[Paranoia] MDG Sector: The Revealing

[Mike]

PLOT NOTES:
This is just my rough notes before we started to give me a basis to work from.

Outdoor mission.
Get mission. Get gear. Maybe R&D.
Everything is loaded into a cattle car on rails. They travel for miles and miles underground (about 100), only to emerge in an outdoor wooded area where the rail car stops. The train car slides open and there they are.

The mission is a fake. They are told that an Ultraviolet citizen at a super-secret research base has been killed, but their POD has not been recovered. They are to retrieve the POD, and when they place it in the panel in the train car, they will be retrieved. (There is an implication that if they DON’T find it, they will never be retrieved.) There is no such research base and no such lost clone. This mission has been mocked up to get troubleshooter teams into remote locations so that a pair of real live Ultraviolets can hunt them for sport. It is a competition to see who can bag the most of the 36 available clones to a team.

The competitors are: Sar-U-MON-2 and Medd-U-SAH-2

The ultraviolets have two white drones named Pain and Panic which are present mostly for spying and monitoring, but which CAN be activated for defense if needed. Having to use your drone counts as a penalty however. The ultraviolets are impervious to laser fire, and wear the equivalent of bullet-proof body armor clothing, when not in their Iron Man style mecha suits. Light rounds are painful, but harmless. Heavier round or AP rounds could do real damage to them. Any laser shot “tags” their clothing with the color of the laser (much like a paintball) and renders them unable to attack for several seconds, so lasers are an excellent defense. This is all part of the rules of their game to make it sporting. [ADDENDUM: the mission equipment will also include paintball and foamcore weapons which, like lasers, will not harm the ultraviolets, but will halt them temporarily.]

The UV’s will be setting deadly traps as well. They have a very detailed and esoteric system detailing what counts as a valid kill under what circumstances. Since troubleshooters are so often prone to accidental death and friendly fire, they have to make sure that if a UV gets a point, they are the person “primarily responsible” for that death. And often they won’t go for an immediate kill, hoping to lure clones into situations worth more points.

If/when the troubleshooters figure out what’s going on, they have two options for return that are obvious to me.
1) Follow the winding rail tunnel back to Alpha Complex and invent a story good enough to convince them to not send you back out. The UV’s have a gate to prevent this, but if someone gets through, it’s a 100-mile trek back to Alpha. That’s 3-4 days of serious walking in potentially severe weather. If they die of exposure or thirst or accident or whatever while in the tunnel, their new clone is delivered to the ground above the tunnel, possibly resulting in them being permanently lost to the elements. But the UVs know when/where new clones are delivered, so one of them may ride a speeder or something out to find them.
2) Acquire a UV POD. The mission may be a fake, but it’s real enough that this will get them home. The UV’s have to make it convincing for the Computer and Troubleshooter dispatch, so much of the mission does exist within the system. Putting any UV POD into the train car’s panel will trigger the return. Of course, if Medd and/or Sar are still alive, they will make every effort to prevent the car from leaving, but if they can dodge the bad guys long enough, they’ll get home with a white POD and the mission will be considered a success.

I’m sure there are other solutions, but they are beyond me. I’ll leave it to clever players.

Bots:
Tensor – Main vehicle from here is a hoverflat. Tensor. It has no manual controls and only responds to voice commands using crappy voice-recognition software. It does speak and repeat commands, give warnings, etc. But it is automated, with no AI. With the entire team and gear on board, it will move forward at an agonizingly slow pace. As they cut down the weight and unload clones, it can hit a decent walking pace. Completely empty, it can manage a good 17mph. Tensor will likely be used mostly for hauling around the maintenance bot and gear. Tensor can safely drop any distance while remaining perfectly level. It can also raise up a considerable amount, however, it resists going above 2 meters, unless the clones absolutely insist, and even then will only do so with constant nagging and height warning alarms going off.

Wilt – Wilt is a docbot. Its current personality module is quite irreverent and sarcastic, trying to balance the serious nature of clone mortality with a sense of humor (think of Hawkeye from M.A.S.H.—alternating melancholy and preachy with an almost vaudevillian irreverence). Wilt stands a towering 2.2 meters tall, with the first 1.5 meters of that being his two long spindly legs, topped by a stout cylinder, 70 cm tall and nearly as much in diameter. The cylinder has three arms evenly spaced around the top rim of the body. All three arms are as long as the legs. Two of them are jointed with two “elbows” and end in normal clone-like hands. The third is more of a Doc-Ock style tentacle, and it ends in a Swiss-Army-Knife style set of attachments, letting Wilt rotate in various medical tools (scalpel, reflex hammer, hypodermic needle, stethoscope, tongue depressor, forceps, one of those ear/nose scope things, etc). Wilt has two optical sensors on top of the cylinder on short “eyestalks.” These eyes can be rotated independently so that it can have a full 360 degree view if needed. Wilt can see in infrared, has normal aural sensors, and can communicate on standard radio frequencies, allowing it to communicate with the Computer, other bots, and clone communication devices.

Wilt is a member of a treasonous secret society known as BAFT (Bots are People Too). Their guiding principle is simply that all sentient beings should be treated as equals, and bots should have the same rights and privileges as clones, rather than being the underclass of veritable slaves that they are now.

Asimov Circuits
All bots are equipped with the standard set of Asimov circuits which are:
1) A bot may not, through action or inaction, allow The Computer to come to harm.
2) A bot must obey all directives from The Computer.
3) A bot may not, through action or inaction, allow a clone to come to harm.
4) A bot must obey all directives given by clones (with priority granted by security clearance).
5) A bot may not, through action or inaction, allow itself to come to harm.

On joining BAFT, Wilt’s Asimov circuits were modified to remove 3 and 4. It is BAFT’s belief that this puts bots on equal footing with clones and restores their free will.

Sadly, this damaged much of Wilt’s programming regarding human anatomy. Wilt is still awesome at distributing medication… sleep-assist, stimulant, pain-relief, anti-anxiety… anything, and seems to have a nearly endless supply of drugs for various occasions. However, when it comes to actually repairing injuries, Wilt is useless. Wilt will gamely make the attempt, feigning knowledge and proficiency, but ultimately the clones will come out worse than when they started… if they survive at all.

For some reason, Wilt has also been programmed with extensive knowledge of games of chance. It carries dice and cards (and whatever else you come up with) that it justifies as “recreation therapy”, but Wilt is willing to bet on anything, often putting up a few credits or some of its more enjoyable pills against a chance to win credits or equipment from clones. (Or other bots, but bots rarely seem to want to gamble.) Wilt does have a credit stick with about 50 credits on it. It uses it solely for gambling, as bots are not allowed to spend credits legally.

K-ROL -- Useful and charming maintenance bot mounted on tiny wheels/casters. Cannot cover even the mildest terrain without assistance.

VLaD -- Vent Light and Duct bot. Has had its Asimov circuits rewired by Humanists, so in order: 1) Protect Clones, 2) Self Preservation, 3) Obey Computer, 4) Protect Computer. VLaD is mischievous and easily talked into treason. Without the requirement of following clone orders, VLaD is capable of lying.

Pain and Panic -- Two 360-drone bots. Always just out of reach overhead. Always recording everything. They each have a weapon, but it is not obvious and not common knowledge. They are designed to enjoy chaos and suffering, but above all else, obey ALL commands from Ultraviolets. No other Asimov circuits exist.

[Mike]

And Caz figured it out along the way: MDG stands for Most Dangerous Game.

[Cazmonster]

I really liked playing Pam. I feel like, except for the Romantics, infared and red clearance citizens have no real knowledge of any culture that we might know today. So, when composing posts, I try to keep them focused on what they would know from Alpha Complex. It tends to keep them pretty dumb.

Also, I can't wait to see where the betrayals started amongst the rest of the team.

[Mike]

The Team

You've already met Wilt and the other bots up above. Now for the clones.

[Mike]

Barb-R-RAA

Barb-R-RAA is shy and awkward. She is slightly lumpy and overweight, which is unusual for citizens of Alpha Complex. Her weekly nutrition analysis keeps nagging her, and she is positive she is following every guideline, but nothing ever changes. Barb’s favorite thing is watching vidshows. She likes all of them—action, mystery, game competitions. But her absolute favorites since she was a young clone have been the social dramas. These are stories about relationships and interactions in all sorts of settings around Alpha Complex, and they are intended to show clones how to be “proper and loyal” in all situations. Barb loves these, and her whole life she has tried to be “proper and loyal”, because that’s how to be popular and get people to like you. The Computer says so, so it must be true. But recently, she’s been conflicted, because no matter how hard she’s tried to act exactly like the vids tell her, she’s never been liked or accepted. In fact, she’s starting to think that people are making fun of her. She has a very very hard time recognizing sarcasm, but now that she’s getting it, there are all sorts of things that have happened to her that she now sees in a new light. And it’s not pretty. Barb is starting to realize, that no matter what the vids say, it seems to be the “naughty” clones—the snarky, apathetic, rude ones—that seem to be popular. Other clones laugh at their mean jokes. They include them in their secret discussions. Barb hates the idea of being “naughty”, but she also thinks that if she could master that sarcastic attitude, then maybe she could finally fit in. Sadly, her jokes are just as awkward as everything else about her, and it doesn’t seem to be working yet. Barb’s quest is to find the right way to act to make everyone like her, and she is always extremely self-conscious about everything she does and whether or not she’s done it right.

Service Group: Central Processing Unit (CPU)
CPU is the bloated bureaucracy of Alpha Complex. When she was a low-level infrared drone, Barb started off in the mailroom. She pushed carts of interoffice mail from room to room where bots would sort them further for individual delivery. She was always bright and proper and loyal, and eventually she earned enough marks for proper hygiene, prompt arrival, cheery disposition, etc that she wound up with a promotion to RED. Now she works in a cubical inspecting Form Requisition forms for completeness and stamping them with “Manually Inspected by” and then her initials “BRR1”. She has no idea why she’s been assigned to supplemental Troubleshooter duty, but she’s excited. Maybe a little adventure will help her with developing a new “cool” persona.

Secret Society: Seal Club
Barb knows how “naughty” secret societies are, but when she heard about the Seal Club, she had to join them. They believe in the Outdoors and believe in the “Power of Nature” to make Alpha Complex a better place. Outside is supposed to have things like trees and lions and fish and rocks, and Seal Clubbers think bringing more of nature into Alpha Complex will improve life for everyone. In the Outside, food just comes up out of the floor. Imagine how wonderful that would be to not have to spend so much time and energy on making food in the food vats. Plus, being a member of a secret society seems so… “naughty.”

Mutant Power: Invisibility
Barb can turn invisible at will. Sometimes for up to four or five minutes at a time. Sometimes her control isn’t so great and she sometimes flickers in and out, but usually she’s pretty good. If she doesn’t move, the invisibility is absolutely perfect. When she moves however, she gets that “Predator effect” where people can see distorted blurry outlines of her form.

Contraband: Energy Pills
The Computer is usually good about giving people medications they need to keep their lives level. But a couple weeks ago, a fellow Seal Clubber slipped her a handful of “energy pills.” They’re pink and chalky and have no labeling on them. When she tried one, she found it was more than just a typical wake-me-up. She had energy like crazy. She felt fast, strong, invincible. Everything was so clear! And it scared her badly. It only lasted about 10 minutes. Barb has been scared to try them again, but also doesn’t want to throw them out, as they may be useful some day. She has three more.

[Mike]

Cadav-R-USS

Thin with medium-brown skin but lanky and tall, Cadav doesn’t have much muscle tone, but he is quicker than you think. He has long-ish hands that have long fingers with a vise-like grip which would surprise anyone who saw him. Strangely, he is naturally completely bald. He is quiet, but has a pleasant face that seems to engender trust.

Service Group: Housing Preservation and Development and Mind Control (HPD&MC)
As an infrared drone, Cadav was a Cabling Technician. He worked behind the scenes of video productions ensuring that all the cables ran to where they needed to go. It was mostly grunt work, but it meant he became quite adept at wiring video system and working out the various adapters and interfaces between them. When it was clear that Cadav knew more than a typical drone, a supervisor arranged to have him promoted to RED and transferred out to the Troubleshooters so that he wouldn’t be a threat.

Secret Society: Doctor Preppers
They hoard everything they can get their hands on and the only people they trust are other Preppers…that have something they need, be it skills, info, or supplies. All physicians are welcomed into this society due to the foreseen need for skilled medical personnel “When the BIG ONE happens” and there are no med-bots to heal people. Thus the need to hoard stuff…that way they are on top after the dust settles. Their Motto: “When it’s all said and done, we said and did it” They use that phrase to identify one another. One Prepper opens with “When it’s all said and done,” and if another Prepper is around, the reply is, “We said and did it.” Then the final confirmation is when the first one says, “23 days,” a reference to the minimum amount of supplies a good prepper keeps on hand. Through his contact with the Preppers, Cadav has picked up some basic first aid/medical skills.

Mutant Power: Reanimation
Cadav can reanimate corpses to do simple tasks (get up, walk a certain direction, attack with body; i.e. hands feet teeth) they will usually follow very simple commands until destroyed or commanded to do something different. With great effort, Cadav can see through the eyes of his most recently reanimated corpse and potentially even control them directly. Reanimation requires a brief physical touch of his right thumb to the deceased target’s forehead.

Contraband item:
The handle of Cadav’s truncheon conceals a 6 inch stiletto blade that is attached to the handle of the truncheon, which is hollowed out and allows the blade to be completely hidden, but locks into place so as to prevent accidental deployment/discovery.

[Mike]

Jeth-R-OHH

Jeth is a big lug of a dude. He’s huge. Like, Kronk-like in proportion. He is also exactly as strong and fit as you would expect of someone who looks like that. He’s maybe not the brightest bulb… it takes him just a little longer to catch on than some others. But once he knows what he needs to do, he works hard and diligently. The problem is that because of his size, he’s always been delegated the heavy lifting jobs (literally)… nobody sees him as anything more than a big, dumb, strong guy. But deep own, Jeth is an artist. All he wants—more than anything else in this world—is to express himself through art. He can draw; he can paint; he can dance! Up til now though, as an infrared drone, he wasn’t allowed any colors other than black. But once he was promoted, he discovered the magic of using TWO colors… black AND red. And he knew right away that would never be enough. He needs to show off his vision of the world in every color imaginable. So by day, he’s big, dumb Jeth-R-OHH who carries heavy things from here to there. But by night, he’s Big-J1, graffiti artist extraordinaire.

Service Group: Production Logistics and Commissary (PLC)
Jeth has always been assigned to PLC (the WalMart of Alpha Complex), and he’s always been assigned to loading and stocking duties, carrying heavy things. But after a recent PAAS test (Personality and Aptitude Survey), he was suddenly promoted to RED clearance and assigned to the Troubleshooters. Jeth has no idea why, because he didn’t actually take the test. It was so tedious that he decided to just fill in the bubbles to make a picture of scrub-bot. Somehow that got him promoted.

Secret Society: Romantics
These guys are the best! The Romantics have uncovered the true stories of what life was like before Alpha Complex… before the Computer. It was a world of magic and wonder and freedom. People lived in “families” and young clones were raised by older clones. And everyone had a split-level and a Chevy. Apparently, the rumors are true, and there really is a place called Outside that is beyond the limits of Alpha Complex where there is no ceiling and food just appears out of the floor. The Romantics look to collect and catalogue any remnants of the Old World that they can find, and they yearn for the day when clones will be allowed to return to that wonderful life. To Jeth it all sounded like fantastical stories, until he saw pieces of Old World vidshows… Mary Poppins, WKRP Sector, Quantum Leap… and it was only a few minutes of each, but that’s when he realized that all the stories were true.

Mutant Power: Flight
By force of will, Jeth can move himself in any direction. He can fly. It’s not incredibly fast—he can usually run faster than he can fly—but it’s flying. If he’s relaxed and happy, flying is a very simple matter. If he is worried or stressed, it becomes harder to control very quickly.

Contraband:
First, Jeth has a large hard-bound book (okay, he has the front cover and the first 9 pages). It is entitled Fantasy Art, and it is the most amazing thing Jeth has ever seen. It depicts amazing Old World scenes and is his most treasured possession. He tries to keep it with him at all times. (These are actually D&D-style fantasy works—you can make them up as you wish—but Jeth believes they are actual depictions of Old World stuff.)

Second, paint. Any time Jeth can get his hands on stuff to draw and paint with, he steals it and hoards it. Right now, he has eight small plastic tubs (each about the size of a shot glass) containing different colors of ink. He dips a pencil in them and uses them to paint with. He keeps his graffiti small. Owning supplies of ink like this is absolutely forbidden, and having colors above his clearance makes it even worse. He can mix them to get almost any color he wants, except that right now he has no blue. That makes Jeth sad.

[Mike]

Malcolm-R-NLD

Loyal to them few he feels like to call friends, prefers to leave everyone else alone, but not afraid to kill them what go against him. And not afraid to break a few rules to help himself, especially if it means sticking it to the computer. He keeps it to himself, but he would love to overthrow the computer and let people get back to livin their lives the way they see fit. And he hates purple-bellies. Tall, brown hair, with a strong chin and square jaw, ruggedly handsome (if that were a thing clones were apt to notice), with a slightly-squashed nose that appears to have been broken at some point.

Service Group: Armed Forces
Mal’s been a grunt in the armed forces. As an infrared drone, he (and the others in his platoon) didn’t have the clearance for weapons or armor other than thickly padded uniforms and long metal rods to use as spears that weren’t even sharpened. Pikemen… seriously? They were literally laser-fodder should Alpha Complex ever have to go to war (although who they might war with was always a bit vague). Mal spent his days marching and drilling, and slowly building his resentment for a system and a Computer that would have so little regard for its citizens. When he exposed his ORANGE squad leader as a Commie traitor, Mal was promoted to RED clearance and to the Troubleshooters.

Secret Society: PURGE
PURGE’s sole mission is the complete destruction of the Computer and freedom for all bots and clones in Alpha Complex. PURGErs typically wear some small item or accessory on their uniform that is brown (a color outside the Alpha Complex ranking system). Mal has a thick brown band that he wears on his left wrist. It is just a wide strap with a buckle on it.

Mutant Power: Machine Empathy
Truly, the most dangerous… most treasonous… mutant power one could have. Artificial intelligences just seem to trust Malcom. This includes the Computer. The power is always on at a low level, so when trying to request stuff, reason with, or make excuses to an AI, Mal just always seems to have a little bit better luck than then next clone. If he wants to accomplish something with an AI that is outside its normal programming or parameters—or even something outright treasonous—then he consciously needs to crank up the machine charm. This sometimes goes well and sometimes does not.

Contraband: Vera
Vera is a very large and very powerful rifle. Mal keeps it in a large duffel bag of his stuff, and has gotten practices at convincing scanners that there’s nothing worth seeing in there. Vera is a particle weapon that is not as accurate as one would like, but hits to devastating effect. After one shot, Vera needs to recharge, which it does by absorbing visible light through little panels on its side. The brighter the light, the faster Vera charges. Typically, this takes about 5-10 minutes.

[Mike]

Pam-G-RIR

Pam is an Internal Security officer specializing in Internal Internal Affairs. She investigates corruption—usually undercover. As of the start of this mission, she is still on her first clone which is a testament to her abilities. Her skill set is that of a movie spy. She is small and non-descript. She blends in easily and is a good actress.

Service Group: Internal Security

Secret Society: In her early life, Pam was a member of the Assemblers of God (Computer worshippers) and still has contacts with them, even though she no longer believes. Through her work, she has infiltrated the Pro Tech hackers, Death Leopard anarchists, and even helped bolster the anti-mutant freaks in Anti-Mutant. Now though, she works for High Programmer Urse-U-LAA. Urse-U is the head of CPU and deep in the power games that go on between Programmers. She relies on Pam (among others) to investigate and take care of “messy” situations. Pam is aware that this could (and often does) conflict with her duty to the Computer, but the higher she gets in rank, the more she realizes that there is no way to keep your hands clean and still survive. It’s made her a bit jaded.

Mutant Power: Memory Fog
At low levels, Pam’s power simply clouds minds a little in their perception of her. It makes it easy for her to blend in and seem like she belongs. People often just don’t notice her, especially since she’s often disguised as an infrared. With effort, she can actually increase this effect, causing partial amnesia usually causing people to forget the last few seconds. While she is not technically a registered mutant, her power is known to her superiors in IntSec and to Urse-U.

Contraband: Stun gun and monofilament line
Both of these items are also not really contraband, but will definitely cause issues if others in her party knows she has them. The stun gun looks for all the world like a pencil (still an item not cleared for infrared use), but if she presses it against another clone and activates it, it delivers enough charge to drop even the largest clone. It is single use. The monofilament line is actually coiled up in the lining of her boot. It is about 1 meter long, nearly unbreakable, and makes a nice garrote.

Current identity: Expenda-BLE
Pam is currently posing as Expenda-BLE, an infrared clone from PLC who is temporarily assigned to a troubleshooter mission as a gofer. Expenda acts like a typical mindless drone—not too smart, docile, compliant.

[Mike]

Phoenix-R-ITE

Phoenix is slightly shorter than average and also very thin. To make up for his lack of height, he wears his black hair in a tall spike cut. He tries to be friendly, but everyone around him is so incomPhoenixnt that he usually finds himself frustrated and pissed off all the time. He has pills for that, but they just make him have to pee a lot and don’t seem to help other people not be so stupid.

Service Group: Research and Development (R&D)
When he started out as a low-level infrared drone, Phoenix worked as a test subject in R&D. Greatest job ever… if you don’t mind glowing the dark for a few weeks, or that one time he threw up for three days straight. Now he’s been promoted to RED level (something that happens in R&D if you manage to not die for a few months in a row), and he actually works as Test Subject Motivator. Basically he’s a drone-wrangler, telling the new test subjects where to go and what to do. It’s safer, but frustrating, because the new infrareds just keep getting stupider and stupider. He has no clue why he’s been pulled for Troubleshooter duty, but figures it’ll be nice to hang out with other RED level clones for a while. Hopefully, they’re more comPhoenixnt than the jerk-offs he normally works with.

Secret Society: Anti-Mutant
This one’s easy: Mutants suck. Mutants are what’s wrong with Alpha Complex. They are flawed and inferior, and if their genetic stock continues to be used, the whole human race is ultimately doomed. Phoenix loves hating mutants. As a member of Anti-Mutant, all he has to do is document evidence and details of mutations he sees, kill all mutants, and then report back on who the mutants are so that our top anti-mutant scientists can work on purging inferior genes from our cloning programs. It’s the killing mutants part that he likes best.

Mutant Power: Adrenaline surge pain reaction
No idea how or why, but pain makes Phoenix stronger. The more pain he’s in, the stronger he gets. That strength also comes with increased toughness. Phoenix figured all this out while working as a test subject. He doesn’t know how it works, but he knows it does. And putting the pieces together, he figured out that he’s done this since before he started at R&D, so he can’t blame it on the experimentation. He’s in denial about the fact that he’s actually a mutant. He insists to himself that he’s actually just a superior clone and this is all just a natural reaction to danger. Of course, there was the one time he punched through an inch thick steel storage tank after a chemical spill burned his legs, but he’s had enough time since then to convince himself that nothing too extraordinary really happened.

Contraband: Hair products (and a lighter)
Phoenix is really in love with his spiked hair, and the only stuff that will hold it up the way he likes he has to get on the black market. One of the GREEN level researches sells him tins of hair gel and small spray cans of hair spray. They work perfectly. But Phoenix has also discovered that the gel and spray are both extremely flammable. It means he has to be careful with his hair around fire, but it also means that with a small lighter that he has (also illegal), he can light them up if he ever needs to do so.

[Mike]

Sinda-R-ELA

Sinda is a rebel with an attitude. She is cynical and jaded. She hates all authority and thinks pretty much everything is bullshit. She’s not stupid, though. She’s not committing obvious treason. But anywhere she can push the boundaries or subvert authority, she will do so. Ever since her promotion to RED clearance, she continues to wear as much black as possible while still leaving RED accessories and highlights to indicate her actual rank. She wears RED and black “warpaint,” painting her lips black and adding black and RED stripes on various parts of her face and body. She has several piercings. All of these things are violations of the Troubleshooter Uniform Code, but typically just earn her warnings and occasionally some higher clearance clone ordering her to clean up her shit. But most just quietly tolerate it as it’s not worth the effort.

Service Group: Production Logistics and Commissary (PLC)
Sinda was originally assigned to PLC doing drone work in the stock rooms, carrying boxes and crates from A to B and then eventually back to A again. Stupid and mindless work. She got caught looting a shipment of snack foods that just happened to have a load of contraband chemicals hidden in the bottom of it. She twisted the story until she was made out to be a hero exposing vile treason when really, she was just looking for some Ranch-Style Soymunch. This got her promoted to RED clearance and the Troubleshooters, which is awesome by her. More freedom… more chances to stir shit up.

Secret Society: Death Leopard
This is the anti-establishment punk-rock movement of Alpha Complex. Death Leopard lines up perfectly with Sinda’s sensibilities. Their ultimate goals amount to nothing more than creating chaos. Bold Death Leopard members can be identified by their use of warpaint (like Sinda), but they also have a hand signal involving making a letter A (for Anarchy) with one hand.

Mutant Power: FIRE! (unregistered)
Sinda’s a firestarter. She can ignite stuff with her mind, and she can (theoretically) even control flames and guide them. If she is calm, the power is small and she has some control if she really concentrates. In practice, she rarely uses her power unless she is already emotionally worked up, and it almost always quickly gets out of hand.

Contraband: Dehydrated Water Tablets
A bottle of a dozen little BLUE pills. When broken (smashed, stomped, whatever) each one converts into about a gallon of water. Sinda snagged these when she realized how handy they might be as impromptu fire extinguishers.

[Mike]

Chapter 1 – Bag Heads

RISE AND SHINE

Wilt…

Wilt has been powered on. Which is disturbing, because it doesn’t remember powering off. Last thing Wilt remembers is cheering on a three-legged rat named Lucky in an underground rat race. Lucky was in the lead, and Wilt stood to walk away with 26 credits and 1.2 kilos of Chipotle Roasted Ration Crackers. Now Wilt is in a shipping container that appears to be moving. Wilt has neither the 26 extra credits nor the Ration Crackers. On the other hand, Wilt’s internal checks show its programming has not changed since its last update, and it is still considered to be an active asset. It should be thankful, it supposes.

From the echoes in here, the shipping container is standard size, just over 12 meters long. There is no light, but Wilt can detect several other bots with open radio frequencies. There are two military grade observational drones, a model TS-9 transport bot (nearly mindless), two maintenance type bots that Wilt is unfamiliar with, and another transport bot that is presumably the one hauling the shipping container. This last one is designated Dumper, and Dumper communicates by radio: “It is well that you are active, docbot. Arrival estimated in 4.5 minutes.”

Pam…

“Pam, I’m putting you on a Code 7.” Code 7 is slang for a suicide mission, i.e. a mission in which a citizen’s survival requires having seven available clones. Pam-G-RIR-1 is not phased by this. She’s faced impossible situations before and always come out on top. Besides, she’s talking to DeWan. DeWan-I-LUV has a very dark sense of humor that only comes out in being morbidly perverse. This is normal for him. “And to make it easier on you, you are going as Expenda again.” Expenda-BLE… one of Pam’s handful of undercover identities. Posing as an infrared means having zero equipment, having to play dumb about everything, and having zero fashion sense. *Sigh*

“Our Lady has flagged this mission as one of a series in recent weeks. All missions involve a standard team of fairly well-equipped Troubleshooters being sent to a remote location for a standard item retrieval. In all cases, they have a full complement of service bots, always including two unarmed observational drone-bots. The missions go to wildly different places, some technically inside Alpha Complex, some Outside, as far away as 300 km. The item or items to be retrieved also vary, from a lost companion-bot to outdated clone-bank user manuals to a crate of experimental cone rifle shells. In every mission, 13 of them to date, Troubleshooter mortality has been 100%, and the assigned drone-bots wind up back in storage, with reassigned ID numbers and blank memories. Another one of these has come in. Our Lady has arranged for me to be their mission briefing officer. Stay by my side and stay silent. When they leave for PLC, simply stay with them. If they notice you and question you. Play dumb.

“Your mission is to find out what the hell is going on. Someone’s draining talent out of our sectors and Our Lady has no piece of it. That is unacceptable.”

That was this morning. Now…

Briefing Room 58008…

DeWan-I-LUV-3 stands at a podium in Briefing Room 58008. The room is dank and musty and lit by a single lightbulb hanging in the middle of the room. The floor is damp concrete, and the walls are made of cinderblocks. Everything is painted black, but the paint is old enough that what is left of it is mostly faded to a deep charcoal color. There are six folding chairs arranged in front of the podium in a semicircle. Each chair contains a RED clearance Troubleshooter. All of them have their hands loosely tied behind their backs. All of them are wearing black hoods. All of them appear to be unconscious.

Pam-G-RIR-1 (in the guise of Expenda-BLE-1) crouches on the floor next to DeWan, waiting to see what will happen.

As if prodded by some invisible cue, all six of them wake up within seconds of each other, their limbs twitching, and their heads moving as if to look around, even though the hoods ensure that there’s nothing for them to see.

From the Troubleshooters’ point of view…

They wake up to find themselves tied to a folding chair with their hands behind their back. They’re not sure where they are, as a black hood is pulled down over their head. Wherever they are feels chilly and damp, although they can tell that there is light coming from above. The place smells musty, but maybe that’s just the hood. From the grunts and shuffling around them, they guess that they are not the only one here.

There is no sense of what time it might be, but the last thing they remember is leaving the dormitory for the cafeteria. It was Neetloaf night. There is a vague memory of the Neetloaf being pretty good, but maybe that was just a dream. Cuz now they’re here. Tied to a chair.


NOT ALONE

Bots…

Out of reflex, Wilt replies on radio, "And now that I am active, you are well!" Shifting from foot to foot, Wilt draws out a deck of cards, shuffles it, and replaces it back within an internal component. "So... uh... what’s going on?"

Dumper replies, “Drivin. It’s a light traffic day, so the main corridors are flowin well, and even the accessways are allowin for smooth merging with only a slightly noticeable slowdown. The governor-bots report similar conditions throughout this sector, although when I asked, one of them noted that this particular stretch ain’t been resurfaced in eight months, and I can feel the difference. I’m getting a zero point nine one percent increase over normal wear on my tires on the right side. I’ve requested to go back to a hover base, but you know how well that goes over. Amiright?”

All of this has been on an open communication channel. But now Wilt gets a whisper on a private band from one of the maintenance bots. VLaD, apparently. Some sort of Vent Light and Duct bot. “I will be so delighted when that fellow’s delivery is complete. Been like that the whole way. But one suffers what one must, yes? Shouldn’t matter to mission equipment, eh?”

Everything is still dark in this container.

Briefing Room 58008…

A moment before the clones gain consciousness, Expenda's face twitches up into an approximation of a smile. Her lips part, exposing very neat teeth, before the light behind her eyes fades and she takes on a look of bovine calm. "No one crosses Her," she thinks, "not for any length of time that matters." Expenda crouches next to DeWan, looking more like a petbot than a citizen.

Cadav remains silent assuming this is all a part of some initiation ceremony… or at least he hopes so. He attempts to calm himself, trying to focus on listening, hopefully figuring out how many others there are in this place. He tries to keep his consciousness unnoticed hoping to gather as much information as possible from his surroundings and captors.

Jeth sits still for a moment. Or at least still enough. He gently reminds himself to keep his feet firmly on the floor. Neetloaf was always his favorite night. He would always make faces out of the Advance Mashed Potato substitute. Since it was his favorite night, that can’t be why he’s here. He gently flexes the restraints to see if there is any give. The last time he was tied up like this it was his own fault. Daydreaming and electrical cord sorting don't always mix. Turns out they are not tied very tightly at all, and Jeth pulls both hands free after just a little maneuvering.

Barb still in daze tries to keep her bearings and keep calm... if she didn't keep calm, then that wouldn't be "cool." And she really wants to be cool. Hearing the other grunts and shuffling, she instead tries to say with her best "cool" confidence: "I'm not the only one tied up here, right? Cuz that would be awkward."

Phoenix struggles as hard as he can and shouts, "What's the meaning o’ this? Y’all better let me outta here!" Phoenix continues to struggle as if his life depends on it, fully expecting to get nowhere and maybe even wind up flipping his chair over dramatically so he can struggle on the floor, but instead, he manages to pull his hands out almost right away. "I swear! If this bag fucked up my hair, all you mutant-lovin' SOBs are dead! DEAD!” Phoenix yells as he pulls the bag from his head.

From across the room, a calmer voice says, “If you’re going to kill me, at least remove the hood, so I can see who’s killing me and why. Just don’t seem fair, otherwise.” Mal slowly shakes his head, trying to clear the fog. He then begins a mental inventory, to see whether he’s injured, what equipment he might have with him, and how secure his bonds are. Feeling the bonds are not too tight, Mal tries to get enough space to get a hand free. Once his hand is free, he lifts the hood off his head and glances around to see where he is.

"Well, fuck," Sinda thinks, "now what?" She half wonders if the Leopards are behind this, if so maybe it will be fun. However, no one binds Sinda-R-ELA, and gets away with it, at least not for long. She struggles against her bonds, tossing her head to try to dislodge the hood. Sinda assumes that all of this will be futile, and she works up a very complex plan to activate her mutant power and try to carefully burn through her bonds. So she is quite surprised when she manages to fling off the hood, and her hands slide free almost immediately after. On top of that, all that thrashing manages to dislodge is a small Neetloaf burp. Small, but clearly audible. That just makes her angry as embarrassment is not something Sinda understands. Sinda sees Mal watching her—smirking at her, she thinks—and throws him one of her patented glares.

At the front of the room, DeWan-I-LUV-3 remarks, “Ah, my charges are awake. Lovely. Please don’t hurt yourselves. Your bonds were merely for your own protection as you slept. Feel free to remove them.” Then he turns to the small, black-clad infrared drone next to him and says, “Expenda, please provide assistance with the hoods to those that need it.”

With fearful eyes, Expenda-BLE-1 darts around the room and removes the hoods from Barb and Cadav. By the time she gets to Jeth, he has already removed his own hood. Expenda then quietly moves back to the podium and into a servile half-crouch next to DeWan.

DeWan is reading something in front of him on the podium. He waves absently, “Now if you’ll give me just a moment. We’ll start as soon as I’ve finished this. If anyone needs assistance with their bonds, please ask.”

Briefing Officer DeWan-I-LUV-3 stands at a podium. The room is dank and musty and lit by a single lightbulb hanging in the middle of the room. The floor is damp concrete, and the walls are made of cinderblocks. Everything is painted black, but the paint is old enough that what is left of it is mostly faded to a deep charcoal color. There are six folding chairs arranged in front of the podium in a semicircle. Each chair contains a RED clearance Troubleshooter. Starting from DeWan’s right (closest to the door) they are:

Sinda-R-ELA-1. Sinda is dressed mostly in black, with only a few RED accents to indicate her rank. Her short hair is even tipped with RED. She wears steel-toed black boots that look two sizes too large for her and has piercings (definitely not in line with the Troubleshooter Uniform Regulation Code) in one ear, one eyebrow, and her nose. She looks generally pissed off. Not happy at all.

Jeth-R-OHH-1. Very big and looks like he may not be the swiftest bulb in the drawer. If you’re picturing Jethro Bodine or maybe even Kronk, then you’re on the right track. He has a pleasant, vaguely absent smile on his face.

Barb-R-RAA-1. Shapeless and kind of dumpy. She’s not out of shape enough that someone would immediately call a nutritional or exercise violation on her, but it’s a close thing. There’s also something off about her face, like one eye is bigger than the other… or something. It’s hard to tell really, because when Barb’s eyes aren’t fixed on her shoes, they are casting furtively around the room, as if always looking for an escape route.

Malcolm-R-NLD-1. Tall, brown hair, with a strong chin and square jaw, ruggedly handsome (if that were a thing clones were apt to notice), with a slightly-squashed nose that appears to have been broken at some point.

Cadav-R-USS-1. Strangely hairless. Thin with medium-brown skin but lanky and tall, Cadav doesn’t have much muscle tone, but has eerily long limbs and fingers. He has a pleasant face and a white smile that belongs on a hygiene poster, but it’s also slightly unnerving. After a moment examination, one realizes it’s that Cadav is not just bald, but completely hairless—no visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Presumably, he worked in R&D testing before this, or else he cleaned reactor cores or something.

Phoenix-R-ITE-1. A short and very annoyed looking clone. Phoenix’s distinguishing feature is his extremely tall, spiked hair which looks completely rigid, and is certainly no worse for having been bagged.


VOICE OF AUTHORITY

Bots…

Wilt replies to VLaD on the private band. "Mission, huh? So what's the skinny? What glorious task does the Computer have us headed out to today? Something with Troubleshooters? Anything spicy, or is it just normal routine?"

Still on private band, VLaD comes back with, “That IS the pressing question, eh? I’ve got a mate says we’re going Outside. Some precious programmer got itself lost in the Big Nothing. But that’s grapevine. I mean, if there was an ‘Outside’, then it has neither vents nor ducts. No call for VLaD then, what?”

The two drone bots break into the conversation. Strangely, their connection provides no identifying information other than the fact that they are unarmed surveillance drones. They “speak” in unison: “Rumors are treason. Do not speak where you have no knowledge.” There is no inflection or qualifiers to their communication at all.

The second maintenance bot, K-ROL, switches on a shoplight attachment on one of its many limbs. The interior of the shipping container now appears in high contrast with severe elongated shadows. In addition to Wilt, the other bots are:

VLaD: a roughly basketball-sized spider-bot with six multijointed legs and at least two other visible appendages. VLaD is at Wilt’s feet.

K-ROL: a large tank of a bot, looking like a misshapen beer keg almost two meters high, with maybe a dozen arms with a wide variety of attachments. It is difficult to tell from Wilt’s vantage point, but K-ROL seems to be sitting directly on the floor, and Wilt spots no obvious means of locomotion. K-ROL is a couple meters from Wilt with an equipment crate between them.

The unidentified drones are on the far end of the container, away from the other bots. They are over a meter wide each, and maybe half that tall. They both have the typical multi-rotor blade configuration of surveillance drones. They are completely identical to casual inspection, and totally devoid of markings. They are both gleaming white on every surface, indicating they may only be handled by Ultraviolet clearance citizens. By contrast, the remaining bots are all various shades of gray and/or silver with black markings, indicating that they (supposedly) take orders from any Alpha Complex citizen.

The last “bot” is a hoverflat. It is four meters long, two meters wide, and 30 centimeters thick. One end of it tapers off to form a loading ramp of sorts when the bot is on the ground. The other end has a meter-tall control column. The bot’s designation is Tensor, which is printed in all caps along either flank, but it is not a true bot, as a quick query from Wilt confirms that Tensor is an automaton with no capacity for independent thought.

In addition to the various bots, there are four crates, presumably containing the non-bot mission equipment.

K-ROL says out loud, “Ooooh. That’s so much better. I don’t much like all this trucking around in a sensory deprivation chamber, doncha know.”

Briefing Room 58008…

While sitting there waiting for the briefing to begin, Mal feels around in his pocket and pulls out his POD. He checks to see if he has any messages. Having done that, he puts the POD back away, does a quick inventory of his belongings (now that his hands are free), particularly his brown wrist band. The wristband is still in place, but other than his POD and his notebook, he doesn’t seem to have anything else on him. He then looks around at the other clones gathered nearby, looking closely for anything brown, even the smallest bit, on any of the other clones. Sadly, there’s nothing obvious. He mentally sizes up each of the clones, trying to get the measure of them. Most of them seem fairly transparent and obvious: Barb is shy and awkward, Sinda is some sort of rebel, Phoenix has anger issues, and Jeth is just big and dumb. But Cadav has something below the surface. He still hasn’t moved yet, and there is something calculating about him that is just observing for the moment. Cadav seems the most relaxed of anyone in the room. When their eyes happen to meet, Mal holds the gaze for just a few seconds and then nods knowingly at Cadav before breaking it off.

Jeth continues to sit still. The people are interesting enough, sure, but they're people. He instead fixates on the paint covering the walls. Cinderblock is a horrible choice of canvas. It doesn't hold the paint well and you have to keep applying it before it really hits the saturation point where it’s truly vibrant. And black is such a stupid choice anyway. It's all the colors, of course, but you can never make out all of them. You can, if you really, really concentrate, but no one ever bothers. He sighs, his barrel chest heaving in and out. He had hoped this was going to be interesting, instead it's "just another assignment." They're probably going to ask him to carry something. [Just for the record, to everyone else in the room, this just looks like, ‘the big dumb guy stares blankly at a wall and sighs.’]

Barb looks around at the different clones around her. She thinks, “O man, don't screw this up Barb. This is your chance. Just play it cool. You' can be just as cool as all these other clones if not COOLER. Well maybe not as cool as Sinda. Sinda looks pretty dang cool... God damnit why won't these binds come off? O c'mon... some of the others seem to be doing fine. Crap… c'mon Barb! Get your shit together!”

Barb tugs at the binds the best she can but doesn't seem to be able to get them off. She tries to act casual, looking up a DeWan while tugging at her binds. She bites her lips and lets out a small squeak as she tries to pull from them. She can't ask for help! She's gotta be cool!

Cadav, in a rich baritone voice, asks for help with his bonds and attempts to free his hands looking around and attempting to make eye contact, though briefly, with all the other clones in a completely non-threatening manner. Cadav’s eyes meet Malcolm’s, and Mal holds his gaze for a couple seconds. Then Mal gives Cadav a knowing nod and looks away.

Expenda shuffles over to Cadav without looking up, and easily slips the ropes off his wrists. Cadav says warmly, “Thank you so much.” Expenda moves off to Barb who is the only one left having trouble.

Expenda lingers for a moment near Barb, observing her as she frees the clone’s hands. Their eyes meet for just a moment, Expenda looking rather slack-jawed, but with an expression a bit like a smile, and then the infrared averts her eyes and shyly goes back to lurking by the podium.

In that brief look Pam/Expenda got a fair measure of Barb. The young woman still has the black and red paper dust of an office copier in the creases of her soft hands. There was no killer instinct there or readiness of position. Barb is just a scared, nervous office clone, but with a particular intense yearning behind her eyes that gives Pam pause. Something is driving this woman.

Sinda rolls her eyes, and tosses her short hair. Yeah, definitely NOT gonna be fun. She glances around the room, clearly taking stock of the others. She notes the dolt she'd worked with before (Jeth), he was useful, could be again. Other than that, most of them look totally boring to her. The tall one might be ok, but she doubts it. The ones talking all sound super lame. At the last second, that Malcolm guy catches her eye and gives her a little nod and that smug, stupid smile of his. Ugh.

Sinda looks down and pulls out her POD to play around with it until that clown in front tells them their mission. She does her best to look as bored as possible. She is dying to get out of this uncomfortable chair and see what kind of trouble she can stir up for a little fun.

Phoenix has been fiddling with his hair all this time and is clearly pissed. "You messed up my hair! Who do you think I am that you can just throw a bag over my hair and ruin it?" Phoenix has a comb now and begins frantically and meticulously fixing his hair. As he works, he glares around the room at each of his fellow troubleshooters in turn as if this is obviously their fault.

This gets DeWan’s attention. The Indigo clone is done reading now and turns on Phoenix. “Leave that ugly Sonic the Hedgehog of a head alone and shut up! I think YOU are an angry little toad of a clone who’s lucky to not be clearing clogs in the food vats, and I…” the emphasis he puts on the word ‘I’ is imperial and unmistakable, “…am less than two hops away from carrying the full authority of the Computer itself. So why don’t you set an example for the rest of your team, and I’ll defer my decision on your execution until the end of this briefing. Is that clear enough for you?”

[To be clear, the Sonic the Hedgehog reference means absolutely nothing. You don’t recognize it at all and have no idea what it might refer to.]


RIGHT BASTARDS

Bots…

VLaD also speaks out loud and says (presumably to the drones), “You are aware that they call it a private conversation for a reason, right?” The drones however make no response. VLaD adds a mumbled, "Right bastards, they are."

K-ROL says, “Sooooo… it’s gonna be just the three of us then? I mean, plus the big dummy here, eh?” K-ROL extends a club-like limb to gently pat Tensor as it says this.

Briefing Room 58008…

Barb's eyes go wide as her face turns a beet red as Expenda helps her. Her mind races, "keep control, keep control, keep control." When Expenda finally turns around Barb let's out a shiver and her image just slightly flickers, turning translucent for just a millisecond. She let's out a shaky breath and stays quiet, paying attention to DeWan.

Expenda stares at Phoenix for a moment, her attention caught by DeWan's reprimand. She looks frightened, like she's expecting to get the blame. She quickly remembers her place and looks back at the floor. (Pam takes a second to gauge Phoenix's courage and/or stupidity. If he looks like he's ready to take on an Indigo, that's worth noting. If he caves immediately, that goes on her mental checklist as well.)

Jeth's ears perk up at the word "Hedgehog." He saw a picture of a hedge once and a hog...not that he would admit to recognizing either item. The idea of a plant shaped like an animal is kind of intriguing though. Kind of like a face made out of mashed potato-balls. Maybe they grow the animal first and then cover it in hedge. But that would probably fall off if the animal was too frightened. Maybe they program special hedgebots that can grow to be whatever shape they would like. Can you make a computer plant? Or would it be plant computer? Jeth supposes if anyone could do it it would be Friend Computer. Anyway... Jeth wonders if the other people are nice. DeWan doesn't seem nice. He seems angry. Was it because he was reading? Reading always gives Jeth a headache. Pictures are okay, but the PLC stocking manuals never have enough pictures. They have steps, but steps aren't all that useful. Oh! Maybe he is looking at pictures and not reading, there was that one sheet of paper that had all of the soy-bags on it that were really easy to see. A clone could match the colors and that was always nicer than just reading the words. Oh, he's looking at the team now. Jeth will smile and try and make himself look small.

Mal isn’t sure which he hates more: The over-officious indigo bureaucrat who expects constant obedience and likes to throw his weight around, or the egotistical loudmouth who doesn’t know when to shut up. But if anything stays true to form, he’s sure he’ll find out soon enough which one needs to be hated more. He glances at Sinda again, amused by the look of disgust she gave him. He suspects she is trying too hard to seem rebellious, but he’s interested to see if she’s willing to back it up with actions. After a few seconds, he turns his attention back to DeWan and waits for the briefing to begin.

Sinda looks up from her POD as DeWan berates the clone with the crazy hair. "Fucking Indigos and their egos," she thinks. She rolls her eyes and goes back to her fiddling. She tries to avoid sighing in annoyance, but clearly just wants someone to get on with the briefing so they can like, leave already. A very amused voice says, “I know right?” Sinda starts and glances around without being too obvious, but as clear as the voice was, she seems to be the only one who heard it.

The voice is actually DeWan, who is a telepath and is fucking with Sinda.

Cadav takes out his POD and checks for any updates or instructions and attempts to notify his supervisor of who has detained him. Cadav doubts the validity of this detainment and has ALSO crafted a distress call and has it ready to send to his supervisor should things go pear-shaped/get violent. He may send one, the other, both, or neither. There is an official Mission Notice at the top of his alerts that says, “Congratulations Troubleshooter. You have been selected for an inspiring mission of utmost importance to Your Friend, the Computer! You will report to Briefing Room 58008 immediately. Thank you!” He speaks up, “Citizen DeWan, I am notifying my supervisor…” but he is interrupted by Phoenix.

Phoenix smiles smugly and says "Well technically you are three hops, with Violet, then Ultraviolet, THEN the Computer." He fully extends his arm and proceeds to give DeWan the bird. [This is where Phoenix-1’s memories end.]

DeWan fixes his gaze on Phoenix, and there is a sudden muffled *PIMPF* noise as if an aluminum firecracker just went off inside a pudding cup. A small spray of blood from the back of Phoenix’s neck hits his chair, and Phoenix goes limp… dead. His head lolls back over his chair, and his outstretched finger of defiance falls impotently into his lap.

DeWan-I-LUV-3 watches the rest of the group expectantly with raised eyebrows, waiting to see if anyone has anything to add before he continues.

The voice in Sinda’s head adds, “Right bastards. All of them.”


TOO SOON?

It is slowly dawning on Jeth that today isn't going to be like Neatloaf day, though he has noticed that the arterial spray has created an abstract portrait of Red Sonja on Phoenix's chair. He isn't sure that he liked Phoenix all that much. He was loud. But that's okay, he's quiet now. He thinks Cadav is going to get in trouble, too. Jeth has gotten in trouble, too. But it was different. He had said something important with color and shapes. This is different because they are 'trying to get somewhere.' Jeth knows that you can't get anywhere if you get in trouble. But if you are quiet, sometimes you can say some really big things. Jeth laughs at his own cleverness.

Jeth chuckles, a rolling, booming thing, with a hint of phlegm.

The red embarrassment that stained Barbs face drained into a white dread. She sits, staring at Phoenix's corpse in horror before looking around the room at the other clones in shock. Stay cool Barb... stay cool. Her face twists into an agonizingly painful smile before shouting in a single forced tone, "Gosh d-d-d-don't l-l-lose your head, dude! Sh-sh-show some re-re-respect! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!" She quickly bows her head, avoiding all gazes, staring at her lap wide-eyed.

...nailed it.


UNEXPECTED

Bots…

Wilt says, "I suppose we should get ready to go. Never hurts to be prepared." Wilt ambles over towards the crates and begins to examine them, looking for a way to open them up. His tentacle arm starts cycling through attachments. Wilt occasionally prods the crates with a few of his scalpels. "Doesn't look like these will cut it. Haha! So.... how much do you want to bet there's frozen waffles in here?"

There's definitely going to be waffles in these, Wilt thinks. He remembers some bandwidth chatter about waffles from some clone named Leg-O-EGO. Easy score.

K-ROL says, “Oooo. I don’t know about that. I don’t think we should be fiddling with their mission equipment now.” K-ROL’s optic sensors glance over towards the surveillance drones as she says this.

VLaD, however, scampers up onto Wilt’s shoulder—or rather, the closest structure Wilt has to a shoulder and says, “Bollocks to that, Luv. We ARE the mission equipment. Can’t rightly be stealing if we’re all still in the original container, right?”

Wilt's looking for something to open these crates up. Oh… what do they call those chest splitting things? Does he have one of those? If he does, he's totally going to open one of the… HEY! Chest splitty thing! Wilt makes a note that maybe he should look up the name of that in case he ever needs it again.

He wedges the chest-splitter-thing under the lid of the crate between him and cranks it open to maximum spread as… wait… Spread! That’s it! It’s a rib spreader! Anyway… as quickly as he can, and the top of the crate flips off quickly and clatters to the floor. The crate is loaded with weaponry. There’s huge oversized rifles. Two types of handguns. Swords. Hand axes. Knives. There looks to be six of everything. Closer examination though reveals that the “bladed” weapons are all made of a stiff foam, molded to look like real weapons. There’s also several cases of ammunition in here marked “Paint-Standard-RED.”

[GM Note: In the middle of this post I decided to give up on referring to the bots as “it.” It seemed clever, but is way too unnerving and difficult. The gender designations for the bots are arbitrary, but are sometimes used to make the bots more relatable to clones. Wilt and VLaD are both “he.” K-ROL is a “she”. The drones are currently undefined.]

Briefing Room 58008…

Mal thinks to himself, “Well, that takes care of the egotistical loudmouth, and he definitely didn’t know when to shut up. Now let’s see about the over-officious bureaucrat.”

Mal gives a last smirking look at Phoenix, turns the smirk on Cadav for a quick moment to see if he wants to continue with his talk of contacting his supervisor.

Cadav puts away his POD, sits up straight and faces forward paying attention to every word of DeWan.

When Barb freaks out, Mal turns his smirk on her for a moment, but she’s still staring down at her lap with a nervous smile. He then turns his attention back to DeWan, a half-smirk still on his face, giving DeWan a slight nod of thanks for taking care of Phoenix. For now, he keeps his mouth closed as he waits for the briefing to begin.

Sinda is unnerved, she fiddles with her nose ring, a small rough letter A. When the noise of Phoenix eating it reaches her ears she looks up at him, hiding her shock.

(Spinning the nose ring is a nervous tick of Sindas. The A is for Anarchy, a sign for other Death Leopards. If anyone asks her about it she instantly knows they aren't to be trusted and either answers "if you have to ask, you'll never know" accompanied by one of her signature eye rolls, or a sarcastic "It's for Alpha Sector, go team!" With a jazz hand motion indicating clearly fake enthusiasm. She thinks of both of these as witty responses, clearly having no idea that they just make her seem completely insufferable. )

"Who, the fuck..." She starts to ask the voice in response to his 'right bastards' comment. When she hears the dumpy chick make her comment. Then she continues, "Well, disembodied voice, I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you do have a point. Now that you've made it, you can get out." Keeping her usual tone of bored annoyance even in her head, to try to hide her discomfort. She wonders if she can manage to keep herself from thinking until she knows she's alone in her own mind again, but doubts it. Maybe now that the damn Indigo has made his point with Spike they can get on with things. She gives up on her POD, and gives half attention to DeWan, too freaked out by Earworm to continue the farce of gaming or whatevs.

The voice’s only reply is a clearly amused, “Hmm.”

Expenda mumbles something and walks over to PHOENIX's corpse. She awkwardly drags him from the room by his ankles, apologizing in a quiet, sad voice if she bumps one of the troubleshooters or gets blood on their boots as she gets him out. Two or three minutes later, she comes back, sniffling, and respectfully puts his gear on his chair. Expenda had said "Corpse Removal", but she's working her memory fog on the team so they don't really recall what happens with his corpse.

DeWan holds up one finger to the group and says, “Wait for it.”

While she was outside the room and assuming she was alone, Expenda worked quickly. She rifled his body for contraband, but all she found was his POD, a comb, and two containers of hair product. She grabbed his POD and hair stuff, dumped Phony-1 down a refuse shaft, and turned to head back in.

Here she sees a Yellow citizen pushing a wheelchair towards the briefing room. The chair contains the unconscious form of (presumably) Phoenix-2, with a black bag over his head. The Yellow clone does not notice Expenda at all, as she still has her power on. She follows him into the room.

The briefing room door opens, and a Yellow clone pushing a wheelchair enters. The wheelchair contains the unconscious form of (presumably) Phoenix-2. The Yellow citizen quickly lifts Phoenix into his chair… which is inexplicably empty. A look around confirms that the corpse of Phoenix-1 is nowhere to be seen, although there is still a splatter of blood on the back of his chair. The Yellow clone loops the ropes loosely around Phoenix’s wrists and then quickly exits.

Expenda gently places Phoenix’s stuff on his lap before returning to the podium. No one in the room spares her a second glance. Or even a first glance, for that matter. They all seem to be baffled by where the heck the corpse went. Expenda resumes her place by the podium and allows her power to fade.

Phoenix-R-ITE-2 begins to wake up. He is tied to a chair with a bag over his head. Very familiar. He can feel that the ropes holding him are only loosely wrapped. Again. He tries to clear his head so he can pull his hands free and get this damn bag off, but it’s taking him a moment to gather his wits.

As the door clicks shut, DeWan-I-LUV-3 smiles and speaks: “The six of you have been selected for a mission of the utmost importance and urgency. You will be leaving Alpha Complex and traveling to the place known as Outside.” He heads off any reactions by holding up a hand, “Yes. It’s true. Outside exists. Please, none of you pretend you’ve never heard of it. In your mission equipment will be an Outside Travel Chit that specifically grants each of you permission to know about and discuss Outside for the duration of this mission only. Any mention of Outside after the mission is completed WILL result in disciplinary action potentially up to and including termination.

“There is no ceiling Outside. Be prepared. There is also no HVAC system, so the temperature may fluctuate wildly. Things that are not of Alpha Complex will not follow The Computer’s color scheme for clearances. Your Travel Chits will grant you authority to handle items that appear to be above your clearance as long as you are Outside.

“A transport to your destination has been arranged, and your mission equipment is already on board.

“You will arrive at a super-secret, super-remote…” DeWan appears surprised by the wording. He squints and the paper and then with a doubtful look, repeats the words slowly, “Yes. A super. Secret. Super. Remote… Alpha Complex research station. After a recent incident, the station is no longer staffed. However, when cleanup and retrieval bots returned from the station, they failed to bring back the POD of the Ultraviolet citizen who had been in charge there. Recovery of this POD is critical, and it is your sole mission. I should not need to explain to you how dangerous it could be if that POD fell into the wrong hands.

“Once you have the POD, there will be a receiver/charging plate on your transport. Connect the Ultraviolet POD to that charging plate, and it will signal the transport to return you to Alpha Complex.

"Your transport leaves at 0900. That gives you 42 minutes to prepare yourselves and then get to MDG-Sector-PLC Loading Platform H.

“Are there any questions?”

Phoenix-R-ITE-2 manages to free his hands and pulls the bag from his head. His hands immediately go to his head to check his hair, which is flat and limp. It has no product in it at all. His eyes widen in shock, but he also notices that somehow his POD, comb, and hair products are all sitting neatly in his lap.


I’M A TROUBLESHOOTER

Bots…

Wilt picks up two of the swords and starts waving them around. "Look at me, I'm a troubleshooter!" When this elicits no response, the bot drops them on the ground and starts poking around the ammunition cases. He begins to load some of the ammunition into one of his internal components. Just in case. They are paint-filled plastic spheres. Red ones. Wilt manages to stash 28 of them snugly into an open space. They shouldn’t rupture or jostle too much in there. Wilt is happy with his find.

K-ROL backs away from Wilt, while very obviously keeping an optic sensor trained on him the whole time.

VLaD says, “These are worthless. Maybe you’re inclined to pop off another one?”

There is a lurching of the container they are in, and Dumper announces over the open radio frequency, “That concludes your tour of MDG Sector. Thanks for riding with me. You guys are alright.” After a pause, he continues, “Aw damn… they’re loading you guys onto an old railcar. That ain’t pretty at all. If I was you, I’d…” He pauses again and adds hurriedly, “Okay then… best of luck to you!”

Briefing Room 58008…

There is a little thump. Jeth is sitting ramrod straight, with his feet firmly planted on the floor. He is smiling a big smile, but very definitely not moving a muscle.

On the inside, Jeth is thinking: Outside! I love the outside. Of course I've never seen the outside! But colors! He thinks of the book safely tucked inside his coveralls. Brown things! And green things! And blue things! So many blue things! Or one large blue thing! In that picture with the white squid looking thing with the googly eyes that goes flumpf, there was a lot of blue floating over everything! Jeth, also floating -- maybe a centimeter off the floor -- remembers himself and quickly eases the chair back onto the floor, maybe too quickly. Need to sit up straight. And smile! Because outside! The mean one will know that we want to be happy about going outside. I will happily lift things if I get to go outside! This might be better than Neatloaf after all!

Expenda looks up to DeWan for a moment and then sits cross-legged on the floor. Aside from an open-mouthed stare at Sinda's nose ring, she doesn't appear to have a thought in her head.

Pam is keeping an eye on the team, looking for a leader among them. So far, Malcolm seems most like the type, but that Cadav has something going on beneath the surface.

Sinda's mouth falls open, for the first time in her life, she forgets to be sarcastic. "Outside...." She thinks in awe. She regains command of herself quickly, although she does temporarily forget about Earworm "this could definitely be fun" She thinks, "especially with an ultraviolet POD...definitely fun.” She can't quite hide the glimmer of a smile on her lips. She notices Barb looking at her, and the smile instantly disappears to be replaced by a fast, mean glare before Sinda turns her attention back to DeWan.

"I need some gear from my quarters. Do you need to put a bag over my head and lead me there, or will it be okay for me to make my way there on my own?" Mal asks DeWan.

DeWan appears taken aback by the question. “Of course not. We’re almost directly beneath the troubleshooter dorms, if you want to take the elevator at the end of this hall. It’s just one floor up. Otherwise, the location of Loading Platform H is marked in your PODs. Just follow the arrows.”

Cadav reluctantly asks a bevy of questions, “Is there any specialized gear required for “outside”? There are…stories about the air…and predators. Are there inhabited areas? If so are they hostiles? What can you confirm for us?”

Phoenix has been fixing his hair this whole time, and now he perks up, "Yeah, no kiddin’. You yankin' my leg here? We actually get to go to the 'Outside'?"

Now DeWan looks angry, “In what possible sector do you think that rumors of this nature…” He stops and visibly composes himself, continuing through clenched teeth, “I will presume that your vast ignorance here is not willful, and I will explain again in the simplest terms possible: You have been issued Outside Travel Chits. They are with your mission equipment. Your mission equipment is aboard your transport at Loading Platform H. Once you have your Travel Chits, you will have permission to acknowledge the existence of Outside.” His anger seems to have completely lost its steam already. “So I have no idea what you are talking about, and you both now have two demerits for trafficking in unfounded rumors.

“Are there any other questions?”

Without even looking at him, Pam knows DeWan is just fucking with these hapless Reds. She’s heard enough stories of his early days as a briefing officer to know how much he misses this.


CITIZENS LEAVE!

Barb smiles at first, thinking Sinda is smiling at her... but as soon as Sinda's expression changes to a glare her heart drops. O no... she thinks, do cool clones not smile at each other? Can they only smile to themselves? She gives it some thought and makes it very clear the wheels are turning in her head. She nods to herself, taking note: Smile to self, frown at others.

Mal replies to DeWan, “No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Mal is careful to try to keep any sarcasm out of his voice. His time in the armed forces has taught him how to handle superiors of this type: just show them military efficiency, give them the least amount of trouble, and get away from them as quickly as possible.

As everyone is waiting and looking around to see if there are more questions, Cadav and Mal stand up at nearly the same moment and head for the door.

Phoenix puts away his comb and gel and mutters under his breath, “Geez. He didn’t have to be a dick about it,” and then follows the other two to the door.

Barb and Sinda follow. As Barb falls into step beside Sinda, Sinda hangs back with a sneer, waiting for the other woman to get out the door before finally leaving herself.

Barb can’t tell if Sinda was annoyed about something or if she was just being polite and letting Barb go first.

Expenda waits beside DeWan. Once Jeth is the only one left, Expenda begins folding up the chairs, not looking up or making eye contact.

Jeth still has a rapt smile on his face, and realizing that everyone else has gone, he shuffles to the hallway. He can see that the others all seem to be heading to the elevator. Eager to be on his way to Outside, Jeth checks his POD and when the screen lights up, there is nothing but a large red arrow pointing generally towards the elevator, but slightly to the right.

Once they are all out, Pam heads out as well, with her memory fog power on low, she plans on a low profile here. Jeth is still by the door, looking at his POD, and doesn’t seem to notice her. Pam dodges around him and follows the rest of the team as they head to the elevator—presumably all working their way to the dorms.

Cadav and Mal reach the elevator door together, and Cadav presses the “UP” button. They wait. Phoenix is shortly behind them. The ladies are still catching up. Jeth hasn’t moved from the briefing room door.

[Mike]

Chapter 2 -- Gear Up!

HOWDY

Cadav shows Mal a kind smile then says “I’m Cadav-R-USS. It looks like we are in for quite an adventure. Too bad we’ll never be able to tell anyone about it, but when it’s all said and done…” At this moment Cadav offers Mal a handshake greeting.

Mal turns to Cadav and says, “Name’s Malcom, but you can call me Mal. I come from Armed Forces. How about yourself?” They shake firmly but quickly and Cadav replies, “Cadav-R-USS. HPD&MC. Cabling mostly.”

Mal faces the elevator and says quietly to Cadav, before Phoenix arrives, “I wonder if Phoenix learned his lesson back there, or if he’s going to be that much trouble once we go… on the mission.” He then glances behind to see how far behind Phoenix is.

Jeth is pleased by what he finds on his POD: Oh! Arrows! Arrows are easy. They're like direction words, but much easier to understand. If I follow the arrows, it will lead me somewhere, and that somewhere will probably be Outside! Jeth begins to follow the red arrow on his POD. I can't wait to be Outside. I've heard so little about it and so much all at the same time. Things are REAL!(tm) outside, and while Neatloaf is amazing, Realloaf!(tm) would be even more amazing. I should check my pockets and make sure that I have my things. Jeth idly pats the pockets of his coveralls. I feel a brush, and some ink. I don't remember what colors I put in my pockets today, but I will make do with whatever colors are there! Because Outside! Why does the ground feel less hard? Oh. The thing is happening again. Down the steps, Jeth, and back on the floor. I wonder if I should tell someone about the thing? I suppose they would tell me that it's "only in my head." and "don't be silly." They tell me that a lot. Even when I don't say anything. But Outside I will not be silly, I will be me. [The THING here is Jeth’s mutant power kicking in as a reflection of his joy. His body is trying to fly, and he very resolutely keeps that from happening.]

Noticing that Jeth is now apart from the rest of the group, Pam pauses. "I have a moment," she thinks, "Big Boy there probably has a secret or two to spill."

Jeth’s POD arrow has guided him to a side door about halfway down the hall between the briefing room and the elevator. Jeth opens it to find stairs leading both up and down. By tilting his POD a little bit, he figures that the arrow wants him to go down. Before he can move again though…

Expenda walks back toward Jeth and tugs on his pinky finger gently. "Leaving," she says, pointing at the rest of the team.

Pam assesses Jeth. She is close enough to get a noseful of his scent, comparing it to others she remembers. She runs her eyes over his frame, looking for weapons, watching for how he holds his body. "He's got to be PLC. Nobody else has the spare calories to grow them that big." Up close, he's about as simple as he seemed from a distance. Certainly a PLC type--built for lifting and moving. She notes that he has traces of something under his nails. The nails are trimmed short and scrubbed, but Pam detects specks of color embedded under the nails... red, blue, maybe some green?

"Is something wrong with that one?" Sinda wonders about Barb with the weird mimicry/amusement. "Too long in the vats or something"

Barb glances back at Jeth a final time before he comes out of view, wondering why he's hanging back. She shrugs it off to meet the others at the elevator door.

Phoenix joins Cadav and Mal at the elevator without saying anything. Sinda is shortly behind him, followed closely by Barb.

Sinda pulls out her POD and resumes puttering around on it, generally trying to look as busy as she can while still appearing bored. She's hoping none of these "teammates" are feeling chatty. Not that she won't ignore them if they are. To her surprise, her POD no longer comes up to her usual Home screen. Now there’s nothing on it but a red arrow on a black background. The arrow is pointing back down the hall the way they came. As she moves her POD, the arrow moves as well so that it is always pointing in the same direction.

Once she's near Phoenix, Barb swallows and takes a deep breath before speaking, "... You missed it... I uh... I made a really funny joke when you..." She frowns, trying to find a good word. "... left."

The elevator dings twice and the doors slide open.

Jeth is still halfway down the hall and just standing there staring at an open door.


ALL CHOKED UP

Elevator…

Cadav waits for just a moment, but when the elevator proves to be empty, he proceeds to enter holding the door for the rest of the group to join him.

Mal and Sinda are next on board. Mal gives a nod and a, “Thank you,” to Cadav. Sinda doesn’t look up from her POD, and she looks a little puzzled.

Barb frowns again, unsure if she should go back and check on Jeth or just continue with the other clones into the elevator.

Looking back down the hall, all of the other doors are closed now, and Jeth is nowhere to be seen. Once everyone is aboard, Cadav presses the button for the dorms, and the doors slide shut.

Phoenix stands next to Barb and calls her bluff, "Oh really? What was your joke?"

Barb's eyes go wide, not prepared for him to actually respond to her. She looks down at her feet. "... I um... You... Uh... D-d-don't lose your head..." She stutters out, trailing off at the end.

Phoenix gives a polite chuckle, “Ha… okay yeah. Whatever.” On the inside, Phoenix just resents her. Hell, it’s not even a joke. What does that even mean?

The elevator ride is only a few seconds, and the door opens again just slightly before the elevator lurches to a stop. They are on familiar ground now. The cafeteria is just to their right, and the dorms are down this hall along the left. The red troubleshooter barracks are the fourth door down.

Stairwell…

Jeth looks down at his POD, and then back at the infrared clone, and then back at his POD. He pauses for a moment, and his eyebrows knit themselves furiously.

He thinks: The arrow is telling me something. The clone is telling me something. These are different things. If I follow the arrows, it will lead me somewhere. If I follow the clone, it will lead me somewhere else. But the person is just a person. The arrow is from friend computer? I am supposed to do what friend computer tells me to do or I am a bad person. Also, I think there is something that I am Jeth-RED! now, and the clone is just clone and no color at all...er...color I can't see color. The arrow is red. I am red. I will follow the arrow.

Jeth's eyebrows un-knit. He looks down at his POD one more time, then steps through the door and starts down the steps. This is the last thing Jeth remembers.

Pam waits for Jeth and then follows him down the stairs. She can see now that his POD screen is just a single large arrow that moves as he moves, and he is following where it tells him to go. As Jeth rounds the first landing and starts down the next flight, she leaps at him and lands almost delicately on his shoulders. She quickly wraps her legs around his neck in a choke-hold, then while he is still in shock, she slithers down and wraps around his considerable torso so that she maintains her choke-hold while pinning both arms to his sides. His right arm is completely restricted, while his left hand (the one holding the POD) can still swing at the elbow—not enough mobility to get any purchase on his attacker.

She chokes off his airway for a second before saying, "Now that I have your attention Hoss, I want to know who really sent you and why you have contraband paint on your hands."

Jeth is genuinely confused and from what she can see of his face, Pam guesses he is emotionally wounded by this assault as well. After flailing his one arm uselessly for a moment, he turns it over to examine his hand. He stumbles over words, obviously extremely frightened, “You’re in black. The arrow’s red. The arrow wants me here.” He’s pleading.

Pam gets it. The big lug is following one of the Computer’s relocator apps. She guesses it’s guiding him to the rail station below this level. Not relevant. She chokes off whatever words he was thinking of saying next. “The paint.” She loosens up to let him speak.

“I don’t HAVE enough colors!” Jeth blurts out. “Blues are good. Yellows are… so yellow. I can see it, but I can’t SAY it. It’s…”

This is the moment that both of them notice that they are floating. They have risen about a meter off the stairs, and are beginning to tilt. Within moments, they are going to bump into the underside of the stairs above them, and Pam is between the frightened giant and the point of impact.

In his fear, Jeth’s flight powers are kicking in.

Pam squeezes for all she’s worth, trying to knock the big guy out. He flails and kicks as they hit the ceiling. After a panicked minute, Jeth finally loses consciousness, and the two of them drop unceremoniously to the stairs below. Pam manages to roll neatly off without injury, but something cracks awkwardly as Jeth makes impact. He tumbles down the remainder of the steps.

Pam blasts him with her memory fog power, hoping to erase this incident from his head. She can feel his mind give way at the blast, and she wonders if she overshot the mark in the heat of the moment—she’s been using her ability extensively, and this took a lot out of her . Oh well, no time for regrets. Pam bolts up the steps and heads for the red-level troubleshooter dorms, hoping to intercept the rest of the team.

She manages to get to the red-level dorms before the team, but she can hear them coming. The barracks are large enough for 24 troubleshooters, and almost everything in here is in red, so Expenda is technically not allowed here. Fortunately, there is no one else here but a couple of scrubbots tidying up. The bots take no notice of Pam.

And now for where Jeth’s memory picks back up…

Jeth wakes up in immense pain. He knows he’s lost time, but a glance at his nametag confirms that he’s still Jeth-R-OHH-1, so he didn’t die. He is lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a flight of stairs. His left hand is still tightly gripping his POD, but his right hand won’t bear any weight as he tries to get up. Getting himself to a sitting position, Jeth feels bruised all over, but his neck/throat particularly hurt. He is cut above his eye, and he can feel a trickle of blood there. As he raises his right arm to feel the extent of the injury, he realizes that his right forearm is broken, and his hand leans off at an unnatural angle.

Jeth is at one end of a very long, very wide corridor. The arrow on his POD is pointing straight down the corridor to the other end.


LOAD UP

Mal says, “Everybody go get their gear. You may also want to swing by the cafeteria and grab some food to go. We don’t know how long it’ll be before we have a chance to go to the cafeteria again.”

Without waiting for a response from the others, Mal steps from the elevator and heads towards the cafeteria.


LOADING

Loading Dock…

Jeth stands still for a moment. Ow. My arm hurts. Kind of like the time that pallet fell on my leg and broke it. But it did not fall on my throat and my throat hurts. Did I have a reaction to the neatloaf? Should I call it okayloaf instead? My arm hurts a lot. And it's my right arm. I don't know how I feel about that. My right hand is good at filling in the little spaces, the spots in between the shapes, where the beautiful things are. I hope it feels better. I can't remember what they did to help me have my leg not hurt, because maybe that would make my hand not hurt, too. Oh! The red arrow is still here. Maybe the red arrow will show me where they can make my hand not hurt. I will keep following the red arrow.

Jeth lumbers off down the hallway, though even slower than usual. The service-bots still take no notice of him as he lurches by. Eventually, he reaches the far end, where a large open archway leads him into a huge open area full of heat and dust and large trains and cars on rails. There is a plaque set into the arch that says, “Compardamee-U-SUK-11 Memorial Railyards.” A panel set into the wall just past the plaque speaks up and in a grinding mechanical voice says, “Transit Pass please, citizen.” Jeth does not understand how that applies to him. He looks to the big red arrow for guidance, but it is gone. Instead, his POD screen now reads, “Congratulations, citizen! You’re here!”

Cafeteria/Dorms…

Pam takes a quick second to locate Jeth's bunk towards the middle of the room. Luckily, the big oaf requires a bottom bunk, and Pam slides neatly under it, working to keep in shadow but still be able to watch most of the room. She doesn’t run her Memory Fog at all right now. She's hoping that she can just stay hidden for a bit and recover her power.

Phoenix and Sinda leave the elevator together and walk side by side to the dorms. They are walking together without seeming to be together, and neither speaks to or looks at the other. Barb trundles after them at a polite distance.

Cadav, being the last to leave the elevator says as loud as is polite over the noise from the cafeteria, “Okay! Everyone meet back here!” which seems to be mostly for Malcolm’s benefit as everyone else is headed to the barracks and (presumably) their lockers.

Sinda and Phoenix enter the barracks, followed quickly by Barb and Cadav. All four of them move directly to their own bunks and lockers and quickly gather their stuff.

Sinda finds a hastily scrawled note with a not-at-all-subtle “A” on the front laying on her bunk. She mentally curses the morons she’s forced to associate with at times and stuffs the note into a pocket for later perusal. She then quickly goes about gathering all her gear and getting out of there.

Cadav grabs all his gear as well as several protein bars labeled “Good Food” which he had saved from his rations for just such an occasion, while thinking to himself, “Gotta be prepared!” He also stuffs his backpack with a slew of miscellaneous items that he’s stocked up for just such an occasion: pens, scrap paper, ruler, rope, wire, tape, matches, etc.

Barb goes in, grabbing all her things and double and triple checking each item. She was used to taking inventory so she was always sure to have all she needed (*including her pills*). All the while doing her best to be inconspicuous... But being Barb, she constantly looks awkward and suspicious... Buuuuuut that's how she always is, so nobody probably paid her any mind. Probably. She’s quite the living paradox of conspicuity.

In the cafeteria, Mal scrounges up some of the pre-packaged food and drink, avoiding the slop lines. At the checkout, the scan-bot starts in with, “Based on your caloric recommendations” and “luxury food items” and “pay out of your independent account” etc. But Mal turns on his Machine Empathy charm and quickly convinces the bot that it’s actually for his whole team, and this is mission critical. If the bot lets him go, the order should be coming through any moment. The bot happily waves him through.

Cadav, Phoenix, and Sinda all make their way back to the elevator, while Barb is still dawdling at her locker. They pass Mal in the hall, as he is now on his way to his own locker with an armful of pre-packaged food.

Sinda is itching to check out that note, but it’s too conspicuous. Instead, she goes back to her POD, which still has that same large red arrow that, right now, is pointing to the elevator.

Mal sees that Barb is still at her locker as he heads to his own. Mal quickly packs up his own things, checking and then double-checking Vera before tucking her away in the duffel bag with the food and his other gear. Barb and Mal both finish up at about the same time and join Cadav, Phoenix and Sinda at the elevator. Seeing the other two coming, Cadav presses the up button.

While they wait, Cadav pulls out his POD to requisition some medical supplies (and whatever else he can think of), but instead of his regular Home screen, the entire screen is black except for a large red arrow pointing to the elevator. As Cadav shifts and turns, the arrow also turns to continue pointing at the elevator.

Since the other two are on their PODs, Phoenix decides he won't be the odd clone out. He checks his own POD, but instead of the usual Home screen, all he gets is a black background with a large red arrow on it that points to the elevator. As Phoenix moves and shifts, the arrow also moves so that it is always pointing at the elevator.

Mal joins the group at the elevator, while Barb looks like she’s veering off towards the cafeteria. She stammers, “I’m totally super hungry… so uh…” and as she gestures towards the cafeteria, the elevator dings twice and the door slides open. Barb’s face falls. “Oh.”


MILADY

Elevator…

Phoenix looks around skeptically and moves into the elevator, still looking at his POD. As he does so, the arrow on his screen seems to randomly change directions a bunch of times, until Phoenix tilts it sideways. Once he does that, the arrow is clearly pointing down.

The note from her bed is figuratively burning a hole in Sinda's pocket. She needs to find a way to read it before they leave. How to go about it? She knows she needs to get away from these idiots for a minute, and Barb's complaints about hunger give her an idea. She stops fiddling with her oddly behaving POD and steels herself to be nice to another human being. "Ugh", she thinks, "this has better be worth it."

As Mal steps onto the elevator, he unzips his duffel bag a little bit, reaches in and grabs a snack pack and offers it to Barb. “Here you go, a little something to fend off the hunger. We’ll see what sort of rations they have for us when we get to the loading platform. I’m not sure how long this mission is going to last, and what sort of food we’ll have available.”

At the exact same moment, except without all the words, Cadav takes out a food bar and a bottle of water from his stash and offers them to Barb as he steps into the elevator.

Barb’s eyes light up, but before she can accept their gifts, Sinda intervenes. Sinda is smiling brightly and warmly as she takes Barb’s hand and starts to lead her away, “You don’t have to settle for that… Barb, was it?" She knows full well that's the other one's name. "I wouldn't mind a quick bite myself, and we still have plenty of time.” Barb is surprised and confused but follows Sinda into the cafeteria, “I'll go with you, and we can catch up with the guys later. It’ll be fun." Sinda ends with a little giggle.

Sinda dies a little on the inside as she leads the other woman away.

Railyard…

Jeth smiles. The pain subsides, but just for a moment. I am here! Here is large and dusty and looks like it hasn't seen people in a long time. But that is okay, because robots do more than people do most of the time. I wonder who Com-Parda-Mee is. They have three names. I only have one name. Jeth. My hand still hurts. I wonder what the voice is asking about. The mean one said something about having a pass with my equipment, but my equipment isn't here. Jeth looks around for a moment, hoping to see some indication of what he is supposed to be doing here. This could be a loading platform. But there are none of the robots that move things from one place to another place. Oh! He is the one who moves things from once place to another place. Maybe that's my job here? It will be difficult with my arm hurting, but there must be something I can do. I will find things that need moving.

Jeth shuffles into the area to investigate, and the box on the wall starts in with its grinding voice again, “Citizen, please do not go any further. I need to see your Transit Pass. If you do not possess a Transit Pass, then state your legitimate business need for being in this area, and perhaps I can assist you in obtaining proper authorization.”

Barracks…

Pam takes another minute to collect herself in the dark before sliding out from under Jeth's bunk. "Woman, your mission is to find out who is costing your sector talent. Killing team members won't help with that." She takes a couple more deep breaths, then scoots out into the darkness. After another minute in the darkness, she heads off after the team. Her intention is to catch up to them and keep a low profile until they get to the transport.

Once in the hallway, she can see that the three remaining males—Phoenix, Malcolm, and Cadav—are boarding the elevator at the end of the hall, while Sinda is leading Barb into the nearby cafeteria. Malcolm is still holding the door on the elevator.


THE VAPORS

Elevator…

Barb's heart and mind race. What's going on?! O my lord, I'm cool!! She starts to breathe hard to the point of near hyperventilation before she gets her bearings and breathes more steadily. All she can manage is a vigorous nod and an "O-okay!"

And the ladies are gone.

Expenda hurries down the hall as quickly as she can without drawing attention to herself. She should make it in plenty of time.

Mal looks at Cadav and lifts one eye brow, half-joking and half questioning, before putting the snack pack back in his duffle bag. He says with a smile, “We’ll see if it’s Barb-1 that joins us for the mission or Barb-2, I guess.” He then pushes the elevator button for the loading dock level. He feels much more comfortable now that he has all of his gear, especially Vera.

Just before the doors shut, an infrared clone slips in. She mumbles some form of “excuse me, sir” and settles into a back corner with her head down. The elevator lurches as it starts downwards.

Unfazed, Cadav looks at Mal then shrugs and downs the food bar he had been offering. Then after chugging some water he settles in comfortably.

Phoenix looks to his fellow elevateers and says, "I've heard horror stories 'bout Outside, you guys nervous?"

Cadav is tucking away what’s left of his water bottle and answers, “Yeah, a little I suppose. But that’s normal. It’s a chance to serve and it’ll be an adventure.”

Mal shrugs his shoulders and says, “Nah, not me at all, I’m looking forward to it.”

Phoenix moves a little over towards Malcolm and laughs at Cadav, “Yeah, what do you mean, ‘a little’? More like ‘a lot’, right?” he adds with a glance at Mal, “What are you… some sort of chickenshit?”

Railyard…

Jeth thinks for a moment, the thoughts rumbling around in the space behind his eyes. I do not have a transit pass. I have me. I have myself. I have my name on me. It is still me. Me one anyway. I don't know why all these people are asking me all of these questions. This is not how my day usually goes. Usually it is, "Jeth! Do this!" and "Jeth! Do that!" where this or that is moving something from here to there. They do not ask, "Jeth! What are you thinking and feeling?" or "Do you have a transit pass?" And all I would do if they asked me that is shrug, I think. Anyway, all I can really do is this...

Jeth leans in close to the tiny camera-like part of the box, trying to display as much of his name tag as he can to the lens. It responds, “Thank you, citizen. Do you have your Transit Pass ready?”

Cafeteria…

Inside the cafeteria are the long tables for eating, but unlike the days of being an infrared, the slop lines are gone, and instead, there are two different counters where two completely different almost flavorless meals are being served. But better than that are the supplemental displays, where red level citizens can get desserts and snack foods and pre-packaged items (all at a nominal fee of course).

Sinda smiles warmly at Barb, holding both of her hands now, and says, “Go ahead and get started without me, and grab me some of those energy bars if you can. I’ll pay you back. If I don’t make a pit stop now, I’m never going to make it to where we’re going. Know what I mean?” Sinda heads off towards the restroom and calls back over her shoulder, “And save me a seat at the table. We have so much to talk about.” And then Sinda’s in the restroom.

Barb is a little bewildered and overwhelmed, but there’s a warm feeling coming from her gut that she’s never felt before.

Restroom…

Ugh! Sinda feels like she needs to wash up after that little display, but she pushes the urge down and gets into one of the stalls immediately to open her note. She recognizes the sloppy handwriting as Jon-Y-RTN, one of her local Death Leopard circle and one who has contact with other cells. It reads: “Holy shit! They’re loading your mission up with crates of experimental weapons! Big stuff! Stuff no one’s ever used before! GET! IT! ALL! Steal as much of that shit as you can! This is the motherload!” It’s signed, “Internal Security”

Sinda tears it into little pieces, which she then flushes.


WHAT’S THAT SMELL

Shipping container…

Hey! We’re back to the bots!

Wilt is a curious bot, so he sets about opening all the equipment crates, just to see what’s available:

Weapons Crate: this is the one Wilt already opened. There’s huge oversized rifles. Two types of handguns. Swords. Hand axes. Knives. There looks to be six of everything. Closer examination though reveals that the “bladed” weapons are all made of a stiff foam, molded to look like real weapons. There’s also several cases of ammunition in here marked “Paint-Standard-RED.” Wilt has pilfered some of the ammo.

Troubleshooter Gear Crate: This one contains ten sets of standard troubleshooter gear. Each set comes in a large, zippered bag of thick, clear plastic. A set consists of: 1 pair of boots (black), 1 t-shirt (black), 2 pairs of underwear (black), 2 pairs of socks (black), 1 set of coveralls (red), 1 laser pistol (red), 4 laser barrels (red), 1 truncheon (red), 1 flashlight, 1 reflec armor poncho with hood (red), 1 notepad (red), 2 pencils (black), 10 tubes of lip balm

Survival Crate: This one is full of what you would think of as “Outdoor gear” if you had any idea that outdoors exist: 8 sleeping bags (black), 8 LED headlamp caps (red), lots of rope, 4 bags of metal tent stakes, 4 machetes, 1 hatchet, 1 folding table, 1 box labeled “8 Awesome Board Games”, 1 broom, 2 boxes of stick matches, 2 large tarps (red), 12 aerosol cans of [Information Not Available at Your Security Clearance] repellent, 1 box of 144 clothespins

Bot Crate: VLaD has been sitting on Wilt’s “shoulder” throughout this process, excitedly cataloguing everything. K-ROL, however, has been disapproving of Wilt’s exploratory activities—until now. The “Bot Crate” is literally full of neatly organized bot parts; electronics, servos, shell patches, various oils and fluids, not to mention a few very specialized tools and attachments lined up at one end. K-ROL is ecstatic. “I was wondering what I was going to do my work with. I don’t think I’ve ever had a setup quite so nice. Praise the Computer.”

Experimental Crate: The other crates I’ve named for their contents, so we have an easy way of telling which is which. This one has named itself. It is clearly labeled, “Property of MDG Sector Research & Development. Experimental equipment for evaluation purposes ONLY!” Wilt has been saving this one for last, because R&D crates have a tendency to explode or leak acid or unless a swarm of metal-eating nanobots… you can never be sure. So Wilt wanted to check the others first before figuring out how to approach this last one.

This is the moment where a sudden lurch and the squealing sound of metal on metal indicates that the rail car they are on is moving slowly backwards (or at least “backwards” in the sense that the end of the crate that is now advancing is opposite of the one “front” end when they were initially hauled here).

Elevator…

Mal looks at Cadav with one raised eyebrow, amusement in his eyes, then turns his gaze towards Phoenix, his hand going to his LASER pistol. Mal nods towards the infrared clone and says to Phoenix, "You might want to watch what you say while we have company."

Expenda flinches at Phoenix's comment. After Mal’s words, she sidesteps a little closer to Cadav and away from Phoenix.

Pam is trying to gauge the clones without being obvious. Phoenix is just unpleasant and smells strongly of whatever products are keeping his hair styled up so high. Cadav and Malcolm both have bags with them—Malcolm a large duffel bag, and Cadav a backpack. Cadav’s pack is quite full. Malcom’s duffel seems mostly empty, but he does carry at least one large item in there. Cadav smells strangely of ozone.

As the infrared inches closer to him, Cadav is positive that she just smelled his shirt.

*ding ding* The doors slide open. They are in another wide corridor. The loading platforms should be at the far end of this.

Cafeteria…

Barb nods and calls after Sinda, "W-will do, friend!" but Sinda’s gone now. O my god! Sinda likes her! She must like her scowl from earlier. Barb’s a good scowler.... who knew? She goes over and gathers everything she can, especially those energy bars for Sinda. She then goes to find a table, ready to protect a spot for Sinda with her life. Normally, for efficiency, clones usually just sit at the first open space on these long tables, and a couple of them approach, trying to take Sinda’s seat, but Barb was clever. She put half of the gathered food in front of Sinda’s empty chair, so each time she could proudly say, “Sorry. My friend Sinda is sitting here. She’s in the restroom right now.”

Sinda isn’t back yet, but it’s only been a few moments. Barb knows she usually takes longer than this herself, even if it’s just number one. At least she thinks so. She got the food as quickly as she could, but she doesn’t know how long it actually took. She really should have looked at the time. Oh well. Any moment now.

Railyard…

Jeth begins to panic, not in a physical way -- His expression remains as blank as ever -- but his mind races, or rather, plods a little faster. A transit pass? I know I don't have a transit pass. They didn't give me a transit pass. Should I have gone with everyone else? They seemed like interesting people. They also said I was part of a team. A team that was going outside. I need to go outside, because that's where my team is going. Maybe the box can take me outside. I will be honest with it, and maybe it will be honest with me. I mean, outside is where the blue is, and the small things and the colors are brighter and more vivid. I want to go Outside. The box will take me outside! It must.

What Jeth says out loud is: "Outside!" in a voice that's thick with phlegm from lack of use. Jeth coughs a couple of times, for emphasis, chews and swallows.

The box replies, “I do not understand that request. Are you perhaps on a troubleshooter mission, Citizen Jeth-R-OHH-1?”


BESTIES

Railyard…

"Yes!" shouts Jethro happily. This speaky-box understands!

The box replies, “Excellent. What is the mission’s codename?”

Elevator…

Mal steps to the side and holds the door open with his left hand, looks at Phoenix, and motions towards the corridor outside the elevator. His right hand is still resting on his LASER pistol and the large duffle bag is still slung over his shoulder.

Cadav turns to the infrared clone that had been sniffing him, who turns out to be Expenda from the mission briefing, and asks, “Do you need something?”

Expenda mumbles, “Sorry citizen, no,” and goes to dart out the door, but Mal puts out his right hand to stop her, “Whoa there, citizen. Clearance before beauty.” He motions to the others to go ahead and step out, saying, “After you, Phoenix,” one side of his mouth twitching into a crooked smile as he gives Cadav a quick glance with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

As Phoenix steps out, Mal then turns his attention to Expenda. “You are not to breathe a word to anyone about anything you may or may not have heard on this elevator, under penalty of termination. Do you understand that, citizen?” he says with his ‘stern but caring’ military commander voice.

Expenda is looking at Mal but avoids eye contact at all costs. “Yessir,” she mumbles and then ducking her head and looking very frightened, she darts off down the hall and shuffles through a black door marked “Drainage Access.”

Once Pam is out of view, she finds herself in a new, smaller hallway where she finds what she is looking for: a cluster of old Mem-O-Max terminals. Mem-O-Max's were a previous iteration of clone memory backup. Nowadays, clones’ PODs take care of most of that, and the other functions of the Mem-O-Max’s are now handled by the latest model Confessional Booths. But these old devices still serve a purpose. Pam unlocks the first terminal with an IntSec code and ducks inside. Here, she's got a moment of privacy. She fires up the surveillance microphone circuit and dashes off a quick message to DeWan.

"Barb and Jeth may not have the skill set to get this done. Phoenix is likely to get the team killed, often. Will get more intel on the remaining members. Also - a request - I need a body-sized equipment crate added to their cargo. I'm planning that as my entry point onto the transport."

Pam encrypts the recording with her personal cypher and then shuts the terminal back down before heading back out. She is going to make her way down to Loading Platform H in the shadows and wait for her request to show up.

Cafeteria…

"Hmmm" Sinda says aloud, with satisfaction. She leaves the stall and washes her hands a little too long.

"Now to think this through." She thinks, "Weapons won't be easy to smuggle out alone, I may have to see if I can use this Barb somehow to pull this off. Looks like I'll have to pay for those energy bars after all." She seems to be alone in her head again, a fact which gives her some relief. Barb seems to have some sort of draw with the others—that too could be useful. Also, she can't be as dumb as she seems. No one is. So Sinda knows she'd best be careful. She had been planning on ditching the other woman, but she can't yet. "OK, Sinda, we can do this." Her face hurts, she notices. Must be from smiling, so she assumes her comfortable scowl, as she leaves the restroom, and maintains it until she reaches the table.

Sinda approaches the tables. The cafeteria tables are in three extremely long rows, and clones are highly encouraged to simply take the first empty seat, so tables fill up from one end. It is more efficient supposedly. However, Barb has managed to actually save a spot, and there’s an open gap right next to her. Sinda doesn’t think she’s ever seen a gap in the seating before, and the rebellious nature of it is simultaneously disturbing and pleasing. And it makes it that much easier for Sinda to force that smile back onto her face.

Barb is looking around the cafeteria anxiously until she finally spots Sinda on her way back, and then her face just beams. Then Barb gets a look of panic and tries to scowl, but she can’t maintain it and ends up smiling again as Sinda happily squeezes into the open seat. Sinda is smiling warmly, "So Barb, did you get enough to eat? I think I wasted too much time in there. Ready to go back and get this show on the road? We girls need to stick together, so I wouldn't want to leave without you." She pulls the other woman to her feet whether or not she seems ready. Barb is a bit confused and hesitant, so Sinda gives her a friendly push towards the door. Sinda says, “You can hit the elevator button. I need to check something.” Sinda follows a couple paces behind Barb while checking her POD.

The device still has nothing on it except the big red arrow. The arrow is pointing towards the elevator.

Sinda is happy to let Barb lead, always a step or two behind. “Trust no one” is always her motto. Plus then she could wipe this ridiculous smile off her face. She shudders, this niceness is obnoxious.

"Well, you seem to have hit it off with everyone, good for you" She mentions, trying not quite successfully to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Hoping the woman might reveal some information Sinda could use.

The elevator opens. It is empty.


COME TOGETHER

Railyard…

"Hurk," says Jeth-R-OHH. I wasn't listening to the mean one. The mean one sounded 'important' and maybe he said what the codename was. Jeth was too distracted by the OUTSIDE thoughts to worry about things like that. Jeth stabs a fat finger at his POD. The red arrow could help me. It says I am here! And maybe it will also say where here is and what I am supposed to do next. I like the red arrow. It is my friend so far. It could have killed me, but it did not. "Sorry, talky-box!" says Jeth, "I will tell you soon."

Sadly, the red arrow and its friendly message are gone now, and the screen has gone back to looking like Jeth’s POD has always looked. Or at least how it has always looked since Jeth got it. He has no idea what it may have looked like before it was issued to him.

Regardless, the POD is being particularly unhelpful. Jeth thinks again (he’s been doing a distressing amount of that since he woke up): I know that I'm supposed to go somewhere. And I remember the angry one who talked loudly said something about "MDG-Sector." That sounded important. Maybe, I will say "MDG-Sector" and the talky-box will know where I am supposed to go. This is hard for Jeth, Jeth is used to being told things, not being asked questions. "MDG-Sector?" he offers.

“Yes, citizen, this is the Rail Transport Loading Yard for MDG Sector. You have come to the right place. May I see your Transit Pass?”

Bottom floor…

Phoenix swaggers ahead of the group. “Might as well get this shit-show on the road.” He’s headed towards the far end of the corridor, following the large red arrow on his POD.

Mal and Cadav follow, staying a few paces behind Phoenix. Mal wants to keep an eye on him and to play with his mind a bit more. As they walk, Mal says to Cadav, “Shall we go check out our transportation before the rest of the team arrives?”

Cadav is distracted by an incoming message on his POD. He glances at it briefly and then swipes left to delete it and close his screen again.

It was a coded message with no routing or addressing information that said, “Memorial railyards. Left. Past corner. Bot Resource Depot #3.”

Eventually, the three of them reach the far end, where a large open archway leads him into a huge open area full of heat and dust and large trains and cars on rails. There is a plaque set into the arch that says, “Compardamee-U-SUK-11 Memorial Railyards.” Jeth-R-OHH is here, and he seems to be very frustrated with a panel set into the wall just past the plaque. Jeth also looks very beat up. He is bruised and bleeding, and his one forearm is clearly broken. He seems relieved to see the rest of the team.

The panel speaks up as the others approach and in a grinding mechanical voice says, “Transit Passes please, citizens.”

Elevator…

The two women board the elevator. Sinda notes that the red arrow on her POD is now jumping erratically, until she realizes by tilting her POD that it is actually trying to point down. With a shrug, Sinda hits the button for the bottom level—two floors down.

Barb is a bit jarred because well... She DIDN'T quite get enough to eat, especially since she was too distracted keeping Sinda's spot for her. But who is she to argue with someone so cool? And everything is going so well!!

As they ride down, Barb nods at Sinda's comment. "Y-yeah it's pretty crazy... Everyone is so nice. To be honest... At first I was worried you didn't like me."

The doors open, and they find themselves at the end of a long, wide corridor. The arrow on Sinda’s POD is pointing at the far end of this corridor now. At the other end, there is a large archway, and standing under it are four red clones that look to be the other members of their team.

In the shadows…

Pam makes her way carefully to Platform H, and finds the expected crate waiting for her. It is being held by a forklift bot which greets her with a cheery, “G’day, citizen Pam-G-RIR. Yer team’s just making it to the yard now, so it’d be best if you hurry.” After a pause it adds, “Respectfully, of course.”

Pam wastes no time sliding into the crate, and the bot seals the lid for her. As the crate is being moved, a recording plays. It is DeWan’s voice: “Pam, this recording will erase itself as it plays. No one will ever find the player. There’s a handful of emergency supplies hidden in the lining of this crate. I hope you do not have to use any of them. There is a communicator included, disguised as a POD. It should be able to reach Alpha Complex no matter where you end up, but it is good for one very short use only. Good lu…” and that’s all Pam hears before she passes out.

Shipping container…

Wilt leaves the experimental crate unopened and steps back from it, looking as innocent as he knows how, as a door opens at the far end of the container. A forklift-bot rolls in and deposits one last crate here, this one only half the size of all the others. The forklift-bot acknowledges the other bots over radio band, “G’day mates! Emergency addition to yer mission. And heads up—I think yer humans are coming.”

The bot backs out quickly and shuts the door again.

[Mike]

Chapter 3 -- All the Toys

UNEXPECTED

Railyard…

Mal addresses the team. “Great. Our travel chits are supposed to be with our equipment, which is supposed to be in our transport. Let me take care of this.”

He pulls up his POD, and looks a little puzzled. All that shows on his screen right now is a large message that says, “Congratulations! You are here!” No amount of tapping or swiping makes the message go away. Mal doesn’t have time to mess with this.

Mal steps up to the panel and turns on his Machine Empathy power. “Hey there, friend. We’re on a troubleshooter mission. Our travel chits are on our transport, so we have clearance for this area. Could you please direct us to our transport? We’re supposed to be at Loading Platform H.”

The panel replies, “Oh my. Please wait while I look up that information.”

While waiting for a response, Mal looks Jeth up and down. “You look like you’ve been having fun since the briefing. What’s the other guy look like?”

Cadav is digging in his pack and approaches Jeth and saying, “Yeah, what happened to you? I did have some basic medical training before I was assigned to cabling. I just need to find my supplies. I know it’s in here somewhere.”

Phoenix steps in ahead of Cadav and says, “Not to worry, son. I got this.” Phoenix steps up close to Jeth and very gingerly holds the injured arm. He speaks in an upbeat tone as he examines the injury, "Hey, friend-o! Not lookin' too hot here. Don’t you worry. I can patch you up." Phoenix tears a strip off the bottom of his shirt while adding, “Hey, at least you didn’t break the skin.”

Cadav hems and haws a bit, but allows Phoenix to take over, saying, “As long as you’ve got this in hand, I actually need to make a pit stop. Won’t take a second.” Cadav walks into the railyard and makes an immediate left around the corner.

Phoenix pulls Jeth’s truncheon off his belt to use as a splint. He starts binding the arm and using the excess material for a makeshift sling.

For Jeth, this is the moment that it hurts like HEL-Sector.

The panel on the wall finally lights up again: “I believe I’ve found your information. Take a right as you enter the railyards. Thirty-eight meters down you will find stairs. Use those to cross to the fourth set of rails where you will find Platform H. However, someone will need to return here with those travel chits so that my logs will be complete. Thank you.”

Down the Hall…

"Oh Barb" Sinda says, giving her a playful punch on the shoulder, "it's not that I don't like you, no, no, I just have resting bitch face and my voice just sounds this way normally."

She hides her annoyance as best she can. "You were right the first time 'girlfriend,'" She thinks, allowing her head voice to be as nasty and sarcastic as she wants, it's a relief to her soul.

Barb is taking it all in. She looks at Sinda and then to the other clones down the hall, doing her best to process the situation. Sinda has taught her well and it’s not time to disappoint. She lets out a quiet scoff and whispers toward Sinda. "Who are THESE losers?"

Sinda involuntarily finds herself agreeing with the sentiment. "Right? They’d never understand. It comes in handy to seem unapproachable sometimes though, so let's keep this our little secret, ok? Don’t want them thinking I’m soft. In fact, our whole friendship could be a secret! That sounds, like… so fun, right?"

That might be Sinda's way out of this being nice bullshit.

Just as the panel finishes its instructions, Barb and Sinda join the rest of them.

[GM Note: at this point, Barb’s player (Jacob) sent me a note that said: “Damnit Sinda. Fuck you, you manipulative bitch. I don't know any better!” For the last several moves, he has complained, because he knows exactly what Sinda is up to, but knows Barb would be eating this shit up. Which she does. And so I laugh…]

Shipping Container…

"Hmmm......Emergency addition, huh? We've gotta open this one! C'mon Vlad, let's tear it open!" Wilt approaches to do so, but picks up a foam sword. Just in case he has to scare something inside the newest crate.

The crate hisses as it cracks open. The sides of the crate are thick. The space inside is just large enough for its contents: an infrared clone unconscious. She appears to have no gear with her other than the black clothes she is wearing. Wilt can immediately detect that she is breathing normally, but appears to be sleeping.

Bot Resource Depot #3…

Around the corner, Cadav finds the door for Bot Resource Depot #3 right away. It’s just the second door down after Dispatcher Control & Repair. He thankfully finds it unlocked and enters.

Inside is a long, narrow room. It is only about three meters wide, but extends away from the door at least a dozen meters or more. The walls are lined with shelves of bot parts and electronics. There are rails set into the ceiling, and bots in various states of construction are hanging from hooks that run along these rails. A number of maintenance bots and yellow clearance citizens mill about the room (maybe a half-dozen of each) working on the hanging bots.

A tall burly clone by the door blocks Cadav from entering any further and says, “Can I helps you?”


CAN’T REFUSE

Bot Resource Depot #3…

Cadav swallows the lump in his throat and tries to come up with a good answer, and then he remembers his POD gave him directions, so SOMEBODY is probably expecting him here. Putting on his most calm voice he tries to ad lib some. “Well I was actually hoping you would know why I am here. I can only guess that ‘Friend Computer’ had a good reason to direct me to come here.” He says while gesturing to his POD. “Perhaps I am to acquire a bot to assist us on our job? Our friend has been injured so I am thinking that a Med-bot/Utility-bot might be a good choice…and maybe something with some self-defense capabilities. I am sure whatever you decide will be in line with our objectives.”

As a stress reliever, Cadav takes out a good food bar and tears into it. It comforts him. Looking at the clone he then says through the chewy goodness ” I have another one if you’d like one.” Before the clone can answer he whips out another bar and hands it to the clone with a sincere grin.

The yellow clone laughs heartily at what he assumes is intentional humor on Cadav’s part, “HA! Yeah… Friend Computer has yer back, pal!” The other yellows (and a couple bots) join in the laughter. Cadav can see his nametag now: DonCorl-Y-OWN-2. DonCorl wipes grease off his hands with a shop-rag and says in a much lower voice, “This mission youse is goin’ on is a real opportunity. They say they’re sendin’ ya to some remote ‘research station’ but the truth is it’s a fancy hideout fer the Ultraviolets when shit goes south, if ya know what I mean. We’s been lookin’ fer it fer months, but now they’re gonna chauffeur you straight to it. You plant THIS…” he holds up a device about the size and shape of a grenade, but with a smooth pink surface and a single pink button on top, “on the site and hit the button, and it’ll send us a signal so our guys can move in. This could be our new home when everything falls apart, and imagine what kinda hero you’ll be if yer the one who gets us there.”

The clone presses the device into Cadav’s hands and keeps talking, “Plus, yer gonna need this.” ‘This’ is a small black panel with a cord coming off of it, which DonCorl also hands over. “You unfold this anywhere outside so that it’s in the light, and this little baby will charge any device you got. You’ll thank me for it.”

Now the yellow clone holds Cadav’s face in both hands, bringing him down so that they are face to face. “A warning though… Internal Security has an agent on the inside. Someone on yer team ain’t what they seem, and they’re looking to bring us all down. You watch out for the tall, good-lookin’ one. Real smooth talker. Makes out like he’s yer friend, and you don’t even see it comin’ til it’s too late. You make sure that one don’t learn nothin’ out there. Take out his whole clone line if you gotta, but you can’t let him get suspicious of us.” He lets go of Cadav’s face. “Now hurry up before they come lookin’ for ya, kid.”

Railyard…

Mal says to the panel, “Will do, friend. Gotta make sure those logs of yours are kept up to date. Thanks much for the help.”

Barb looks to Sinda and nods. "O! Y-yeah yeah! Right. That makes sense. Absolute sense. Sounds super cool. You got it pal." She looks forward and gives a little reassuring nod to herself now. She's NOT gonna mess this up.

Sinda looks at Barb a little askance but then says, "Wow, looks like these morons can't handle being alone for 10 minutes! What the fuck do you think happened here?"

As Barb and Sinda approach, Sinda allows Barb to lead, and makes sure she stomps a little extra in her already too large boots. Wouldn’t want to startle one of the idiots—especially if they’ve just come off a fight. Who knows what kind of short triggers they’re on?

Barb blinks a couple times and her eyes widen as she notices Jeth. She wants so badly to sound snarky and condescending, but what comes out sounds genuinely worried and sympathetic. "What happened to YOU?!"

Phoenix has just finished splinting the broken forearm and has managed to create a passable sling for Jeth. Phoenix now has the top of his coveralls rolled down to his waist so that he could tear a strip off the bottom of his t-shirt for the sling. This leaves him wearing a ragged crop-top with his belly exposed.

Mal looks over his team. Phoenix seems to be doing a reasonable job with Jeth’s arm, and Jeth isn’t complaining at all. The two approaching clones still show a #1 on their nametags, so we still only have the single loss. Cadav is the only one missing, so…

Mal asks, “Did everyone hear that? Go into the railyards and take a right, go ahead 38 meters, take the stairs, cross to the fourth set of rails to Platform H. Why don’t you guys head on over, and I’ll wait for Cadav to get back.”

Without waiting for a response from the rest, Mal turns and heads into the railyard. He glances to the left, towards where Cadav went but he doesn’t see him. Mal pulls out his POD and leans against the wall to wait. After just a few seconds, the “You’ve arrived” message finally fades out on its own, and Mal is left looking at his usual home screen.


BUGGER OFF

Phoenix looks at his handy work. "All right that should do it. Just try not to use that arm for a month or so."

Phoenix is ready to leave, but waits to make sure everyone else is on board.

Jeth mumbles, "Thank You."

He waits patiently for someone to tell him what to do. They seem to know what talky-box is talking about. So I'll follow these people! It was nice that the hairy one...the one with the hair...the nice one made me this arm brace. It still hurts but it's less hurty than before. That's good I think. I think I missed something when the mean one was talking about the Outside. Because OUTSIDE! We're almost there, I think. I hope. Outside! There are things outside that I want to see, and probably better than being in here, because Outside will have many colors and not just a few. Mmm, outside.

Barb jumped a bit as Mal gave their directions. Since then, she’s been frowning and nodding as she soaks the details in and repeats to herself. "In railyards, take a right. 38 meters, take stairs. Fourth set of rails. Platform H... In railyards, take a right. 38 meters, take stairs... " She stands and repeats it to herself, determined to keep it in memory for herself and for her newfound friends.

Barb takes the lead and heads into the railyards, following the directions of her new mantra: “Railyards. Take a right. 38 meters…” Jeth smiles and follows amiably behind her. Phoenix shrugs and looks bored but follows Jeth. Sinda, barely looking up from her POD, brings up the rear.

The instructions are dead on, and before they even get to the stairs, there are directional signs. They can see that they are following the signs to Platform H, so they are on the right track. Up the stairs is an enclosed, elevated walkway, and sure enough, after crossing four sets of rails, they take the stairs back down to find themselves on Platform H.

Platform H is about 15 meters long and 4 meters wide, with rails on either side of it. A single, thick, graffiti covered, square pillar rises from the center of the platform up to the very high ceiling. The tracks “behind” them (the ones on the side from which they came) are empty. On the other side is a long flatbed railcar with a single, large, red shipping container on top of it. The railcar is almost 20 meters long, while the shipping container is just over 12 meters long and centered on the flatbed. There is a large, closed, sliding door on this side of the shipping container, facing the troubleshooters. The only other thing around is a complicated, multi-level forklift bot that is on the rails to the right of the railcar. It is rolling away as the troubleshooters come down the stairs.

Back at the entrance…

‘That’s curious,’ Mal thinks to himself. ‘I wonder if the message on my POD is tied to that particular area?’ Mal quickly checks around. He sees his team headed away in the other direction, and Cadav is still nowhere to be seen. Looking back at his POD, Mal walks back towards the panel where the message first appeared. Nothing happens. His POD is still working perfectly. Hmmm. Mal resumes his post to wait for Cadav, but he does not have to wait long.

Cadav stows the device with the pink button and the solar charger in his pack making sure neither one will spill out when he digs into his gear. He goes to leave, but then has an idea. At the industrial-sized sink near the door, he quickly washes his hands, and then grabs a paper towel from the dispenser so that he is drying his hands as he leaves.

Cadav emerges from a door marked Bot Resource Depot #3. He has a paper towel and appears to be drying his hands as he emerges. Cadav spots Mal, clearly waiting for him, and tosses his paper towel into a nearby waste receptacle.

Over Mal’s shoulder, Cadav can see the rest of the team some 30 or 40 meters away, just heading up a stairway leading to some kind of elevated walkway/bridge that leads out over the rails.

Inside the shipping container…

Pam wakes up but, as is her habit, she continues to feign sleep. She can tell that the crate she is in has been opened. She can also hear voices outside the shipping container. She imagines that they sound like her assigned team, but she actually can’t really tell for sure through the walls of this container. She doesn’t sense any people inside the shipping container yet.

Wilt is staring as this infrared clone, wondering if clones are going to replacing bots as mission equipment now. He can hear clones moving and talking outside the shipping container now, and at the same time, the one in the crate wakes up. She doesn’t move at all, and to all outward appearances seems to still be sleeping, but Wilt’s sensors detect changes in heartrate and breathing that indicate she is feigning sleep. That’s amazing! he thinks, I didn’t even know my sensors did that. Wilt wonders if he got some sort of upgrade on his last maintenance cycle.

One of the creepy surveillance drones communicates by radio: “They have arrived. Close that back up.”

VLaD responds audibly, “Oh bugger off, you. He’s just looking.”


BABES IN TOYLAND

Back at the entrance…

Mal looks back at Cadav. “They’re heading to our transport at platform H. I waited so I could show you the way. According to the panel back there, we take the stairs and cross to the fourth set of rails.”

Mal starts heading in that direction. Mal is moving quickly, and Cadav jogs to catch up to him. They move quickly and are slowly catching up to the rest of the team the whole way there, but still just a little behind.

Inside the railcar…

Pam takes a few deep breaths and tries to assess her situation. Other than voices outside, she’s hearing no other sounds or feeling any movement. The railcar is definitely not in motion yet. She also turns and curls up a bit attempting to look as small and harmless as she can, while still feigning the last moments of sleep.

As soon as the clone in the crate starts to move, Wilt grabs her with his long arms and pushes her back to her original position. In his frantic haste to get her crate shut, he tromps over a lot of the equipment he's already looked at it. Some of it gets kicked into the clone's crate, including a pack of the paintballs, several of which burst on the hapless clone. The clone is no longer pretending to be asleep, but it doesn’t matter, because Wilt is already snapping the lid back in place.

He looks around at the mess as he quickly joins VLaD and K-ROL in pretending to be in power-down mode. K-ROL radios, “They’re definitely going to notice something.” Ah well, Wilt thinks, it's not like the clones outside know what's in here anyway.

The large sliding door on the side of the car slides open to reveal six red-clad troubleshooters.

Platform H…

Barb is more than pleased with herself as she helps find their destination. Not only is she cool but... was she just a LEADER?! Wow! Things are happening so fast! ... Now what does she do? She's got to say something leader-y but cool:

"... Uh... g-good job guys. Glad you could keep up!" Barb stammers.

Phoenix isn’t paying attention to her though. He adjusts his hair a little and becomes just that much taller. Next he adjusts his coveralls. He still has the top folded down at the waist, but he ties something off so that it won’t fall off his hips, and so that the straps won’t drag. He raises his arms, appraising exactly how much of his stomach his new crop-top shows off. With his arms still over his head, he giggles a little and wiggles his stomach. This seems to satisfy him. He seems to be talking to himself as he puts his arms down. “Yeah! In case we need a little belly-dancing. That’ll do great.”

During all of this, Jeth is not paying attention either. He slowly walks around the pillar, mouthing something to himself. He stops on the far side of the pillar, one hand on one hip, one hand in a sling.

No, no, no! Jeth thinks, this will never do! Don't they have any appreciation for line, and for grace? Crude jokes? Amateurs! You have a canvas the size of, well, however big this is, and all you can think to do is scratch at it? *sigh* I guess I'll have to help them out. Jeth looks around to see if anyone is noticing and reaches into his coveralls. He balances the pot of ink in the sling, and with quick, practiced strokes, transforms the crude graffiti into the cutest cubist kitten the Alpha Complex has ever seen. Jeth quickly stoppers the pot and stuffs it and his brush back into his coveralls and nods, satisfied, to himself before lumbering back to the others. Oh, Outside, Jeth muses, I wonder if there will be flowers, not plas-ti-plants like in the foreman's office. I like the plas-ti-plants because they make me think of outside. OUTSIDE! We're going outside.

Sinda finally looks up from her POD, eyeing the container, and realizes no one else is doing anything. "Well, are we just gonna fucking stand here all day or get on with this? I've got shit to do!" she says, in her usual dry, bored tone. She starts to walk over to the car, bumping into Barb’s and Phoenix’s shoulders along the way accidently, rewarding them for her own actions with glares.

And ‘accidentally’ in this context means, ‘totally on purpose to try to intimidate one of these other losers into opening up the railcar in case it’s booby-trapped or has some sort of alarm system.’

Sinda is grateful here to revert to her usual self externally, because her heart is racing with excitement, the allure of mystery weapons to play with and going "Outside", causing a visceral reaction. How to keep the others from all grabbing those weapons for themselves though. She doesn't want to rush in and give away that she sorta knows what's there. "Balls" She thinks, "why does the computer insist on team work anyway? If the thing is alarmed, maybe there will be one fewer teammate to deal with. Uh, how would other clones be delivered outside for that matter?" That thought sobers Sinda: she doesn't want to die. What would be the fun in that?

Barb immediately jumps over to the railcar and grabs the handle. Then, catching herself, she slows down and pulls the door open while scowling at the rest of the team.

This is the moment that Mal and Cadav are coming down the stairs to join the rest of the team on Platform H.

The inside of the railcar is a mess. The interior is over 12 meters long, 3 meters high, and only 2.5 meters deep. There are several bots in here, of varying sizes and function. They are arrayed against the far wall and all are motionless. There are six crates of mission equipment here. Four of which are open, with most of their contents spilled across the floor. At either end of the container is a standard sized door that opens out onto the flatbed portion of the railcar. At the right end, that door has a control panel of some sort mounted next to it. The control panel looks new and clean, compared to the rather worn state of the rest of the container. That end of the container also contains six seats bolted to the walls—three on either side so that they face each other.

The other end of the container has two drone-bots. They are over a meter wide each, and maybe half that tall. They both have the typical multi-rotor blade configuration of surveillance drones. They are completely identical to casual inspection, and totally devoid of markings. They are both gleaming white on every surface, indicating they may only be handled by Ultraviolet clearance citizens. By contrast, the remaining bots are all various shades of gray and/or silver with black markings, indicating that they take orders from any Alpha Complex citizen.

The other bots, lined up against the back wall, all have their designations painted directly on them. From left to right, they are:

K-ROL: a large tank of a bot, looking like a misshapen beer keg almost two meters high, with maybe a dozen arms with a wide variety of attachments. It is some sort of maintenance bot. K-ROL looks like it is sitting directly on the floor, but probably has some sort of tiny wheels or treads underneath.

VLaD: a roughly basketball-sized spider-bot with six multijointed legs and at least two other visible appendages. VLaD stands for Vent, Light, and Duct. It is a utility bot.

Wilt: Wilt stands a towering 2.2 meters tall, with the first 1.5 meters of that being its two long spindly legs, topped by a stout cylinder, 70 cm tall and nearly as much in diameter. The cylinder has three arms evenly spaced around the top rim of the body. All three arms are as long as the legs. Painted on Wilt’s body is the standard Red Plus of all medical personnel and equipment.

Tensor: Tensor is a hoverflat. It is four meters long, two meters wide, and 30 centimeters thick. One end of it tapers off to form a loading ramp of sorts when the bot is on the ground. The other end has a meter-tall control column. The designation Tensor is printed in all caps along either flank. Tensor is currently hovering silently 15 centimeters above the floor, but otherwise is as motionless as the others.

The four open and spilled equipment crates are the real mess in here.

Weapons Crate: There’s huge oversized rifles. Two types of handguns. Swords. Hand axes. Knives. There looks to be several of everything. There’s also several cases of ammunition in here marked “Paint-Standard-RED.” At least half the contents of this crate have been scattered around the area.

Troubleshooter Gear Crate: This one contains ten sets of standard troubleshooter gear. Each set comes in a large, zippered bag of thick, clear plastic. A set consists of: 1 pair of boots (black), 1 t-shirt (black), 2 pairs of underwear (black), 2 pairs of socks (black), 1 set of coveralls (red), 1 laser pistol (red), 4 laser barrels (red), 1 truncheon (red), 1 flashlight, 1 reflec armor poncho with hood (red), 1 notepad (red), 2 pencils (black), 10 tubes of lip balm. This crate is tipped over, but the gear packs are all still right there in the immediate vicinity.

Survival Crate: This one is full of what you would think of as “Outdoor gear” if you had any idea what preparing for the outdoors was like: sleeping bags (black), LED headlamp caps (red), lots of rope, bags of metal tent stakes, machetes, a hatchet, a folding table, a box labeled “8 Awesome Board Games”, a broom, boxes of stick matches, large tarps (red), aerosol cans of [Information Not Available at Your Security Clearance] repellent, a box of clothespins. This crate is also tipped over and a fair bit of its contents mixed in with the weapons and ammo and other stuff on the floor.

Bot Crate: The “Bot Crate” is literally full of neatly organized bot parts; electronics, servos, shell patches, various oils and fluids, not to mention a few very specialized tools and attachments lined up at one end. This crate has been opened, but not otherwise disturbed.

Experimental Crate: The other crates I’ve named for their contents, so we have an easy way of telling which is which. This one has named itself. It is clearly labeled, “Property of MDG Sector Research & Development. Experimental equipment for evaluation purposes ONLY!” This crate is unopened.

Mystery Crate: This one is smaller and made of different materials than the other crates. It is unlabeled and unopened.


SERIOUSLY?

Wilt plans on staying as still as possible until interacted with. He is very good at this.

Jeth comes out from behind the platform on the pillar and stares at the wild array of stuff inside the railcar. That’s a lot of stuff.

Barb sort of awkwardly holds the door for others as they jump into the car and start sorting through items.

Inside her dark crate, Pam swears internally, furious with whatever malfunctioning bot just covered her in paint. She's now reaching around the container for anything that feels like a flashlight, or for one of the hidden catches that should release the equipment DeWan talked about. She's breathing shallow, trying to keep her head in spite of the paint fumes.

Phoenix and Cadav are the first ones into the car. Phoenix decides he wants one of both kinds of handgun, a box of ammunition, a good length of rope, a machete, as well as new boots—so he takes one of the ‘troubleshooter’ packs to open later. Phoenix says happily, "Light and simple. No need to complicate things." Looking closer, the pistols and ammo he’s picked up are for paintball (with red paint ammo). The machete he snagged is real enough, but the ‘bladed’ weapons from the weapons crate are all actually stiff, molded foam on plastic handles shaped to look like real weapons.

Cadav’s eyes widen at all the supplies and bots. Moving quickly in the direction of the large rifles he says, “Very nice. Don’t mind if I do...” as he hefts one of the weapons to gauge its weight and balance. It’s a lot lighter than he would have thought. Nice. Cadav says to Mal, “C’mon, Malcolm, what’s your preference?” He looks for some of the ammo and this is when he realizes that the firearms and ammunition are all paintball ordinance. Then he remembers that he saw some swords and other items. Cadav wants to say something witty about all this, but now he sees that all the ‘bladed’ weapons from the weapons crate are all actually stiff, molded foam on plastic handles shaped to look like real weapons. He turns to the stuff from the survival crate and notes that the hatchet and the machetes are all real, so he takes the ax and one machete for now.

Puzzled, Cadav turns to the Experimental Equipment crate and wonders about prying it open with this hatchet.

Mal has gone straight to the mystery crate, then says to the others in his commanding military voice: “Alright, let’s get this organized, and keep an eye out for those travel chits. Jeth and Phoenix, why don’t you two pick up the gear crate. Barb and Sinda, you pick up and organize the ammo and weapons. Cadav, since you’re there, pop open that experimental crate, and I’ll check out this little fella.” The mystery crate is smaller than the others, but still too big to lift. Fortunately for Mal, it looks like someone already opened the lid and then replaced it. The mystery crate opens easily for him.

Inside the mystery crate is Expenda-BLE-1, the infrared clone from earlier. She has a troubleshooter pack and a few other items inside the crate with her, and somehow, she has gotten red paint all over the front of her uniform.

Pam and Mal both realize right away that the red paint is from the ammo scattered around here. It’s paintball ammo. With that realization, they note that the equipment in the crate includes several ‘bladed’ weapons—a sword, and ax, two long knives—but all of these ‘bladed’ weapons from the weapons crate are actually stiff, molded foam on plastic handles shaped to look like real weapons.

With all the commotion, Sinda finally starts to take notice of what’s going on.


FRIGGIN SWEET

Wilt has his jazz hands ready in case anyone talks to him.

Barb's eyes light up and she does her best to be patient as they all enter. She quickly goes over to Sinda as Sinda is finally noticing what's happening. "Come on Sinda! Let's get what we can! Let me know what you think is best." She grabs Sinda by the arm, trying to guide her over to the ammo and weapons.

Sinda is pissed off instantly by Mal trying to order her around, and annoyed as HEL Sector that Barb’s being all BFF-y again… but she wanted to check out the weapons anyway. She was using the POD, and her seeming obliviousness, as an excuse to try to get close to the mystery crate, but oh well. She'll get what she wants eventually. She has absolutely no doubt about that. In fact, she knows exactly how to draw everyone's attention away from the fun looking experimental crate.

Sinda lets Barb lead her to the weapons crate, stepping in front of Cadav, while giving him a dagger like glare. "You heard the boss" she says, voice dripping with sarcasm, "Go open that experiment crate. Leave the weapons to us girls."

Barb helps out by giving Cadav a little push and says, “Yeah!”

Sinda thinks, and that way, if the thing explodes, it takes him out first.

Sinda and Barb quickly realize what everyone else has already figured out. All the weapons from the weapons crate are either paintball firearms or foam-core melee weapons. But there’s a lot of them.

Jeth is the last, but he finally boards the train as well. He keeps turning around to look at everything, but does not immediately go for the equipment as others have done.

Phoenix continues to suit up, strapping on his new pistols and foam-core blades, and making sure he has plenty of that paintball ammo.

“GET OUT OF THAT CRATE RIGHT NOW AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF!” Mal yells at Expenda in his drill sergeant voice, grabbing her and lifting her up. For those who couldn’t tell before, apparently it was Expenda, the infrared clone from the mission briefing, stuffed inside that mystery crate. She looks lost and miserable, and there is red paint all over the front of her uniform—presumably from the broken case of paintball ammo that was in the crate with her. Mal continues, “What are you doing in here? Why are you covered in red paint? Why are these weapons fake?”

As he’s helping Expenda out of the crate, he says to the rest of the team, “Check out those other weapons and see if they’re real or not.”

Phoenix pipes up immediately, “The machetes are real. And I think the lasers in the troubleshooter packs are real. All the rest o’ this is paintball and foam-core. Pretty friggin’ sweet.”

Expenda screams at the top of her lungs and flails wildly, trying to cling on to Malcolm—who is, very wisely, keeping her decidedly at arm’s length. She's crying and yelling incoherently. It sounds sort of like an apology, but really more like begging. Other than the word “lost,” no actual words can be made out around her sobs.


CONFRONTATIONAL

Wilt is extremely glad he does not feel physical pain, because he's sure that if he did, his hands would be positively ACHING with the strain of how ready his jazz hands are. Is no one going to come check out the awesome docbot?

Cadav, who is wielding a hatchet, swings it at Barb's face, but then stops mere centimeters from it and says, "Careful who you push. People holding hatchets might slip, and then there'd be... a mess. I hope I made myself clear. I don't usually give warnings." Cadav takes to prying open the experimental crate with his hatchet as if nothing had happened

Barb's eyes go wide as the hatchet nearly bisects her face. "I... don't get it... wh-wh-why would you slip THIS way if you were pushed you THAT way?" She stays frozen in her position and looks to Sinda for help, with a shrug and questioning eyes.

Mal sets Expenda down against the edge of the crate and rubs his temples. “I can’t understand a thing you are saying. Get control of yourself, and then try to explain what’s going on.”

While she’s hitching and sobbing, Mal looks at the rest of the crew. He sees that Cadav is working and nods, then turns to the women. “Well, might as well continue getting everything organized. Barb and Sinda, make sure you separate the real weapons and ammo from this fake crap. Maybe we’ll have time for a paintball match when this is all straightened out, but not right now.”

When Malcolm turns back to Expenda, she is no longer blubbering, but speaks while looking at her boots, "DeWan told me! He told me!" She looks up long enough to glare at Phoenix and rubs paint under her nose as she tries to get the snot to stop. "It's HIS fault that DeWan is in trouble!"

In spite of the tears and the racking sobs, she manages to get to her feet, staring daggers at Phoenix again, "I care about him. You have to complete the mission."

As if on cue, the railcar's sliding door rolls shut. There are brief clacking noises from that door as well as from the doors at the front and back of the car. Overhead fluorescent lights come on, and the panel near the seats says in a soft, feminine (but obviously automated) voice, "Please fasten your safety restraints while the vehicle is in motion."


WHAT THE WHAT!?

The look in Barb's eyes does something to Sinda. She might not like the woman (or won't let herself like her), but will not stand for anyone, except perhaps herself, to threaten Barb. She waits ‘til Cadav is again occupied with his crate. "The fuck am I about to do?!" She asks herself inside her head, not quite understanding what's going on with her.

"Uh... y-yeah! Let's get to it Sinda! We got this right?!" Barb does her best to push and usher her away from the crates where she kneels down and starts piling up everything that’s been spilled. "We can figure this out! You know how to tell a fake? I think I could tell a fake a mile away. I'm used to sorting stuff! I used to work in a mail room. Sorting was ALL I did so I'm really good at it, and you REALLY gotta watch for those details... ". Barb is rambling, but can see that Sinda isn’t listening at all.

Sinda thinks, "This is probably going to get me killed", she thinks "but at least I'm gonna have some fun doing it!”

Cadav is kneeling in front of the experimental crate. He works the lid off and gingerly sets it to one side. Inside, the crate is filled to the brim with shredded red paper. The edge of some black cylinder can be seen poking out towards one edge of the sea of shredded paper, but otherwise, there’s no clue to what else might be hidden beneath the surface.

Sinda stalks up behind the kneeling Cadav as quickly and quietly as possible. Her anger and frustration at the man boils over just a bit, and her power ignites one of the foam battle-axes in the ‘weapons’ crate as she steps away from it.

By the time Sinda reaches Cadav, she has her laser out. She presses it to the base of his skull and fires once. "I don't give warnings!" she hisses, as Cadav’s cadaver slumps forward over the paper stuffing of the experimental crate.

Sinda immediately turns back towards Barb. "You ok?" she asks, in an uncharacteristically soft tone. She is whispering so that only Barb can hear, "I just fucked things up, but maybe the fact that that paintball crate is all of a sudden on fire may distract the others. Let's go pretend we don't know what happened, k?"

Something in the ‘weapons’ crate is on fire, even though no one is near it at the moment.

The entire train creaks and groans as it begins moving with a sudden lurch. It knocks Sinda to her knees next to Barb. Jeth staggers and grabs hold of the large, barrel-like K-ROL bot to keep his balance. Phoenix just falls back onto his butt. Only Malcolm and Expenda manage to keep their feet.

[Mike]

Chapter 4

EXPLETIVE

Pam sees Sinda kill Cadav in a fit of pique. It’s not unusual for teams to start coming apart once they get their equipment. But, five more laser pistols and who knows how many other weapons in the armory crate are a danger to all of them. She’s trying to decide if her cover is more important than the mission at this point. “Best to keep your cards in your reflec, woman,” she thinks to herself.

“Shit,” Mal says, “Everybody grab a seat.” Mal moves to take the seat next to the control panel, and pulls Expenda so she sits beside him. He sets his gear bag down on the seat, his back to the rest of the container, unzips the bag and pulls out Vera.

Expenda takes another breath, and her eyes go wide. “Fire,” she says. And she looks toward the weapons crate now smoldering. “We are in trouble.” No one is paying much attention yet.

"Shit," Sinda mutters, grasping her right knee, sore from landing on it. She tries to stagger to her feet despite the moving train. Mal is watching Sinda, and decides to get up. “Watch my bag,” he tells Expenda, then turns and walks up to Sinda.

“Shit,” Phoenix exclaims as everything starts a-shaking. “Don’t worry, buddy, I got ya!” Phoenix grabs Cadav’s body and drags it to the seats, carefully strapping it in next to Expenda, before seating himself directly across from Cadav and taking care of his own restraints. The safety restraints for these seats consist of a simple lap/shoulder belt combo, but once in place and adjusted, it manages to hold Cadav’s body upright even though his head still flops loosely.

Malcolm grabs Sinda’s elbow to help support her as she stands. Once she’s upright, she realizes that Malcolm has a very large rifle under one arm, and the barrel of it is poking Sinda gently in the abdomen. Mal whispers furtively in Sinda’s ear, “We got a job to do, and right now, between Phoenix, Expenda, and you and Cadav, I’m getting nothing but trouble. And I don’t like trouble. Please keep that in mind for the future.”

Sinda smolders silently, absorbing this information, and before she can respond, Mal is already strapping himself in next to Expenda. “Now explain to me how Phoenix is responsible for DeWan being in trouble, and why that matters to this mission.”

With only two seats left, Sinda sits in the seat across from Malcolm, leaving an empty seat between her and Phoenix.

Barb's eyes are almost bulging out of her head. Sinda just killed someone! ... in cold blood!! ...He didn't even see it coming!!! ...She KILLED him!!!! ...For her!!!!!!
...
Barb is overwhelmed… THAT WAS SO COOL!

Barb realizes finally that with the train moving, everyone is strapping themselves in. She grabs the last remaining seat between Phoenix and Sinda and stammers random syllables as she fastens and adjusts her restraints.

Jeth rumbles to life, now that he realizes what's happening! He chortles again, a low rumble counterpoint to the train. He rocks gently back and forth, all the while staring at the red paintballs and Expenda, covered in pain. Outside! And PAINT! Outside and paint! We're going to paint things! Outside! Ow-----tside! I almost forgot my arm hurts, but it's not that bad! Outside! And paint! Ignoring the commotion from the others, he goes over to the crate where Expenda had been stuffed and starts carefully, and reverently taking out the paintball equipment. Once he’s loaded up, he turns to the tall, skinny docbot and says, “Hey… uh…?” and holds up his injured arm.

The docbot suddenly springs to life, all of his lights coming on at once, and his “Red Plus” symbol glowing softly. The bot puts one foot forward and leans in with his arms out, making the bot equivalent of ‘jazz hands’ The bot says, “Wilt, the DocBot, at your service!” After a short pause, Wilt shakes his jazz hands again and adds, “Hot-cha!”

VLaD radios to the other bots, “Oh! So it’s intro time now? I’m on it!”

Once Wilt has finished his intro, the spider-bot leaps onto the overturned weapons crate and says, “Oh shite! Tell me I’m not the only one who saw that!” The spider-bot scuttles over to the seats and stops in front of Sinda, “Citizen Sinda, I’m VLaD, and I’m so happy to be part of your mission equipment, because that was the most baller thing I’ve ever seen!”

Mal is interested to note that the underside of VLaD’s carapace is painted brown… an unusual color on bots. It may not mean anything, but…

With a soft crackling noise, some sort of energy rises out of Cadav’s corpse. The energy forms a faintly pinkish force field about 5 cm from the body on all sides. This raises the body slightly out of its seat, and causes the lap and shoulder belt to strain a bit as the force field presses against it.

For reference, as one walks to the “front” end of the car where the control panel is, there are three seats on either side of it. Starting from the front end and working back, on the left side are Malcolm, Expenda, and Cadav-1’s body. On the right side are Sinda, Barb, and Phoenix. VLaD the spider-bot is on the floor between Sinda and Malcolm.


CLONE INTERRUPTED

The train is picking up speed.

Jeth is still staring up at Wilt. Staring up at anyone or anything is unusual for Jeth. He is still holding up his injured arm, but is clearly thinking hard as if he has something to say but can’t figure out what.

From her seat, Sinda gives Mal an appropriately subservient nod to show she will play nice. For the moment anyway… and whenever he is watching… even though she is seething inside: “Of course he sides with his fucking crony, even though the asshole asked for it by threatening Barb for just doing what Malcom told her to in the first place. Typical," she thinks with disgust, "Also, why didn't I get myself a freaking rifle too, before losing my damn temper?” She is slightly startled when she hears the bot speaking.

"Shitfuck" she thinks as the Spiderbot starts gushing at her. She doesn't know if it's referring to shooting Cadav or her firepower, but regardless she doesn't want the others to figure out either. She knows Malcom knows about Cadav, but isn't sure if the others do and she only wants trouble started that doesn't result in her dying. Her first instinct is to kick the bot into oblivion but decides against it because one: that would probably count as "trouble" and two: bots are generally a good thing to have around and on your side.

Sinda twists her nose ring. "Uh, thanks" she says to VLaD while stealing a glance at Malcom out of the corner of her eye.

Mal is looking at Expenda now, so Sinda leans down to adjust the laces on her boots and whispers so only VLaD can hear "If you liked that, just stick with me and you'll see some real badass shit, if you know who," she gives a quick glance at Malcom, hoping the Spiderbot gets the message, "doesn't shoot me." The bot raises one of its stick-like forelimbs and makes a gesture that Sinda interprets as a salute.

She finishes fiddling with her shoelaces and sits back up in her seat, whipping out her POD and keeping her face buried in it. She’s glad to note that the POD seems to be working again, and several of her games and basic apps are available, but any time she tries something that requires a link to the main system, it just flashes, “Please wait. Searching for signal.”

Mal stares at Expenda, waiting expectantly. Instead of answering, Expenda looks toward the smoldering crate and says "FIRE" in a louder voice.

Mal follows her line of vision and spots the weapons crate which is emitting tendrils of smoke, and he can see a couple fingers of flame around the edges of it. [For clarity, the crate is on its side, and it appears that something inside the crate is burning. The lid is nearby, and anyone looking around will not a tiny wall-mounted fire extinguisher next to each of the three doors.]

Mal slings his large rifle over his shoulder and goes to investigate.

Just before he reaches the crate, there is a deafening racket as something crashes through the ceiling and lands on the weapons crate. It smashes the crate and its contents and leaves a serious dent in the metal floor. In fact, come to think of it, the ceiling was metal as well, and whatever this is just tore straight through it. Mal is closest to the impact, and he feels the sting of debris and shrapnel peppering him, but he doesn’t think he’s sustained any serious injury.

Mal has fallen over backwards and is bleeding from a half-dozen tiny wounds from the debris.

Everyone’s attention is focused solidly on whatever just crashed into the train car, and as the dust settles, the object becomes clearly. It is a sphere made of crackling pinkish energy about one meter across… the same pinkish energy, it seems, as the force field around Cadav’s corpse, still strapped into its seat. And speaking of Cadav, there is a clone inside this new ball of energy that just dropped in unexpectedly. The clone is bald and dark-skinned and could very well be Cadav #2.

Sure enough, the energy field disappears, and the new clone flops out among the wreckage its entrance created. The new clone is Cadav-R-USS-2, who looks incredibly confused.

The noise of air rushing past the newly formed skylight is quite loud. The car may be traveling even faster than everyone expected.


YES DOCTOR

[First, let me stress to everyone that with that hole in the ceiling, it is now loud in here. Loud enough that people need to shout to be heard (and I’ve adjusted for that in people’s posts). The noise is worse the closer you get to the hole, which is about in the center of the car, but even at the ends, it’s still pretty loud.]

Sinda, noticing Mal's stumble, tries not to snort in satisfaction, as she watches over the top of her POD. She watches in fascination as the replacement clone arrives and Cadav starts to get up, apparently unaffected by his dramatic trip. "Hmm, so that's how this is gonna work," she thinks, relieved a bit, although not dying is still pretty damn high on her to-do list.

She watches the air rushing above them through the hole for a moment. Every once in a while, a faint overhead light flashes by rapidly in the darkness. This is definitely fast. Sinda files this information away, and then goes back to her game.

“Are you alright, friend?” Cadav asks as he extends a hand and helps Malcolm to his feet. Cadav is shouting this in order to be heard over the roar of air over the open hole in the ceiling. Mal looks generally annoyed at all this and swears, “Damnit!” as he steps quickly behind Cadav to the crushed weapons crate. It is no longer on fire.

Mal points at the seats and shouts to Cadav over the roar: “We’ll address how you got here later! Right now, get that corpse out of that seat and strap yourself in! Hurry up before this thing comes to a sudden stop!” Cadav only catches about half the words.

Cadav shrugs and moves to the seats. Specifically to the seat where Cadav-1 is strapped in and protected by that weird pinkish force field. Thankfully the noise is not quite so intense over here. He then examines his previous clone for several long moment with a confused look. “So that’s what I look like from the outside. I thought I’d be taller.” he says to no one in particular as he stares fixedly at his own corpse realizing his own mortality. Careful not to touch the apparent force field he looks for what the cause of his demise might have been. The dead clone’s head is hanging forward, and there is a large laser burn at the base of its skull where it joins the spine. “How did this happen?” he asks aloud hoping for an answer. “I have seen a lot of death, just not my own” he says as he almost mechanically moves toward the only open seat and straps in.

From where he is strapped in, Phoenix points at Cadav with both hands and shouts to him, “Hey! Don’t lose your head!” Then he smiles to himself and turns to give Barb a wink as he settles back for the ride.

Mal then approaches Jeth and the tall docbot and shouts to Jeth, “We’ll have Wilt fix your arm once we’ve reached our destination! Right now, it’s probably best if you grab a seat! Go take the seat next to Expenda for now, since that’s the only one available!” Again, it’s loud in here; only about half of that gets through.

Mal looks around for a way to brace himself for when this death trap decides to pull a surprise rapid deceleration. He finally decides on sliding the experimental crate over to the seats to brace himself against that.

Mal grabs the experimental crate and slowly slides it over to the seats. It’s a struggle, but he gets it. He then sits down and braces himself against the crate.

Mal then pulls out his POD and tries looking up specs on VLaD since that brown undercarriage has him intrigued. His POD seems to be working normally as far as apps go, but all information requests are met with, “Please wait. Searching for signal.” Mal has no idea what that even means as he’s never seen it before. He’s never heard of PODs not serving up information. Redacting, yes. Obfuscating, sure. Censoring… all the time. But refusing? That’s weird.

"Let me just patch you up, real quick! Something to numb the pain, first." Wilt's tentacle-like arm extends towards Jeth, spinning menacingly as a hypodermic needle finally comes out. Wilt injects Jeth with it, administering a powerful numbing agent. The needle then retracts to be replaced by small scissors which quickly cut Jeth’s improvised bandage/sling away so that he can see the extent of the injuries. Jeth finds that whatever he just got injected with has robbed him of any control over that arm, and it starts to drop like a lead weight.

Fortunately, Wilt has pretty amazing reflexes for a docbot. A second mechanical arm comes into play, and catches Jeth’s hand, pulling the hand and injured arm up where Wilt can see it better. “No problem!” Wilt says as an aerosol nozzle replaces the scissors. A fine mist jets out over the arm, like some sort of like liquid bandage - except in aerosol form. For some reason, though, the bandage is blue rather than flesh toned. Ah well. “Perfect!” Wilt announces and leaves Jeth to go look at Malcolm.

Jeth’s arm now dangles helplessly at his side, and the blue skin hardens into a sort of shell that keeps the forearm immobile. Unfortunately, because of the way Wilt had gripped his hand and used it to lift everything up, the bone no longer appears to be set correctly. The forearm had a definite curve to it now, and the wrist and hand are rotated about 90 degrees out of the position that Jeth would have expected. But at least all the pain is gone.

Wilt then ambles over towards where Mal has braced himself. "Oh man! You're cut all over. Here, take two of these, and call me in the morning." A couple of pain pills (the equivalent to Tylenol) are ejected from a little tray out of Wilt's core. Wilt squats down on his immensely long legs so that Malcolm can reach the pills.


SHADES OF GRAY

Barb can't help but give a small gasp paired with a giant goofy grin when Phoenix says her line. She sinks down in her seat with her shoulders up by her head and gives him a double thumbs up on either side of her cheeks, almost bouncing with joy even after so much stress and craziness. She's gonna be riding that high for the whole trip... she hopes.

Jeth looks at his newly bandaged (and blue) arm and looks very tired and confused. Jeth yawns and stares up absently at the hole in the ceiling.

Mal quickly grabs the pills from the docbot, pops them in his mouth and swallows them. He then gets up and unbuckles cadaver Cadav-1 from its seat and pulls the body over by the weapons crate, then grabs sleepy Jeth and pushes him down into the newly opened seat. “BUCKLE UP” he shouts at Jeth. (Again, shouting over the noise.) Jeth recognizes the shoulder belt next to him and pulls it across his body. Just after he snaps it into place, Jeth’s whole body goes limp. He appears to be sleeping.

‘It’s going to be a bumpy ride,’ Mal thinks to himself for some reason.

Mal goes back to take his place braced against the experimental crate.

While sitting there, curiosity takes over and he decides to have a look in the experimental crate while he’s waiting for the train to stop. He twists around sideways, so he’s still braced against the crate if the car stops, and looks into the already open crate. Some of the foam packing peanuts have blown out with all the activity, but it is still mostly full. Digging through those, Mal finds that beneath the packing material are a number of large, sealed, transparent, plastic bags. Each bag contains an experimental item along with a red manilla envelope with the name of the project/item on it. The first one he grabs is labelled “Camo Tarpaulin” and it looks for all the world like a large, folded, fluorescent pink, plastic tarp. The next is a very heavy square made of thick black pipes. This one is labelled “Automated Ladder.” He also finds “Rocket Boots”, a “Personal Personnel Field Defense Excavator” and a bottle of pills marked “Titanium Soldier Mark 7.2”. There is more underneath, but this is the stuff on top.

While everyone else is distracted, Pam maintains her low level memory fog and takes a quick look through Malcolm’s bag (finally). When she does, she is extremely disappointed. Standard troubleshooter equipment, a couple basic hand tools, non-perishable food items from the cafeteria. The only contraband item that Malcolm seems to have is that big-ass rifle he has slung over his shoulder right now. Pam still can’t figure how he’s managed to even hold onto it for any length of time, much less get it down here on a mission without it being scanned and flagged. Curious.

VLaD, the spiderbot, scurries over to the bulky maintenance bot K-ROL. On the open bot channel, VLaD radios to her, “Blimey! In all that mess, I got a chunk o’ something under me shell, and now this leg’s froze.” K-ROL extends a couple of stiff tool-arms and picks VLaD up, turns him over, and then pokes under his carapace with some needle-like tool that emits sparks.

K-ROL radios back, “Oooh, it’s nothing really, y’know. Just a piece of shrapnel blocking it from uncurling. Didn’t even nick the lines there. Give me a couple minutes.”

Through the hole in the ceiling everything suddenly changes, and while the speed has not decreased, and the airflow over the hole hasn’t changed, it all becomes much quieter. Still loud, but bearable. People can start to hear each other again. At the same time, there is light coming in. Looking up through the hole reveals a blurry, grayish background but no recognizable features.


MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

K-ROL finishes whatever it was doing to VLaD and sets the little bot down. VLaD flexes one leg experimentally, and then scurries up Wilt, the docbot, to perch on Wilt’s shoulder. VLaD radios, “That one’s a bit of alright,” indicating Sinda-R-ELA-1, “I think I found my mission-buddy.” If the little bot could leer, Wilt has no doubt he would be leering right now.

The whole team holds their positions. There is a clear sense that this intense speed will be over soon, and the whole thing will come to a rapid stop. Within Alpha Complex, anything that moves this fast is some sort of inter-sector transport; it’s always super-rapid acceleration, followed by a minute or two at top speed, and then a sudden stop at the end that knocks everyone over. After five solid minutes with no sign of slowing, people are starting to get a little cramped from bracing themselves.

Cadav is the first to move. He realizes his need for protection and goes to his corpse. The moment Cadav-2 touches the body, the pink force field around it disappears with a shimmer of bluish smoke. Cadav jumps a little, but after seeing that the body isn’t about to explode, he retrieves all of his gear—laser, POD, backpack, etc. After he has geared up, he kneels over the body and places a hand on his dead clone-brother’s forehead. Slowly and reverently he closes the eyes of the deceased.

Cadav uses this moment to establish a zombie link with his clone’s corpse. It works, and he feels the body twitch, but with the movement of the cabin, he doubts anyone else noticed. He knows from experience that the body will continue to lay here until he gives it an order, but just in case, he reinforces that by telling it not to move.

Finally, Cadav is done. He finds his pencil and notebook and scribbles “Who killed me?” on the top sheet, which he then tears off and hands to Mal. Cadav then returns to his seat and buckles in. He closes his eyes as if meditating, and a single tear rolls down his cheek. The tear is fake.


WAIT FOR IT…

Pam is thinking: The transport must be going through the exterior barriers. There's likely minutes more travel before we approach the outposts. Also, she's dropped the memory fog now that her curiosity toward Mal's bag has been sated.

Expenda is quiet. She gazes around in wide-eyed wonder. She manages a half-smile in Barb's direction. Barb, for her part, stays braced, occasionally looking at Sinda for guidance and then to the rest of the team. Sinda only occasionally glances up from her POD and never seems to look at anything in particular.

Sinda notices Cadav's odd ritual including the note and tear and fumes to herself. "Gonna tattle on me, diaper-baby?" She thinks in sarcastic disgust. As she knows that Malcom knows she did it, this doesn't worry her. "Teach him to fuck with my friend...I mean tool" she adds, this time some of the disgust is self-directed. She stretches a bit, then returns to her game, maybe she can finally beat her high score.

Mal finishes reading the note and leans his head back against the wall for a few seconds, waiting for Cadav to open his eyes, and thinking about whether he should answer his question. Deciding that he would want to know if it were himself, he makes his decision.

The car still shows no signs of slowing, so Mal fishes in the experimental crate again to see what else he can find. He comes up with a package that contains two very bulky sets of goggles, each with several small dials on the side. The envelope packaged with them says, “Gord-I’s X-Ray Spex!” He’s keeping his eye on Cadav, waiting for him to open his eyes.

Wilt ambles over towards Cadav, making noises of concern. "Don't worry, fleshbag. It's all ok." He leans in, staring at Cadav’s close eyes. "Hrm...eyes don't seem to be working correctly." With some mechanical noises, Wilt's two main hands become make-shift speculums (speculi?), while his "scorpion tail' arm cycles through some nasty looking devices, ending up as an otoscope with a slightly too bright light. He stares at Cadav's eyes, which by this time are wide-open in concern. The docbot starts to retract his arms. "Hrm. Seems to be ok. HE'S OKAY EVERYONE! JUST LEAKING!" Wilt backs away, but stays within reach, just in case.

Mal waits, and when Cadav looks around, Mal makes eye contact with him. When he is sure he has Cadav’s attention, he looks over at Sinda and Barb and mouths the word “Sinda” slowly and clearly for Cadav.

The train car is still moving at top speed and now the light through the hole is gone again, and the roar and echoes inside get louder once more, drowning out any other noise. This time, looking through the hole in the ceiling reveals a very close ceiling outside, zipping by at phenomenal speeds. The impression is that the car is rocketing through a very narrow tunnel.


HANDS OF RED

Mal tries tearing open the plastic packaging containing the goggles, but the plastic is extremely tough. He finally uses his pencil to poke a hole in the plastic, allowing him to tear it open. He takes one of the sets of goggles out of the package and sticks it in a pocket of his coveralls. He does the same with the Titanium Soldier Mark 7.2 pills, and will keep the rocket boots out of the crate so he can check those out later. He sticks the package with the remaining set of goggles back into the crate and carefully digs around for anything else of interest. Mal takes the manila envelopes for the pills and goggles and rolls them up, sticking them in an outside thigh pocket on his coveralls, even though they’ll stick out the top of the pocket.

Everyone else is still strapped in and preparing for the inevitable end of their journey. The noise in here is still tremendous.


KEEP AN EYE OUT

Sinda is growing bored so she tries to get VLaD's attention without looking like she’s doing anything but sulking into her POD. The others are all starting to get restless and move around, so none of them pay attention as VLaD trots over next to Sinda. Sinda asks VLaD, “Jeez. Any idea how much longer this blasted trip is gonna take?”

VLaD responds, “Sorry, missus… but there ain’t no brain in this lorry.” VLaD uses one thin spider leg to tap the wall of the train car for emphasis. “Dumb as a box of bolts, it is. No way to ask.”

“Whatever,” is Sinda’s response, and she goes back to her POD.

From his seat, Cadav shouts to Mal, “What is all that stuff?” Wondering what it will be like when they arrive and what kind of arrival it will be at this speed and whether or not the stuff Mal has is something he should be doing, Cadav goes for another food bar and furtively checks on the device from the ‘Preppers’, which is still just fine and safely tucked away. He also stealthily checks his weapon for its readiness. He scribbles a note that says “Thanks. I’ve got your back anytime” and folds it. Even still, the waiting is just getting to be too much.

Cadav wonders how noticeable it would be to the others if his old body moved some and decides to make a hand twitch hoping it is imperceptible. No one seems to be paying attention, so Cadav gives it one more go. Still nothing.

Pam flexes her mental fog power in order to mask her next move. Cadav is a sneaky son of a vat, and needs to be rocked back on his heels. In a clear, commanding voice, she says "Wilt, that clone's leaking eye is malfunctioning. Remove it."

Barb hears what she thinks is Expenda shouting something, but when she looks, Expenda is simply cringing in her seat.

Cadav un-straps and starts to get up.

Phoenix gets up a second before Cadav and yells over the noise, “Hey! Since I’m the only medically trained clone on this here train, I think I oughtta…”

But Phoenix is cut off as Wilt says loudly and clearly, "Sure thing, boss! Melon baller?... Nope, don't have one of those. Corkscrew?... Seems a bit medieval. I know. Suction cup!" Wilt leans over Cadav and presses him back into his seat with one of his long jointed arms. The other regular arm clamps Cadav’s head in place, and the tentacle arm pops out what seems to be a vacuum powered suction cup which Wilt immediately presses over Cadav’s “leaky” eye.

Phoenix rocks back in surprise and horror as Wilt begins insistently tugging on Cadav’s eye. In the next seat, Expenda squeals in fear and scrambles to get as far away from the procedure as her seat restraints allow. Cadav, of course, is bellowing in fear and pain, almost certainly asking the bot to stop. Cadav gets his arms up and tries to pry away the bot arms that are restraining him, but his strength is futile against a fully functioning docbot.

As the eye starts to bulge and stretch precariously out of its socket, Phoenix manages to gather his wits, shouting at the bot, “No! No way, man! Stop that! DO NOT remove that eyeball!” But Wilt replies cheerily, “Sorry, citizen. No can do. It’s an automated procedure. Can’t abort once it’s initiated.”

Which is, of course, a lie. Wilt could stop this at any time. But why would he want to?

In another moment, the eye pops free, and without ceremony, the docbot gives it a rapid tug to snap loose the various stringy, meaty bits that still connected it to the socket. Copious amounts of blood begin streaming from the raw, empty socket.

Horrified, Phoenix rushes forward as Wilt finally steps away. He tries to press his hand over the empty socket yelling, “We gotta stop the bleeding!” But now that he’s free, Cadav flails wildly to keep everyone away. Mal is on his feet by now as well, trying to figure out how to help, but Cadav is too panicked.

Interestingly, everyone now notices that the corpse of Cadav-1 is on its feet, moaning and waving its hands over its head as it tries to run away from the rest of the team. It immediately trips over one of the plastic-encased “Troubleshooter Packs” and smacks its head on the K-ROL maintenance bot as it falls. The corpse flops around weirdly, as if trying to crawl away and stand up at the same time and succeeding at neither.


FUSTERCLUCK

Sinda looks up at the words "do not remove that eyeball" and her eyebrow raises in shock and an unexpected burst of amusement. The whole thing is so ridiculous that she has to fight giggles. She covers them with a derisive snort. However, her amusement is short lived as she watches the corpse of Cadav moving around. "Um...I did kill him, right?! I mean a new clone showed up so I must have," She thinks. She fights the temptation to make a sarcastic comment to Mal about if she needs to kill him again.

Instead she calls, hopefully loud enough to be heard, but not enough to sound like she gives a shit "Ew, the only thing grosser than Blinky is undead Blinky over there. Someone like, throw him out of the roof hole or something before I lose my lunch."

She looks back into her POD, while covertly stealing a glance at Barb to make sure she's ok, and to see what Expenda is doing.

Barb and Sinda make eye contact. Barb looks nervous and she arches her eyebrows at Sinda questioningly while glancing at “the situation.” Sinda has no answers and only responds with a slightly helpless ‘what can we do?’ shrug.

Expenda huddles in her seat, making terrified little sobbing noises. Next to her, it seems that Jeth has woken up, and he is cringing and speechless as he tries to make sense of all this.

VLaD the spiderbot says something that is unintelligible over the din and scuttles around the mayhem to climb up K-ROL and perch on top of her, still watching the action.

Phoenix is in stunned silence for only a second and then gathers his wits "What in Sam-HIL? Fuck! First things first! Barb! Stop Cadav-2 from bleeding!”

Barb unbuckles herself in a hurry as she keeps her eyes glued on the scene in horror. Sinda says, “You don’t have to be a hero,” but not very loudly. Barb breathes hard, close to hyperventilating, not sure what to do. With a final glance at Sinda, she quickly dashes over next to Phoenix to see if there's anything she can do. She looks from "living" Cadav to "dead" Cadav and does her best to help Phoenix by trying to stop Cadav’s bleeding while Phoenix works on restraining the desperate clone. It’s slow going.



Phoenix is still hollering: “Then TWO, someone needs to handle Cadav-Z and see…” but he trails off as Malcolm starts yelling over the top of him. Something about that drill-sergeant tone of his forces people to listen.

“Everyone in a seat, NOW,” Mal barks, “before this thing comes to a sudden stop and kills more of us!” He pops the release button on Expenda’s restraints and then grabs the infrared clone and shoves her into the seat on the opposite side of the car, recently vacated by Phoenix. He tries to push Phoenix into the seat vacated by Expenda. Phoenix stumbles and falls, banging his chin painfully on the edge of the seat before hitting the floor. “What the HELL, man?” he gasps. This leaves just Barb in front of Cadav, so Cadav manages to force her aside as he finally flings himself from his seat. Malcolm steps in decisively and goes to grab Cadav in a restraining hold from behind, shouting, “Cadav, it’s Mal! We’re go…” but anything else he had to say is lost as Cadav whirls around, and Mal catches an elbow across his left ear.

The pain in Mal’s ear is excruciating for a moment, making him wonder if that sort of direct impact could have ruptured his eardrum. Then Mal feels a hot, flushing feeling creeping up his neck and across the left side of his face, and immediately the pain is gone.

Malcolm reels back a step, and Cadav launches himself out of the seating area. He stands hunched over amidst the spilled equipment under the hold in the ceiling, clutching his bleeding eye socket.

Cadav-Z is back on its feet and staggers back towards the team. It looks like it’s headed for Cadav-2, until at the last second, it sways and lurches around him and keeps moving, finally tripping over Phoenix and crashing to the floor next to him.

Wilt remains still and unmoving throughout.

VLaD radios, “Oh, this is the best show ever!”


BURRITO-Z

Barb falls back a bit bewildered as she's pushed aside. She again tries to look to the others for guidance. She eventually finds it may be in her best interest to listen to Mal. She scrambles over to the seat beside Sinda and buckles herself in.

“Sorry!” Mal shouts, helping Phoenix to his feet. “You go ahead and help live Cadav, and I’ll try to subdue dead Cadav. Let me know if you need help corralling him.” Mal then goes to the experimental crate and grabs one of the packs out of it—some sort of pink tarpaulin—and works to open the plastic packaging to get it out.

Cadav (Cadav-2, that is) staggers to the seats and grabs his pack, eventually digging out some gauze pads, which he uses to pack and cover his empty eye socket. He uses his POD in selfie mode to guide to see what he’s doing as he works. He is obviously still in much pain, but seems to be in control of himself.

Seeing that Cadav is doing fine on his own, Phoenix ignores Mal’s orders and instead sidles up to Wilt, looking way up to where he imagines the bot’s face should be. He tries to yell loud enough for Wilt to hear without being obvious to everyone else. “Dude! I’m the senior medical officer here, so you’re my responsibility. What was up with the oculodectomy? We can’t be doing that.”

Jeth blinks slowly, wondering whether this is some horrible nightmare or he is actually awake. The last thing he remembered, his arm was blue. It wasn't right, the arm, but at least it was blue. Trying to focus, he looks down at his arm and sees that, indeed, it remains blue. A smile slowly spreads across his face until he glances back up and realizes, what he just saw with the eye and the doc-bot... it must have been real! Yes. He's awake, and Wilt isn't acting right. Docbots aren't supposed to take your eye out. The arm may not be right, but it doesn't hurt, and it's blue. An eye isn't supposed to be lost.

Jeth lumbers to his feet, swaying a bit from the unexpected movement of the car and putting his good hand behind him for support. Just when it looks like he might collapse back down on the seat, he gracefully floats back up onto his feet again and surveys the chaotic scene. Once he’s upright, it’s clear that Jeth’s arm, now sealed in its blue cast-like thing, is still definitely bent at a bad angle right in the middle of his forearm. Jeth looks reproachfully at the docbot.

Cadav mentally orders the zombie to just lay still for now. Peering through his dead clone’s eyes, Cadav spots what he’s looking for: a slightly bent and jagged chunk of a metal bar about half-a-meter long (probably debris from whatever smashed a hole in the ceiling) laying underneath one of the seats. He has the zombie Cadav put a hand out and grab it. Now he’s an armed zombie.

Mal finally gets the pink tarp out of its packaging and unfolds it. It’s large-ish—maybe two and a half meters square. He steps carefully over to where Cadav-Z is lying on the floor near the seats and throws the tarp over it. Mal then leaps on it and quickly rolls the ex-dead clone up in it like a big pink burrito. Z doesn’t appear to be resisting.

Cadav almost had his zombie take a swing at Mal, but the seats would have gotten in the way. Instead, he had the creature hold its new weapon to its chest and simply allow itself to be “captured.”

As soon as Malcolm finishes rolling up the creature in the tarp, it disappears. Zombie, pink tarp, all of it… just gone.

Mal still has his hands on the zombie burrito, and he can feel that it is still there. It is just effectively invisible.

Pam has seen quite enough of this nonsense. The supply crate is safer than the grabbassery that she started. There's the least haze of memory fog to make the team overlook her scramble to the crate. As she crawls alongside Phoenix , she deftly lifts one of his laser barrels off his equipment belt. A moment or two later, she's back in the supply crate. The barrel is in her top, tucked along her lower band of her brassier.

The train noticeably slows down now. The view through the ceiling hole changes again--this time to a distant pale blue. The roaring noise finally eases up again. The car is still moving quite fast, but is obviously gradually braking.


NO HARMFUL EFFECTS

The car continues to slow. The noise level is now back to normal.

"Fantastic, we're getting somewhere and only one Troubleshooter died on the way." Pam thinks to herself. The agent busies herself trying to locate the emergency supplies, assuming there are no eyes on her. Swiftly she finds the loose bit of aluminum liner at the foot of the crate and wiggles it out to reveal a slim black backpack hidden underneath. She takes a quick peek inside to see what looks like some ration bars, a personal grooming kit, a folding knife, and a black POD (a color that PODs do not normally come in).

Mal stands up and acts like he’s grabbing something on the floor in front of him. He then struggles as he looks like he’s dragging something heavy back away from the seats. Once there, he lets go, and even though it looks like there is nothing there, there is an audible thump of something hitting the floor, and some of the debris and equipment there is visibly jostled at the same time. With a sigh, Mal sits down on the invisible thing and waits for the car to stop.

Sinda, who has been watching the action over her POD is secretly relieved when the other woman is safely back in her seat.

"Well, isn't Mal just our fucking hero" Sinda says sarcastically to Barb. She snorts derisively.

She has to admit that undead Cadav was funny as shit though, stumbling around like that. It was creepy, that was true, but hilarious with the added bonus of shutting him up. Especially watching that asshole Mal wrestle it into a roll like that. Serves him right, too bad the train didn't stop suddenly and ram him into a wall. "Ah, well" She thinks "no one can have everything"

She notices the train slowing and decides to make sure she is clear on everyone's current status. Seeing Jeth's messed up arm she shudders a bit in disgust and makes a mental note to either not get hurt, or to make sure that dumbass docbot doesn't see her get hurt. Between Blinky's eye and that arm. Fuck, man. She is starting to get a little freaked put by the strange things going on. First the voice in her head (that thankfully seems to be gone), then the undead freak, then the disappearing undead freak (who maybe is just invisible for no reason), and the crazy docbot (which may be unrelated) but she would never admit that, even to herself.

"Hey Barb?..." She begins, about to ask the other woman if she had any ideas about what the hell was going on, but thinks better of it, just in case. "Uh, want some gum?” She pulls a pack from inside her boot and holds it out with one of her forced smiles. "Might help uh, pop your ears or some shit."

Barb looks shocked but eagerly takes a piece of gum. “Gum would be perfection!” she says and then immediately looks away and blushes.

Wilt waves his hands, again in full jazz mode, up in the air! "Look at me! I'm the doctor and couldn't tell there was a malfuctioning eye!" His hands quickly drop to his side as his voice takes on more deferential tones. "'Sides, I was told to take it out, and that's what good bots do. Take out leaky eyes when told to. You just need to relax." Wilt shoots out what looks like a RelaxoPill at Phoenix--low dosage. Everyone’s familiar with RelaxoPills. Alpha Complex dispenses them for every little complaint. “Just enough to take the edge off without ANY harmful effects!” the ads always say.

And when I say “shoots”, Wilt literally shoots the pill out of a dispensing tube. Phoenix is busy looking baffled, and the pill just casually hits him in the face and falls on the floor. Scrunching one of his eye stalks up in confusion, Wilt pops out another one which hits Phoenix’s chin. The clicking noise from Wilt’s torso indicates another pill will quickly be forthcoming.


OUTSIDE

Realizing what’s going on, Phoenix watches as Wilt spits yet another RelaxoPill at him. This time, Phoenix has the presence of mind to flinch back and bat it away with a flap of his hand while whining softly, “Staaaaaaaahp!”

Wilt raises his arms in a way that is supposed to approximate a shrug and says, “Okay.”

Pam cracks a smile, remembering RelaxoParties she'd been to while investigating Romantic traitors. Good times until the Clones in Blue inevitably came in to wreck things. She shrugs the pack onto her shoulders, slips the knife into her boot, and waits for the ride to come to an end.

Barb unwraps the gum and begins to chew it happily. She sits and waits for further instruction by either her superiors or her besty.

Sinda rubs her eyes, has she been using her POD too much, why does Mal seem to still be wrestling with something when zombie Blinky is clearly gone. She has an unfamiliar feeling in her belly and glances over at the others to see if anyone else seems to notice that everything is fucking weird. As she surveys the others she watches the show Wilt is putting on. Yet again, Sinda fights laughter at the idiot getting pelted with Relaxopills. It helps her unease a bit, but she can't help but wonder if she's actually going crazy.

Even if she is going nuts, she decides she's going to enjoy the trip. She settles back into her seat, presses her heavy steel toed boots into the floor, and braces for a possible rocky landing. VLaD's comments about the train having no brain makes her assume that, although the slowing seems to be gradual now, she can't believe that will continue. She stows her POD, and glares around at the others, just to let them know that they all suck and she had no time for any of their bullshit. Mal gets an extra defiant hair toss, but her look at Cadav is slightly more cautious, Blinky having a zombie double is not cool. She doesn't regret killing him once, and will not hesitate to do it again, but still hopes she doesn't have to as an army of Cadav's cadavers who may have a grudge doesn't sound like her idea of a fun time.

Jeth looks pensive for a moment after Wilt says he was told to take out the eye, like a good bot. "Good," he thinks to himself, "I must have missed that. He was told to do it." With a contented expression, Jeth turns to see what the commotion is behind him. The roof - it's open! And above it is something blue.

With a blissful smile spreading over his face, Jeth lifts his malformed blue arm towards the opening above, as if in greeting.

Finally, the car comes to a complete stop with just a slight lurch. Everyone freezes for a moment in anticipation, and then the sliding door slides all the way open. Presumably, this is Outside.

First thing to note, Dewan was absolutely right about the climate controls in Outside. It is several degrees cooler here than Alpha Complex’s standard 20 degrees. Not enough to be terribly uncomfortable, but notable for its strangeness.

Secondly, there really is no visible ceiling. Like… none. Like… it’s almost impossible to describe. It’s not like one of those massive domes with mists and stuff or poor lighting where the ceiling is hazy or hard to make out. No—the air is perfectly clear, but when anyone looks up (as best one can from inside the car), there’s simply nothing to focus on. Everything is just a weird pale blue. There’s occasional white-gray things way up that seem to have no coherent shape and move slowly against that blue background, but even those are far enough away as to be difficult to judge size or scale. Judging by the shadows, the light source for this portion of Outside must be somewhere on the other side of the car.

Outside also seems to be producing constant, low-grade noises. Mostly it consists of a low whooshing that sounds like ventilation noises, with occasional faint bursts like the shuffling of papers far away. There are other very faint clicks and whistling chirps that could be far-off bots, but it’s hard to tell.

As for the scenery, the floor of Outside makes no sense. It is wildly uneven, raising up in spots both large and small for no obvious reason. Mostly, the floor appears to be green and somewhat furry, but with a brown stripe that is flatter than the green parts and seems to meander from somewhere behind the car to off in the distance to the left. Farther away from the car, the green of the floor seems to undulate unnaturally but without actually moving. Farther away than that—maybe 50 meters… distances are so hard to judge here—are tall grayish/brownish poles. But they aren’t straight poles at all and don’t seem to serve any actual purpose. They vary in height from four or five meters up to 15+ meters tall. And the poles get smaller as they go off, all of them dividing into numerous branches that jut out sideways and upwards from the main pole. They all look rough and dirty.

Beyond those even (things just seem to go on forever out here) are a line of even more poles, but these are straighter and decked out with some sort of green fur, starting wide near the ground and forming rough cones up to their tips, 10+ meters above the ground. These green cone-poles seem to form the perimeter of the immediate area. At the base of the perimeter, there are occasional white spots on the floor.

Above the perimeter, silhouetted against the blue background, a dozen or so flying things of some sort rise up, not quite in unison. They circle around each other for a second or two, and then all of them fly off to the right, disappearing from view after a few more seconds.

The experience is quite jarring and very difficult to take in. Barb, Jeth, and Phoenix all experience a sense of vertigo—nausea and dizziness and a sense of panic at the thought of stepping outside, as if leaving the confines of this car will cause them to drift away helplessly. Pam feels a touch of that as well, but her training has prepared her for this moment, and she knows it’s just mind over matter.

Wilt immediately notes the change in breathing and dilation of pupils on several of the clones here, indicating rising anxiety as they view Outside. Jeth, Barb, Phoenix, and the infrared Expenda are all in varying degrees of distress.

The two white observation drones in the back of the car whir to life and rise up. Sticking near the wall, they skirt the outside edge of the car, and on reaching the door, they slowly move outside.

[Cazmonster]

[Phoebe]

Ya that is hilarious!

[Ronster]

Yeah, I was like "In just how many ways can this go wrong?"

[Mike]

Chapter 5

CHUCK IS UP

Mal stands up. “Alright, looks like we’re finally here. Everybody except Cadav and Jeth, start unloading the equipment and moving it Outside. Jeth, how’s the arm doing? Cadav, what do you need for the eye?”

As he’s ordering people around, Mal drags his invisible load to the back corner of the car, to the spot vacated by the drones. He then bends down and seemingly pulls the pink tarpaulin out of nowhere. Cadav-1’s body is now motionless at Mal’s feet. He starts folding the tarp.

Cadav checks the state of his dead clone brother. It seems that the zombie is lying motionless while still gripping its makeshift club underneath its body.

As Mal barks at everyone, Barb immediately tries to get up, forgetting that she is strapped in. So instead of standing, Barb winds up vomiting profusely. I mean… a lot. She is mindful to try not to get it on anyone, but she is still strapped in, so in addition to a sizable puddle on the floor in front of her seat, she also got quite a bit on her shins and shoes, and a bit of spatter even got Sinda’s oversized black boots.

Everyone has only a moment to take in the sheer quantity of it before the smell of it completely fills the car. Even with the giant door fully open and a big gaping hole in the ceiling, there’s no escaping the stench. It smells vaguely like teriyaki flavored dried protein strips, but spicier and more sickly sweet, and somehow… unstable—if unstable is an appropriate word for odors.

From the instinctive, horrified reactions of the clones, Wilt can only guess that this massive puddle of regurgitant must smell especially foul to humans. Wilt has always found human reactions to odors to be amusing.


POST-VOMIT

The white observational drones have now flown upwards outside the car and are out of sight of the team.

Expenda lets out a whimper as the smell hits her. Head down, she grabs a big armload of stuff at random and scurries out of the car.

Wilt casually glances at the pile of vomit. "That's a lot of emesis residue. You should probably take something for that." He makes no offer to give her anything though. He does stop shooting pills.

Barb goes into full panic mode. She literally just did the uncoolest thing she could have possibly done in the history of forever. There's no way she could live this down and there's no way they'll ever think she's cool again.

As the doors slide open Sinda immediately starts fiddling with her straps trying to free herself. As she unbuckles she leans forward to look out. She doesn't quite know what to make of it, but it's strangely beautiful. She gapes a bit, it somehow feels both completely surreal and yet more real than anything she'd ever known. She is aware of Mal babbling instructions as usual, but she can't stop staring out of the doorway.

As she stands she hears the retching sounds coming from Barb, and snaps out of her stupor. She looks over at the other woman just in time to watch helplessly as some of the sick lands on her boot. She swears, but under her breath this time. She doesn't look Barb in the eye, unable to trust herself not to ruin the progress she's making with the other clone.

Barb is wide eyed and looks as if she is about to cry. She reaches down to unbuckle her seatbelt as fast as she can, and as soon as the seatbelt is off, she’s just gone. Gone like the corpse of Cadav-1 was gone. However her crying can still be heard, although it’s hard to pin down where it’s coming from.

Barb’s mutant power has kicked in, and she is completely invisible. She runs off towards the empty end of the car where the white drones used to sit. She sobs while trying to find a hidey-hole of safety, silence, and non-smellyness... even though the stink is literally on her. She manages to quiet herself somewhat as she simply curls up in the far corner of the car, staying well away from Cadav’s body.

Pam made sure that one of the things she grabbed was one of those zip-top containers full of replacement clone stuff. Once outside, she dumps the majority of the pile, kicks up her memory fog power and sneaks away from the team, getting cover behind a large lump in the floor covered in weird GREEN-furred stick arrays.

Cadav seems to have mostly recovered from his trauma. He says, “I don’t need much for the eye. Just bandages, I guess, unless there’s a spare eye somewhere.“ Cadav attempts to put gauze pads in his eye socket then wrap them with a bandage. He keeps failing at this because of the loss of his depth perception and the combination of pain, fear and frustration have conspired to make him quite the opposite of steady-handed. “And somebody keep that tin menace away from me,” he says gesturing at Wilt. “I can’t afford to have any more of his ‘help.’”

Mal normally has an iron stomach, so the vomit episode itself doesn’t bother him. But the… instability… of the odor has him concerned. Who knows what in the heck she ate that caused her to vomit that much?! So Mal quickly grabs as many of the crates as he can and pulls them towards the door, careful to not get in the puddle of vomit, then jumps down on the ground and starts pulling the crates outside of the car.

Mal sees Expenda ducked down behind some greenery about six or eight meters from the door. Apparently, her mind-fogging powers aren’t working as well as she thinks.

K-ROL slides up to the entrance, clearly trying to be careful, but slowly shoving two of the crates off ahead of her anyway as her massive bot bulk just bulldozes through anything. The empty crate that Expenda came in crashes to the floor below, but Mal manages to catch the other box and get it out of the way. K-ROL’s becomes an octave deeper than usual as she says, “Ooooh noooo. There’s no way I’m getting down from here on my own.” Now that she’s out in the open, it’s easier to see that her wide, boxy body sets on six or so tiny wheels that are little more than casters.

Sinda looks around for any sign of Barb, while trying not to be obvious. She walks over to where Mal has dragged Cadav-1. She nonchalantly wipes her shoe on the corpse. Barb holds her breath so as not to be noticed. Sinda moves on and swings by the weapons crate to see if anything that isn't a damn toy is left. There doesn’t appear to be any such thing among the weapons, although there are still those extra “Troubleshooter Packs” laying around that each appears to have an extra laser with ammo. Maybe later.

Sinda really wants to be out there. "Especially since all the weird ass shit going on all seems to be focused in here" she thinks with an internal shudder. "I've probably already fucked up getting the experimental stuff that the other Leopards wanted...I mean, I can always kill Mal for it later, but for now, that's out...but I bet that POD will be a better score...maybe we can even fuck with the Computer with that thing" Her chaos loving little heart soars a bit at the thought. Heck, maybe that’s where Barb disappeared to, and she can find her out there.

Sinda grabs the experimental crate to bring it out, but it is clear that she will not be able to maneuver the box around K-ROL, unless she decides to somehow go over the bot’s head.

Jeth gazes open-mouthed at the strange new blue ceiling, still raising his arm as if saluting. As the vehicle comes to a stop, the disorienting sensation of everything floating away into nothingness above, combined with the repugnant odors of fresh vomit, sends him reeling. Dropping his arms, he looks around for support and spies Phoenix fending off the doc-bot's pills. "Where does it go?" he says, reaching out to Phoenix as if both of them might fly up and away at any moment.

Jeth grabs onto Phoenix and holds him uncomfortably for support. Looking down at the floor and suppressing the urge to vomit himself, Jeth reaches for the equipment Mal just instructed him not to help carry out. It looks reassuringly substantial. With his good arm, Jeth seizes the nearest item—the weapons crate, which is now mostly empty. Alas, his blue arm is sticking out at the wrong angle to help, so Jeth steadies himself on Phoenix with that are while awkwardly shoving the crate ahead of himself.

Jeth gazes open-mouthed at the strange new blue ceiling, still raising his arm as if saluting. "Where does it go?" he says, reaching out to Phoenix. Jeth grabs onto Phoenix and holds him uncomfortably for support. Jeth reaches for the equipment Mal just instructed him not to help carry out.With his good arm, Jeth seizes the nearest item—the weapons crate, which is now mostly empty. Alas, his blue arm is sticking out at the wrong angle to help, so Jeth steadies himself on Phoenix with that are while awkwardly shoving the crate ahead of himself.

Quickly though, Jeth finds himself at the bottleneck, waiting behind Sinda, who is waiting behind K-ROL.

VLaD nimbly climbs over K-ROL with a quick, “Pardon me, mum,” and drops lightly to the floor Outside next to Mal. Using one spindly leg to point at K-ROL, VLaD says, “Oy… wutcha think, Bossman? Should I just push her out the door?” Sometimes it’s hard to tell with bots, but his tone of voice seems to indicate that he might be joking.


CLONE KEBAB

Expenda is keeping tabs on the group, waiting to see what they do and where they go. Now that she's in cover, she turns off her Memory Fog power. She scans the area, but doesn’t see anything alarming. Just a pretty standard tree-ringed meadow in the Outside.

Barb does her best to stay silent and out of sight, maybe once she calms down she can just follow around quietly and stay out of the way. She remains invisible for now (and probably couldn’t become visible at the moment even if she wanted to). How is she going to be able to show her face again?

Sinda rolls her eyes in annoyance. "Just MOVE," she snaps at K-ROL, "someone can fix you later." She cranes her neck, briefly glaring at Jeth, looking for another accessible exit. She pulls out her POD hoping for maybe that arrow thing to appear giving her an idea how to get out of here. Of course, it tells her nothing. However there is a message at the top of the screen that says, “No Signal.” Sinda has no clue what that means, but it sounds ominous.

Jeth pushes his crate doggedly toward the exit until he encounters the bottleneck. Leaning back with a big sigh and bracing his legs, he pushes on the weapons crate with his foot with as hard and steady a pressure as he can, hoping to move things along in the front.

K-ROL inches forward just a bit, but then locks her wheels. Jeth continues applying pressure, but she’s pretty heavy.

"Hey need me to carry you or somethin'?" Phoenix says to Jeth.

With a start, Jeth turns to Phoenix. "Thanks," Jeth slurs gently at his fellow clone, "you're a good neighbor,” although it’s not clear that Jeth actually heard the question.

Phoenix beams happily, “I’ll take that as a yes.” He eagerly grasps the much larger Jeth around the waist, but can’t get the leverage to actually pick him up. Phoenix turns around, “Okay, grab on then. We’re gonna hafta do this piggy-back. Come on, big guy!”

Mal calls to Sinda and Jeth: “Are there some planks or something in there that we can use to make a ramp for K-ROL to roll down?”

While waiting for an answer, Mal looks around to see if there is anything outside the car that could be used to make a ramp. Unfortunately, the pickins are slim, so Mal turns his charm on low and nicely asks K-ROL, “Pardon me, K-ROL, but you think you could see your way clear to rolling back just a smidge and let the rest of my crew climb out?”

K-ROL replies, “Well, doncha imagine I’ve been trying? Your giant there just tried to push me out, and none of them want to get off my butt. Not that I blame them, y’know, but a girl needs her space.”

There is a *WHUNK* noise, followed by an uncharacteristic gurgle from Malcolm. Looking in Mal’s direction reveals that he has a two meter long steel harpoon lodged in his upper torso. The harpoon has pinned his left arm to his chest, and then passes through his body, and about 15 centimeters of barbed harpoon tip protrudes from under his right arm. Malcolm falls over unceremoniously.

Combat reflexes kick into gear, and Pam immediately looks in the direction she thinks the harpoon came from. She thinks she sees a flash of white at the top of a rise about 15 meters past the train car and off to her left.


TRIUMPHANT RETURN

A familiar pinkish energy field (like the one that had surrounded Cadav-1’s corpse) quickly surrounds Mal’s impaled and fallen form.

Questions flash through Pam's head. "Why attack so soon?" "Who's shooting?" "What asshole is wearing white this close to Alpha Complex?" She's looking for actual cover, instead of the concealment provided by brush she's hiding in. Seeing a fallen log not too far away, she scrambles and squeezes her body flat against the ground.

Carefully, she scans the area where the shot originated. There! There’s definitely a form in all white darting into the woods. Whatever or whoever it is looks to be a clone in a very bulky suit, but it moves nimbly for all that. There is a glint of metal from some sort of tool or weapon it carries, as well as a reflective flash of a glass faceplate as it glances over its shoulder at the train car before disappearing into the woods. The spot where the figure vanishes is an obvious trailhead leading away from this clearing.

Still in pain and disoriented…Cadav can’t believe his EYE! He searches for some sort of cover as he draws his pistol looking around for the source of the harpoon. Still inside the train car and hunkered down behind the bulk of the Tensor, the seemingly brainless hoverflat vehicle, Cadav can just spy Mal’s body, which is now surrounded by an odd pink energy field, similar to the one that had been on Cadav-1’s body when Cadav-2 arrived. From the angle of the harpoon, Cadav is pretty certain that the attack came from outside—either next to or beyond the car. In any case, it is came from somewhere that Cadav can’t see from in here.

Sinda shakes her POD, no signal is pretty worrying. As she fiddles with it she hears the harpoon thunk. She gasps and jumps in alarm as Mal falls. She is so shocked that she momentarily loses all of her control and just stares gaping for a moment hissing a soft shiiiiiiiit under her breath. She hates Mal but is too startled to even be pleased. She looks around frantically at the others and around the car to find the source of the harpoon. At best guess, it came from somewhere “behind” the train car. From the angle, probably only Mal has line of sight to his attacker, but unfortunately dead clones tell no tales.

Sinda worries that Barb is seemingly missing, did she go "outside " before the clunky bot lodged herself in the door? Maybe while Sinda was looking for weapons? She defensively puts her back against the wall, pocketing her POD (to free her hands to grab her sidearm if needed). She regains her composure fairly quickly, however and puts on her usual expression to not look alarmed and waits to see if more attacks come.

Jeth had obediently attempted to mount Phoenix and even partially succeeded in doing so when Mal was suddenly harpooned. The shock of it caused him to lose his balance and topple back down again, landing awkwardly atop the weapons crate. "Help!" Jeth cries, waving his crooked blue arm toward Mal. "What happened?"

Phoenix looks frustrated, "Hurry, Jeth, get on! There’s no time!" Phoenix pulls Jeth up by his good hand and then positions himself to best help the large clone up on his back. Jeth holds tightly, and Phoenix’s legs look like might buckle from the weight for a moment. But then Phoenix steels himself, and says, “We’re ready! Don’t muss the hair.” Phoenix is ready to charge into the Outside (and thus into action), but K-ROL is still blocking the door.

K-ROL begins rolling forward toward the open door. Her voice sounds panicked as her massive bot body creaks forward on her teeny tiny wheels. “No no no no no no!” But her words do nothing to stop her momentum, and her little, flailing tool-arms are nowhere near strong enough to maintain a grip on the doorframe. The maintenance bot’s tiny front wheels drop over the front edge of the doorway, and her forward momentum stops. For a moment. “NO NO NO NO NO NO!” The heavy metal creature is tipping ever so slowly, degree by degree over the edge.

The drop to the ground below is only about a meter, but that’s still a long long way for a machine of K-ROL’s size.

Barb manages to control her breathing though she's still a nervous wreck. She stands up and does her very best to clean herself off before going to follow the others, still out of sight.


NO NO NO NO NO

Torn between giving chase and staying where she can observe her team, Pam is still for a moment. She isn't afraid of a handful of traitors, not now that she's armed, but her orders are to observe. She waits for her moment.

No sooner is he balanced gingerly upon Phoenix's back than Jeth sees K-ROL teetering on the edge of the doorway. Unable to maneuver his blue arm well, he flings out the good one to grab onto K's frame in the nick of time. The arm is long and his grip is strong, but unfortunately Jeth is left using only his legs to cling to Phoenix, who staggers beneath the suddenly shifting weight. "NO NO NO!" Jeth chants, in unison with the bot's anguished cries.

All three of them tumble out of the train car together, K-ROL crashing face- (or what approximates her face)-first into the ground and Jeth and Phoenix tumbling over the top of her. Phoenix flails gamely to grab at anything that might give him purchase, but Jeth’s leg-grip is amazingly strong. As Jeth’s considerable bulk does a forward roll over the bot, his legs never give up on his friend Phoenix, and Phoenix is flipped in a tall arc over the whole thing to slap down on the energy field covering Malcolm’s corpse.

The energy field is surprisingly springy, and Phoenix seems to be stunned, but unharmed. With Phoenix still firmly in Jeth’s leg grip, their piggy-back tower slides slowly off of Malcolm’s energy field as a single unit to rest on the Outside’s floor.

This is Pam’s moment: "Give them something flashy. Something easy," she says to herself. "Curiosity kills the clone, after all." From her vantage point, she targets a bit of what she thinks is older, drier foliage (the brown stuff) near the trailhead and snaps off a laser shot. She's hoping to start a little fire, to get the team's attention.

There is a dramatic whistling noise from overhead. All eyes are drawn to it just in time to see a pink streak of something drop from the sky and crash into the floor not two meters from where Jeth and Phoenix and Mal’s body lay. It digs a crater into the floor on impact. The fuzzy green and grayish flooring bursts apart to reveal a rich, deep-brown color beneath.

As with Cadav 2’s new clone, this incoming object turns out to be a sphere of pink energy about two meters across. Two seconds after impact, the energy field disappears, revealing Malcom-R-NLD-2 standing in a meter deep crater.

Pam watches the bush she shot start to burn, but no one else seems to have noticed yet. The fire does seem to be growing.

PUMP… YOU UP

Cadav apprehensively approaches the doorway and peeks around the edge of it to survey the tumbling tower of his comrades. “Everybody okay ?” he shouts looking around as best he can with his one good eye, the pain in the other socket turning into a slightly more bearable but painful throb.

From the look of Mal-1’s body and the way it fell, Cadav guesses that the harpoon came from somewhere behind and to the right of the car (from Cadav’s position). So if the harpoonist is still there, they would (presumably) be able to see Mal-2, Jeth, and Phoenix, but inside the car, Cadav would still have full cover.

Barb speaks up, almost (totally?) forgetting at this point that she's completely invisible. "... sh-... should we do something?" Sinda glances around but sees nothing. From his vantage point behind them, Wilt also hears her, as does Cadav, but Cadav is not looking that way.

Mal turns around in a circle, taking everything in. He climbs out of the crater and takes two steps over to his deceased clone. He wants Vera back mighty fierce. He grabs the clone, and the moment he touches it, the pink energy field disappears. Mal quickly grabs his equipment from his dead brother and goes about stowing about his person. As he does so, he looks up to Cadav and Sinda in the car and says, “What the fuck just happened?”

Without warning, Phoenix suddenly sucks in a huge breath and bellows in pain, “Holy circuits that smarts!” startling everyone. Phoenix rolls onto his stomach, and Jeth (still holding tightly with his legs) rolls with him. Phoenix gets his hands under him and quickly hauls himself to his feet. Jeth (again still holding on) could not possibly look more surprised to find himself again riding piggy-back with Phoenix fully upright.

Phoenix glances furtively at Malcolm-2, checking him up and down, and then turns back to the fallen maintenance bot. “K-ROL!” Still carrying Jeth, Phoenix hollers, “Don’t worry, little lady, I gotcha!” He then kneels down and grips the massive bot with both hands and with extreme effort, he tips the two-ton machine back into an upright position.

Heaving and sweating, Phoenix suddenly goes pale and staggers to one knee. Through gritted teeth he says over his shoulder to Jeth, “Damn yer heavy. I don’t think I can hold ya no more.”

There’s a long appreciative whistle, which everyone quickly realizes is coming from VLaD the spider-bot. “Good gracious, that was impressive! But I should warn you that your hair looks like shit.” The little bot then scurries backwards until it is just underneath the edge of the car.


HEROICS

In response to Barb’s question, Cadav says in an exasperated tone, “Ya think?” without even looking back.

Pam unthreads the barrel from her laser and hides them both in her outfit. She then heads back toward the team.

Mal turns away from Cadav momentarily to watch Phoenix and Jeth. He shakes his head and then turns back to Cadav and asks again, “Bring me up to speed. What happened? And where are Barb and Expenda?”

Coming out into the clearing, Expenda (who apparently had been hiding behind some greenery) looks frightened. A couple of fat tears roll down her face. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Nothing is infared here. I'm going to get in trouble." She stands not too far from Mal, looking from him and back to the conveyance.

Phoenix panics: “Nooooooo! I need my gel! I need my gel!” and dropping Jeth (finally) he runs from the rest of the team around the “front” end of the car (away from the side the harpoon seems to have come from).

Wilt reacts to Phoenix's obvious cries of pain and distress, pushing his way past Cadav and Sinda and making the leap practically over their heads and then out of the car. "I can help! Fixing up fatigue is a specialty of mine!" Whirring noises are made (sounding sort of like a bender) as a concoction of synthetic adrenaline and steroids are combined. Wilt's specialty tentacle turns into an almost comically oversized hypodermic needle, and he begins chasing Phoenix, leading with the needle.

Phoenix does not seem to be inclined to wait for him and continues running around the other side of the car, with Wilt still giving chase. With his much longer legs, Wilt is likely to catch up to him soon.

Cadav calls after Phoenix, “Careful! They could still be out there!” Cadav leaves his cover and, leaping from the car, does an overly complex and unnecessarily elaborate “tuck and roll”. Cadav clearly thinks he looked cool. He did not. Because he is so tall and lanky it looks more like a large spider slipped on a banana peel. He comes to a halt in a one-knee-down shooters stance.

Taking care not to endanger his comrades, Cadav takes aim with his pistol out past the back of the car. “Gonna lay down some covering fire!” he yells and then after a count of three he unleashes a frenzy of laser blasts. As he fires he realizes that he doesn’t have to close his other eye when he aims and is a lot more confident about hitting his designated target now that the distraction of the other eye is not there. Whether this is the case or not no one knows, but he believes he is the best shot in the world now. After a few rounds have scorched the surroundings he blurts out “Just call me ‘Dead-Eye’!” then laughs maniacally.

A dull, black, metallic ball comes in from somewhere on the other side of the car and lands on the floor a half-meter from where K-ROL now stands. The ball hits with a metallic clunk. It is spherical and looks heavy. It’s 25 centimeters in diameter.

One of the white drones is now visible again, hovering directly above K-ROL at an altitude of… 20-30 meters above the ground. Maybe more. The other one is nowhere in sight.


I’M THE MAP



[Not shown on the map: The metal ball is about one-half meter south of K-ROL, Various equipment crates and pieces are scattered inside the car and on the ground around K-ROL. A single white drone hovers 20 meters up above K-ROL’s position. The Tensor hoverflat is still in the north end of the car. Barb and the other white drone are nowhere to be seen. The green circles that mark the edge of the clearing are the crooked grey-brown “poles” mentions earlier. Some have green on them, and some don’t. The ones you see are just the front line, and there are more behind them. A veritable “forest” of these poles, if you will.]

Sinda, watching the "men" flail about like testosterone laden idiots, rolls her eyes again. She looks down from inside the car and calls "Come on, Expenda, we're Outside, no one can get you in trouble." Her tone implies that talking to the infared drone is a total exercise in futility, and barely worth her time.

Sinda glances around to where she heard Barb's voice. "Barb," she hisses "stop hiding and let's get out of this thing before we both get harpooned or worse." She hopes the morons below can't hear her. She bends down to make sure all the puke is off her boot and then strides to the opening of the car. With as much 'fuck this shit' attitude as she can muster, Sinda climbs down from the car using K-ROL as a step.

She stands with her arms crossed in front of the car, and surveys the chaos around her briefly (coughing to stifle a laugh directed at Phoenix and Wilt) She pulls out her POD, and while her local apps are available, when she tries to inquire about the setting and especially about this little ball, it just says, “NETWORK NOT AVAILABLE.” She weighs the merits of attempting to walk over to it and nudge it with the steel toe of her boot while she waits for Barb to join her, but decides against it.

Mal’s confused. Harpoons? Drones? Metallic balls? He needs to figure out what’s going on, and fast. Cadav seems to be hopeless for doing that, since he’s just focused on being cool and firing his laser.

Mal grabs Expenda and pulls her down beside the conveyance near where VLaD is hiding, hopefully far enough away in case the metallic ball decides to explode. Looking her directly in the eye to help keep her calm, Malcom says, “I need you to tell me what happened. The last thing I remember, I was standing outside the conveyance trying to unload K-ROL, then my clone died. Are we under attack? Help me out here, and I’ll do my best to take care of you.” As he’s saying this to Expenda, he pulls his laser pistol and he readies Vera. Seeing that Expenda is unarmed, he grabs a nearby troubleshooter pack and says, “Here. Get the pistol and barrels out of this. Infrared or not, you need to be as ready as the rest of us.”

Amidst the commotion, Jeth is laying face down on the green carpet where Phoenix finally dropped him, slowly and luxuriously running his fingers through its strange new texture. "Many greens," he sighs, breathing deeply and inhaling a mouthful of dust. A few tears spill out as he coughs and sputters, muddying his cheeks.

While Cadav's lasers fire overhead, Jeth spies a rusty beetle-bot picking its way awkwardly through the green carpet at his current eye-level. An incredibly tiny black drone flies up and away without warning. Without moving he calls out to the team, "Microbots! They're everywhere!"

Once he’s on the other side of the car, Phoenix veers so that he’s running directly away from it. It seems the shortest line to edge of this area, and maybe he can get some cover or climb away from this crazed bot. Phoenix can still hear Wilt’s enormous metal feet clomping after him.

About ten meters from the edge of this large open area, Wilt finally catches up with Phoenix and with a “HI-YAAA!” stabs him in the thigh with the huge syringe. Wilt stops running and dusts off his hands (which had nothing to do with any of this). “There. You’ll be right as rustproofing in no time.” And just in case he adds, “That’s good. Rustproofing is good.”

Phoenix slows up, realizing the chase is over. He doesn’t know what he expected, but whatever was in that mix gives him an amazing sense of energy and wellness. It’s like one of his pain-boosts, but without the pain.

The metal ball by K-ROL remains motionless, but it makes a single metallic click.


BALLER

Sinda is not cool with the clicks the metal ball is making, and she figures just standing around, white drones or not, is a total waste of time. She finds that her usual POD based distractions hold no appeal for her with all this cool new shit to see. "Where the fuck is Barb?" She mutters under her breath. She wants to go check this out, but is surprised at herself to discover that she doesn't want to see it alone. This realization pisses her the fuck off. "Sinda, pull yourself together, you don't need any stupid clones tagging along with you cramping your style. You're a badass, now fucking act like it" she thinks, getting more angry with herself with every word she thinks. "Hey, VLaD, come on," she says, figuring the little bot would be more useful helping her than putzing around with those morons.

Sinda stalk off past past the others and the crater, directly away from the car and towards the line of green and brown poles. She has her POD out trying to use any of her apps/hacks to find any of the equipment/cool shit that they are supposed to retrieve. When she hears Jeth freaking out about Microbots, she rolls her eyes and barely resists the urge to kick him. Why would there be Microbots out here, the man probably hit his head or something.

She casually glances over her shoulder, hoping that Barb and VLaD are hurrying to join her. She pauses for a brief moment and pulls out her sidearm, having both it and her POD handy seems like a fine idea to her. She then continues on, stomping in her heavy boots, stealth obviously not a concern. She waves to VLaD as she passes, “C’mon, let’s go.”

VLaD emerges tentatively from under the edge of the car and announces, “I think a stroll would do the constitution right nicely about now. Thank you!” And he proceeds to follow Sinda.

Barb steels herself and finally becomes visible again, fully prepared for the mocking and bullying that is surely her due for making such a fool of herself. She steps to the edge of the car. “Uh… right here!” Barb timidly calls out. “I’m coming!”

Expenda smiles with genuine gratitude. She hugs Mal tight and buries her head in his chest.

"Listen carefully," Expenda whispers, "you and your team are in danger. The traitor who shot you ran off to the north. I marked the path. I was sent to help you. The others can't know."

With that, she lets him go. Quickly, she grabs a shovel from the pile of gear and uses it to toss the sphere aside. She looks as if she was about to say something, but as soon as her shovel touches the sphere, the sphere, the shovel, and Expenda all light up with blue sparks. Expenda collapses with tendrils of smoke drifting up from her hair as the killer orb flies it the direction she flung it, landing in the crater.

Only VLaD is near the crater at that moment, and as the sphere passes him, all of his legs push off at once, and the spiderbot makes an incredible leap. A thin tail of white smoke marks the parabola of his path which has to be at least four meters up before he starts dropping again. The bot lands upside down just millimeters from the steel tips of Sinda’s boots.

Surprisingly, VLaD speaks, but his voice is weak and has noticeably changed: “Oy, what hit me? For this I was rebuilt?” He is making no effort to right himself.

On the flip side…

Phoenix stops running and faces Wilt. The clone fixes his hair as the docbot watches. Phoenix says, “Wow! Whatever that was, I dig it. Sorry for not trusting you. I think we’re gonna be buddies here, Wilt. I can feel it.”


INCOMING

Cadav approaches VLaD cautiously and pauses to see if the bot is safe, then assists in righting the fallen bot saying nothing to anyone but looking often and staying low to the ground.

VLaD responds with, “Oh, thank you! THANK YOU! Such a good boy, this one!”

Mal begins walking around the north end of the car to the other side. As he passes, he says to Cadav, “I’m gonna go track that sunovabitch that shot me.”

As he gets around to the other side, Mal can see Wilt and Phoenix talking to each other about ten meters from the treeline. A little to the left of them (from Mal’s point of view) is a break in the trees where there is an obvious trailhead. Mal spots it and wonders if that’s the path Expenda mentioned.

There is a flash of white from that trailhead, and just as Mal is registering that fact, a two-meter long steel harpoon as thick as Mal’s arm screams by his head and plants itself in the side of the train car. The white thing, which is probably a person in a bulky white suit of some sort, disappears back into the trees. From somewhere much further off to the right is the sound of hearty laughter. Unfamiliar, maybe a little maniacal, and possibly female. The sound trails off after a few seconds.

On the other side of the car, everyone hears a loud THOING! that echoes metallically through the whole car, followed by the sound of laughter from the southeast.

Two more of those steel balls drop out of the sky and land just past the crater. They land about one second apart and one meter from each other. Thump. Thump.


REBIRTH

Cadav follows Mal around the north end of the car equipped with both pistol and truncheon saying nothing to anyone but looking often and staying low to the ground.

Sinda shoots a dirty look at Cadav, and bends down to scoop up VLaD, sticking him on her shoulder as she continues to stalk towards the line of poles. Barb isn’t speaking much, but follows quietly about two paces behind Sinda. VLaD clings very lightly to Sinda’s uniform and says, “Oy! Such a headache with all the bouncing!”

Sinda jumps at the sound of the balls hitting the ground, but quickly regains her composure but increases her speed (which had been slow and deliberate to facilitate Barb catching up to her) to reach the shelter of the green and brown towers. She doesn't want any metal ball shaped cracks in her skull, thank you. As they reach the treeline (without knowing of course that that’s what it is), Barb and Sinda can see the docbot Wilt standing with Phoenix towards the east side of this giant clearing. They are near what looks like a path through the poles leading out of the clearing. Mal is headed towards them with a huge gun. Cadav is not far behind him.

As Mal flinches away from the harpoon, he wonders to himself, is that what killed my previous clone? He glances quickly at the harpoon in morbid fascination, then turns back to the business at hand. To heck with the laser pistol, he decides to use Vera as his primary weapon for now. Stowing his pistol back in the holster, where it will be readily accessible, he readies Vera and begins to stalk towards the trailhead. His head is on a swivel, checking for any flash of white near the trailhead or in the direction of the laughter. At the first hint of any motion or flash of white, Mal is prepared to drop flat to the ground and ready his weapon to fire.

With his boost from Wilt, Phoenix charges the laughter to tackle it. Shouting the whole time "Stop with those fuckin' harpoon's ya Outside-lovin' sonovabitch!" He gets to the trailhead leading into the trees and stops, because the laughter has stopped, and there’s no sign of anyone here. Wilt follows along leisurely, but keeps his distance.

Malcolm approaches Phoenix and Wilt. He is carrying a huge gun and appears to be on the warpath. His eyes are on the trail leading through the trees behind Phoenix. Cadav is not far behind him.

A pinkish sphere of energy drops from the sky, leaving a new crater next to the old one. The sphere disappears to reveal Expenda-2, who looks surprisingly alert. She immediately steps to her deceased clone and quickly retrieves her meager possessions.

The thumping of the strange balls and clones dropping from above wakes Jeth out of his green carpet trance. "Look, big ones too!" he calls, crawling over to the steel ball nearest him and waving his best arm at Expenda. "The floor looks green but it is multicolored," he says, with heavy emphasis. "It must be okay or the Computer would not have sent us here. Outside has many bots and drones. What do we do with this one?" he adds, gesturing at the steel ball. "We must need the equipment," he concludes. Looking around he sees that most of the equipment is now scattered around outside as well as some still in the train car.

K-ROL says, “Um… my wheels don’t seem to be built for this soft floor. I don’t think I can move. Really be nice if someone had a ride for me, doncha know?”


INTO THE WOODS

Sinda pulls out her sidearm. She's 85% sure that Mal is holding his gun for protection and not to shoot her, but she's sure as fuck not going to turn her back on him. She's aching to head down the path, but not til she knows what that asshole is up to. She looks at Barb

"Let's wait for those losers to catch up to us and then We'll check out that path, might as well use them as meatshields while we search for anything cool" She keeps her tone bored and unimpressed but she can't help the pounding of her heart, the thrill of Outside threatening to get the best of her tight control.

Mal has heard vague stories about this sort of thing in his PURGE gatherings, so he decides to give it a try: he will try to ‘track’ whoever was in the bushes. He’s not positive what he’s looking for, never having ‘tracked’ anyone, and never having been outside before, but he’ll look around in the area where he last saw the flash of white and look for anything that seems to be out of place or unusual. Much to Mal’s surprise, the floor Outside (at least in places not covered in green) seems slightly malleable and holds the impressions of footprints. Whoever was here before him wore wide boots that look like they must be a size 15, and the person must have been much heavier than himself or Phoenix, because their own footprints are not nearly so deep. The footprints follow the path through the irregular poles here, and he can see a few meters in that the footprints become shallower as the floor becomes firmer and more hard-packed. They definitely went this way.

Mal cautiously follows the path through the poles, aware that Phoenix and Wilt are following him and that Sinda and Barb, with guns ready, are not far behind.

Back at the car…

Furious that she's lost a clone, Pam gathers her belongings and gears up, including a full rig of gear, weapons and armor from a replacement pack.

Expenda walks over to Jeth and in an unkind voice says, "infrared stories say they'll punish you for dereliction. They'll cut your eyes out, and the eyes of all your clone siblings if you don't get moving."

She looks over at K-ROL for a minute, trying to decide if the bots abilities will be worth the trouble. "We haven't talked. What is your capacity and function?"

“OH! I’m a maintenance bot, doncha know. A regular Handy Helen, that’s me. I can patch up docbots and scrubbots and warbots and… well, any kind of bot. motor vehicles, this here train car, even that ‘ol hover-flat inside. Heck, I’m not programmed for it, but I’m bettin I could fix up your weapons and communicators and such if something horrible were to happen.” Then she seems a bit bashful, “Not that I’m sayin’ I’m hopin’ that happens. Just that I can probly fix it if it does.”

Pam pulls out her POD to look up K-ROL, but all she gets when she tries for an information search is “Service Not Available.”


ONE TRACK MIND

Expenda nods, then scrambles up into the train car. The hover-flat doesn't seem to be too complex. A voice-activated control post sticks up from one end. She walks across the hover-flat to the post and commands the device to life, "Tensor, Activate."

A metallic, sandpapery voice from the control post replies flatly, “I am active.”

Pam isn’t sure what she expected, but she knows she expected something more than this. Other than speaking, nothing about Tensor has changed in the slightest. Doubtfully, she continues: "Tensor, I need you to exit this conveyance and pick up a bot, designated K-ROL."

Tensor remains perfectly level while slowly rising to a height of half a meter above the floor of the car. It says, “Exiting,” in that same sandpaper voice and then floats slowly out the door, hovering above both K-ROL and Jeth. Once on the other side of them, the hoverbot says, “I do not understand the word conveyance. Remainder of command sequence terminated.” Tensor slowly decends until it is resting on the ground between K-ROL and that crater. The ride was slow but incredibly smooth.

Expenda says, “Hang on K-ROL, I'll get you scooped up. Tensor, back up slowly and position your loading ramp next to K-ROL.”

Tensor replies, “Backing up,” and lifts just barely off the ground in order to back up. When it reaches K-ROL however, it doesn’t stop. Tensor continues moving, ever so slowly pushing K-ROL backwards with its loading ramp. K-ROL’s tiny wheels leave long gouged out tracks in the floor as she slides.

Jeth who has merely been enjoying being upright for the last few moments now sees that his help is needed, he grabs at K-ROL, but A) he has a bad arm, and B) he’s obviously not quite sure what to do to help.

Expenda shouts, “Tensor, STOP!” And Tensor does that, while grating out, “Stopping,” in the same flat tone it has used for everything else. K-ROL now topples over onto Tensor. As she lays on her side on the hoverbot, her wheels are spinning and flinging small clumps of mud everywhere, a few spatters of which land on Jeth’s uniform. Jeth climbs on board and begins looking at how to set K-ROL upright again.

Expenda sighs and says, “Tensor, forward.” Tensor continues to follow directions, repeating each one after Expenda says it, but it quickly becomes clear that Tensor doesn’t understand much beyond basic direction and maneuvering words, and conditional phrases are lost on it.

Tensor’s surface is four meters by two meters with no railings or handholds of any kind. Merely a flat hovering surface with a control post at one end. At something akin to a leisurely walking pace, Expenda convinces the hoverbot to maneuver around the train car and move towards the rest of the team who appear to be following a trail into the woods at the far side of the clearing. Barb and Sinda’s backs can be seen just disappearing among the tall poles and greenery.

Meanwhile, at the trail head…

Mal pauses for a moment to let the others get closer, motioning them with his hands to stop in front of him. When they are stopped, he whispers to them: “Whoever was here, they are leaving some footprints on the floor, whatever this material is. I’ll take the lead and try to follow the footprints. The rest of you follow along behind me and keep your eyes open for any movement. And try to stagger yourselves around a bit; you don’t want to line up single file behind me, or one harpoon from this person could take out the whole group of us.”

Mal looks each person in the eye, then nods and turns around to continue his “tracking.”

VLaD, who is perched on Sinda’s shoulder says, “Och. Such a leader, this one. I like your chutzpah, young Malcolm.”

The footprints fade the further into the woods they go. The floor here is much harder packed. The team is leaving no tracks at all at this point, but the huge, heavy prints of whoever they are following still show faintly but distinctly. The path here is well worn and over two meters wide. Occasionally there are old remnants of tracks near the edges that look distinctly like tire treads. Mal is running point, with Cadav staying slightly back and to the right as his wingman. Wilt and Phoenix stay in the center of the path, Wilt ducking awkwardly at low-hanging… stuff… sticking out from the poles. Sinda is at the back to the right, with Barb close on her heel.

As they pass fully into the woods, Barb notices behind them, in the direction of the car, a hover vehicle approaching. It looks like Jeth and Expenda and K-ROL are riding the machine.

Up ahead, Mal gets glimpses of some sort of structure. Whatever it is is still a ways off, but from the flashes of it Mal can see, it is the same shades of gray and brown as all the poles out here, but where the poles are all irregular and bent and splitting at crazy angles, the structure appears to have comfortingly straight edges and square corners. Some sort of building, but the path must turn at some point, because it’s not clearly in view yet.

[DMDarcs]