync.
The clone with the shredded leg continues to occasionally burble, but is clearly unconscious and bleeding out. That leaves only the fat clone who is holding his wounded neck and crying and not threatening anyone.
Didjab walks over to the tubby clone, kicks him solidly in the solar plexus, and start interrogating him about why he was chasing Cue. "Talk you blubbering sack of cold fun! Who sent you!?"
Fatboy’s nametag identifies him as Al-R-GEN-2. His response is high-pitched and top volume: “It wasn’t my idea! I swear! Our team leader ordered us! Jenn-R! She did it!” His voice drops an octave and about two notches, but he’s still loud and shrill: “But your teammate was rifling through our clones’ stuff! She was looting bodies! She’s a thief and a traitor!”
With Didjab’s back finally turned, Preach sees his opening. He begins firing repeatedly on his team leader. And his first two shots catch Didjab square in the back, pretty much splitting the arrow, as the first one starts melting Didjab’s reflec, and the second lands right on top of it.
Didjab grunts and drops to his knees, spinning and returning fire immediately. They both just barely miss each other, with Didjab’s blast heating up some poor clone’s locker, and Preach’s landing centimeters away from Al-R, and startling the portly clone into another panicked scream.
Al-R begins crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees as the two clones continue to shoot at each other. Didjab manages to get Preach’s knee, just as Preach’s last shot nails the team leader in the face.
Didjab-R-ING-1 is dead.
Preach staggers over to Didjab’s body on his wounded leg and in a hoarse, crazed voice shouts, “TRAITOR!”
Preach looks around to note that Cue-R, taking cover behind a pair of lockers, is the only witness to his triumph. Al-R has rounded the corner at the first landing. Enn-R-GEE and Sync-R-SWM are nowhere to be seen. Everyone else is dead.
Random corridor…
Sync braces herself against the door, holding it closed in case anyone tries to open it.
As Enn continues studying his POD, Sync says, "Whatever you say, sir. Just, uh, lead the way."
Enn quietly instructs Sync to stay close and not attract too much attention. He takes off at a brisk pace, occasionally referring to a map on his POD. Sync follows quietly. She is actually quite stealthy.
After several twists and turns, they arrive at a janitorial closet. A janitorial closet with a BLUE door. Enn looks around, but this is a RED hallway, so the usual peon traffic is absent. A tiny scrub-bot passes them and enters through a bot-service door right next to door they are waiting at. It takes no notice of them as the little hatch closes behind it. Enn punches in something on his POD and waits.
He uses his pod to send a message to his "contact" requesting access to the restricted-access area. Now Enn prepares for the awkward waiting game. Enn slyly makes sure Sync stands in front of him in case somebody comes by. She'll be seen and possibly shot first.
After only a moment though, Enn gets some sort of response.
It says, “It’s already unlocked. Give it a shot.”
SCRUBBOTS
Dorms…
Preach is almost completely ignoring Cue. He’s on guard, with his pistol still raised and is surveying the room. He twitches and spins to face nothing. He ducks and looks around and under furniture. Still nothing. He’s clearly waiting for another boot to drop, and said boot is nowhere to be found… so far.
Cue stands up and surveys the dead bodies. She's a little nervous. "This is a big mess," she says to Preach. "Just so you know, that clone," Cue gestures towards AI-R-GEN-2, "is a liar." Cue regains confidence as she keeps talking "I wasn't rifling through anyone's stuff. All I did was look into why all that water was on the stairs, and those clones were busy covering something up. Maybe something big. We should go figure out what it was they were covering up." She’s already moving a bit towards the stairs while waiting to see if Preach responds.
Preach ducks down suddenly and quickly pats down Didjab's corpse.
Didjab has the standard Troubleshooter equipment… ruined reflec armor; a truncheon; a laser pistol with a spent barrel on it; a couple extra barrels; his now disabled POD; miscellaneous pencil and paper scraps; plus a handful of what look like shells for a slugthrower style gun… but Didjab has no gun. Preach pockets the shells quickly and leaves the rest.
To Cue, Preach says, "Cue, at least we’re safe now. The traitor Didjab-R-ING-1 is dead. And that clone that wrongfully accused you of treason is getting away. Would you like me to help with that before you go exploring again, or do you want to take care of the problem yourself?"
Apparently, from around the corner, Al-R can still hear them, and he gurgles weakly, “Dear sweet original programming… NOOOO!” and this is accompanied by sounds of intensified (but likely ineffective) scrambling away.
PLC…
Dole can’t lose control. Not now. Not here with more innocent people around. He worries that he would have no control over himself so he pushes the worry and anger about the uPAD out of his mind. Knowing he cannot tell everyone in the world all his secrets, he vows to kill whoever stole his uPAD when he finds them…but right now he needs to calm himself and focus. Dole tries to find some calming thought from his past, but comes up empty. There really hasn’t been a lot of calm in his life if this is what you call it. The best thing he can hope for now is some friendship. He latches onto that thought with everything he’s got. Ripp does not even know it, be she’s the only person he can trust and so far seems to be the closest thing to a friend he has. Thankfully, the beast retreats.
Looking to Power as some sort of authority, Dole tells her and Ripp, “I was hit from behind. Twice…I didn’t fall. I will be okay I think, but something is missing from my pack so we have a thief in our midst. Did anyone follow me when I went to the restroom? Was Sev with you guys when this happened?” he asks, “because I don’t like the way he looks at me.”
Dole sighs, believing that talking too much just makes more problems. Steeling himself Dole stands erect, grabs his gear and with every bit of his own version of a stiff upper says, “tis but a scratch.” Looking to Power he says in the most together voice he can manage “I’m ready to go. I’m all good I think.”
"It's ok Dole, we have our supplies, let's get you out of here and find you some water and something to eat" Power says, concern in her voice. She goes to put his arm over her shoulder the best she can and indicates for Ripp to do the same on her side. Just then she hears her POD go off. Upon reading the message she swears barely audibly.
"Why them?" she thinks, "Why couldn't it have been Nattied and Sev? Ah, well"
Ripp realizes that Dole knows the device is missing. Dammit. She was hoping she’d have a little more time. But either he truly is a moron and hasn’t put all the pieces together yet, or else he’s an incredible actor and is just lulling her into a false sense of security.
Now that he is standing, Dole’s beard and hair are noticeably longer than they were at breakfast. It’s only been an hour or two, and he was a little shaggy when they started, but now he’s grown another 2 cm of hair at least, and the red mane is starting to look positively freakish… like the haggard, primitive ‘lost clones’ that often feature in sci-fi and horror vids.
“L-let me look at your head,” Ripp says. Now that things are calming down a little bit, and she’s becoming a bit more “familiar” with Dole, her stutter gets a little bit better. She grabs a towel from the dispenser on the wall, wets it, and begins dabbing at the blood on the back of Dole’s head, helping to clean him up.
She turns to Power: “Y-y-you take this and c-c-clean him up. I’m g-g-going to notify f-f-facilities to come c-c-clean up this blood.” Ripp doesn’t really wait for a response, but forces the towel into Power’s hand and pulls her over to Dole. She then turns and heads out the door.
Once in the hall, she stashes the hijacked white POD device in an inside pocket under her left arm (Troubleshooter coveralls have an amazingly useful number of pockets), and then hearing chatter from PLC getting louder, she quickly runs her truncheon under the flow from the water fountain to clean away the most obvious traces of Dole’s blood.
Just then, a scrubbot approaches, with its mop bucket torso and multiple scrubber/sweeper/mopper appendages. Ripp accosts it and quickly says, “Clean up. In there,” and points. The scrubbot heads to the restroom without reply.
Ripp enters PLC.
Power looks at the towel in her hand and examines Dole’s head. It actually looks pretty good, and she tells him that. As they exit the restroom together, she leaves the towel on the counter and says, “Sev? You think? So… you didn’t actually get a good look at the guy? You don’t think you’d recognize them for sure if we ran into them again?”
A scrubbot is entering the restroom just as they leave, it’s scubber and mopper attachments poised and ready. It politely defers to them, letting them by before it enters to tackle that stain.
Dole and Power actually catch up to Ripp who is now standing in the entrance to PLC looking around for their team. Almost simultaneously, they find Nattied and Sev sitting with the equipment crate against the far wall, out of the way of the lines. Nattied is typing on his POD. Sev has a blade out and is cutting away the last of the zip ties that hold the equipment crate shut. Pow and Kay are nowhere to be seen.
Nattied is sending a message to Dan-R-THR: "Did he send a signal at exactly the same as you sent this? 'Cause 2 guys' POD's just buzzed." The response is immediate: “Not yet. He says the first one should go right about… “ Then there is a pause, and after 10 seconds a follow-up text arrives: “NOW.”
Ripp is approaching Sev and Nattied, with Power and a groggy looking Dole right behind her. Someone’s POD buzzes loudly.
Ripp can feel the purloined uPad buzzing under her arm and realizes it’s loud enough that others may notice. But it only buzzes once and then stops.
Nattied knows the buzz came from one of the three in front of him (Power, Ripp, or Dole), but has no idea which, and none of them is reaching for a POD.
The BLUE door…
Sync glances up and catches Enn's eye. She looks away immediately and approaches the blue door. With both hands she knocks on it with both hands equidistant from the center. She half smiles at Enn before grimacing and looking away.
After a pause with no response, Enn slowly opens the door and enters. It is a janitorial closet. And even though the door is BLUE, the interior is black (Infrared clearance) as would normally be expected. Two rows of scrubbots run along opposite walls—ten bots total—but they appear to be shut off at the moment. The back wall has shelves of what can only be assumed to be cleaning supplies. Enn refers to his map and walks over to what looks like a comically oversized rusted floor drain. When he grabs the drain cover and lifts, however, it swings smoothly and silently up on a hinge to reveal a ladder leading down and a faint blinking light several meters down the shaft.
"Hey..." Enn says to Sync, "Hide down there… you should be safe there. I'm just going to make sure the coast is clear."
Random hallway on dorm level…
Newly issued clones Didjab-R-ING-2 and Soup-R-MOM-2 find themselves unloaded from clone delivery unit in the middle of a random hallway that they recognize as being near the RED level rec-rooms on the dorm level. Didjab tries to ask, “My team?” to which the cart replies in a mechanical voice, “I have brought you to the geographic center of your team’s array of members. You’re welcome, citizen. Thank you for your patronage.” And it speeds away.
From here, finding their way back to the dorms, where their previous clones were last alive, should be a simple task.
As for equipment, the new clones are already suited up with all of the official equipment their previous clones had, as well as newly issued PODs containing all the info from the old ones.
Except for Didjab’s explosive shells. He clearly doesn’t have those.Statistics: Posted by Mike — Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:10 am
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