Clusterfrag

Max edges carefully forward, his muscles eager to push his mass backward at the slightest hint of trouble. The elf's breathing is faint and tentative. A low whisper in Max's mind reminds him that any shallow breath he takes in this tunnel could be his last-- otherwise known as "Wednesday" in his increasingly comfortable and fadingly new life.

Max ventures a few meters, putting weight on his feet and sliding several centimeters with each step. He freezes as his toe comes in the briefest contact with one of the buried panels.

Adams carefully steps forward on the ground already covered by Max. He glances around the room for any loose piece of metal that he can find.

Max reports his contact with the plate to the team and gently drags his foot along its edge in search of its corner.

Digging into his pack, Adams retrieves a simple stamped-metal wrench. Kneeling down, he holds the wrench near the ground, and tosses it horizontally so that it slides across the plate.

There's a sharp bang and the wrench flies across the room. The initial charge is enough IR for Doc to get a rough idea where the panels are buried.

Doc blinks away the afterimage of the arc.

"Okay, I think I got a bead on it. Step exactly where I step. Uh, unless I get electrocuted, that is," he says.

Keeping the image of the brief flash firmly in his mind, he gingerly steps forward, wincing in anticipation each time he puts his foot down.

Doc quickly and easily navigates the 'maze' of electric panels and stops at the bottom of the steel staircase.

Max follows closely behind Doc by two paces, stepping carefully in what he can see are his footprints.

The triumphant grin on Doc's face quickly vanishes as two gun turrets drop from the ceiling and open fire.
Doc takes off sprinting down the metal catwalk as a volley of bullets ricochet off of the railing just behind him. He dives and covers his head as the other turret delivers a hail of bullets against the catwalk.

[ Turret 1 ]
[ Turret 2 ]
[ Max = 69 ]
[ Doc = 48 ]
[ Val = 42 ]
[ Sinjin = 33 ]
[ Tyros = 33 ]

(( Max is up. ))

Max follows suit with Doc, diving for the nearest cover over the space Doc avoided in his own evasion of the bullets. Reaching cover, Max fires on the nearest turret.

(( That's BF now, remember. ))

With a running leap, Max slides on to the catwalk. He flips over and trains a shotgun on the closest turret.
(( 6P DAMAGE! ))

A shower of sparks erupts from the turret, but it remains operational.

(( Doc's up! ))

Adams curses, and shields his eyes from the loose metallic shrapnel being kicked up by the incoming fire. Finding a moment's respite behind cover, he takes a breath, and aims his rifle at the persistant muzzle flash of the turrets pouring a prodigious amount of fire at the runners. Picking the undamaged turret, he sends a volley of tungsten-core rounds streaking toward it.

(( 11P DAMAGE! ))

The turret explodes as Doc riddles it with gunfire.

(( Val's up. ))

The eruption of gunfire is deafening in the confined underground space. The gunshots are multiplied tenfold in echo as the sound bounces from rock, to concrete, to metal, and around again and again. The shots seem to come from all directions, and the elf finds himself instinctually dodging where there are no bullets. One of the turrets explodes and rains down a shower of sparks that dance through the air like Max imagines the lightning bugs his grandfather used to tell him about might have. The sparks spray to the floor of the chamber and vanish-- their brief illumination now a burned, electric contrails in the vision of all those who saw them.

Val raises his rifle and fires a burst at the remaining turret.

(( 3P DAMAGE! ))

Val's burst damages the turret's armor, but fails to render it inoperable.
(( 6P DAMAGE! ))

The turret explodes in a fireball, the massive gun barrel dropping to the ground and clanging noisily off of the stairway railing.

(( Combat over. ))

Tyros, who has been guarding the top of the ladder, not descending into the small tunnel with the team due to his size, yells down, "Everyone all right down there?"

Max gets to his feet and moves to the control box warily.

The elf freezes mid-step. A grid of lasers covers the remaining distance to the control box.

Max lets out an exasperated sigh and grumbles,

"Fraggin' lasers."

Adams stoops down and studies the emitters, trying to determine what they're hooked up to.

Doc's eyes follow a bundle of cable running along the wall back to a vented box next to the control panel.

Adams lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Fraggin' gas trap. Max, you got a smoke on you?"

Max pats his pocket and shakes a cigarette out. Putting it in his lips, Max lights it and takes a long drag. Letting the smoke out of his lungs, The elf passes the lit cigarette to Doc without saying anything.

Adams takes a long drag from the cigarette, and blows it out along the ground, revealing the lasers for a lingering moment.

He repeats the process again, making a mental note of where the largest gaps are in the beams. Handing the cigarette back to Max, he begins to make his way across the laser field to the panel.

Doc steps nimbly between the beams as they flicker in the settling cloud of tobacco smoke. He successfully traverses the hazard and finds himself at the control panel.

Arriving at the terminal, Adams takes a closer look at the connection between the cables from the laser tripwires, and the vented box.

Removing his toolkit, he sets to work disarming the trap.

Doc pops off the cover protecting the electronic innards that control the nerve gas trap. He identifies and snips the control wires, before shorting out power to the vent. Subsequently, the laser projectors shut down as well.

Max breathes easy and steps forward. The elf peers around to check for anything else that might need doing.

Adams gives the terminal a second check, verifying that the last of the traps have been disabled.

"Val," he says, "I think this one's on you, now."

"You got it, jefe."

Val unslings his pack and steps up to the console. He fishes a length of fiber optic cable from his toolkit and wipes the contacts on his shirt to clear them of dust particles. He begins running his Armor, Stealth, Firewall, and Biofeedback Filter programs and gives a satisfactory nod as their corresponding icons materialize in the processes list at the periphery of his vision. Val inserts one end of the cable into the datajack just in front of his right ear, blows the dust out of the jack on the terminal, and inserts the final end of the cable to the terminal's neural interface jack. He plants his hands on the sides of the console and leans forward, closing his eyes. He is one with the machine.

Val stiffens and fight a surge of vertigo as he plummets into hugely unfamiliar scenery.

Stat1C5hade descends a pillar of light on to a vast hexagonal topography. The VR is ancient and the disjointed movements and immediate latency cause a wave of nausea to assail him. A cluster of nodes pulse in the near-distance.