Run #7: Through the Looking Glass

[GM Nick]

Between Max and Doc's explosive barrage, the walkway gives up the ghost and falls, smoking, into the coolant with a groan.

There's a violent hiss as the iron mess sinks below the surface.

The team touches down on what little remains of the walkway attached to the exit door.

[John]

Max runs to the door and peers under with his flexicam, saying,

"Make sure to keep them at bay for a moment! We don't want to run blindly into something even worse on the otherside!"

[GM Nick]

<Keep moving. It looks like there is some kind of data library just ahead of you, but I can't access it. There may be some sort of safe-guard installed. If you can get it off, I can access the contents and it may give us a clue about what Deus is up to.>

[GM Nick]

Max's flexi-cam reveals another hallway, with large plate-glass windows on either side. His angle with the camera makes it impossible to see through the windows. At the end of the hallway is an elevator of some sort.

[Drew Buddy]

Doc digs the second Dragonfly out of his pocket, and sends it ahead, before cautiously stepping into the hallway.

[John]

Max opens the door to the hallway, waits for the team to come through, and closes it behind him to make sure no drones follow. The elf inches his way along until he can get an idea of what is through the windows.

[GM Nick]

Now in the hallway, the runners can make out what lies behind the large windows on either side of the hallway.

Dozens of upright gurneys are visible through the frosted glass, each containing a restrained (and seemingly dormant) cyber-zombie. There are obvious cybernetic augmentations to their skulls, where it looks like large data-chips have been grafted into flesh.

[Drew Buddy]

Doc presses a finger to his lips, and slings the rifle over his back.

He ducks below the line of windows, and quietly crawls toward the end of the hallway.

[GM Nick]

<You're extremely close to the data-vault, I can see Doc's PAN on the wireless. There's got to be an access panel somewhere.>

[Drew Buddy]

Doc continues to creep forward, keeping an eye out for the panel.

[John]

Max follows suit and crawls along behind Doc.

[GM Nick]

Max's hawk-like eyes pick out the panel on the other side of one of the windows, situated on a wall in between gurneys.

[John]

Max indicates to the team,

"There's a panel in the room behind the glass. Doc, any guesses?"

[Drew Buddy]

Doc squints at the panel.

"That's probably what Milly is talking about. From the sound of it, we'll have to access it directly."

He glances at the dormant cyberzombies, and for a moment, his own augmentations snap into sharp relief, feeling like foreign invaders in his mind and body. He pushes down the sense of queasiness welling up inside him.

"I don't know what will wake those things up, but I'll head into the room to access the panel. The fewer of us trying to sneak by those things, the better. Hang tight in the doorway and be ready to back me up if they wake."

[John]

Max does as he's told.

[GM Nick]

Doc takes a deep breath and slips through a hatch situated underneath the window. The smell of cold metal and formaldehyde pierces his nostrils like a handful of nails, sending the nausea he had flirted with earlier into overdrive.

Infiltration Test

[Infiltration (3) + AGI (7) = 4]
5 2 4 5 5 3 4 1 1 5

Group Perception Test

[Perception (3) + INT (4) = 3]
2 1 6 5 1 5 4

Unnoticed, Doc slinks his way over to the access panel. There are four large bolts affixing the panel to the wall.

[Drew Buddy]

Doc quietly opens his toolkit. He passes over all the ratcheting or motor-driven tools, and selects a simple stamped metal hand wrench that could have been made any time in the last two hundred years.

Bit by bit, he starts to loosen the bolts.

< Okay, Milly, I'm here. Walk me through it. What do you need me to do? >

[GM Nick]

<You'll need to manually connect the main data cable to the port marked 'ext.' Once you do that, I can tap into the data-vault.>

[Drew Buddy]

Doc continues to remove the bolts holding the panel on, taking pains to muffle any sound.

Removing the panel, he delicately sets it down against the wall as if it were a priceless painting. He sets to work on finding the main data cable, so that he can hook it up to the necessary port.

[GM Nick]

A series of LEDs springs to life on the main-board behind the coupling. At the same time, a ceiling panel above the runners begins to withdraw, slowly revealing the barrels of an assault cannon.

<The data-vault seems to have activated some sort of defense subroutine. Take cover!>

[John]

Max moves for cover from the line of fire.

[Drew Buddy]

Doc rolls under one of the cyberzombie gurneys.

[Elliott]

Tyros, confident in his invisible cloak, moves slowly around behind the assault cannon, ready to leap up and cut it in half should it open fire on his teammates (delay action).

Subvocally, <"Milly, any way you can take the turret over and use it against the zombies?">

[GM Nick]

<Negative... you'll need to find some other way to disable it.>

[John]

Max comms to Tyros,

<Cut that fraggin' thing down, Tyros. I would shoot at it, but I don't want all the ghouls to wake up and come down on Doc. Maybe-- just maybe-- you can disable it quieter than a series of shotgun blasts and have them not wake up.>

[Elliott]

Tyros bunches his legs under him and with a sharp thrust, lunches his eight foot frame up so that his shoulders are almost parallel with the ceiling turret. Moving his massive shoulders from right to left, he slashes his sword through the servos holding the gun module.

[GM Nick]

Melee Combat

[Swords (7) + AGI (4) + Weapon Focus (2) + Reach (3) = 7]
5 2 6 5 3 2 3 5 3 6 2 1 5 1 6 1
[Structure (6) = 3]
6 2 1 6 5 2

Tyros' claymore splits the barrel of the auto-cannon, which falls on to the troll's burly shoulders, muffling their fall before they hit the floor.

[GM Nick]

<This is... oh god...>

[John]

Max responds to Milly's mumblings urgently,

<What? What? For fragssake what??!>

[GM Nick]

<All of these cyberware requisitions... this programming... I think Deus is planning on installing his programming in the brain-ware of all these cyber-zombies. He'd have an army at his command--one that feels no pain. Now what an artificial intelligence needs with an army, I'm not sure.>

[John]

Max understands,

<Anything you can do about it remotely? How do we kill Deus?>

[GM Nick]

<I'm still trying to piece that together... i can see that he's working in several node-clusters, but the more he spreads himself out for redundancy, the less he can get accomplished. At some point, in order to compile his brain program for the cyber-zombies, he'll need to be almost entirely invested in a single system. That would be the best time to strike. There's no guarantees he hasn't already spirited away some minor part of his consciousness for sake keeping, but he'll need most of it for this final task. Destroying his primary system will cripple him.>

[John]

<Any guesses as to what that system will be, or where the servers are located? Where should we be headed?>

[Drew Buddy]

< Hmm... So he has to build an image to clone onto the cyberzombies. Nothing a few well placed shots into delicate computer equipment can't handle! Milly, see if you can find any bandwidth logs. If he's moved part of his consciousness off site, it'll likely have been a massive amount of data. >

[GM Nick]

<There's a large amount of data being moved through a node in the next area. Proceed carefully though... the environmental sensors are off the charts... And while you're at it, you may want to... uh, disable these cyber-zombies.>