Neon stops and looks back, her helmet hiding the little smile that plays at the corner of her mouth at the re-appearance of Mr Plant.
With a fluid motion, she turns and takes a knee, her BK-616 coming up to her shoulder with practiced ease. With frighten8ng efficiency she fires 4 bursts of bullets into the torso of Mr Plant...
During a lull, she floats nearer the gynodrioid. "Pssst. 'dr0meda. Is this okay? I know the Coyotes are kinda your people, and lord knows I'm down for a party, but you don't think the others are in trouble, right? Like, surely they won't miss us if we're gone a bit longer, yeah?
Yeah, I don't know why I'm worried. They're with a big corp surrounded by guards and a pretty car. I'm sure they're just bored out of their minds."
"We could ask if there are any secure lines of communication we could use to try to contact them at Nexxon. Might still be what used to be called land lines. But short of turning our TAPs on, we can't contact them. We could find out where Nexxon is and drive try to visit them."
When this L.T. character is around, 1dr0meda will ask, "Mr. Moses said you'd be the one to explain what you know of Ghosts and what risks they pose to TAP users. Also we would like a brief on the groups to avoid when outside of the turf controlled by Mr. Moses."
===PhxZoo===
Once you're appropriately loaded up, Baron escorts you off a ways to a newer building with a shiny tin roof. A path crosses over a long-since-dried-up river to reach it The sign out front, cryptically, reads "LAND OF THE DRAGONS". The only spray paint adorning it is a set of shiny gold bars surrounding a capital letter K. Baron gestures for you two to enter and scratches his head. "If she's, uh, asleep, turn your TAPs back on. You'll see. Have fun?" He sounds unsure, and refuses to cross the short bridge to the building. The interior of the building is relatively well-kept, and bristling with an array of server racks, computers and strangely, medical equipment. The far wall is glass, staring into a still-preserved rainforest enclosure. In the center of it all, in a half-reclined dentist's chair sits a short, cute and improbably curvy girl with a mass of curly, strawberry-blond hair, her feet cinched down to the chair by a restraint. She gives you two a wave. "Hey. I'm Kayla Kortex. You're the ones Moses wanted me to talk to, then?" Utterly non-chalant, she tightens down another strap, cinching her arm to the chair as well.
"Right, right. Let's see... The Sheriff's probably the worst guy here. He's got about half of downtown under his thumb and he's always trying for the rest. Him and the po-po have the most resources, and all the paramilitary s+~$ they were getting from government grants means they're the best armed." She stretches out her free arm to a side table, uncorking a bottle of tequila and pouring a shot. "Johnny Po's the next worse. Nobody knows what he wants or what he's after, but he's like the boogieman. The Triads are the only gang that could stand up to Moses. Fortunately for us, they're fighting the Sheriff downtown half the time and don't come after us unless we get in their way."
"The Coyotes," she pauses to knock back the shot, wincing for a half a second, "Have the Southwest, but it's mostly desert out there anyway. No idea how they live, except that they send raiders into town that muck things up for us. The Queen has the East and some of the South, but Jimmy told me you ran into her already. One of you want to be a dear and tie my other arm down? Thanks." Her eyes roll up as she thinks for a minute. "Oh, and there's Reggie's Place, way out West. Used to be an Air Force base, but now he runs it. Don't go near it. They shell anyone who gets in range." She wiggles slightly, getting comfortable in the chair. "Go ahead and turn your TAPs on. I can explain Ghosts, but it's easiest just to show you."
===Nexxon===
As Kitsune and Ghiv dive out of the way, turning off their TAPs, the Mr. Plant in front of them disappears entirely--Kitsune's shuriken goes whistling through the air, dead on target for where he had been a moment before. Neon's bullets follow it after a second, squealing across the open air and hitting the side of a building across the plaza.
To Neon's view, all four of her shots are on target, but they barely seem to slow Plant, unable to throw his shot off course as he fires at Kitsune. The bullet looks dead on target, but never seems to impact, the fox girl looks completely unharmed. Derrick again shouts "Your TAP!" But he too ducks as another shot rings out from across the plaza. Glancing back and forth, Neon can see that Plant is both in front of her, his pistol leveled at Kitsune, and all the way back at the door, trying to line up a long-distance shot on Derrick at the same time.
The close one reels off a long string of self-important sounding Japanese before adjusting his gun from Kitsune to Neon.
As he fires, the bullet pierces, but despite hitting you in the chest, you feel it spark and a lance of pain shoots through your neck. From the sides, Kitsune and Ghiv can see electricity arcing from Neon's TAP along her spine, causing her back to arch unpleasantly and involuntarily. Derrick points to the direction he was running in originally. "I have jump bikes around the corner! We need to go!"
Ghiv attempts to confuse the attacker, focusing his mind on Mr. Plant.
Ghiv wills a psychic static into Plant's mind, confusing the man with the idea of hundreds of false TAP's.
(Raise)
Ghiv then heads for the bikes!
If her shuriken is along the way to the bikes (or maybe just a *little* bit out of the way), Kitsune will pick it up.
|
"Ummmmm, hey, Kayla!"
Alanna is -hella- disconcerted about Kayla's...setup. Sure, she's seen neuroboys with their fly trids an' chill rigs, but this...and she didn't even know what it DID yet.
She nods politely in time with the run down on the various factions. As chaotic as it all seems, it also seems to have a certain rhythm to it. Instead of a mass of free-for-all it must have been, it all sounds like there are at least boarders. That the Coyotes are raiding was actually a good sign. It meant they needed something, and might be willing to accept secured borders for it.
And that counts for something.
She approaches Kayla and pulls out her own flask. "Well I'm not the kind of girl to let a lady drink alone, so, to yer health!" She takes a long, and badly needed, pull, and recaps her flask.
"Ooo. Normally someone makes me buy them dinner before I get to tie them up!" She hands out a Salacious Wink(mint flavored) but her own insides are quivering at the surreal situation.
She turns serious and secures the errant strap. She takes a step back and mumbles to 'dr0meda, "You know what the hell is going on"
Wraith exhaled and turned her TAP on...and prepared to see ghosts.
"Unnnnnnggnnnnnngng!" Neon exclaims involuntarily as the virtual Mr Plant 'shoots' her, her back almost arching her completely over onto her back.
The electrical discharge ends, wisps of smoke floating up from her TAP, her head hangs loose.
Then with a shake of her shoulders and a twist of her neck, she looks over to where the real Mr Plant was standing.
"Cute trick..." she mutters, aiming her assault rifle and firing a HE-40 High Explosive grenade at the bastard....
She then runs with the others towards the bikes, turning off her TAP as she does so.
1dr0meda listens to everything Kayla says, while she struggles to figure out the purpose of the restraints and the alcohol. Not sure what to expect, she gives Allana a "here goes nothing" look and mentally switches her TAP back on.
===PhxZoo===
"I think I like you," says Kayla, returning Alanna's wink as she cinches down her arm. "Careful promising me dinner. I might hold you to it." She smiles, leaning her head back onto the chair and glancing up with a look of concern. "Oh and uh, this part's pretty gross. So if you gotta weak stomach, look over there." She brings her head back down, turns to the side, and presses a button on the chair with her nose.
A needle, several inches long and much thicker than they usually needs to be, slides from the side of the headrest into a jack on her skull. Her mouth opens in a silent scream, her back arches and her limbs pull against the restraints. After several painful seconds of observing her silent rictus, her eyes slide back into her head and her body slightly relaxes. At the back of the room, the glass wall of the reptile house thumps as a massive shape bumps into it. Behind it, among the preserved (and half-false) rain forest, a huge, long body slides around a tree. "So," hisses Kayla's voice, amplified to a deep, disconcerting bass. "You want to know about ghosts."
"The Deep was made on the backs of old-school video games," she continues. The shape continues to stir, forming into coils. A tail with spikes and a quavering rattle passes in front of the glass for a moment. "Your friend there has the look of someone who knows her way around the web. People create avatars there that can affect programming, or other people, use powers, whatever they want. But it was only when you were jacked into the system." The disconcertingly human shape of a torso emerges from somewhere among the coils. "But we're always connected now, thanks to TAPs." Her silhouette, more slender than her physical body, closes in on the glass. Details begin to swim into view--a feathered headdress, a mask, robes. "And engrams, viruses, those can hurt you for reals, omae. Same principle. But Phoenix has enough ambient processing power to render hyper-reality in real time."
Kayla presses against the glass, and then slides through it, her virtual body simply no-clipping through it like a game character. She draws herself up to her height, the snake body continuing to roll and undulate beneath her. It looks real, down to the last detail--the light reflects off of every individual scale, her body brushes dust off the floor. "Can't do this s**% on the pipes back in Denver, chummer."
===Nexxon===
"Come on, come on!" Shouts Derrick, looking back towards you three, his eyes lighting on Neon. Two fingers come up to his ancient ear piece as he beckons toward the building with his free hand. "Blow the charges, blow the... S+!#, who's still alive out there? Fall back!"
"You figured that out fast," quips the real Plant, bringing his gun back up. "But my reinforcements are already here." Behind him, Nexxon corporate military stride through the doors, raising bullpup rifles, coordinating across a neural link. One of them nonchalantly tosses a body to the side--a youngish man with shape tats and a gutterware hand. Those of you with the experience notice that they move in tandem, well-practiced, they isolate targets and prepare to fire. Smirking as if he's already won, Plant opens his mouth to speak, but his eyes widen. Staggering backward, he glances to each side, muttering. "No, no, there aren't that many, there can't be. Where did--How did--<I will not accept your cowardly dishonor-->"
The grenade lands just to the side of Plant, and the fire and shrapnel lights up half his body. Hearing Derrick breathe a quiet "Yes," the remainder of the charges around the base of the building blow, one by one, blasts crashing past the Nexxon soldiers, throwing them off their feet. A few fire, their shots going wild as the concussive blasts ragdoll them across the concrete. Plant screams in agony, on fire, sparks of electricity popping and crackling along his neck as his VR clone fades from view.
"Get on," says Derrick, kicking up the engine on an old-school Iron Horse with a couple of street-mod parts. He offers a handup to Neon. Spare bikes are waiting for Kitsune and Ghiv--another Iron Horse and a Steel Wind, not unlike their own though in shades of disrepair. A few other gutter-bikes and Jump Boards waiting for the remainder of Derrick's crew. As he starts it up and pulls away, the others running from around other corners, jumping on and grabbing hold of handlebars and Jump controls, he mutters quietly under his breath, "Christ, Overload too. Spirit, Steady, Psycho, RockOn... F!%*."
|
|
Wraith's mouth hangs openly agape as the woman-snake-wall-walk-through-thing goes on.
"I...." is all she manages to stammer out as she takes in the new -new- developments.
Alanna shoots a side-long glance at 'dr0meda as a drowning man looks at a lifeguard. This ain't her scene.
"So, um....ah....what, do...what -exactly- am I looking at here? Is...are you saying that ghosts are....what? Like video game characters with teh haXXorz?
But...but they only affect people with TAPs? How does...how does that even work?"
Unable to control herself anymore, Alanna walks up to the snake-Kayla and puts her hands on her. Solidly. She grabs, kneeds, massages and gropes. Then closes her eyes and does it again, just to be sure.
"But what if I had my TAP off and 'dr0meda had her TAP on? Would I still be able to see you?"
1dr0meda watches the needle go into Kayla's brain stem, not prone to get a queasy stomach because, well, no stomach, and not sure the pain exhibited on her face was due to physical sensations of something virtual.
As the snake manifests, 1dr0meda moves closer to the glass to get a better look. She runs whatever diagnostics she can to analyze what she is seeing.
When it comes 'through' the glass without breaking anything, she too reaches out and touches to see what kind of sensations it gives.
She then resets a number of important subroutines--her version of taking a deep breath--starts her hacking engram and attempts to penetrate the firewall of the snake.
Bonus +1 (Cutter Edge) + 2 Skill specialization hacking engram
Result = 3 + 1 + 2 = 6
Neon watches with satisfaction as both Mr Plant and his building blow up. She resists the urge to fire another grenade, taking Derrick's hand and mounting the Iron Horse.
Adjusting her gear, she leans in close and tight as the bike rockets away, hearing the list of the fallen from Derrick's mouth.
She knows the pain he's feeling and gently taps slowly him on the chest in commiseration before once again gripping his torso tightly,ensuring no wavering of the bike's center of gravity as Derrick accelerated down the street.
Ghiv hops on the Bike and follows Neon.
I hope we know what we are getting into...
===PhxZoo===
"Oh, you are just adorable," says Kayla. She pats Alanna gently on the head a few times. It gives her an unpleasant, tingly sensation without actually displacing her hair. Similarly, 1dr0meda's hand goes through Kayla's scales and gives an unpleasant, but faint tactile feedback. There's almost something there, but it doesn't resolve. It's unclear if ghosts give you a real sensation or if they just look so real you expect to feel something and your mind fills in the blank. "If you turned off your TAP, I'd be gone. You can't hear me, you can't see me. Any old hacker can attack you with an engram, make your TAP mess with what you see, make you a little kookoo..."
She stops in place, her tail gives an angry quirk and rattle. "The difference between be and what she's trying to do right now," She says, rounding on 1dr0meda, slithering past and surrounding her with her tail, "Is I don't need to go through her firewall first. Ghosts ride on the same triggers as hypertags. If you can see me, I'm already there." Her human half lowers, close to 1dr0meda's head, and she hisses, "I'm sure you're just curious sweetpea, but if you try to get in my head again, I'm going to harsh your buzz."
===Nexxon===
The motorcycle formation peels away, unfollowed. He stops his talking and stiffens slightly when Neon taps his chest, but soon loosens in her grip, seeming appreciative. A few turn off from the road that Derrick is following, but most stay with him, and close by. Riding occasionally one-handed, but with surety, he shoots short snippets of conversation back and forth between himself and the other riders, taking accountability and figuring out who they lost. Speaking up over the noise of the hogs, he says to you three "We'll be taking you back to our place. Hang tight. The others are checking to see if the path is clear."
They ride slowly, even given the crashed cars and debris littering the roads, until Derrick again puts a hand up to his earpiece. "Take 19th up to Jefferson," he says, after toggling a push-button. "The Triad's doing something on 17th." They accelerate, the bikes knowing the roads well, and Ghiv and Kitsune are able to easily follow along. The streets themselves are quiet, but in the distance you can hear the unmistakable sounds of gunshots. It's easy to pick out who the newest members of Derrick's crew are--they're the ones who still flinch when they hear the weapons report.
A fairly short ride later, you coast to a halt in front of a tall, stately building, bristling with comm uplinks. The fence is elegant and marble along the bottom, but looks recently improved with barbed wire. The sign out front reads "Arizona State Capitol Building". "Well, this is where we've carved out for ourselves," says Derrick, coasting his bike in, the engine already dead. A couple of people out front with obvious, cheap gutterware give you nods, and you can see them counting up the riders to realize they're missing a few. Derrick gives a firm shake of his head and doesn't look back. Close to the building itself, a few tarps hang from the fence and the walls, little makeshift tents. "The runners mostly stay outside," he says, his voice a little muted. "There will be some spare spots for you, now. Let me take care of my people and I'll give you a rundown of everything."
1dr0meda looks at Kayla's TAPerition, which she decided was a better name for it than a ghost, her eyes unblinking, her face without expression. "My curiosity only extends to the question of whether I can interact with such things and whether the firewall works any differently than a normal TAP. I have no interest in learning anything about you that you don't want to tell me," she said with a similar lack of emotion in her computer generated voice.
"Can this ... " she gestured at the snake body "do any physical harm, different than the harm programs can do to a person once they have penetrated a TAP firewall? How do you fight such a thing, other than turning off ones TAP?"
|
|
Alanna's not sure how she feels at being called 'adorable'. But she's been called worse, so that's a win on it's own.
She scrunches her eyebrows down in concentration and tries to grab the snake-woman-ghost's breasts once more, then takes a step back and pulls out her flask.
"So, what are all the other "ghosts" (myself, I'd've' called them 'wraiths', but since that's kinda taken, I can see how they went with the back-up name) around the city? Are there funboys setting in their own rigs just scamming about, like RL was some huge MMORPG?"
(She doesn't say "Emm Emm Oh Are PEE GEE". She actually pronounces the word "memorpegah".)
"And, yeah, so you can run down the gray matter without the Eff-dub. What can other people do against you? Just knock knock your own wall?
And what do the 'ghosts' want? How many are there? Do they have, like, a leader? Are they, like, a gang, or just wandering around like disembodied spirits of dead people searching for some long lost goal, sort of like a...ah...y'know, whatever you'd call something like that?"
Ghiv nods in understanding. He starts looking around, checking things out.
===PhxZoo===
"Heh. I like you girls," says Kayla. She smiles warmly at 1dr0meda's stone-cold response, then glances down at Alanna's fingertips phasing ineffectually through her chest. Her lips half-curl in amusement. "You stop that." Quietly, she adds "Maybe later."
"There aren't too many people with my kind of rig," she says. "Most ghosts seem to be free-roaming AIs. I don't know where they came from, or if they have a leader. But they f#+% you up if they catch you. Seems to be about all they do." She waves a hand, bringing up a holo-tag of a digital clock, reading 27:34 and counting down steadily. "There's a downside too. Having a corkscrew in your CNS is kind of rough, turns out. I get tired and achey if I stay in too long. If I stayed in even longer than that, I could, kind of... Maybe... Die? I'm not sure yet." Her face scrunches, the snake's eyes darting over to her real body, back uncomfortably arched in the chair.
"Ghosts can't really touch you," she says, brightening back up as if she'd never said the last bit. "But we can cheat. If I punch you real hard as a ghost, your TAP thinks you're gonna get punched real hard, and it tenses up--TAPs are precision instruments, and they can shift a little in your head to minimize damage." She waves a hand, bringing up another holo-tag, a little MMO style character labeled <Kayla> and another, a big fantasy warrior, with the label <Some Chump>. "Do it enough and it starts tiring you out. Do it even more and it can actually burn the TAP out inside your head." The little ghost follows up with several more punches, a small combo-meter racking up next to her. The big warrior slumps abruptly, a trail of smoke wafting up from the back of his neck.
"So if you don't want to end up like chumpy," she says, tapping the little "KO" above the warrior, "You can either turn your TAP off real fast--but that's not always an option. You can hack through the ghost's firewall and start hitting it with engrams. Or if you're one of the cool kids with a neat jumpchair like me, you can hit it with a bigger, badder ghost. That's why there aren't any of those free-range ghosties in Solidarity."
===Capitol Building===
Derrick disappears inside the Capitol Building proper for a minute, leaving the three of you awkwardly standing around, the runners looking you over. It's the same wide range of experience, as near as you can tell. Some of them look like they've been around the block as long as it's existed, and others look incredibly green. They're as much a curiosity for you as you are for them--for likely the first time in your adult life, you're seeing a crowd of people with no holotags. No display names, no biometrics, no info of any kind. A few have the same wired earpieces as Derrick, and a few others are carrying old-school walkie-talkies in hip holsters.
After a moment, the door to the interior of the building opens again, and Derrick beckons you three in. "Come on. I'll give you the short tour." He leads you down a hallway filled with paintings--some are old oil-paintings. Others are blank canvases that might project a portrait or a landscape if your TAP was on. "The kids, the wounded and the elderly get the inside of the building," he says. "It's not meant for this many people, but we're making it work. We're low on food, low on water, low on medicine," he opens a door, revealing triple rows of improvised bunk beds, mattresses and sleeping bags across the floor. A few small kids, chasing each other in a circle around one of the beds, immediately perk up and smile, one of them running to him and hugging him tightly around the knees.
"Emily?" Asks a woman sitting on one of the beds. She has a gutterware arm with parts the wrong size for her small frame. Her shoulder, where it slots in, is a mess of scar tissue. One of her eyes looks to have milked over with cataracts. She looks hopeful, for a second, then broken the next. She folds her arms, wobbling in an unsteady circle and murmuring. Derrick shakes his head. As your eyes adjust to the unlit room, you can see the back half of beds are completely full--mostly older people, though a few look like they have problems like the girl with the messed up gutterware.
"Val got into a fight with a ghost," he whispers, his hands tussling the kids hair before pushing him off to go back to playing with his friends. "Her TAP's off, but her brain still sees things now. We... We can't help her here. We don't have the knowhow, or the equipment." He steps back out of the doorway, closing it. "We can't get out," he says abruptly. "Cars die on the edge of the city. You can't walk it without more resources than we have. And the gangs, the sheriff, everybody keeps trying to attack us, and take the little bit these people have."
"I need your help. If you can help me get these people out, you'll be... Heroes. Real ones," he says, then draws in a long breath. "But that's probably a lot to ask. Why are you in Phoenix to begin with? Maybe we can help each other out."
The old man thinks better of it.
"Thank you for the demonstration. It will help if we have to face them. If the machine causes you pain or harm, please stop the demonstration."
As long as Kayla continues in the TAParition form, 1dr0meda observes, looking for ways to tell it from a real object or creature.
Other than moving through solid objects and other things that a physical object obviously can't do, she does not notice anything.
Once the demonstration ends, 1dr0meda turns off her TAP. She feels let down. Her ride through the wilds of Phoenix was the longest she ever kept her TAP off, and the world seemed less interesting, almost as if it had no color, no sound, just images. Of course, her Navajo family managed very well with very little use of their TAPS. Some had had them removed or had never gotten one installed.
Kitsune turns to Derrick and says "I'm here because I want to get in touch with my family's corporation, Yukosawa Consolidated, which Nexxon is trying to break in to and take over. Perhaps if your group can help us get in, I can use some of my company's resources to help you get out of Phoenix".
|
|
Alanna continues to peer at the phantom-TAPerition, and returns Kayla whisper with a coy wink. (Usually she wasn't into girls...but this was tickling her in that special way right between the...ears.)
"So how did you learn to use it? And where did y'all get your rig? I doubt this was just laying around the zoo, and I doubt you were some weekend cleanup lady who just happened to trip across this one late night. 'Oh, hey, guys, I found a ghost-killing future-machine right next to the bleach cleaner!'
Sooooo, what kind of range does it have? Could you go anywhere in this? Have you killed many ghosts? How many ghosts have you killed? Are the ghosts all just mindless rogue AIs, or have they formed, like, um, ah, a 'matrix' of collective AIs.
Do you know how many ghosts are out there? It seems odd that an entire big huge city is held hostage by rogue AIs. I mean, how many could there be?
Could you an' 'dr0meda go, like, ghost hunting and make the whole town safe?"
Alanna stops talking and breaths deeply. 'Chill out, runner. You're already on a side quest from the main quest. Don't need another side-side quest. Focus.'
Ghiv looks at Derrick and says I'm in this for the money. If you can line that up for me I'm your guy. flatly.
Hopping off the bike, Neon safeties her weapons , takes off her helmet, and follows Derrick into his headquarters.
Waiting outside, she notices some of Derrick's runners giving her and the others a good long look. A look she returns, her eyes serious and unforgiving. Most look away, but a few young ones return her look, causing a smile to twitch her mouth.
Turning at Derrick's return, she follows him into the building, bemused by the running children and elderly.
She listens to his tale of woe, then nods at both Kit and Ghiv's statements, "Yeah, our main aim was to get Kit here back in touch with her corp. Money's always an incentive. " she looks around at all the people Derrick wants to get out of Phoenix, "Logistically, I don't , at the moment, think there's a chance in hell of gettting even a fraction of these people out of here." she says, "We had to piggy back on Nexxon to get here..." then she snaps her fingers, "Alanna and 1dromeda! If they managed to get into the city...they were taking the overland route, through Native lands I think," she explains to Derrick. "That might be an avenue of escape...if we can make contact with them...wherever they are."
===PhxZoo===
"Haha, of course it wasn't mine," Kayla says, giggling slightly, sounding eerie in her own computer-generated reverb. "But it is now," she says, slithering her body out from around 1dr0meda and pointing to the side of the chair--the Nexxon logo on the armrest is faint, but just barely legible. "I've only kind of figured out the tech that lets this work. The spike in the jump chair works using the same principles as a TAP, just more directly, and it uses some of your brain for storage and data." She looks up at the ceiling. "It connects to a Nexxon satellite. In theory, I don't think anything in the tech prevents you from going elsewhere, but I can't change any of their server configs, and it's set up to only run in city limits."
Kayla scratches her chin, her tail rattling audibly. "And, well, there's some limitations. Ghosts draw from ambient processing power--" she waves her hand at the computers. "--Phoenix has tons of it, since a bunch of people died, others left, and most of them left computers...And TAPs usually keep running after you die." She smiles nastily, the little holotag of the KO'd warrior shining, throwing an orangey light across her green ghost. "But once you get away from that, you start lagging bad. Even on the city limits or places where everything got turned off, I can barely make it work."
"Hold on, I'm getting out," she says, the snake clapping its hands. It immediately disappears from view, with an abrupt and unnatural suddenness. The silence left by its absence lets you hear the digusting schlk of the needle sliding back out of Kayla's head. The wound is almost perfect, and you can see the entry point has metal shielding, and an iris closes over it once the needle clears her skin. "Ulgh," she groans. "Tequila and untying me, please. Not picky about which first."
===Capitol===
"Money is... Different. No TAPs, no satellite contact, no credsticks. But there's a city full of goods for the taking, of course," Says Derrick, thinking, counting out the options on his fingers. "Nexxon has all sorts of R&D miltech--probably priceless if you find the right bidder, but ever since they started moving back in, it's been hard to get a hold of any of it." He scratches his chin, taking a couple deep breaths and steadying himself. "Yukosawa Consolidated, huh? Nobody could get in there after the Mess, from what I remember. It's pretty pristine, and their worker's quarters were on site." He casts his eyes over Kitsune, thinking hard.
"We could try to head in to your family's company," he says, finally. "I'm not sure what you're after--I doubt anybody's been living in there, but if you could get us in and let us help ourselves to some of the resoruces, we could keep you safe on your way out. If we can't get people out of the city, I'd settle for keeping them fed and alive." He leans his back against the wall, thinking. "But we're short on resources now, and getting into their building might take time. Maybe..." His eyes abruptly snap up to Neon. "Wait, you said Alanna? Please tell me she's not about yea-high with white-and-black hair."
He holds his hand at about chest-level--Alanna's height exactly.
|
|
Sorely tempted to take advantage of the currently bondaged haxxor, Alanna reminds herself that Kayla's just been on a hard road that sandpapered her CNS, and simply undoes the straps (mostly. If her hands briefly judged the tautness of Kayla's quadriceps, who can gainsay that?), then neighborly pours a stiff bolt of the requested tequila.
Again saving her the dishonor of drinking alone, Alanna sips her own flask, digesting what they've learned.
"Is there any defense against the ghosts? Like, I can buy upgrades for my firewall. Is that worth looking in to if we're gonna be around here longer? Or...or you said that they don't need to get through the FW, so that probably won't...."
Alanna blows air of her cheeks and turns to 1dr0meda. "Alright, whelp, we wanted to know things, and, boy-howdy, we have learned much.
Kayla, it's been a pleasure. I mean it every sense of the word when I sincerely hope that I can get to know you better at some point. IF you weren't critically needed to Pheonix I would totes be asking to sign you up right now.
1dr0meda? What say you? You ready to go knock on the door of the Coyotes now an' make the sweet talk? Or do have more questions to regale the kind and sexfully statuesque Kayla?"
Before Alanna turns her TAP off, she briefly checks the status of Eat or DIE! She frowns as she gets no signal and turns her TAP off. She really wanted a Chernobyl Cherry.
"You don't have anything to eat around here, before we take off, do ya?"
"The only other thing I want to know is whether leaving your TAP on attracts ghosts or have people told us to turn our TAPS off merely to make it impossible for ghosts to utilize the TAP to cause harm? Also, I notice the company that makes this machine is called Nexxon. Does anyone know if they have more? If not, could I perhaps look at the programs that run this machine?"
Once all the questions have been answers, 1dr0meda answers Allana's question about what to do next: "We have some mutual acquaintances who may know something about the situation at Nexxon. Perhaps we should seek them out to learn more about 'ghosts' and how to protect ourselves from them. The Coyotes can wait."
===PhxZoo===
"Oof, thank you sweetie," Kayla says before knocking the tequila back, giving her a pained-looking, but otherwise friendly nod and silent Cheers. "If you have time to recover from surgery, a second TAP helps to ease the strain," she says, pulling her curly hair up over the closed iris--faintly, you can see that she has a slightly untidy incision scar, a few inches below where you'd usually have a TAP. "Firewall can still help. They don't have to get through it to hurt you, but they still have to fight it once they're in if they want to use engrams."
"Turning it off just makes it impossible for them to hurt you," she says to 1dr0meda as she pours another slug. "But they're still around. They can still hurt your gear, your car..." She sips the second shot, looking thoughtfully at the jump chair. "They probably do, but the way I hear, they've been muscling back in the past couple weeks. Might be hard to get past their security." She takes another sip, wincing and flicking a few holotags imperceptibly. "I can give you the software if you want to take a look. Not much good without a jump chair to begin with."
"Well, our priority is getting Kit in to Yukosawa...any help we'd be able to provide will probably come from there. Right?" she asks Kitsune.
She then give Derrick a strange look, "Yeah, that sounds about right. Crazy for SoyCaf, talks a mile a minute, a bit spaztik ...Sound like your girl?"
Ghiv is still here...and waiting.
"If you have time to recover from surgery, a second TAP helps to ease the strain."
"A second TAP. I never considered it. I don't have to worry much about recovering from surgery. But I'd need to find someone reliable to do the second implant. I don't want some hack shorting out my memory banks. How specifically does the second TAP help in fighting 'ghosts'?"
1dr0meda looks over the code, trying to learn something she might use against ghosts through their programming.
===PhxZoo===
"Well, you need it to be able to ghost," she says, sitting up, woozily, in the chair. "But it also helps you shrug off attacks. They have a harder time hitting you with two--they help manage the strain somehow. And yeah, yeah, you're good, girl. Hope I see you around."
"Oh, take this map," She says, before the two of you leave. "We've figured out how most of the people in the city have drawn up their lines. Some areas are still a little fuzzy." An old-school dot-matrix printer feeds out an 11x17 print. Areas are clumsily marked with photoshop tinting and text, and a little legend gives you a rough description of what each color means.
===Capitol Building===
"Christ," says Derrick, leaning heavily against the wall and closing his eyes. In the brief seconds of awkward silence that follow, you can hear the souund of Valerie mumbling in the next room. "Of all the gin joints in the f+&%ing world," he says, standing back up and taking a deep breath. "Of course she'd show up. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, priorities."
He takes another breath to steady himself before beckoning you down the hall into another room. It's a little cramped, but it has a nice, print-and-paper map of the city tacked up, with strings marking off different areas. "We need supplies," he says, "You need money, and then you need in to Yukosawa Consolidated. First things first, there's a gang that hasn't fallen in step with all the others in the area. They're bad news for my civilians, but they're small, and they have resources--we can feed my civilians, and give you drugs and/or weapons--" he pronounces the slash out loud "--you can liquidate for cash on the outside." He points to a small circle off in the southern half of Phoenix. "Once we have some resources to spare, I can send runners with you into your parents company. Then if everything goes well, we can set you up to try and get you back out of the city with whatever you need. Sound good?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"First off, how did you know about Alanna? And I'm not following your logic. What are we trading with that independent gang for your food? Also, I'm not sure why you're giving us drugs and/or weapons" - she doesn't pronounce the slash - "to turn into cash on the outside. Why do we need cash once we're outside? We've all got credits on the outside, which I'm assuming don't mean much here. Wouldn't it be better to trade your drugs and/or weapons for the food?"
|
|
Wraith stares perplexedly at the dot-matrix printer as the two tech-heads talk shop, expecting the retro-printer to turn into a werewolf or ghost or Eskimo or some other fantastic such beast.
She gingerly accepts the dots-and-other-dots map and smells it, making sure that it's real.
"Wizard?" she says, memorizing the map. "Yeah, you too toots. Peeps ya l8r. You good, 'dr0meda? Mount up!"
Alanna heads back to the car-and-trailer, checking on the cargo. The weapons an' stuff look reasonably secured in the back, and Driver made sure to hang on to a single barrel of water and a few bottles for their personal use while in-theater.
"Okay!" she says to 1dr0meda. "Where the coyotes at?"
"Thank you, Kayla," 1dr0meda says after studying the programming for a while. "This is very helpful. Would you know anyone around here who could install a second TAP into an android like myself?" She glances at Allana. "If we can trade some of your water or procured wares for the implant, it would make it easier for me to keep watch for ghosts and defend against them."
When Alana asks about the coyotes, 1dr0meda responds, "Perhaps we should try to connect back up with our fellows at Nexxon. They have some of the technology powering these ghosts. We'll be safer traveling with them and now that we have this map we can help them keep safe as well. We should also let them know what we've learned about ghosts. I think the Coyotes can wait, although if we can locate them as we get to where Nexxon is, we can try to infect two computers with one virus."
===PhxZoo===
"I might know somebody. I definitely know a surgeon, but you're, ah..." Kayla takes another sip of tequila to cover the awkward pause, staring conspicuously at 1dr0meda's articulation seams. "...Different. I'll see if I can get a hold of Monkey, but he's out on the town right now." She taps another set of holotags. "Come back in a day or two, assuming the whole Coyotes thing works out?"
Cruiser is indeed waiting by the car, looking visibly uncomfortable. The hippie chick with the neon dreads and genemod Zebra is sprawled out next to the trailer, recounting the plot of multiple episodes of Scooby-Doo and feeding the Zebra edibles. "Oh, thank god--Sorry, I have to go. Right now." He says, as soon as he catches sight of you two. "I'm just going to drive to the edge of the camp, then you tell me where we're going," says Cruiser quietly.
The girl enthusiastically waves to him, and leads her Zebra back up the path.
===Capitol Building===
"Me and Wraith are the longest of stories," he says, her handle seeming to tear itself out of his mouth. "Short version? She got a lot of people dead. She..." He pauses, as if he wants to say more, but stops a little short of it, shaking his head. "I don't hate her. I don't have it out for her or anything, if that's what you're worried about. Just... Not seeing her for a while was one of the only highlights of the whole g&~!!&n Mess."
"I'm rushing. Hearing her name made me off-kilter," he says, taking another deep breath before responding to the rest of your questions. "I'm getting you money on the outside because I can't get you money here," he says, "But he wanted money, and it's a plus for Neon, although... I'm guessing there's a certain love of the craft there, too." He casts a hand towards Ghiv at "he", and his eyes flick over Neon's armor, rifle and face, in that order, his expression appreciative. "I think we had a fundamental misunderstanding over what I want you to do with the Coyotes. They raid my f$%!ing refugees. They hurt people. If you can do something diplomatic, by all means. But honestly, you look like you kick ass. She looks like she kicks ass." He gestures to your sword, then to Neon. His hand hesitantly swings back to Ghiv. "He, uh, he looks like an accountant, but there's a gun in there somewhere, I'm sure."
"I can send people with you to help. With three more experienced runners, their camp should be pretty easy to roll over," he says. "I gotta look after my own first. Do this for me and we'll escort you to your parents' company. But until then, I don't have a day to waste on a building we still might not be able to get into."
"Wait a minute - the gang that's been giving you problems is called Coyotes?" Kitsune gives both Ghiv and Neon a significant look. "One of our teammates - we got separated on the way in here - is a *member* of an Indian tribe called Coyotes! If we can hook back up with her, she may be able to persuade them to ease up without bloodshed. Regardless, there's someone she cares about in that tribe - er, gang - er, whatever - and I don't want that person to end up getting hurt in an attack on them."
Turning to Ghiv and Neon, she says "Any ideas about how to find them, given that their TAPs are probably off, too?" She looks to Derrick as an afterthought.
Ghiv smiles, his "accountant" facade was still holding up. He wasn't sure it still would here in this place.
Sure. I can count beans. I can also count heads. We seem to be a bit short handed. Can you find our missing runners? he says to Derrick.
|
|
Alanna pouts as the hippy-chick-and-zebra walk away. 'Awwww. Bye, Hippy-Chick-and-Zebra! I could've used a good catching up on Skooby Dooby. Remember that one where there was a haunted amusement park, and they were asked by the old man to find out why it was haunted, but then it turned out the OLD MAN WAS THE VILLAIN!
And then they unmask him, and he's all 'An' I'd'a gotten away with it too if it wasn't fer all you crazy kids.'
Yeah, that one kicked ass."
"Sweet," Alanna shoots back at Cruiser. "Catch ya up just as soon as more-machine-than-man is finished talking shop with a curvy strawberry muffin.
What?"
Neon returns Derrick appreciative expression, a bit more sardonic perhaps, but like him, she likes what she sees.
Running a hand throuhg her unruly hair, she says, "Well, you're right...my line of work is hurting people...fatally. If what we need to do is take care of this Coyote problem..."
It was at this moment that Kit blurted out her conclusion that the Coyotes that Derrick was talking about was the same that were friends with 1dromeda, "Huh, that might be a problem..." Neon mutters, shaking her head at Kit's question.
===PhxZoo===
"Like, ohmygawd," Says the hippie girl, sounding incredibly enthused and strungout at the same time. "Smoke you out and we'll watch when you come back," she says, giving a lazy wave. If there was sarcasm present, it missed her by a mile.
"Please let's go," says Cruiser, putting it in gear and heading down to the gate. A quick glance at the map gives him a good route to head in, but he clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "We really are in gang town, aren't we?"
The drive is quiet as you head west into the late afternoon sun. The vehicle kicks up a cloud of dust as you travel across the dirty roads, but otherwise Cruiser does an excellent job of keeping it quiet and keeping a low profile. Coasting without braking for a little while, he kills the engine and lets it ride. "We're almost there," he says. "Any particular plan for the actual approach?"
===Capitol Building===
"Well, if they figured out to turn their TAPs off, then they'll probably keep them off. We've learned to go analogue," he says, tapping the curly cord attached to his ear. "Let's see if we can get some of them on the radio." He shuffles awkwardly out of the small room into an identically-tiny one across the hall. The rickety desk shoved up against the back wall has a double stack of ancient, archaic-looking black boxes with rusty dials and more copper wire than you've seen in your life. A crude shunt runs some of it outside--no doubt to a dish on the roof. "Kayla. Kayla, I need your help. Come in." He switches it off and pushes a button, letting crackling, unpleasant static wash out in a keening wave.
"I'm drinking," say the speakers after a long pause. "What do you want?" Derrick waits another long second before responding, making sure she's off.
"I've got some people here looking for some friends of theirs. Any girl named Alanna come through recently?" Another pause follows.
"Yeah actually. Tasty looking chick with oreo hair and a fembot friend?" Derrick glances over at you until he gots a nod about 1dr0meda. "Moses had them handling a coyote problem," say the speakers. "Hey, wait, was that the one girl?"
"Call you back," says Derrick abruptly, pushing the button to shut off the speakers. "And also, serendipity."
"That doesn't make sense, having them handling a Coyote 'problem'" Kitsune says, thoughtfully.
"But maybe it means they're headed out to talk to the Coyotes, in which case we should do the same.
Derrick, can you give us directions to their camp? And lend us some motorcycles, our rides are with Alanna. I know that's asking a lot, but I *promise* to get them back to you as soon as possible..."
|
|
...
Alanna's brain goes on pause as she tries to decipher the undecipherable. 'Smoke you later...Is...is that...is that a druggie thing? Or a eupimism for sex? I...I feel both proud and ashamed that I don't get that.'
Alanna nods blankly as the hippie chicks talks and runs, immediately feeling a kinship for Driving-Guy.
Wraith keeps her own council on the drive there. She was kinda hoping for 'dr0meda to take some point on this, but the sexy-and-smart Kayla must've communicated some high-octane techno-mojo on her 'cause she's been dead silent since.
Meh. Harder isn't impossible.
"Let's try not shooting first. I find it mildly problematic to negotiations when we shoot first. At the first Coyote-looking person/apparition/thing that wants to either talk or shoot to/at us, let's stop and make the word talky first.
Having not done shooting at anyone, things should go easier from there. I'll open up with a brace....um, I mean a 'pair'...of water-pure bottles ('cause we don't got many left) and I'll try and see if they want solid borders. Then I'll say that. And I'll keep saying it.
IF that doesn't work -then- we shoot them.
Sound good?"
She stares into the distance, lost in her own thoughts. She idly pops her lockpick-kit in and out of her hand, amusing herself.
As Cruiser begins to roll out of the zoo, 1dromeda says, mostly for Cruiser's benefit, "We learned some interesting things about what others call ghosts. They are virtual entities that look real enough to be real and they have enhanced ways of doing damage to people and machines. I can probably fight them off and stop them before they do us harm but only if I keep my TAP on. Since they can do harm to our equipment even if we have our TAPs off, it is best we know they are there. I'll get a second TAP when I can to help with my defenses."
She then goes silent for a short while as she looks at what she can see with her TAP, doing a few searches for recent activity for news that might be related to the Coyotes.
Result = 7
Skill Specialization Engram for Programming +2
Result = 5
Result = 3
In case all that fails, we can follow what information we've received about where they tend to operate and head that way, in which case, 1dr0meda will keep her occular data input devices peeled.
===Southwest Phx===
Notice Check: You can faintly hear a couple of engines spinning up a few blocks away. Once the initial start up of the engines is done, it's much harder to follow the noise.
"F~%~ing ghosts?" Cruiser asks. "Christ. I didn't sign up for this," he says, slowing the vehicle to a crawl as he navigates around several cars stopped in the street, to the side of a parking garage still full of empty vehicles. He winces visibly, his eyes following as you pass one that's been scraped up, the windows broken. "COYOTES" is written along the side. As Cruiser turns to look to the front, an entire truck barrels out of the second floor of the parking garage, crashing into the street and cutting off his route.
To his credit, Cruiser immediately whips his head around and throws the car into reverse, gracefully s-curving around vehicles, but by the time he's gone a few hundred feet, another truck drives in from a sidestreet. The paint is scratched and torn, pieces of sheet metal are welded to it at odd angles and a cow skull is affixed to the front bumper. A gaggle of a half-dozen teens stand up in the bed of the pickup, dressed in UrbanPUNK street clothes adorned with feathers and trinkets, carrying pipes and axes, and one of them has an honest-to-god bow and arrow. Not all of them are Navajo, but they all hoop and holler an enthusiastic "Ayiyiyi!" As they pour over the side of the truck towards you.
===Capitol Building===
"Well," says Derrick, scratching his head, "We do have the spares you rode on. We can grab an extra for Neon, or a sidecar if you don't drive." He crosses back through the hall to the room with the map. He takes one of the strings and adjusts its tack, making a line to the southwest. "You'll want to drive west and then drop down to their camp from the northwest," he says, examining the route, looping the string. "If you come in from the city proper, they have an ambush route set up."
"I mean, you are doing me a favor," he continues, walking you down a hallway and grabbing a set of keys from a hook on a plyboard unevenly nailed to the wall. "And I'm not worried about you running off too far. The bikes are okay and have all the electronics stripped out, but they only have so much gas." He shrugs, tossing Kitsune and Ghiv a set of keys and leading you outside to where you parked the bikes. "And if you do see Alann--Wraith, then tell her, uh..." He hesitates, taking a deep breath and rocking on his feet. "Actually, don't tell her anything at all. Good luck."