Run #1 - Big Top Blitz

[Drew Buddy]

Axel keeps a holding pattern above the amphitheater, drawing lazy circles high in the sky as he watches the entrances, nooks, and crannies for further heat signatures.

<<Game time, chummers. Are we going in? Because if so, I should go change into my dancing shoes.>>

The signal strength to Doug, Wind, and Whirlwind all read as shoddily as the signal to Echo, the Fly-Spy, but he knows now that it will be... Good enough to do the job if firepower needs to be brought to bear.

[John]

Mick finds themselves unconsciously hum-singing at the suggestion of Axel's dancing shoes. "I'm gonna put on..." Paused, they consider the razorwire and the situation laid out before them. "Gonna put on..." With a huff, the ork frowns so wide that their grimace practically glows in the dark, and pulls the open commlink from the small strap-satchel riding high on their sternum. The razorwire rimming the grade that leads down into the moat reminds them of a set of riotously crashing waves.

< Got some razorwire here. > Scanning their surroundings, Mick comes up with nothing resembling a plan. < I'm gonna try to slip through. > Re-pocketing the comm, Mick's humming resumes as they gingerly move toward a position from which they can crest the razorwire.

"Yeah, I'm gonna put on," Drawing a deep breath, letting it settle into their bones with a quiet ease, flooding their blood stream, settling their considerable nerves. "My-my-my-my-my boogie shoes..."

[GM Nick]

Mick - Agility check

AGI
4, 3, 6, 1, 6
2 hits on 5 dice

Mick wades into the oily water, blenching at the frigid temperature. Using slow and deliberate movements, they shimmy into the imbroglio of deadly steel. Fortunately for the ork, the wire has been laid haphazardly and Mick finds no real challenge in locating broader segments to squirm through. After several minutes of wriggling, they reach the opposite embankment-- totally unharmed, but soaked through and through.

They scrabble up the muddy grade, flattening their body near its apex and peer over the edge.

Bongoland's main concourse is a wide promenade of concrete. To the north, Mick can make out the vague outline of amusement park attractions: roller-coasters, spinners, a Ferris wheel, and a carousel. To the west is a series of booths, presumably games where at one time carnival barkers would swindle folks out of their nuyen. Many of the small buildings are sagging under the weight of time. To the east lies a large exposition center with a stage set at its heart. Above the stage is a billboard featuring Bongo and his friends. Some tagger has added a vulgar (but probably anatomically accurate) addition to Bongo's lower half.

The concourse itself seems to be deserted, inhabited only by a few sickly looking weeds breaching cracks in the concrete and the ubiquitous garbage that seems to be an endemic feature of the Barrens.

[MattL]

Yung audibly whispers to Reiya while speaking on comms < Alright chummas, it time to drek or get off the pot eh? Sounds like maybe we don’t make a move just yet, if that da case then I fall back with Reiya for now. >

< I think we need to figure out how many of these clowns are cooped up in dis infierno. Maybe we trigger a different flashbang and see what kinda reaction it draw, we try to make it look like somethin natural. Taipan and Mick could find a good place to hide when we do that, see if you can get eyes on the package when they come investigate? Then once it settle down again, you can sneak out eh? >

Honestly, I don’t like it, too risky, but what else are we gonna do?

< Anyway, dis just my plan, some of you gotta have something better in mind. > Yung begins to shift nervously as he waits. He scans along the same perimeter line that the original flashbang tripwire was discovered on, in an effort to see if there are any others.

Yung whispers to Reiya "Reiya wolf, maybe you can look around for another one of those flashbang tripwire along the same perimeter line?"

[Drew Buddy]

Axel listens to the audio and audio transcriptions of the comms chatter flying through the air. After all, his ears aren't doing much else at the moment.

He checks his altitude. The figures on the ground are small, perhaps a bit too small to identify each individual on more than just the obvious clothing they're wearing.

<<Let me scout ahead. At this altitude, they aren't going to be able to spot drek in all this rain. Might find signs of habitation elsewhere.>>

Axel turns his tiny metal body west, heading deeper into the park. He switches to full thermographic vision and activates the laser microphone, focusing on each window from an oblique angle in the sky.

(( Looking for buildings that are leaking or radiating heat. And using the laser microphone to listen in on sounds inside each building ))

[Stephen]

Taipan studies Mick's path through the razorwire carefully before scrabbling softly down the muddy slope and wading gingerly into the frigid water. He picks his way through the silvery coils slowly, rifle held above the waterline.

[GM Nick]

Taipan - Agility check

AGI
2, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5, 4
2 hits on 7 dice

Mick - Perception Skill check

Perception + INT
3, 3, 6, 2, 3, 6, 4, 1, 6, 2
3 hits on 10 dice

Taipan maneuvers through the razorwire with relative ease. He clambers up the slick earthwork and settles down in a crouch next to Mick.

Mick scans the promenade for potential hazards, squinting through the sheets of rain. There don't appear to be any traps, not that they can see. As their gaze makes a circuit of the plaza, it stops on something peculiar. Mick spills from the shadows just enough to snatch it: a piece of fabric; a uniform sleeve, bearing the Lone Star logo. The rain water has not yet washed all the blood off of it.

[GM Nick]

Axel - Perception Skill check

INT + Sensor + 1 + 2 - 2
2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3
2 hits on 8 dice

As the fly-spy flits through the rain, Axel observes the landscape, all magenta hues in the thermographic sensor. The convention center is boarded up, preventing him from ascertaining any information. He circles the building in a glide. There are several human-shaped figures lying on the stage, but they are dark-blue in his scope-- dead. The hiss of the rain is all he can hear.

As Axel ventures deeper, he can make out the silhouettes of the various rides: Safari Tour, Bongo's Jungle, Weezle's Funhouse, The Coiled Cobra, Wacky Wheel, and Dizzy's Daring Delivery. Bug-eyed, grinning cartoon characters advertise each ride. There is heat emanating from within the bowels of several of the rides, but the signatures are too ambiguous to resolve.

The noise is getting worse. Axel sighs involuntarily as he loses his sensors for a moment. Any further and he may not be able to control the drone. Hovering in place, Axel rotates the drone and spots an obvious heat signature.

A body hangs from the spindle of the Ferris wheel. From the pose, Axel guesses whoever it is was chained by their wrists and hung there. The prisoner is alive, judging by body heat. Not for long in this rain, Axel thinks.

[John]

Rubbing their thumb over the bloodied Lone Star logo, they show Taipan the find and open the comm, < I'm looking at a bloodied scrap of a Lone Star uniform here. > Making eye contact with Taipan, the ork nod-gestures toward a ramshackle set of structures that should theoretically be the bar area indicated on the map Mouse dug up for them. < I'm gonna circle around the perimeter toward the bar, see if I can't get deeper in without raising any alarms. > Killing the comm, they suggest to Taipan, "And, I don't know about you, corpo, but I could use a drink." A devilish grin dawns on their lips.

And with that, Mick rises nimbly from their belly and, keeping low, slips off in the direction of the bar area, one with the night as they go.

[ReiyaEmm]

A few moments to catch her breath has helped Reiya largely recover from the spell fatigue. She responds to Akela’s suggestion with an almost human nod and softly pads along the perimeter in search of additional tripwires.

[Drew Buddy]

Axel peers into the night through his monocular sensor, cold rain pelting his metal carapace.

<<Hey team, we've got a whole mess of bod–>>

He pans the view up, and stops. If his mechanical eye could blink, that's what it would be doing right now as he makes sense of burnished reds and oranges that make up the thermographic feed.

<<Whoa whoa whoa! Hold up! I think we've got a live one here!>> He moves toward the heat signature, analog channels filling with more static, as his view begins to dissolve into larger and larger compression blocks.

<<Godsdamn! Might need to take another approach. I'll see how close I can get, but Mick, this might be the arm that goes with that scrap you've got. If someone's got a scope or some image magnification, hit the top of that Ferris Wheel, and tell us what you see.>>

Axel checks the signal to noise ratio again, and finds it wanting. Imagining a sigh, he visualizes, or arguably feels the action and sensation of pulling a foot out of a boot. And then, once again, his vision shrinks to a single dot in a sea of black, before springing back into the image of the interior of the van.

Axel takes a few breaths, mind re-learning how to use his flesh body, before he dares speak. "Getting real greasy out there." He says almost apologetically, knowing that of the entire team, Mouse will understand his concern. "If I'm not careful, this noise will dump me straight out, and I'll spend the next week trying to remember how to un-cook a human nervous system."

As if in explanation, he haphazardly drags the Rigger Command Console onto his lap, and fires up his AR piloting program. A pair of joysticks and an instrument cluster appear in his vision above the deck. He punches in a simple conditional to the pilot program of the drone. If signal is lost, return to the van, or until signal is reacquired. Hoping that the pilot can handle any edge cases, he grabs hold of the immaterial control yokes, and pushes the drone ahead, moving straight for the figure hanging by his wrists.

<<So folks, a new opportunity has opened up. If this guy is alive, and he's the driver of the armored truck, we'd be in one hell of a position to ask him questions if we get him down from there, first.>>

[GM Nick]

Reiya - Perception Skill Check

Perception + INT + 2
6, 2, 3, 1, 6, 4, 5, 5, 4, 2
4 hits on 10 dice

Reiya ventures thirty meters along the team's latitude, intently surveying the ground. Using both eyesight and her vastly improved sense of smell, she's able to find two more snares of similar composition. They seem to have been placed at random.

Meanwhile, Mick and Taipan arrive at the Western-most part of the promenade. The bar area has been thoroughly decimated by time and vandalism. Broken bar-stools and splinters of rotten wood lie amongst a sea of broken glass, so aged it looks more like charcoal. A battered and nearly fully disassembled Yamaha Growler motorcycle lays on one side. Several holes in the gas tank indicate it may have been used for target practice.

From their new location, the pair can see the first row of game booths. Most are still standing, albeit in shoddy condition. They're adorned with faded titles like: Bongo's Bash, Safari Shootout, and Rambler's Rings. The booths are set in rows and the second set is hidden behind the first. A nauseating smell is wafting from somewhere within.

Axel's drone gets close enough to the prisoner that he can make out a few details: gashes and bruises show through the places where the prisoner's uniform was torn, the man has an obvious data-jack, and an X has been spray-painted across his torso. The rain collects on his face and drips off his chin. He isn't moving, but the thermographics still show heat.

After recording the image, Axel's AR feed cuts off and flashes: CONNECTION LOST, RETURNING TO OWNER.

[ReiyaEmm]

After finding the two additional tripwires, Reiya trots back to Akela and “reports” as best she can in this form. Slightly ahead of her previous claw-scrawls, the shaman writes “2 more” with an arrow pointing the direction from which she came. Reiya then looks up at Akela and cocks her head to the side, asking the question she can’t verbalize and hoping she needn’t resort to drawing another picture. Though it’s worked better than I expected, she admits to herself.

[Molly]

‘Save him!’

Mouse has seen this exact scenario before in an infinite number of permutations. After all, it’s one of the most common click-bait ads for shitty commlink games. The scam goes like this: a man dangles in some precarious position, with certain death (typically in the form of lava or hellhounds) looming below. ’Save him!’ screams the ad, imploring the viewer to click, to try something, anything, to save the theoretical doomed man from his impending virtual demise. The catch is that there is no solution. He’s not even in the game. Like so many images of well-oiled bishounen, cajoling her to ‘come play, m’lady’, the man-in-peril serves only as bait, to entice users into downloading some drekky match-three puzzler full of spyware and microtransactions.

It’s a callous mental image, but one she can’t help but consider as she mentally cycles through a series of impossible ‘solutions’. Silently destroying the bonds would only to send the man plummeting to his death. Anyone climbing after him would be easy pickings for any keen eyed ganger. <<This seems like the sort of problem magic could easily solve, like by bribing a spirit into carrying him down.>> She muses, idle thoughts churning into plans as she replies. <<Barring that, my next question would be: any of you good at climbing? Like, good enough to do it quietly, in darkness, while carrying the dead weight of a grown-ass man?>>

Her brow furrows as she cycles through this cognitive processing, so fixated that she barely notices Axel’s own consciousness return. Axel’s words of repentance for wanting to preserve his grey matter are punctuated with a sudden shift in her data feed, namely the string of [REQUEST TIMED OUT]s and [PACKET LOSS: 30.3%] that can only mean bad news. This triggers an audible gasp, both from the obvious frustration, and the real-time shock of seeing Axel avoid crisis so narrowly. “GOOD CALL,” she manages to vocalize, understating both her horror and awe. Sure, Axel’s decision to bail probably pushed the drone over the limits of the connection, but he had been walking his own wire the entire time he was in hotsim. “I GET THE SENSE WE’LL BOTH BE GOING IN SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. THAT’LL BE BAD ENOUGH, EVEN WITHOUT YOU BLEEDING OUT OF YOUR EARS.”

[GM Nick]

Mick - Perception Skill Check

Perception + INT
2, 3, 2, 3, 6, 6, 4, 1, 2, 6
3 hits on 10 dice

Mick examines the area for hidden dangers. The ork can't find any sign of traps or unseen hazards among the small hills of ruined materials. As they gaze intently at the booths, something strange happens. The color seems to drain from their vision, rendering the dilapidated buildings a wan hue. The diminutive weeds climbing through cracks in the promenade glow with energy, like miniature firework displays. Mick is viewing the astral plane for the first time. They crane their head, looking about. Taipan is a wonderous fountain of rainbow light, swirling with fractal patterns and radiating energy. Even with this new gift, they are unable to locate anything of note.

The foul aroma that they had detected earlier churns Mick's stomach. It's a smell they know: rotting flesh. It's not possible to pinpoint the exact origin of the smell, but it seems to be emanating from the booths just beyond the bar area. The scent makes Mick's hackles rise, and it's almost as though something squirms inside his mind.

[John]

The ork shakes their head, uncertain what to make of the DTM fire blazing out of control on Taipan's face. Blinking, their vision resolves to its norm, perceiving the darkness with the relative ease of meta human sight. 'Frag me.. think I'll keep that under wraps for a while..' they think to themself. The world almost seems to pitch as they regain their sense of space and color and shade. To Taipan: "As rotten as this entire fraggin' place smells," pointing to the game stalls, "anything that smells THAT fraggin' terrible is worth investigating."

Giving the human a nod, Mick carefully advances to search out the source of the horrendous aroma, paying special mind to the blind corners around the structures ahead.

[Stephen]

Taipan's salivary glands lurch into overdrive as his augmented sense of smell collides with the stench of the place, prompting him to swallow a mouthful of copper-flavored spittle and stifle a low cough -- neither of which prove to be easy to execute simultaneously. A small rivulet of what might be rainwater or sweat runs down his neck and under the collar of his armor, touching just the right nerve endings to elicit an involuntary shiver.

He turns to steal a glance at the ork. Their eyes meet just for a moment, but something is different in the way they looked at him. Eyes slightly wider, looking more through him than at him. He chalks it up to a pang of fear, but the ork regains their composure with surprising quickness.

"Agreed," Taipan mutters, unconvincingly. Taipan might be no stranger to death, but he'd prefer to be gone long before it starts to smell.

Taipan advances on the game stalls, eyes searching for any sign of danger, rifle at the ready.

[GM Nick]

Mick - Sneaking Skill Check

Sneaking + AGI
4, 5, 3, 2, 2, 1, 5, 4, 1, 5, 2
3 hits on 11 dice

Taipan - Sneaking Skill Check

Sneaking + AGI
5, 3, 6, 6, 4, 4, 1, 3, 5, 5
5 hits on 10 dice

Mick and Taipan split, each taking a berth around the outside of the row of booths. The steady sibilating of the rain masks their footsteps as they advance. The first row is empty, nothing more than shoddy lean-tos with creative names and faded backsplashes. After a quick examination, they advance again. Reaching the second row, both of the runners simultaneously glance around the edge of their respective corners.

A Smile is in the middle booth. The ganger is large, nearly scraping their head against the booth's corrugated roof even while hunched over. It's impossible to determine the ganger's meta-type due to numerous deformities. The scarred and twisted visage has been slathered with makeup in a simulacrum of a geisha's face-- white, stretched skin, rosy cheeks and crimson lips. A bloody butcher's apron hangs over mismatched armored clothing.

The counter at the front of the booth is covered in severed limbs. More body parts, most indistinguishable, are piled in the back of the booth. A portable chainsaw lies against the counter, next to the ganger. Despite the rain, the booth buzzes with a cloud of flies that swarm hungrily over the gore. Blood pools in dents in the rotting wood and runs down to curdle in puddles of rain water. A faint light emanates from a shelf at the back of the booth, where something is sizzling on a propane grill.

Deeply engaged in the act of using a cleaver to separate a hand from an arm, the Smile does not notice his two observers.

[MattL]

< I just gonna take a second to be the reitan piece o drek and remind everyone if the Stars get wind of our involvement, we can say sayonara to dat bonus. Not that I don’t think it a good way to get some valuable information Mouse. >

“Reiya, you found two more eh? Well, sounds like da crew found the Star, turns out I was wrong; it wasn't an inside job. He probably hanging off that ferris wheel on the far side of the park.” Yung's typically calm composure starts to show some cracks. He struggles futilely to wipe the mud off the tops of his custom wingtips, then again while attempting to remove said mud from his fingertips.

“Dis drek, jesus christo. Be nice to get back home and dry off.” Glancing back at Reiya, Yung is met with the wolf's glowing golden eyes appraising his every move, piercing the façade to see the truth that lies beneath; Yung is clearly out of his element.

“Anyway, here’s da plan. Anything go sideways, I think you be ready to trip one of those wires. Maybe you make it look like an accident, find a rock or somethin near da wire, dig a little hole like a dog looking for a bone yeah? Push dat rock to trigger the trap.” As he relays his plan, Yung regains his confident demeanor, silently nodding while he speaks as if convincing himself that the course of action is foolproof.

“That way, these payasos come to look around, all they see is some animal tracks and what look like a dog diggin a hole tripped the wire eh? No offense of course, chica.” Yung finally stops speaking to consider the immutable face of the wolf judging his every action. “Hey, yeah, you got a better idea; you let me know eh?”

< Oye, how it going in the funhouse? Me and Reiya, we got a plan… > Yung glances at Reiya again before continuing < I think. You need a distraction or want to draw them out; maybe see how they respond. We can trigger one of these traps, try to make it look like an accident eh? Then we fall back. You two can find a good place to hide, see how many they are, and maybe get eyes on da package. You just say the word, we ready. >

[Molly]

The decker’s expression is hard to read, even if Axel’s the only one around to see it. It shouldn’t have surprised her that the mercenaries would be so… well, mercenary, but she clearly hadn’t clocked Akela as the type to make those calculations. <<7.7% of the take = 1072¥ each > That’s how much we risk if he runs his mouth.>> It’s a grim calculus, looking at the limp, swollen body and trying to determine how much that life is worth. <<Though between our Ikemen and the giant fragging troll, I suspect we could convince him to keep quiet.>>

[John]

The sight of all the blood is enough to set Mick's teeth on edge. It is a vision that is at once both deeply familiar and normal, and every bit as terrorizing as it always has been. Locking eyes with Taipan, the ork gestures once for quiet, then to move on.

Rounding off the corner around the side of the stall, Mick keeps low to the ground and continues tracing along the western edge of the park to the north.

[GM Nick]

Mick slinks past the improvised butchery and reaches the last row of booths. A pair of stained, vacant cots occupy the closest booth. The ground of the middle booth is littered with discarded, empty plastic ammunition cartons. The final booth has collapsed, nothing more than a moldering pile of construction material. The ork wipes rain from their eyes and continues, sticking to the large shadow cast by The Coiled Cobra roller-coaster.

The steel x-shaped supports of the ride provide decent cover for Mick, while the ruined track above supplies a small measure of protection from the rain. All of the Bongoland rides are arranged along the oblong outer perimeter of the park. Mick shivers involuntarily as the chill of wet clothes touches their skin. The tang of blood lingers on their tongue.

Mick stops at the ticket booth for Coiled Cobra and peers around it. The next ride is Wacky Wheel: the Ferris wheel. Glancing up, they can see the inert form of the hanging prisoner, about twenty meters off the ground.

A gust of wind picks up, scattering garbage along the concourse and prompting the Ferris wheel to roll forward eliciting a groaning of over-stressed metal.

[John]

Mick casts their eyes upward, considering the apparently-still-living man hanging from the high extent of the ferris wheel. Checking their surroundings once more, they retrieve their comm from its pouch. < Not feeling too interested in going climbing after some piece of drek Lone Star pig. There's no way to trust them. And besides... > Trailing off for a moment, they look to the form again, ragdoll-tacked to the side of the rain-slicked steel amusement. < It feels kinda like taking the star off the Christmas tree. >

[Stephen]

Taipan glances sideways at Mick, grimacing at what he supposes is some sick attempt at humor. Lone Star or not, this man has done nothing to earn their scorn.

<< We'd be too exposed up there in any case. Can't risk it without support. >>

From underneath the roller coaster, Taipan surveys the scene with his thermographic vision, trying to pick out any other heat signatures amid the rides. He glances upward at the bleeding heavens.

<< If it were me, I'd have the cargo somewhere under cover. A tent at least, but ideally somewhere more defensible. Maybe the vendor stalls, but from the map we've seen, my nuyen is on the main stage. >>

[GM Nick]

Taipan's view is an ocean of dark cerulean. The persistent rain obscures his thermographic sight beyond twenty five meters or so. The immediate vicinity looks clear, besides the ork next to him and the unconscious human tied to the Ferris wheel. He taps a finger idly against the trigger guard of his rifle as he considers the next move. A small timestamp in the corner of his vision informs him it is 4:09 in the morning.

[Drew Buddy]

Axels monitors the comms, and drums his fingers on the RCC as he waits for the Fly-Spy to return to signal range.

"Gods, I feel useless," he gripes to Mouse and himself. He fiddles with settings on the deck, before returning them to their original values.

"It's this godsdamned noise. As long as I've got to crank noise cancellation the maximum, I can't run any autosofts. And without any autosofts, I'm down to direct-controlling one of my little buddies at a time. And from everything I've seen, no one wants to be caught laying around and unconscious by these assholes."

The drumming of his fingers turns into a tapping of his foot. "I'm just not used to doing this." He says, almost in apology.

[ReiyaEmm]

Reiya listens to Akela’s suggestions and chatter without comment, well, since she can’t comment. She wishes she could shrug and say, Sure, I’ll play doggie and trip the wire, whatever. Instead, she writes “OK” in her claw-scrawl, sits in her haunches and lolls her tongue out in a wolfish grin.

[Molly]

There it is. The instant Axel utters the phrase ‘useless,’ it's as though the psychic surface tension breaks. She simply listens at first, pulling her legs up under her as she does, flinching slightly as the consequences of being caught while ‘under’ are left mercifully unstated. “YOU THINK YOU’RE USELESS? AT LEAST YOUR LITTLE BUDDIES HAVE GUNS. STILL A GOOD CHANCE WE’LL END UP NEEDING THOSE.”

She shifts her weight now and looks off to the side, as though she’d rather eyeball the greasy fast food wrappers balled up in the corner than acknowledge the situation in front of her. “BUT WHAT GOOD IS A DECKER IN A PLACE LIKE THIS? NOISE OR NOT, I DOUBT THESE DREK-HEADS HAVE ANYTHING WORTH HACKING. THEY DON’T EVEN KEEP THEIR LIGHTS ON.”

Still, Axel's last comment, even if meant as some self-effacing apology, does have her curious, if only in its ambiguity.“YOU’RE NOT USED TO WHAT? LETTING THE TEAM CARRY WHILE WE SIT AROUND WITH OUR THUMBS UP OUR HOOPS?" She leans in now, actually invested in this meat-space conversation. "OR ARE YOU NOT USED TO... “ Rather than finish that sentence, she just gestures broadly around her, as if to fill in for ‘literally all of this’.

[MattL]

Yung looks at his watch, then whispers “Drek, it after 4, we don’t got much time til it starts gettin light out.”

< Heyo amigos, Mick, Taipan, we ain’t got much time left before it starts to get light. If I were these guys I’d be keeping those guns where they the best protected. And my guess is that most of dis gang hole up in that big convention center. You check that place yet? Anyway, you might risk stirrin up the whole psycho circus. Maybe it’s better if we use process of elimination eh? >

Nothing to do but wait, and the more time passes the less time I have, frag!

“Ain’t nothin doing but sit on our hoop eh omae? Dis biz gonna be a real slitch.” Yung says quietly to Reiya in an oddly familiar way, as though speaking to a wolf was something everyone does regularly.

[Stephen]

Taipan steps out from under the roller coaster and begins trotting stealthily towards where the vendor stalls should be according to the map.

<< Roger. We've not scoped the vendors or main stage yet, but we've confirmed half this park is dry so far. Dawn isn't far off -- might be time for you all to look at an approach to the main stage. Advancing now. We will relay tactical data once we have a vantage and will cover you if you can enter the park. >>

[GM Nick]

Taipan crosses the promenade, blinking away stray rain drops. As he moves forward he's struck with a profound sense of déjà vu. He's done this before, been implanted in hostile territory headed to an unknown objective. In the past, he had his team. The thought of them summons a surge of conflicting emotions. Although his new partners seem capable, they have yet to officially past muster. The weight of the rifle is an assurance, at least. He feels the synthetic fibers in his muscles pull taut with each step. If he survived them, he can survive this.

The vendor quarter is a pair of squat buildings with garish facades. Forty years ago the cheerful theme might have been quaint, but in present times the once-colorful characters seem horribly out of place. The juxtaposition of blissful mascots intended for children and murderous, insane gangers somehow renders the latter even more terrifying.

Each store is nearly identical: front and rear entrances, empty window frames that have been covered with plastic, and sloping roofs that channel the rain into splashing cascades. Taipan selects the first, laying his back flat against the front wall, in between a window frame and the open doorway. He glances up at the store's signage. In a field of (something?) three anthropomorphic animals frolic in ecstasy. Someone-- and Taipan can guess who-- has bored holes in the mascots' eyes.

[Drew Buddy]

Axel huffs in a half-laugh. "Well, I was thinking not used to sitting behind while others do the actual work... But yeah," he says, glancing around the van as if illustrating the area beyond it, "all of this is a close goddamn second."

His fingers resume their drumming on the RCC. Echo should be back in range by now. Where is it?

Axel pauses for a moment, and then looks up at Mouse as if through new eyes. "But that's a good point," he adds. "If Preacher knew the details, or even the broad strokes, why the hell did he need us? These assholes are cave men. Frag that, at least cave men have some semblance of humanity..."

He shakes his head, "I guess-I guess I always knew something like this must be going on in this part of the barrens," he lets out a short laugh, "I mean, I live just up the road. But seeing it made real like this. I mean, they've got to be able to spot that pig hanging from the wheel over in Renton, but no one will say a word. But for me, I guess I didn't want to know either. I always avoided coming to the glow, and I always told myself it was because the scavenging is no good. Every piece of gear in these piles of rubble have long been burned out from radiation. But I think I just didn't want to know."

[Molly]

Mouse stretches out her arms, folding her hands behind her head as she thinks this through. “THE SIMPLEST ANSWER WOULD BE THAT HE DIDN’T KNOW. SUPPOSEDLY, HIS CONTACT HAD CLAIMED THE SHIPMENT NEVER LEFT BELLEVUE. ALL THE CLUES THAT LED US HERE WERE BEHIND ENCRYPTION.” She tilts her head in a half-hearted shrug. “SURE, IT WAS DREK-TIER ENCRYPTION, BUT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A DETERRENT.” She smiles, half-heartedly, as though that will take away from the sting of futility. “STILL, IF YOU’VE GOT ANY CONSPIRACY THEORIES, I’D LOVE TO HEAR THEM.”

It’s the barrens talk that hits different, particularly the thought that some poor son of a slitch must look out his window every morning to the sight of a dangling half-corpse. “I’M SURE SOMEONE KNOWS HE’S THERE. ANYONE WHO LIVES IN A BROKEN CITY IS GOING TO KNOW DEEPLY FUCKED IT IS.” Her arms drop at this, as if hit with a sudden weight. “THING IS, ANYONE SANE GOT OUT LONG AGO. OR THEY’RE SPENDING EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF THEIR DAY TRYING TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO ESCAPE.” Her eyes scrunch shut for a moment, the thought of the dumpshocked, hanged man still there. “THEY’RE NOT GOING TO RISK EVERYTHING TO SAVE SOME FORMERLY-PRIVILEGED PIG. LEAVING HIM UP MEANS THEY DON’T GET SHANKED BY CLOWNS.” She can feel palpitations in her chest now, and she swallows hard to try and force them down. It’s not even the nearly-dead man this time. It’s not as though his bloated face awakened some sleeping moral compass within her, or put some steel in her spine. On the contrary, this is a situation that is far too familiar to her, sleeping, self-serving cowardice starting to stir. “HELL, WE’RE BETTER OFF THAN EVERYONE HERE, AND WE’RE STILL NOT DOING IT. HE, AND WHATEVER VALUE HIS LIFE OR INFORMATION HAS, IS ON THE SHIT END OF A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS.” Her eyes remain stubbornly scrunched closed, at least until she rubs at the bridge of her nose, lifting her glasses slightly as she does so. This hard reboot prompts a deep breath- she could feel them growing shallow in her chest, and a sharp change in subject.

“AND YOU KNOW, I LOVE A GOOD DUMPSTER DIVE. BUT I THINK ‘NOT COOKING YOUR ORGANS, DIGGING THROUGH CONTAMINATED WASTE’ WAS PROBABLY THE RIGHT CALL.” She raises her head once more, eyes open, a weary smile tugging at her lips with the obvious effort not to dwell. She’s joking, therefore, she’s fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this situation right now.

[GM Nick]

Axel is pulled out of his introspection by an AR alert. The fly-spy has regained suitable signal and reported back to him. It appears to be flying a slow circuit above Yung and Reiya.

T-bone pipes up, adding: Get a room!

[Molly]

The commentary from the peanut gallery is enough to cause immediate mental whiplash. She cranes her neck, still not quite sure what direction she should be looking to address the van, before settling on the dash. "I SEE HOW IT IS. I MAKE ONE COMMENT ABOUT BEING ELBOW DEEP IN RUSTED SCRAP, AND YOU GET JEALOUS." As she calls out, she makes a vague pantomime, aggressively shoving a fist through her hand in a manner that could puritanically be interpreted as 'digging for parts.' "IF YOU WANTED ME TO SHOVE MY DONGLE INSIDE YOU, YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST ASKED." She curls her finger inward in a vaguely threatening manner, a wicked grin curling into her lips, her previous tension all but forgotten with this new apparent challenge. Existential and moral quandries be damned, she's not about to let about to let the ancient machine outdo her when it comes to inappropriate commentary.