Head First (IC)

[Tornado Justice]

Chapter 1: Mystery


First there is only darkness, the void that exists before every morning, the black that consumes the cycle of sleep. The darkness is peaceful, and holds you tightly in its embrace. After a time, its hold begins to loosen, and the sweet nothing in which you exist begins to fall away. Slipping away from the bliss of oblivion, you regain a semblance of consciousness. Your body aches, and you feel a sensation not unlike jello enveloping your body. You call out to your muse, expecting it to answer your questions immediately. A few seconds pass, and it doesn’t reply. Maybe it needs a bit more time. You decide to take a look around, and scope out the situation for yourself while your muse takes its time to come online. You open your eyes, and find your visual spectrum assaulted with a bright ochre hue. The jelly you’re submerged in is translucent, allowing you to glance around. Your muscles are still activating, thousands of needles pricking every part of your body. The pain is dull, a mild annoyance as you try to gain your bearings. Once your eyes adjust to the light, you realize you’re inside a cylindrical case of some sort, the lack of muscle control in your neck preventing you from looking around. Once again, you call out to your muse.


No response.

Fear gnaws at the back of your mind, allowing paranoia to plant its seed. Maybe there is something wrong with your muse, the lack of which leaves you alone with your thoughts, lying in the tube until you can figure out where, and when, you are. Slowly, you regain the use of your limbs, and their initial use resembles nothing more than a feeble spasm. Without your muse, time begins to expand, and the struggle to gain control over your body seems as though it will last an eternity. Waiting for something to happen, you manage to make a few observations. You’re lying on your back, and feel the force of gravity pressing down on you. The feeling is nostalgic, as if you were back on Earth, or at least, the simulation of it. You realize you’re in a basic splicer morph, accessing your mesh inserts to manually discern your physical condition. Once you’re satisfied with your once over, you call out to your muse once more.


No response.

Fear begins to grip the base of your skull, seeping into the darker parts of your brain. The realization of gravity keeping you on your back means you’re not in the last place you remember backing up your ego. You’re somewhere else, and you don’t know where. The fact sends a small amount of adrenaline coursing through your body, your muscles finally beginning to respond to your commands. Before you can put your muscles to use, you hear clicking noises, and there is a jarring sensation that rumbles the tube. There is movement. The tube begins to slowly lean upwards, so that you slide onto your feet. Once cylinder becomes fully upright, there is a whoosh as the solid casing in front of you slides upwards, allowing you to peer out through the glass. You can’t see much of course, the jelly obscuring your vision. The only light in the room is provided by the interior of the tube. In an act of desperation, you call out to your muse once more.


No response.

Without your muse to answer your questions, you reach out with your mesh inserts in an attempt to establish a radio connection with someone. Anyone. You hear nothing but static at first, your fears of TITAN facilities or alien abduction bathing your thoughts, until you hear a voice. It is hard to discern the words at first, the communication obscured with major interference. Just as your thoughts begin to linger, your muse comes online, giving you its customary greeting. The void that was filled to the brim with the worst your imagination could offer was displaced with the feeling of your muse, its mere presence calming and reassuring. As you relax, the jelly from the tube begins to filter out through a nozzle at your feet, and you hear clicking at the top of the glass frame, followed by a dull flapping sound. When the jelly is sucked below your ears, you recognize the sound as the hiss of air-pressure, indicating a release on the container locks.

A minute later the tube hatch swings open, spilling you out onto the cold metal grating that comprises the floor immediately in front of your cylinder. The tubes that were connected to your nose and mouth inside the cylinder provided you fresh, crisp air, and the jelly kept you warm. The air outside the cylinder is cold, your breath barely visible. The residual warmth of the jelly dripping off your body is fleeting, and you feel the air biting your exposed flesh. After the initial coughing fit, you look around and see several others around you, also spilled out of their tubes, like you. Like you, they all seem to be wearing a one-piece suit of midnight blue coloured second skin. And just like you, you have never seen any of them before. Questions litter your mind, and your muse is lacking answers.


The real question is, what will you do now?



DetailsOkay, so check it out. Each of your characters begins in a splicer morph, obviously. The morph in question has the appearance of the morph in which you sleeved last, which means if your character had red hair the last time they sleeved, their morph has the exact same red hair. If they were a digital entity that did not have a morph before, or they had an exotic morph, the features of their current morph resemble their digital avatar or exotic morph as closely as possible, mimicking height, arm length, gait, etc.
Each of your characters also begins with one piece of gear currently, the second skin armour. This second skin is of course, skin tight, and is cut neatly at the joints 1/3rd of the way down. It trails up to the middle of their neck (in the case of a male morph, right above the Adam’s apple). The suit is a sharp midnight blue colour, with no distinguishing marks. Unfortunately, it seems to be of a cheaper make, and only provides them with a stackable 1/1 armour rating. They are also covered in an ochre coloured jelly, which is dripping off your characters in chunks. The ambient temperature in the room is a chilling 5 degrees Celsius, the heat from the tube jelly steaming off your characters. Once their vision begins to adjust to the darkness (the only light currently being provided by the tubes from which they awoke), they see that they are in what one might assume to be a non-traditional resleeving facility. In fact, the process they just went through was nothing like the typical resleeving method.
The area the characters are currently kneeling is a semi-circular enclave, the walls lined with several tubes, only four of which are currently open, the rest covered with a thick metal sheath. There are running lights on the interior of the tubes, which is the only lighting currently available. Directly ahead of the characters are a couple of uncomfortable-looking knee high benches (for adult morphs anyways) which precede a series of floor to ceiling lockers. The ceiling itself isn’t very high, sitting at approximately seven and a half feet from the floor. The flooring in the semi-circular enclave is industrial grating, with pipes and the miscellaneous what-have-you’s underneath. From the imaginary line cutting the circle in half on the flooring appears to be steel plating welded together. There are covered fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling, though they are not currently on. The room spans off into darkness behind the lockers, and off to either side of the open half of the semi-circle. There is a physical console jutting out of the ground at the center of the imaginary circle, the main panel facing the lockers. The room smells faintly of copper, and there is what appears to be spatters of blood around the console, leading away into the darkness behind the lockers (there are two sets of lockers, five lockers in front of each bench. There is enough space for one person to walk between the two sets of lockers, or on the outside of either set of lockers. There also appears to be more rows of lockers behind the first two sets that lead into the darkness. Each set of lockers are also back to back, and have nametags on the front of each). You hear the low hum of machinery behind the tube wall, otherwise the area is silent.

If you guys decide to explore, you will find a short hallway on the other sides of the enclave which lead to locked doors. They have small windows about where the average person’s head would be able to see through. The doors are deadlocked electronically, and there doesn’t seem to be a nearby console for manual coding. There is nothing but black on the other side of the windows.
If your characters decide to look at the lockers, you will eventually find your name on one of them. Just to reiterate the layout of the lockers, there are ten lockers per pillar, ten per column, and there are two rows of twenty columns of lockers, each with a six foot space between columns, and a five foot space between the two rows of lockers and between the walls and the lockers. There is a single knee high metal bench in-between each column of lockers. If/when you find the locker with your name on it, you will find it unlocked, and you will receive additional gear.
At the other side of the room, there is a set of double doors, which are not locked, and slide open. They have the same signature windows as the doors leading to the back of what your characters might assume is where your tubes were pulled from. The double doors lead to a hallway running perpendicular to the room you woke up in (as in, when you open the doors, you see a wall directly across from you, that spans off to your left and right). The hallway is black, and you cannot see anything immediate. The spatters of blood have a trail that leads from the door to the console, and back. Any details regarding the nature of the blood spatter will be discovered through appropriate skill checks. There are no windows on any of the walls, and the floor, walls, and ceiling seem to be welded together in large plates.

Gear:When your characters open up their lockers, they will each find a pair of black coveralls with their names embroidered on the front left pocket. The coveralls are traditional fabric, and provide nothing more than a meagre bit of insulation against the chill. On the locker floor are a pair of black calf high boots, steel toed, with laces to tie (so tedious, I know). On the locker shelves, everybody see's a small steel LED flashlight, a utility knife (doubles as a screwdriver, saw, and can-opener/bottle-opener), an ecto-band that fits over your wrist, a small nano-detector, and what appears to be an old-school key-card displaying some letters and numbers. Also, there is a large white beach-towel and matching facecloth.

[The Grue]

Stress rolls here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16075471&postcount=3).

For a few moments, Jacob Lacaille stared in silence at the strangers around him. He tried to query the mesh again, splashing red error entoptics across his visual field.

-Sir? A familiar blue-green, faceted sphere flickered to life in his peripheral vision - his muse, Jeeves. -Biometric sensors indicate sir's heartrate has increased by 53%. I believe sir may be experiencing a panic attack; may I suggest that sir attempt to take long, deep breaths and count backwards from ten.

Lacaille clenched his fists in an effort to stop his hands from shaking. He tried, unsuccessfully, to slow his breathing.

-Jeeves, what's the date?

-I am unable to answer that question with any degree of certainty, sir. I am attempting to connect with the local mesh router, but am experiencing difficulty.

-This isn't the ****ing backup clinic.

Jeeves momentarily adopted a slightly darker hue. -Sir is most observant.

-Then where the hell are we?

-As I indicated, sir, I am unable to answer that question at the present time.

Lacille shivered, wrapping his arms around his chest in a feeble effort to warm himself. At least, he thought to himself, I'm sleeved in a familiar morph. His lungs stinging as he gulped mouthfulls of the chilly air, he pushed himself to his feet, still grappling with the primal urge to PANIC, and made a quick visual survey of the surrounding room. He attempted to cycle vision modes to gather more data, but found he was restricted to the visible spectrum.

Odd. -Jeeves, this is a copy of my surveillance morph, isn't it?

-It appears to be, sir, although I notice only now that it seems to be lacking the customary biomodifications. It would seem only to be a facsimile of sir's indicated preference.

Lacaille felt his breathing speed up again; someone had gone to some lengths to make him a morph he'd feel comfortable in, based on information only his insurance carrier ought to have had - though probably not unreasonable compared to spiriting away a copy of his ego backup to god-knows-where. He parsed a mental instruction to his mesh inserts to perform a checksum against his ego data archive, an operation that would take a few seconds to complete.

In the meantime, he turned his attention back to the strangers he shared the room with, smiling at them, in what he hoped was a calm and disarming manner(and failed). "I-gugh..." He coughed, spitting a glob of phlegm clogging the morph's presumably never-before-used vocal chords. "Pardon. Meant to say, I guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way. I'm Lacaille. Jacob. Now can any of you tell me what in the bowels of Christ I'm doing here?"

More rolls
Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16075923&postcount=5)

[Tornado Justice]

Jeeves manages to discover that there is nothing wrong with Lacaille’s mesh inserts, and that they are working fine. The source of the interference is an external problem, of which Jeeves is unable to pinpoint the origin of.

Lacaille verifies that his software cache is uncompromised, and has not been fiddled with since his last backup…that he remembers anyways.
(MoS 40 reveals more…)
While his mesh inserts ran the base diagnostics, they managed to stumble upon a small anomaly in Jacobs’s memory files. Upon further investigation, he finds an extra XP file that wasn't there the last time he checked. When he attempts to open the recording, an entopic window pops up stating he doesn't have the required clearance to access the file. It could be the recording for how he ended up where he was, but why he doesn't have clearance to his own memories draws up more questions than answers.

[Roguenewb]

Risk

A void is not unusual. Darkness is common enough in the endless transition from one section of mesh to another. In this case, /// Jelly? Where am I? I think, intruding into my other thoughts. The muscle pain is strangely distant, as all the various signals sent from flesh are to me. I may have no memories of ever running in silica but that doesn't mean in vivo ever feels right. I haven't told anyone else that though. It upset her so much, I don't want anyone else to react like that.

I've never felt the human need to personify my muse. I don't mind running my mind in parallel, it was built for that, I think. Despite that, the growing lack of response from the delta-fork I use to data trawl for data in the local community is becoming disconcerting////Tanks? Gel? Am I being sleeved again? I was going out...please...not somewhere new... Again, the hard to supress terror is growing, breaking a more rational train of thought. I don't want to have to start again. I liked who I was, I don't want to have to be someone new. I can feel my heartbeat and respiration rate, those strange intruders on my frame of mind, going faster and faster, tension rising in my whole body.

Data, finally. The mesh returning perhaps? Something so familiar and safe about data. Unlike air and light and sound, which are so unendingly alien. At least, I think they're alien. They feel alien. Am I still me? Please, please let me still be her, still be Risk. Everybody liked Risk. Unlike... For a moment, I almost remember something, or someone. The very tiny fragment of a fragment of the idea makes me start quaking in terror and I can't keep tears from flowing freely from my eyes as the tube empties of gel. I simply lay, face against the glass, unable to muster even a hair of strength. I just lie there for a moment, crying, shaking and begging in a small voice, "I wanna be Risk, please Risk, please. I wanna be Risk, not new...please not new...Please Risk...", my voice cracking with sobs between words.

Falling to the ground, combined with the cold air, shocks a little bit of sense back into me. I can't make the tears stop flowing or the quakes stop, but I regain control of my voice, and somewhat of my breathing. I almost don't notice the data returning from the delta fork/muse. For a moment, I feel more flesh and blood than I've ever felt, strangely more tied to the physical, the most human I've ever felt, even more than with that couple in the zero-gee with all the wine. A slight warmth returns with the memory, and I continue the herculean task of trying to regain some control.

In what feels like a mammoth undertaking, I get into a kneeling position at least, looking around at all the others in tubes, and thats when the voice starts in the back of my head, crashing through my mind in response to the speech from the man, Who are you now? Who? They've all been resleeved, why do you think you haven't? You have no idea who you are. All fresh and new again. Lost and new and alone and..., there's terror in that train of thought, and I can't squash it.

I look up at the man, a shaking hand sliding gel off my nose and mouth, before uttering what I can in a shaky, edge-of-control voice, "I, um, I am Risk? I, don't really...I don't know where we are." I can't stop the tears from starting again, when I realize I can't make myself believe that I really am Risk.

[SurlySeraph]

They got me out!

Ginny looks around, a small but triumphant smile rising on her lips. The smile wavers when she realizes the people in front of her definitely aren't her squad.

Her hands fly to her hips, to draw... nothing. Oh. Right. No holsters, no sheaths, just the smooth surface of the second skin. There's a slightly pained look on her face as she tries to pretend the gesture was harmless.

"No, Lacaille. No Ms., um, Risk. I have no idea where we are."

Meanwhile she's screaming in her head.
-Private Sunshine! Get me a network. Tell me about that console. Find a security camera I can access!

Her muse is reassuringly gung-ho.

-On it, ma'am!

Her eyes flicker down to the console - and widen.

"I also have no idea why there is blood on the floor."

She signals her muse:
-Edit my AR skin, make it not look like blood anymore. Make it silver - no, blue. Blue's better.

"But I, I, I don't think it's because of either of you, because you just got out. And because there's people stabbing people and it isn't one of us, we really ought..." She leaves the conclusion unsaid, but her voice rises - insistent, urgent. There's a placating smile fixed on her face, though her eyes stay panicky.

Ginny keeps glancing between the adults for a few more moments, then starts to back around the semicircle, keeping her back to the tubes. Then she breaks away and goes for the lockers, trying the first one she finds - she doesn't even notice that there are nametags.

If it opens, she'll grab the utility knife first, whirl around with it raised, and feel around behind her back for the rest. If not, she'll run up and down the rows until she figures out that one is hers, and then do that.

[Tornado Justice]

The first locker Ginny comes to rest in front of is unlocked (the first lockers directly across from the tubes), and swings open. Inside is of course, all of the aforementioned gear, the only difference being the coveralls aren't kid sized, and have a different person's name on them. The knife isn't immediately obvious, and as such Ginny flings the other contents of the locker onto the ground before finding the knife. With the coveralls, which apparently belong to a "Johnny Velásquez", and the white beach towel out of the way, Ginny's free hand manages to come across a pair of leather boots, way too big for her feet, and everything else included in the gear details with the exception of the nanodetector (also includes socks, because I forgot to mention in the gear details that there are also socks). The nanodetector is on the top shelf, which Ginny cannot reach without aid.

[The Grue]

Lacaille's eyes widened at the mention of blood. Sure enough: a trail of blood spatter leading from the control console in the centre of the room, to the lockers behind. - I missed that. How did I miss that?

- If I may be so bold to suggest, perhaps sir's agitated mental state contributed to this slight oversight of sensory data.

He flinched when the girl made a break to the lockers at the end.

- Sir's heartrate is now 64% above normal. Please try and remain calm.

- I'm in a dark room full of ****ing strangers in a morph that's a perfect copy of one I had custom-altered, no idea where I am or when it is or if I'm a fork or a stolen copy or even if this is the first ****ing time I've woken up here-

- Heartrate now 71% above normal; I am detecting adrenal responses, pupil dilation, heightened sweat production. Does sir wish to-

It was then the girl spun around from the open locker, a knife in her hand raised in an obviously threatening posture. HUD elements in Lacaille's visual feed traced an orange entoptic shell around her; CAUTION. Lacaille froze. "Put the knife down, miss," he said, his voice surprisingly calm. He tried to smile. "Don't want you to hurt yourself."

GM
Jacob sizes up Ginny (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16085788&postcount=14). Also persuasion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16085800&postcount=15).

What's the distance between them at this time?

[Tornado Justice]

Lacaille is woefully unaware that Ginny is a full-fledged soldier capable of dismembering people. From his point of view, she might just have taken the faux resleeving process really well compared to Risk and him, and is thinking clearly enough to look for a weapon to defend herself in an unfamiliar environment. He knows that she is obviously shorter than him, and isn’t holding the knife like an idiot. He can see she has her other arm inside the locker, and that’s about it. Her posture is obviously a defensive one; maybe her parents put her in a karate class. Whatever the case, she seems aware and capable for the apparent age of her morph, and is ready to strike out at anybody that comes near her; she might be smarter than the average kid…

As far as the Persuasion roll is concerned, SurlySeraph must roll Resist Persuasion which is against Ginny’s WILx2+SAV score of 30. If she scores within 30 points, she has resisted Lacaille’s attempt to talk her down, and is continuing with her own agenda. If she fails to score 30 or under, Lacaille has successfully gotten through to Ginny. If Seraph doesn’t manage to roll within the next 10 hours, I will roll for him.

The distance between Ginny and Lacaille is approximately 20 feet, with the console between them, and the metal bench (welded to the floor) right in front of Ginny.

[Roguenewb]

Risk

Blood. Not mine. The small one is strange, the man is clever. Quick on his feet. I wish I knew where I was. I think, barely balanced on the edge of composure. The cold helps, helps cool me off. Helps me think, just a bit. It'd help more in silicon. The thought comes unbidden, with a strange burst of bitterness. I'm feeling so edgy. So erratic, since waking up here. I hate being here. I was supposed to arrive in Venusian orbit, not some strange sleeve-parlor. The cobwebs are closing back in. Bits of terror and confusion, spiked with almost violently loud and distracting thoughts, are continually threatening to engulf me.

I gulp deeply, gather what strength there is in my trembling limbs, and pull with all my strength on the edge of the gel-door frame. I hoist myself up, with little strength to spare. Standing, its a bit easier to think and focus, despite the hardness of the floor on my naked feet. Coming back to my senses slightly, I start doing what comes most naturally, expanding into the mesh.

Scan for wireless networks. [roll0] versus 60. Sniff for traffic on the two others in the room, Lacaille [roll1] against 50, for Ginny, [roll2], also against 50.

[Roguenewb]

Risk

I can barely concentrate. I make mistakes, mishandle my scanning equipment, forget steps, and fail to narrow down any reasonable information about the signals around me. I'm really slipping. I was born for this. I look around the room again, seeing the lockers, and the names on them.

"Please don't mind me, little boy, but I'd like to see whats in the locker with my name on it. I'm feeling very anxious, and perhaps there are clothes or something in there that might help me keep running. I don't know if I can, without something." I say, not even considering whether or not what I'm saying might be alarming. "Is that okay? I really miss having some forks in the air...a pistol would be nice too..." I continue, trailing off as a surge of shakes almost knock me from my feet.

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny nods and lets the knife slip out of her fingers. It clatters to the floor.

"Okay." She pokes the knife with her toe, carefully sliding it under the bench. "The stuff in this locker doesn't fit me anyway."

The corners of her lips curl into a smile again as she slinks along the rows, glancing back and forth. "I'll look for both of our lockers, Risk. If I see yours or mine or Lacaille's I'll tell you where it is. You start walking, too. I want to hear your footsteps so I know you're not coming up behind me."

[The Grue]

As the knife clattered to the floor, Lacaille breathed a little sigh. A kid brandishing a weapon, no matter how clear-headed she seemed, was a potential complication he did not need right now - at least she seemed to be coping better than the red-headed woman - Risk? - for now. He wondered if there was something he could do to reassure her, and in the process, maybe himself.

"What makes you think we'll find any of our names on these lockers?" he asked, fully expecting that they would, and that he didn't like what that implied. He walked gingerly to the console and circled it, examining the bloodstains he'd initially missed. "Wonder what happened here..." he said aloud.

- May I suggest that sir postpone such considerations for the moment, in lieu of more pressing matters?

- You're right, of course Jeeves. Remind me to come back here and take a closer look at these later, assuming that hallway doesn't connect to Remembrance's main concourse and this is all a big practical joke.

- I do so hope that turns out to be the case, sir.

Lacaille turned from the console and followed the girl, making sure his footsteps were audible, and proceeded to help search the locker area.

"You know," he said to the girl after a few moments, "I'd have an easier time finding the locker with your name, if I knew what your name was, Miss...?"

[SurlySeraph]

"What makes you think we'll find any of our names on these lockers?"
"There are lots of lockers. There are not so many tubes. I'm pretty sure there's at least a one-to-one correspondence. So there's probably one for each of us."


"You know," he said to the girl after a few moments, "I'd have an easier time finding the locker with your name, if I knew what your name was, Miss...?

She giggles. "Oh! Right. Sorry. Powell, comma, Ginny. Do you want rank and serial number?"

[The Grue]

The girl's giggle made him smile, reminding him...he shook it off. "Okay, 'Miss Powell' then."

She doesn't look much older than fourteen, maybe fifteen. God...Sarah'd be about that age now.

He turned his attention back to the lockers.

[Roguenewb]

Risk

Watching the people start moving around helps. Something outside to focus on, as much as I can. Deep breaths, try to not to quake quite so much. I wrap my arms around myself, and squeeze, trying to bring about some sort of calm. I briefly consider loading a simulspace for a short while, something to distract and refocus, but I finally decide that I lack the time, even accelerated time, for such a diversion.

Noticing the console, I brighten a bit. Some answers maybe? Maybe it'll prove I'm still Risk. I stumble over, barely avoiding a harsh fall from tremors.

I try to turn on or activate the console.

[Tornado Justice]

Despite their best efforts, Risk is having trouble locating any wireless networks. It’s not so much for a lack of trying, but there is something preventing Risk from establishing a connection to any wireless networks.
When they get closer to the console, Risk finds that the console is lit up with several holographic pictures and icons, which as far as they could tell, were related to the tubes from which they emerged. There are blood spatters on its surface, and a bloody handprint on its corner, indicating it could have been used recently. Since Risk was unable to use their mesh’s radio transmitter to scan the networks, it could be possible to see what’s going on through a manual interface hard-wired into the network. When they get a closer look, they find several names on the screen: Aarav Kunda, Baltasar Acero, Emily Nuñez, Ginny Powell, Huey Boomer, Jacob Lacaille… and their own name. They all seem to be connected to the holographic tubes. Upon further inspection, they recognize that the holographic representations are all colored differently. The ones under Emily, Ginny, Jacob, and Risk are all green, whereas all the others are yellow. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots: There are four open tubes, and four green holographic representations…

A successful Interacting test will reveal more information, and the better Risk’s MoS, the more information they’ll gain.

At the same time, Ginny and Jacob search through the lockers, hoping to find the ones with their names on them. When they come to around the middle section of the lockers, Jacob finds his name. Inside is all of the aforementioned gear, sized to fit him. Ginny stumbles upon a locker in the next row that has already been opened. Upon further inspection, Ginny will find that the locker belongs to an “Emily Nuñez”, and that all of the supplies inside are gone, spare the facecloth that’s covered in red. There are small bits of ochre jelly that dot the area, barely noticeable, which follow the trail of blood spatters. There are also bloody hand-print-smears on the nearby lockers, one of which is Ginny’s locker. Inside her locker, she will find all of the aforementioned gear sized to fit her, and within reach.

[Roguenewb]

Risk

A well shielded network, rare in this day and age, but not unheard of. I attempt to access more information from the console, particularly the other parts of the computer network.


Interfacing [roll0] versus 80

[The Grue]

"Ah. I guess this one is, er, mine." Lacaille swung open the locker with his name and, spotting the coveralls, he pulled them out and threw them on, shaking off the last clumps of tube-jelly as he did.

- An excellent fit sir, said Jeeves. I suppose it should come as no surprise that this article conforms to sir's precise measurements; after all, their presumed-makers appear to have had ready access to sir's preferred morph.

Even this meagre bit of insulation was most welcome against the cold. The boots were a little more effort; his muse had to walk him through how to tie the laces.

Lacaille slipped the eco-band onto his left wrist and slaved it to his mesh inserts, taking a moment to create a network profile that routed external traffic through the device. Next he picked up the flashlight, clicked it on and off once to make sure it worked, and then clipped it to the outside of his right breast pocket. The nano-detector, after being switched on, he attached to his left sleeve just below the shoulder. The knife he slipped into his back pocket, then picked up the keycard and examined it closer.

Rolls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16098456&postcount=20)

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny quietly dons her gear. She clips the utility knife to the end of her left sleeve, about an inch of the handle resting in her palm. Then she scurries back to retrieve the knife she kicked under the bench, and attaches it to her right sleeve. Her ecto and nanodetector encircle each wrist.

She plays around with the towel for a moment, softer than she's used to, and then leaves it draped over a bench.

Ginny calls out, though her voice doesn't sound too urgent. "Jacob! I think I found out who got out before us. Emily Nuñez. Her stuff's gone. There's lots of blood. If you see someone with her nametag, either it's her or someone who stabbed her."

Ginny flicks her wrist hard, loosening one of her knives enough to pull it off her sleeve. She hums quietly and starts hacking the embroidered name off the pocket of her coverall.

[The Grue]

"Emily Nuñez..." Lacaille glanced up for a moment and moved in Ginny's direction, noting the bloodied towel and handprints on the locker. - Jeeves, run a mesh search for the name-

- I regret that I am still unable to locate a mesh router for sir to connect with.

- ...right. No mesh. It was easy to forget how much he relied on the mesh in his line of work, let alone for his day-to-day activities. One mystery at a time; he turned his attention back to the keycard.

[Tornado Justice]

Jacob
The keycard is gold coloured, and is the size and shape of an old-school credit card, or like the security cards the Junta uses for a number of their electronic doors. It has Jacob’s full name on the front in bold black letters, as well as a series of numbers under his name (24063) on the top left corner, a miniature holographic projector/speaker on the bottom left corner, and a black and white glyph on the entire right side of the card. On the flip side, the surface is covered in numerous external interfacing devices. With the exception of arrangement of the numbers, the name, and the glyph, all cards are the same.
(Ginny’s number is 22063, and Risk’s is 23063)

When checking to see if it has wireless capabilities, Jacob finds that the card in fact does have wireless capability. The static is still interfering with the functionality, but the closer the card is to his ecto or his mesh inserts (his head, basically), the static isn’t as strong. When the card gets close enough to his ecto, the card requests a connection. Upon further inspection, there is a small slot within his ecto, just large enough to fit the card (all ecto’s have this slot, seemingly designed for the card).

If Jacob decides to connect to the card wirelessly, the card will add its information to the ecto (whether or not it is inserted into the slot). If Jacob inserts the card into his ecto, the connection is made automatically and the information is transferred to the ecto. If it is inserted into the slot, an image of the glyph will appear on the ecto’s visual screen (that is, if the card is inserted the right way).

The information the card transferred appears to be several audio-visual file that can be played over the card’s holographic projector/speakers, on the ecto’s screen, or through an entopic window. These files are the exact same for every card, and allow for users to select their preferred language. If anybody decides to open the card’s files, they will find the following message and information:

File – 1:
“Greetings fellow colonist, I am Dr. Ananias Metzger, and welcome to Dorado Main, the first colony established on planet Oro! As the medical staff has notified you, this card, when used in conjuncture with your ecto and mesh ID, will allow you varying levels of access throughout our facilities based on your assigned position and level of authority therein. This method of authentication is being used for your safety, and the safety of the rest of the colonists around you. More information on its use is included in the attached files your ecto will have received. If you’re ecto does not have the available files, please notify the medical staff, and they will assist you. I hope you enjoy your shift at Dorado Main, and I will be seeing you around!”

(The image is of a tall man dressed in a labcoat, with long black hair and sapphire blue eyes, walking around talking to the user)

Remaining Files:
These detail how the passkey authentication system works. Public mesh access is available to anybody with a mesh ID, but any private networks require the usage of the keycard to be physically linked to the slaved ecto (otherwise the private networks operate normally). In addition, certain areas are off-limits to certain personnel, and require appropriate clearance based on the passkey system. The use of any nanofabrication devices also requires the use of the attached passkey, and clearance to leave the Dorado Main facility is off limits to anybody without the passkey system.

The files do not contain a reason why there is static interference amongst wireless devices, nor does it provide any information directly about Dorado Main, Planet Oro, the man in the message, or anything else relevant to the group’s current location.



Risk
The console is designed mainly for monitoring the tubes and manipulating the equipment, but with enough tenacity, Risk manages to find their way to the equivalent of our modern-day desktop screen. Through more prying, Risk finds the console is connected to a series of hardwired nodes within an area designated ‘Medical Wing’. The individual nodes act as separate hard-wired networks and are designed to operate independently from one another, each node appearing to have access points throughout that allow the nodes to be manually separated from the network. Each node has a series of wireless radio transmitters and manual consoles; though it appears the wireless radio transmitters are having trouble connecting with anything. There appear to have been several nodes disconnected from the network already, specifically the ones connecting the medical wing to the other areas of the facility. With the wireless connections full of static and the physical connections severed, Risk is unable to make any connections to the network outside of the medical wing. Aside from the network map and its current status, Risk is unable to gain access to any information pertinent to their location or the facility network, their every attempt met with an ACCESS DENIED message.



Ginny and Jacob
If they continue further down the line of lockers, they will find Risk’s locker. Other than the trail of blood spatter, there isn’t much else of interest.

[The Grue]

- The card is requesting a connection with sir's mesh hardware. Shall I allow it?

- Yes. Route it through the ecto, just to be safe.

A green progress bar appeared over the card, filled, then displayed the words FILE TRANSFER COMPLETE. Lacaille called up the ecto's file browser, finding a collection of AV recordings had been downloaded from the card's internal storage.

"Miss Powell, Miss Risk...come take a look at this." - Jeeves, can you play these back through the keycard's outputs?

- I can indeed, though I would suggest that sir make a physical connection to sir's ecto in order to do so due to the persisting wireless interference.

Lacaille plugged the card into his ecto and queued up the first file. A holographic screen rendered in front of him, and a man's voice came through the card's speaker.


“Greetings fellow colonist, I am Dr. Ananias Metzger, and welcome to Dorado Main, the first colony established on planet Oro!"

"I've never heard of a planet called Oro," he said aloud.

- Nor I, sir.


"As the medical staff has notified you, this card, when used in conjuncture with your ecto and mesh ID, will allow you varying levels of access throughout our facilities based on your assigned position and level of authority therein. This method of authentication is being used for your safety, and the safety of the rest of the colonists around you. More information on its use is included in the attached files your ecto will have received. If you’re ecto does not have the available files, please notify the medical staff, and they will assist you. I hope you enjoy your shift at Dorado Main, and I will be seeing you around!”

The screen cut to black.

"Okay, first mystery solved. We know, sort of, where we are." Lacaille frowned. "Though that doesn't help us much."

- May I make a suggestion, sir?

- Go ahead.

- If sir would recall the access-locked XP uncovered in sir's ego data library...

Of course. On a private entoptic window, Lacaille called up the XP file he'd discovered earlier and attempted to unlock it with the card's authentication key.

Roll (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16104096&postcount=21)?

[Tornado Justice]

A window appears, showing the following message:
ADMINISTRATION LEVEL ACCESS REQUIRED

[SurlySeraph]

"This is an exoplanet? I... how? Is it even possible to farcast through one of the gates? And why me - why us?"

Ginny's clearly agitated. She tugs at a strand of hair, wrapping a curl tight around one finger. "And they took the mesh down. Decadent people don't hardwire things, they insist on convenience except when they need exceptional security. So this place is really high sec right now. Lost souls. High sec. Exoplanet."

She follows the blood trail to the door, placing each foot delicately in front of the other.

"This sounds like a place where nothing good ever happens."

She pokes her head into the hall and peeks out.
Rolls here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16105357&postcount=22)

[The Grue]

"This sounds like a place where nothing good ever happens."

Lacaille turns his attention again to the blood trail. "...sure seems that way." he muttered to himself.

"Alright, next mystery: What the hell happened here?" He drew a red entoptic circle around the console in the main chamber, tracing a red line from the bloodstains at its base into the arrangement of lockers, and out into the hallway. Along the way, he highlighted patches of ochre that followed it. "Bits of gel from those resleeving tubes. And indications of an injury, obviously. How did you hurt yourself, Miss Nuñez...?" - Jeeves, grab these spatter patterns and load them into-

- I regret that sir's current morph hardware lacks the computational resources to run-

- -a simulspace environment, right. No mesh, no event-reconstruction simulation. I guess we'll have to do it low-tech.

They see me rollin' (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16105425&postcount=23)

[Roguenewb]

Risk

"An exoplanet? Why...?" I blurt out in shock. "I would very much like mesh connectivity, how did you get that?" I say, letting my hopes rise, even though I'm still nervous and shaky.

"Maybe this is where I'm from...maybe they're here..." I say, letting my spirits rise dramatically. I beam a radiant smile around the room.

I can barely contain myself, I hope they are happy with Risk... I giggle to myself, bringing my hands closely to me face.

[SurlySeraph]

"That's... maybe you are, Risk, I don't know. I actually can't get on the mesh - there's this weird static interfering.

"Oh, and I found your locker. Next row down, there's a bend in the blood trail two lockers in front of it. In it, you'll find an ecto, with a card you can connect to it. There's probably interesting information on the card, and I'm pretty sure it'll let you get online as soon as we find a way to cut down on that static."

Ginny hasn't actually connected her card yet. She has a sneaking suspicion that connecting it would let some Powers That Be know what she's up to.

[Roguenewb]

Risk

I all but run to the indicated locker, almost falling flat on my face, and grab the gear from inside. I put everything else on before trying the card, trying to keep my anxiety at bay.

Finally, I manage to add the card, and see what connections are possible.

[Tornado Justice]

Ginny
The double doors slide apart with little effort, making no more than a barely audible scratch of greasy metal on metal. With her eyes adjusted to darkness, she peers out in both directions, and find the blood spatters lead off to both the left and right. There isn’t much else she can see in the dark, her vision extending out only a couple meters on both sides. There is the hum of electricity, and the hallway smells faintly of copper. If Ginny decides to turn her flashlight on, she will see that the hallway looks similar in design to the room from which they emerged, welded plating for walls and ceiling, fluorescent light tubes in the ceiling, currently off. The blood trail leading off to the left is thicker, at least quadruple the amount of spatter, smudged slightly here and there by footwear. There is also smudged bloody hand-prints on the wall sharing the double doors. The blood trail leading off to her right is almost non-existent, only faint drops here and there. The hallways each continue on for about fifteen feet or so, the one to Ginny’s right bending back in the direction of the tubes (it forms and L shape. If one were to walk through the doors and turn right to walk down that hallway, they would take a right turn at the bend), and the one to her left forking into two different hallways (a sort of Y shape. If one were to walk through the doors and turn left to walk down the hallway, they would be able to turn 90 degrees to their left, or turn 45 degrees to their right). The thick trail of blood disappears behind the corner of the 45 (if one were following the thicker trail of blood, they would walk through the doorway, turn left, walk about fifteen feet, and turn right).

Whilst looking around, Ginny comes up with a few conclusions of the lack of mesh connectivity based on what she remembered from class. There are several possibilities. Firstly, somebody could be jamming the radios with universal signals. Another option is that somebody is overflowing the mesh with traffic to the point where sending or receiving signals is like walking through mud; similar to the first possibility, but less likely. A third possibility is that the radio transmitters are simply not functioning. This is extremely unlikely to occur normally, though it isn’t unheard of. A fourth possibility is the introduction of a device that absorbs the radio waves like a black hole absorbs light, but that is just a theoretical possibility. In each scenario, the interruption of mesh traffic on a large scale is usually indicative of either terrorist actions, or massive trolling.


Jacob
After cooling down (he he, get it? Ah nevermind), Jacob takes a closer look at the blood, and begins constructing images in his mind with the help of his software. The dots slowly begin to connect themselves, the years of training kicking in. The blood is smudged here and there, but the direction of the smudges, as well as the concentration and grouping of the spatters indicates that somebody came into the room, heading straight for the console. Whoever it was knew how to run the console, knew there were people in the tubes, and needed them for some reason. The distance between smudges and spatter indicates that the mystery person was in a hurry. They were likely running. The patterns in the blood show that the wound was serious, and likely traumatic, the sheer amount of droplets attesting to rapid blood loss. They were either running away from someone or something, or they were trying to get to someone, maybe both. The first person that emerged from her tube, Emily Nuñez, saw the injured person. The lack of any signs of struggle near the console indicate that she was cooperative with the mystery person, and the missing towel from her locker was likely used to tend to the wound. After cleaning the mystery person up a little, they both headed off through the double doors. The doors were closed though…The lack of electricity is a little disturbing. The doors are designed to be automatic under normal conditions… If they were in such a hurry, they wouldn’t stop to close a door. That means somewhere between the time they left and the time everybody woke up the power went out. There is still power to the console and the tubes... It might be possible they are hardwired to different power sources though. That does raise the question as to why they were only waking up now, as opposed to earlier when there was power. Does that mean that somebody came back to wake them up? Did the mystery person intentionally revive Emily for a reason, or was she simply the first to climb out? Either way, Jacob receives a chilly feeling, and not from the cool environment.

There was someone, or something, out there that was trying to kill somebody, and would likely do the same to him and the people around him if they weren’t careful. The mesh wasn’t working, the lights were out. They were on an exoplanet on a colony station they knew nothing about. They didn’t recall how they got here, and there was a strange file in his memory he couldn’t access… They were all in an extremely dangerous position. If Jacob takes a stroll over to where Ginny is, and see’s the trails of blood, he will immediately realize that Emily and the injured person took a right, and that the other direction is where the injured person came from. His behavioural psych software not providing much in the way of assistance, he stores the information for later use; with more evidence, he might be able to build a profile on Emily or the mystery morph.


Risk
They realize once they put the card and the ecto together that mesh connections are possible, but extremely limited. The fact their mesh inserts are able to connect with the ecto is miraculous, though it is still suffering from a slight interference (no negative modifiers to interface with the ecto). The closer they are to a wireless interface, they more likely they will be able to interact.


Baltasar, Aarav
See the first/introductory post. You two go through the exact same thing as the first three did, ending up on cold grating, coughing, shaking, etc. I’m not going to describe that here for the sake of time and space, so please just read the intro post. Your guys’ revival happens after Jacob manages to put the puzzle together. Remember to roll for stress and stress modifiers!


Jacob, Ginny, Risk
The tubes begin to move. You hear the sound of metal on metal, and the hiss of air. Risk recognizes the tubes listed under Baltasar and Aarav. The metal sheathes slide away, the glass door opens, spilling out the pair carelessly across the grating.

[The Grue]

"Maybe I've got this all wrong." Lacaille ran a hand across his chin stubble. He traced the trail of blood the other way now, from the door to the console. "Someone came in, already bleeding. Hell of an injury, and they knew it; they were in a hurry." He followed them over to the console, next to Risk, gently nudging her aside to study the panel. "Came straight to the console here. Means whoever it was knew how to work it." He looked up, across the room at the tubes. "And who was inside. They revived Nuñez...specifically her? Hard to tell, she might have just been the first to respond. No sign of a struggle; she was friendly. Cooperative. She tried to help."

He followed the trail back to Nuñez's locker, reached inside and picked up the bloody facecloth. "Nuñez used this to clean the wound, rigged a makeshift bandage out of the towel. Left this behind, took the rest of the gear." Lacaille put the facecloth back and looked out down the hall. "But they didn't take anything else. They were still in a hurry." He paused to let that last thought take root. "Whatever that first guy was worried about, they figured it was still a threat. But..." He walked closer to the doors. "...if they were in a hurry, why did they close the doors? Maybe they didn't. Maybe the doors shut automatically when they lost power."

The hiss of pressurized air and scraping of metal broke Lacaille's train of thought. He spun around, hand falling to the knife in his back pocket, and watched two new strangers stumble out of their tubes and into the puzzle.

[SurlySeraph]

"Well, I guess it's good that someone's awake who knows what's going on. Knows firsthand, in fact..."

She breaks off when she hears the tubes unseal.

"You and Risk can welcome them to Oro. And let them know that the mesh is jammed. I'm gonna go see if I can seal off the passage the bleeder came in by, to make sure whatever was chasing them doesn't get in."

Ginny pads off down the hallway to the left, leaving her flashlight off. Not seeing another door before the Y, she follows the thick blood trail down the 45-degree passage, to check if there's another door around the corner that she can lock. Before turning the corner, she takes a knife in each hand and flips them open with a quiet click.

Rolls at the bottom of the roll thread.

[Tornado Justice]

Ginny
As far as her ability to perceive things went, she was mostly in the dark. Without her flashlight on, she would have to rely primarily on her sense of sound. She dissolved into the shadows before Jacob or Risk could follow her, creeping off into the distance. Even though she was quiet, she was quick. Unfortunately, there was no doorway at the crossroads. In an effort to lock off the danger, she continued forward in relative silence. In the distance she could see a tiny green dot floating in the blackness. It could be an indicator light for a door! She continued forward, her sense of hearing telling her that there was a fair amount of space between her and the walls, maybe enough to fit 4 more people side by side. When she got close to the light, her foot caught something and she tumbled to the ground with a reverberating thud. Collecting herself as fast as possible, she turned to see what had tripped her. Bathed in green light was the foot of a person, barely visible. It wasn’t moving. There was a pool of dark liquid surrounding the body, which she could only assume was blood.


The indicator light was attached to a locking mechanism in the middle of the hallway. It illuminated the nearby scene. There were two doors on either side of the floor to ceiling locking mechanism, the left door connected, and the right door slightly ajar. The trail of blood was thicker here. There were bullet holes in the right door, dark stains all over it. If Ginny were to check the man on the ground, she would find he had a handgun (light pistol, zero modifications, no ammunition, semi-automatic only, 15 round magazine, black in color, H&K Große Hammer, newer model). When she tries to close the door quietly, the magnets in the door kick in and slam the door shut, the bang echoing loudly through both ends of the hallway.


(Turn everything off all the lights and all the music, and turn your volume all the way up. Just do it.)


Ginny hears a monstrous noise (http://soundbible.com/1458-Monster-Roar.html) unlike anything she remembers, and hears dull thuds and clicking noises repeating rapidly, coming closer and closer to the heavy industrial doors. Whatever is making those noises is clearly not friendly. The doors are closed, but the indicator light didn’t change colour. She brings her ecto up near the mechanism and attempts to make a connection. Even with the static messing with the connection, she manages to make her way into the system, and discovers to her horror the doors remain unlocked. She hears the noise, only closer this time. When she turns to run, the connection to the mechanism breaks. There are no visible ways to manually lock the doors.
She turns back and re-establishes the connection in a hurry, brute force hacking her way like never before.


Eventually the indicator light turns red, just as a heavy mass collides with the other side of the door, smashing out the glass in both windows. The resounding boom carries down the hallway and to the irregular re-sleeving chamber, where the other recently awoken members hear the noise. The thing on the other side backs up and smashes its weight against the door twice more, and lets out a raging howl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKJp_5lKiXI) of frustration. The doors rattle under the weight of the creature, but they hold. The smashing stops, and something whips through the window of the door, lashing out at Ginny. The appendage, if Ginny manages to get a good look at it, resembles an overly-muscular and unnaturally long human arm, covered in thick reptilian scales. Its muscular hand ends in long bony fingers, each tipped with a massive curved talon. When the thing realizes it can’t reach Ginny, it lashes out at the door several more times, growls deeply (http://soundbible.com/768-Monster-Growl.html), and slowly walks away, talons ticking the ground as it lumbers into the darkness.

This, I hope, will serve as a good point to not get critical failures on important rolls.

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny slumps to the ground, her back against the door, and quietly sobs for the next few minutes.

Her legs straighten, pushing something heavy but yielding out of the way. Ginny feels something wet and warm starting at the top of her boots, her calves soaking in the tepid puddle.

She's keenly alert for the slightest sound coming from behind her, but hears nothing but her muse.

- We're all going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die, we're -
- Get ahold of yourself, ma'am! You're fine. My databases don't specify what that was, but -
- It wasn't human! It wasn't even human!
- Technically, most everyone outside the Jovian Republic isn't human.
- It didn't even look human!
- Better. More precise. See? You're calming down.
- We're going to die.

[boomzilla]

His thoughts slowly collect themselves, wordless and ineffable at first, eventually coalescing, solidifying into an internal voice. His first words, in this new head, How am I asleep?

Sleep is a luxury for an energetic young entrepreneur in the Red Queen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis) marketplace of Extropian space. A vestigial form of cognition, to be weeded out by the forces of the market.

Baltasar *did* allow himself to sleep (or at least, ran a simulation of sleep on his electronic brain) during long, boring deep space missions. Which he most definitely was not on right now: he should, in fact, be meeting with an important client regarding rights to a high-yield salvage haul soon.

Where the **** am I? Frida?

He realizes he... is no longer a body of metal. He has *flesh*. Weak, vestigial flesh.

He cries out for his muse again. Panic rises. He remember the horrors he has seen, the remnants of those terrible monsters that almost completely wiped us all out. Oh please, don’t let me be a captive of those terrors. Frida?! Oh, ****, where am I? How did I become trapped in this body? Where *am* I? Frida, damnit!

He realizes he is in gravity. A not-very-familiar sensation. He tries to access the mesh. He desperately hopes he just somehow ended up on some spin hab orbiting Extropia.

<Boss! I’m here!>
Oh, thank goodness. Thank god, you don’t know how relieved that makes me.

Still quite unsettled, the presence of his muse, his closest associate, his most intricately linked partner, helps him calm down ever so slightly.

Where... what... ehh... that is, what am I doing here? Where *is* here?

Before he can continue the train of thought with his muse, he is ejected, newborn-fawn-like, onto the cold ground, his body struggling to operate in the unfamiliar, unyielding force of gravity.

He sits up, legs sprawled out, hugging himself, trembling from the cold and the panic. He manages to stammer out, in English, between his rapid, shallow breaths, "Who--who are you? The... the **** am I?"

[boomzilla]

The resounding boom carries down the hallway and to the irregular re-sleeving chamber, where the other recently awoken members hear the noise.

Baltasar lets out an involuntary yelp, and begins to struggle to his feet, whether or not he gets an answer from the humans around him.

[The Grue]

CRASH

Lacaille dropped to a crouch, diving to put the lockers between him and the hall. His heart raced again.

THUD

Hands trembling, he pressed himself firmly against the locker door.

THUD

He heard it howl, primal and furious and utterly terrifying, and then silence. He waited, wide-eyed, not daring to move a muscle. Only when his lungs started to ache did he realize he'd stopped breathing.

- I believe we may have answered the question of what caused our bleeder's injury, sir, said Jeeves helpfully.

- The ****ing **** was that?

- I regret I do not recognize the...entity by its vocalizations, however I strongly suggest that sir refrain from attempting a visual identification.

Lacaille's hands gripped the deck grating, white-knuckled. His lungs screamed for air. He took it in short, shallow gasps, afraid to make all but the slightest whisper of noise.

- I believe it has moved on for now, sir. Please try to breathe normally.

He waited a little longer, then filled his lungs like a drowning man. Lacaille relased his death-grip on the deck grating and sat for a few moments, chest heaving, for what seemed like an eternity. When the diziness had passed, he got up again and slowly made his way round the column and towards the door, careful to keep low and obscure line of sight from the hall. He approached the doorway from the left-hand side, and gently leaned his head out into the dark corridor.

Nothing but blackness.

- Perhaps sir's flashli-

- NO ****ING WAY

- Very good, sir.

He listened intently, hearing nothing at first but his heart pounding in his ears. Then, gradually, he heard what sounded like sobs.

"Ginny?" he whispered, so soft he doubted he could be heard. He tried again, a bit louder. "Hey, Miss Powell. Are you hurt?"

[SurlySeraph]

There's no reply. After a moment, a quiet sluff sound like something being dragged is audible, along with occasional light breaths.

Then there's a faint hiss from around the corner. "Shhhh. Don't let it hear you."

Ginny pokes her tear-streaked face around the corner - at floor height. She army-crawls a few more meters toward Lacaille. Two faint red smears drag behind her legs, in parallel to the thicker blood trail. Then Ginny springs to her feet, revealing herself to be uninjured. She lurches to one side and leans heavily against the wall. Her shoulder drags against one of the bloody handprints on the cold metal, smearing it.

"There was a thing."

She nods gravely, eyes wide. A weird smile starts to tug up the edges of her lips.

"Don't worry! I locked it out. But it's strong. It-it got someone else..."

She shakily retrieves a pistol from her waist pocket and offers it to Lacaille handle-first. "Ms. Risk was asking for one, so I grabbed it. It's empty. There might have been more rounds on the dead guy who carried it, but I was too scared to check. There was a lot of blood."

[Roguenewb]

Risk


Looking at the network on the console and the poor capabilities in the mesh around me, I lapse a bit, drifting into some strange, barely associated memories.

Why would anyone bring us here? I think, as I finally start to come back to the world around me in a more clear way. The fog of my hard awakening may be under control eventually.

When Ginny offers me the gun, I enthusiastically grab it. They always feel right, and I never know why.

"Did whatever you see kill the man?" I ask, unable to see how to move forwards.

[mjorkk]

Dr Kunda gasps as he takes his first breath of air in years. The immediate fear response is gone, but it still leaves a deep sense of unease, which is visible on the young boy's face.

THOUGHT AT MUSE IN WRITTEN HINDI: Raj, why am I in a meat puppet?
...
...
...
RAJ: I do not know doctor, sorry for the delay .

He hadn't thought twice about THAT, used to Raj's unaccelerated timeframe to cause a delay... that's when his eyes noticed the other bodies in the room and the alarming speed at which they were moving.

WRITTEN AS AN EMAIL TO BE SENT: Hello, my name is Dr Kunda; o any of you have any idea where we are?

RAJ: I'm sorry doctor, but I appear to be unable to send the transmission. Something is wrong with the mesh sir.

THOUGHT AT MUSE IN WRITTEN HINDI: Not only do I have to breathe the old fashioned way, but I have to speak... physically... with vocal chords? I want you observing all mesh traffic and recording any abnormal static so I can analyze it later and figure out what this is... now... about the talking...

SPOKEN IN HINDI "Greetin.....

RAJ: Might I suggest that the good doctor remember the lack of mesh, and subsequent mesh translation translation. Fortunately they appear to be speaking English.

THOUGHT AT MUSE IN WRITTEN HINDI: Ugh, this is going to be ARDUOUS

High pitched words come out of the young boy's mouth; slow, broken, and strongly accented: "Heh-hello... my name.... DR Kunda. Have ... any of you... gathered relevant.... data... about our current ....situation? I am an... expert in... many fields... perhaps I could... be... useful to your... experiments... might I... assist our... escape.... from these... prisons?

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny tilts her head as she squints up at Risk. Was that a trick question? Is she testing me?

"Um... I didn't see anything else that could have killed him."

She perks up at the sound of the tubes opening, and scampers back into the room to greet Baltasar and Dr. Kunda. Her face is still streaked with tears, but her demeanor is aggressively cheerful.

"Hi! My name's Ginny Powell, and the people behind me are Jacob Lacaille and Risk.

"You are in the medical wing of the Doroda Main colony on an exoplanet called Oro. None of us remember how we got here either. My guess is that our souls were stolen by Communists for slave labor. You can find some basic equipment in the locker labeled with your name - "

She makes a sweeping hand gesture pointing them out.

" - and you really ought to. That is because the mesh is down, due to some kind of attack. You can still make connections if you're right next to what you're trying to sync to, but we can't do much with the wireless - at least, not as long as we're in this wing. Gotta rely on your body for now.

"If you look around, you'll see blood on the floor! That's because there's something - s-something - "

Ginny's smile widens, her face in a mask-like rictus. Her eyes look terrified. She breaks off the speech and scurries over to Dr. Kunda. In a quieter tone (but still plainly audible to Baltasar), she explains:

"I-it was some kind of transhuman." She clearly thinks the word is pejorative. "I couldn't see much. It had an arm like a real person. But it had skin like a snake, and huge claws, and it could reach so far..."

She shudders, and then lightly touches Kunda's arm.

"Do you study things like that?" She looks frightened but hopeful.

[The Grue]

Lacaille noded at Risk to follow. "C'mon, let's go meet our fellow 'colonists'." he said. With a parting glance back to the dark hallway, he picked himself up off the floor and followed Ginny's path back to the resleeving tubes.


"Hi! My name's Ginny Powell, and the people behind me are Jacob Lacaille and Risk.

He waved at the mention of his name. "Namaste, Dr. Kunda," he said in accented Hindi, then in English added "And, uh, you too," to the other newcomer.


... souls were stolen by Communists for slave labor.

Lacaille raised an eyebrow.

- Did she just say...?

- Indeed, sir.


"...I-it was some kind of transhuman."

Lacaille made an awkward cough.

"There's a wireless-enabled keycard in the lockers Miss Powell mentioned," he said when she'd finished. "You'll find a recording from a Doctor Ananias Metzger, and a collection of text files detailing how to use the facility's services, none of which is currently useful unless we find a way to turn the power back on and deal with this RF interference."

Lacaille stepped towards the newcomers to get a better look at them. He wondered how they fit into this puzzle, and by extension what his own place was.

Perception/Kinesics rolls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16137452&postcount=31)

"I'm still not sure how any of us factor into this...predicament we're in. The three of us," he gestured to himself, Risk and Ginny, "don't recall anything relevant to why or how we wound up here, and I'm willing to bet the same is true for you two.

"Maybe we ought to go 'round and share the last thing each of us remembers before being here. If we're lucky, maybe there's some common thread in our recollections that can help us figure this out."

[boomzilla]

Still shivering, hugging himself, he stares as Ginny. Communist slave labor? Exoplanet?

"Baltasar. I'm Baltasar. Ehh... need a moment," he sits back down on the cold floor, trying to take it all in.

[Tornado Justice]

Jacob sees both of the newcomers look…well, they look normal. (See OOC descriptions). They both are wearing the same one-piece second skin armour, they are both covered in jelly. The small one doesn’t seem to be up to standard as far as transhuman ascetics go. Jacob cannot get too much of a good read on either of them at this point in time; the most he can make out is they don’t look too comfortable in their bodies.

[boomzilla]

"Um. My last memory? I was in V-Sector; I was going to meet... ehh... V-Sector, that's on Extropia. We're... we went through one of the Gates, you mean? How?"

[The Grue]

"Probably." Lacaille shrugs. "Though I think it's more likely we were transmitted by farcaster than physically moved. At the very least, I almost certainly was; last thing I remember is lying down for my monthly backup scan on the way to meet with a client."

[boomzilla]

Baltasar squints into the darkness, trying to look at the extended EM spectrum. His morph, on Extropia, is pretty tricked out, and can see anything from radio to gamma rays. Unfortunately, this morph is much more basic. "Guh! I can barely see! Was sleeved into a synth. S***, maybe I got hacked. Forknapped. I swear to god, my firewall vendor'll pay, if that's what happened,"

He tries to have Frida prepare to spawn a preliminary tort against the programmer who last upgraded his security software, but, no, he's not only off of Extropia, he can't even reach the mesh anymore. He feels desperately blind, both visually and information-wise.

He curses in Spanish, clambers up off the cold floor again, and begins to make his way to where they indicated the lockers were.

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny shakes her head. "I wasn't restored from backup. The last thing I remember was having a talk with Maria - uh, she's someone I know - about getting me out of holding, and then going to bed. I suppose Maria could have had someone cut my cortical stack out while I was asleep." She shivers at the thought.

"I mean, we've clearly been kidnapped somehow. Isn't your body supposed to feel different if you get resleeved? Because I don't. This is my body. It feels exactly like it always does. Even a clone would feel different somehow, wouldn't it?"

She frowns and looks at Baltasar.

"But you were in a synth... is that your real body? Finding the specs on your real body so they could copy it sounds even harder than stealing a mind. Wouldn't soul thieves just shove us all in the cheapest bodies they could find?"

[The Grue]

"Yeah, they would. Which means whoever operates this facility was going out of their way to accomidate us. They wanted us to be comfortable, but weren't prepared to pay for more exotic morph bodies. That in itself is a kind of contradiction - like Ginny says, finding out what Mr. Baltasar looked like before he sleeved into a synth would take some digging, as would tailoring a morph that each of us could sleeve into with little difficulty. Makes me think the reason we're in splicers has more to do with managing us than balancing their credit account."

Lacaille turns his head towards Risk. "How about you, Miss Risk? What's the last thing you remember?"

[boomzilla]

"But you were in a synth... is that your real body? Finding the specs on your real body so they could copy it sounds even harder than stealing a mind.

"Well, I was born as a splicer. I left it on Europa. I assume somebody's still wearing it there."

He finds his locker and begins to towel off the remaining jelly. He dons the coveralls and boots; pocketing the knife, flashlight, and keycard; straps on the nano-detector and ecto; and heads back to the group.

[Tornado Justice]

Risk
Risk sauntered over towards the rest of the group, turning the gun over in her hands, ejecting the empty magazine, popping it back in, and looking it over with delight. There were many confusing thoughts swirling in the AGI’s mind. No visual confirmation on the death of the stranger…could be anything…the morph’s head juts up when Lacaille mentions their name.

“I…if I am who I think I am, Risk…and not somebody else…then…” Risk gripped the weapon in both hands, much like a child would grip a teddy bear for which they show affection “Then I was asleep. I was aboard an ore freighter heading towards Venus.” They were brief in their description, not taking long to think about what happened. They immediately turned and moved towards the console after they finished the thought. The comfortable feeling of having both the gun in hand and the technology at their fingertips was helping them cope with the situation. Perhaps they could garner more information? Their left hand glided deftly over the display while the other held a firm and professional grip on the weapon, as if afraid somebody else would take it.

Dr. Kunda
The information that was being dispensed was large and blunt, as if wielded by a savage. He took a moment to contemplate the situation. When he looked at the blood on the floor that Ginny pointed out, he received shivers up his spine. He was filled with the disgusting fluid, trapped in some sort of meat sack that could easily be dispatched. It was clear that something had already injured another person, and the sounds from down the hall as he was spilled out of the jelly chamber alerted him that he was in a most dire situation.

When Ginny mentioned that the supposed creature that was the cause of the blood was transhuman, he gave her a quizzical expression. They were all transhuman. There was something off about the words the girl used to describe the situation. The description she gave the doctor of what she saw had indeed painted a terrible image in his brain, and he responded as accurately as he could, given his English.
“Things like that…if you mean biology…I do. I believe…your description...did you mean…exhuman?” He was frustrated by his lack of fluid communication skills, and it showed on his face. The greeting from the man came as a pleasant surprise. He returned the salutation. Once the strength returned to his body, he moved past the girl and went to find his locker, as instructed.

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny shrugs. "What's the difference? It was a monster, anyway."

"Speaking of which, I'd rather put as many doors as possible between it and us. Nuñez and the injured person went off down the other hall that way, the other direction from where I found that thing. Let's go after them."

[The Grue]

Lacaille nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. Everybody stay here a moment, I'll make sure the corridor is still clear."

He hustled past the lockers to the doorway, keeping low and moving quietly. At the entrance to the darkened corridor, he unclipped his light and clicked it on, careful to keep the beam pointed at the floor. He flicked it up and around once, just quick enough to look around - and, assuming it's clear, motions for the others to follow, and proceeds down the right-hand passage following the smaller blood trail.


It's awkward to write conditional statements in the past tense. :smallsigh:

Rolls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16166843&postcount=32)

[boomzilla]

Baltasar takes a moment to slot the keycard into the ecto, watching Dr. Metzger's greeting. He instinctively does a mesh search for the exoplanet "Oro"--but, of course, he has no mesh access! He grimaces, feeling as if a portion of his brain has been lobotomized. He clenches and releases his fists several times, all anxious and wound-up from the withdrawal of information addiciton.



"Speaking of which, I'd rather put as many doors as possible between it and us. Nuñez and the injured person went off down the other hall that way, the other direction from where I found that thing. Let's go after them."


Baltasar nods, "Makes sense." He lets Lacaille go down the coridor while he waits with the rest of the party.

[Tornado Justice]

Dr. Kunda
Dr. Kunda had just finished watching the message as he saw Jacob move past. He overheard their intentions, and was more than happy to let somebody else lead the way. He moved in behind the others, and would move with them should they take off. He would be dissecting the message and all the ecto’s files to try to find out more about the situation, taking into account his surroundings as much as he could. Without his multiple mental implants and time dilation, he was having a bit of difficulty multitasking, and rightly so. He was very smart, but there was a limit to what he could do with the equipment provided.

Risk
Hearing that they were moving out, Risk took the liberty to transfer as many files from the console as they possibly could. It could be useful later on. They didn’t really want to leave the console, but there was survival in numbers.


Jacob
Everything seems all clear. If he were to follow the trail of blood (the thinner trail), he would of course round the corner into darkness (unless he uses his flashlight). The hall continues for some time, and the wall to his left has several windows. If he were to shine his light through the windows, he would see the ground covered in lush green flora. The flashlight can’t penetrate the darkness outside far enough to discern anything of use. The hallway continues until a set of swing doors, much like the ones encountered by Ginny, block the path. There is a red indicator light illuminating a small area around the doors. The blood trail continues beyond them. If somebody were to unlock the doors, it will make a loud clicking noise, and the door will become unlatched. Beyond the door and to the left is a stairwell that goes up a single floor, and another set of swing doors directly across from the first. There is a window on the wall of the landing (it goes like this: a set of stairs to your left once entering the new area, a small landing with a window view, and another set of stairs leading back towards the characters and up to the second flood, where there is a small landing and a pair of locked swing doors), and the blood trail leads to the swing doors opposite of the ones the characters likely enter from. There is nothing but a wall on the right, a set of letters and numbers denoting something painted large and centered. If the characters manage to succeed on a MoS of 30 in a perception, investigation, or scrounging roll while in the room, they will notice there is a cut-out in the wall with the letters. It’s a panel with an electronic locking mechanism. Beyond the door is a box built into the wall. More details on that if the PC’s actually take any notice.

[mjorkk]

"My last experience was something far more mundane and expected for an unexpected sleeving or memory gap. I was at the Bright backup facility having my brain scanned for backup, as I routinely do. Then I woke up here" (The calm and mundanity with which he speaks of resleeving and memory gaps is ofputting, even through the language barriers)


"One moment my fellow.... prisoners. Before we leave the relative safety... defensibility... and possible suplies of this room, give me a moment to asses these"

He turns his head to the vats that the bodies came out of

[SurlySeraph]

"Sure..."

Ginny watches Dr. Kunda's tremor with concern. Her muse interrupts her:

- Neural damage. Could be Parkinson's, but it seems to only be affecting his hands. Don't stare, ma'am, it's not nice.
- But he's so young! I know kids get sick too, but there are hospitals for them. How can he be safe here?
- He'll be safe because you're going to keep him safe.
- ...oh. Confirmed.

She flashes a smile at the young scientist. "Take your time, doctor. Nothing to worry about."

[boomzilla]

Baltasar follows after Lacaille once Lacaille signals with his flashlight. When Baltasar gets close, he says queietly to Lacaille, "The two neonetics are still back there--examining those tubes. I'm going to wait here a moment for them." He pulls out his knife, examines the edge, then keeps it at the ready, should anything jump out of the darkness at him.

[The Grue]

"The two neonetics are still back there--examining those tubes. I'm going to wait here a moment for them."

Lacaille nodded, then continued down the hall to a set of windows. He pressed his face against the glass to peer outside - it was dark, too dark to see anything still. Cautiously, he brought the flashlight up to the window and shone it outside, illuminating a carpet of vegetation covering the ground.

- I note that these plants are green, sir, said Jeeves, highlighting a section of lit ground. I hazard a guess that they contain chlorophyl, and therefore-

- Photosynthesis, Lacaille finished. The plants make energy from sunlight. That's reassuring at least; means there's sunlight out there somewhere. Also means we're probably on the surface of this world.

- Or in an artificial cavern intended for growing plants, sir. Either way the outside environment is likely hospitable for sir's current morph.

Down the hall he continued, coming at last to a set of locked doors. He shone his light on the surface of them, searching for obvious haptic controls and finding none. Instead, he approached the door until his ecto could establish a mesh connection, and queried the door's control system using his keycard authentication.

Roll (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16174635&postcount=33)

EDIT: Also, no stars visible? Just blackness?

[Tornado Justice]

Risk
Risk decided to try to figure out a timetable for events based on the information given on the console that they downloaded onto their ecto. They followed up right behind Baltasar, focusing more on deciphering the information than on the immediate situation.

Jacob
The indicator light turns green and the door unlocks itself with an audible SHHK SHHK CLACK.

Risk's roll (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16178674&postcount=34):
They manage to find out that the mesh went down first, and the hard-wired nodes were pulled second. The mystery person activated the tubes, and the mechanical arm that moved the tubes pulled Emily's first, and proceeded to grab the others. After the first one, the other's followed an automated process. The time difference between Emily's awakening and the other's is about fifteen minutes, which explains why the blood is so fresh. The power went out shortly after she and the mystery person escaped, but the emergency power to the tubes kept everybody from dying. That's all Risk can gather for the moment. They divulge the information to Baltasar first, seeing as how he is the closest. If anybody else is nearby, they hear the timeline. The mesh went down twenty-two hours ago, and the nodes were pulled almost directly after. Local time is based on a twenty-five hour cycle, and is currently 0200 hours.

Also, no stars, no moon, just black.

[SurlySeraph]

Once Dr. Kunda's finished, Ginny peers down the hall to check that nothing's showed up, then beckons for him to follow the rest of the group down. "The other three are ahead, so it should be safe. I'll make sure nothing comes up behind us."

She walks backward much of the way, knives pointed at the darkness, navigating with occasional glances over her shoulder. Once she reaches the next room, she notices the panel (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16179048&postcount=35) in the wall cut-out.

"Hey, anyone else see that on the wall, by the letters? I'll go check it out. And once everyone's through, someone needs to lock that door to make sure we're not followed. If you get close enough, your ecto can connect." She describes the procedure that worked for her before, omitting the part where she ran away and temporarily broke the connection before she could finish.

[boomzilla]

As Kunda does his investigation, Baltasar walks back into the room where they all woke up. He decides to try ransacking the rest of the lockers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16186334&postcount=37) to see if there is anything else interesting: whether any of the lockers have anything else inside besides that which we have already found (knife, nanodetector, boots, etc).

[Tornado Justice]

Risk moves forward to Jacob’s position.

Baltasar finds nothing in the other lockers that wasn’t his. The ecto’s he finds in the other lockers do not respond to him.

SurlySeraph, you may have Ginny figure out that she can use her ecto to connect to the locking mechanism in the panel, just like the locking mechanisms on the doors. If she manages to unlock the panel with an interfacing test, the panel unlocks and she can take it down off the wall, revealing the box inside. Risk will immediately alert Ginny that the box is likely one of the control boxes for the hardwired nodes, or something similar. If Ginny is to open the box, she will see a bunch of wires and cables protruding from a box in the center. There are haptic controls, as well as an authentication device.

[boomzilla]

Baltasar, finding nothing else interesting in the lockers, walks over to Dr. Kunda, and takes a moment to wait and consider their situation.

"Finding anything else interesting? If you're done, I'd rather put some distance between ourselves and that creature she was describing..."


If Kunda is done investigating the "resleeving" facility, Baltasar will follow him to where the rest of the party is going.

[SurlySeraph]

After messing around with her ecto for a couple minutes, the panel clicks open. Ginny leans in and snaps open the box inside. "Got it! Hey Risk, do you think we could get mesh access through this?"

She tentatively waves her keycard over the authentication device and fiddles with the controls.

[mjorkk]

"We may want to use these to create... copies... before we.. venture into... exhuman.. or was it transhuman...murder machine infested facility."

Dr Kunda aids in the looking through of lockers, specifically looking for unused ectos (for backup space)

"It may be possible"

He grimaces, struggling with his new brain's lack of perfect recal

"I can't remember the specifics of stasis tubes... this brain always was... inefficient."

[boomzilla]

Baltasar, still hanging out the edge of panic, lets out a deep sigh, and again hugs himself against the chill and the fear. "We need to find an egobridge first though. And if we find an egobridge, we'll find a computer that can hold egos. Oh... " he says, remembering the details of the facility's computers, "wait... right, the mesh nodes were pulled..."

"Look, I just really want to put a lot of distance between myself and that exhuman threat--I want to get out of this room and back with the rest of the group," he beings to walk off, "I'll tell them what you're up to, but I don't want to wait around here myself."


Baltasar leaves Dr. Kunda in the resleeving room, and goes to join the rest of the party

[mjorkk]

"... no... I was trying to see if.... if they had a... brain mapper... and a spare ecto... even an un-used... cortical stack could.... ugh.... I hate biological brains... it's been... decades since I need an... (Said with thick disdain that crosses the language barrier) ego bridge to do something as... mundane... as... backing up... or forking."

He grudgingly follows. with the group (After checking for spare ectos)

[boomzilla]

"Oh... you're an AGI? I'm a human myself, but I prefer being sleeved into synths." His look of impatience and anxiety turns to understanding.


Baltasar actually decides to pause and let Kunda search for a bit longer if he wants to

[mjorkk]

Under all but the most... what is the word... medicoconservative definitions... I am still a... I thought it was called transhuman in English, but I may be confusing the words transhuman and exhuman. Regardless I have heard of AGI's based off of an originally human.... map, and I have had... procedures done to my Self (it is clear from the inflection that self does not refer to any particular body) I have spent.... signifigatly more of my life as ...a collection of binary datapoints than as... a collection of neurons. Unfortunately, whoever.... placed me within... this... does not share my... definition of time."

All the while he rummages, looking for anything with scanning or computing power that can be carried, making sure not to waste the good man's time

[Tornado Justice]

Dr. Kunda finds 1 ecto and 1 keycard in each of the lockers. None of the ecto’s respond to him, even with the keycards inserted into the slots. He leaves the faux resleeving area with Baltasar and Ginny to meet up with Jacob and Risk. Ginny manages to find a false-panel on a wall in the stairwell room, which leads to a manual control box of some sorts. When she gets her ecto close and attempts to make a connection, she is prompted to enter the authentication code on the haptic controls (a bunch of number and letter keys) for access. Risk leans in curiously to examine the interface. Despite their efforts to establish any sort of connection, the message always appears. After fiddling a bit with the controls, Risk discovers the “code” is a combination of numbers and letters 12 digits long. They also determines there is an approximate 5^18 different combinations available. Even with their skills in mathematics, it will still take them a fair amount of time to determine the appropriate combination (approximately one hour, maybe more). Attempts to digitally hack into the interface all fail immediately.
Only a minute or so after everybody gathers in the stairwell, both Dr.Kunda and Ginny manage to hear a faint ticking sound in the distance.
The door through which they entered still remains slightly ajar, and is unlocked (I didn’t see anybody mentioning closing the door). If Ginny or Dr. Kunda choose to listen in a bit more, they will hear the hissing noise of the cylinder in the room they just vacated. If they choose to alert the others to the sound of the ticking noise, everybody will be able to listen in.

[The Grue]

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not keen to sit in one place for an hour trying to access this thing," Lacaille said, indicating the exposed node. "I say we move along, try and catch up with Nunez and her bleeding benefactor."

[mjorkk]

(Once he and the others are caught up)"While the prospect of... aimless movement through.... terrain that the... exhuman threat... no doubt has a greater... familiarity with... exciting... perhaps we should decide upon something to be... looking for. Might I suggest a maker or.... anything with a protean swarm and a..... defensible bottleneck. These spare ectos will take time to... crack, but my... condition will make me useless in a fight, and it can be done... it just needs time. When I have... completed the task... we will have.... computation power. With those three advantages, we can survive... indefinitely, and work towards... ultimate escape."

His eyes glaze over as his focus drifts

Taking the time on infosec to crack the ectos, using computer science, or another applicable 65 ranked academics/profession skill. He will still talk, but until he gives up, finishes, or gets a multitasking upgrade, he will not be making rolls. Lemme know when I finish yo.

[boomzilla]

"Hey, there was one last person in those tubes where we woke up--maybe we should wake them up. Strength in numbers."

[The Grue]

Lacaille nodded. "But let's not linger too long. I don't want to wait for that thing to find another way in."

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny frowns for a moment, thinking. Her eyes widen and she suddenly lunges to grab Baltasar's arm. "Wait!"

She explains herself quickly.

"I just heard a 'tick, tick' sound coming from back that way. The, the thing that came after me - its claws made that sound when it walked. If you want to try to rescue the guy in that tube, that's your call, but you better be prepared."

[boomzilla]

Baltasar pauses and listens.

[Tornado Justice]

Once Dr. Kunda manages to get a good look at the ectos, he notices they all suffer from the black-box phenomenon, where there is no physical way to take them apart without breaking them, or without the use of nanotechnology. That essentially eliminates being able to physically hack the ectos. After a minute or so of trying to break in digitally, he also realizes, much to his dismay, that in order to gain access to the ecto itself he requires the mesh ID of its intended recipient. Without wireless mesh capabilities, a quantum computer, or the intended recipient of the ecto actually present, the time it would take to crack the ecto's would span far, far longer than it would to break into the facility nodes (each individual mesh ID has so many digit combinations that the possible outcomes are essentially astronomical to people even with a math boost).

If Dr. Kunda was aware of Risk downloading the information off the console in the reanimation chamber, he could ask to see what files they have on their ecto. If he was not aware, then he will be unable to continue hacking the ectos until he can gain access to the information on Risks ecto.

The information contained on Risks ecto includes the Mesh ID's of all 200 recipients. It will take a Simple Success (Task Action of 1 minute) with a Research test to find the proper mesh ID's to fit each ecto, and another Simple Success (Task Action of 2 minutes) with an Infosec test to fake the mesh ID and gain access to the computational power of the ecto. Each MoF/MoS by 10 points is a 10% increment in either the reduction or the extension of the Task Action timeframes, so if you have a MoF of 50 in your Research test, the time it will take is altered to 1 minute and 30 seconds. Conditional Modifiers: +10 for the Spoof Software, and you may use Impersonation as a complimentary skill, and may gain a +10 teamwork bonus from Risk if they know what's going on.



For everybody who heeds Ginny's warning, they will each be able to hear the ongoings of the hall from which they just left; the faint sounds of the man by the name of Huey Boomer being spilled out onto the grating, his fits of coughing, the scraping mechanical sounds of the metal sheath being retracted into the ceiling. There is another sound, a ticking that has a specific rhythm. If anybody knew the sound of a dog walking on metal, the sound would be reminiscent of that. It only took half a minute, but the ticking got close enough to hear without strain.
Suddenly, everybody hears the screams of the lone man, regardless of whether or not they were listening. His scream is followed by the spine chilling roar everybody heard earlier; the monster has spotted the lone man. Following is the sound of the console being torn apart, metal and glass and cables being scattered around the room, the man screaming non-stop in terrified bouts, and the raging growls of the thing. It didn't last long. Eventually the man was cut off mid-scream, and the sounds of running and metal impacted by heavy flesh were replaced by the faint sounds of bone snapping, muscle and fabric tearing, and wet chewing noises.

The gory image painted in everybody's minds was nearly overwhelming. It was eating Huey Boomer.

[boomzilla]

In an anxious whisper, "****! Oh, ****."

He momentarily freezes, panic-struck.


Derp, actually I'll just defer to the other character's actions for the moment.

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny starts barking out instructions. She tries to keep her voice from trembling; she doesn't entirely succeed.

"Don't listen! I'm going to lock the door. Ms. Risk, check that door up the stairs - if we're very lucky, it might be an armory. If there's something bad on the other side, don't open it.

"Everyone else, keep following the blood trail, through the next door. If Risk and I don't come through that door within... five minutes?... lock it. Move!"

- Private, play some music. I don't want to hear that while I'm trying to hack. Turn it off and alert me if you hear ticking approaching within thirty feet.

She ignores anything said to her within the next few seconds as her mesh inserts kick in, blaring The Stars and Stripes Forever (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAnky-QJwII) through her auditory centers.

Ginny smiles wide as she works, baring her teeth. The grin doesn't seem forced. It'd be a lot less worrying if it did seem forced.

Rolls. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16212295#post16212295)

[The Grue]

Girl's going to get herself killed...no time to argue.

Motioning Baltasar and Kunda to follow, Lacaille dashed to the swing doors on the other side of the landing and unlocked them with his keycard ID.

Rolls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16212869&postcount=45). Wirelessly unlocking the door with the card's electronic key is an Easy task...right? Right? :smalleek:

[boomzilla]

Baltasar recomposes himself and follows Lacaille to the other door. Standing next to Lacaille, "Here, let me help."


Can I give a +10 bonus to Lacaille's Interface roll for assistance?

[Tornado Justice]

Unlike Ginny, all Jacob had to do was make a connection with the locking mechanism, and he was given immediate access, with the option to unlock. If he were to continue straight, he would see the hallway continues forward, in a mirror-like fashion (It looks nearly identical to the hall they took to get to the stairwell). Instead of turning into more hallways at the end, it instead opened up into a fairly large foyer-like area with a large community nanofabricator in the center. There were a few rows of comfortable-looking seating area’s with tables near the nanofabricator, and there was a cart knocked over by the nearest seating area. There were a bunch of small containers splayed out across the floor, which looked like they were originally atop the now flipped-over cart. Jacobs foot nudges a container that had rolled a ways away, and the label on the outside says “Comfurt”.

Risk complies with Ginny’s command, though they still waiver a bit, about to question Ginny’s actions. It’s as if the direness of the situation didn’t sink in as deep for Risk as it did for the others, but they eventually made their way up to the top, and began to work on the locking mechanism. For some reason, it wasn’t as quick as it was for Jacob, and she had to spend time trying to get past some sort of security measure. Eventually she gets the door open, and after a cursory glance past the door with their flashlight, they see they’re on a walkway of sorts, and the room is even cooler than the rest of the facility, a chilling 0 degrees Celsius. They discover with a quick glance that they were looking at the storage area for the bodies in the pods. Deciding not to proceed into the room, Risk falls back to Ginny’s position (and will follow along).

Ginny manages to make short work of the lock, putting another barrier between her and the creature on the other side. Private Sunshine continues to block out the grotesque noises, and notes a small pause in the sounds directly after the door closes and locks with its loud clicking. By the time Risk manages to open the other doors, the noises have stopped altogether, and a slow ticking can be heard by Ginny’s muse.

Risk informs the others of their finds, and should anybody decide to proceed upstairs, they will find the tube-room to be fairly large, with several walkways spanning between each tube, and multiple ladders traversing between the two floors. There are doors at the far end (If one were to enter into the tube room through the second floor doors and turn left, that is) they would find double doors on the bottom floor. The two doors on either side of the open tubes in the room with the creature lead directly into the tube room. There is another stairwell access point mirroring the one the characters are currently in (there is a stairwell with second floor access on both sides of the tube room).

From the foyer-like area, there are multiple hallways and doors, with the occasional light flickering. The blood trail, however, continues on relatively straight for a long ways leads through a locked set of double-slide doors, much like the ones in the reanimation room. If one were to unlock and make their way through the doors, they would find themselves in what looks to be an area set aside for surgery, with several gurneys and medical tools, and even a couple of healing vats. The blood continues deep into the room, and stops at the body of the mystery man, sprawled out on the ground beside one of the mobile gurneys. There are several tools and pieces of equipment scattered around him, as if he fell into them and pulled them down on top of him as he tried to stop himself from falling. He lies in an awkward pose.
The man wears similar gear as the other characters, and in addition is also wearing a white labcoat and a large beach towel tied up around his waist soaked in blood.

[SurlySeraph]

Ginny purses her lips in thought. "Catch up with the men and the doctor, Risk. I think I have a way keep the thing away from us for a while. Especially if it likes to eat more than it likes to kill."

She cuts her finger and walks up the stairs, letting drops of blood fall every few paces. She leaves a trail into the cold storage room. Then she elevates her cut and presses it against the cold metal of the walkway railing, dilating the vessels until her bleeding stops.

Ginny leaves the door to the cold room open, but tries to program it to slam and lock after the next time something walks through it. Between that and the stockpile of frozen bodies, she hopes the monster will be occupied for a while.

With all that done, she tiptoes back downstairs and goes through the hallway door to link up with the others. She locks the door behind her.

Rolls (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16274711&postcount=48)

I'll spend a Moxie to downgrade my critical failure on Infiltration to an ordinary failure. 1/4 spent.

[The Grue]

Jacob took stock of the new room: large, open, multiple entrances. Difficult to defend from several approaches, but a good place to stall and then lose a pursuer. The fab was a possible godsend, but like the old addage went: if it looks too good to be true...

He turned to Baltasar. "Okay, these tables and benches? Start moving them," He pointed, indicating the door they'd just run out of, "make a barricade." Then, to Kunda, whose smaller morph made him less useful for physical tasks, he added, "While he's doing that, see if you can get that fab to work.

"I'm going back for the others." The utility knife in hand, for what little good it would do him, he returned down the hallway to the stairwell in search of Risk and Ginny.

[boomzilla]

"Sure," Baltasar replies to Jacob. He picks up one of the containers of Comfurt, opens it, and, using his hand, awkwardly scoops the yogurt into his mouth. He wipes his hand off on his boot. He begins to drag/haul tables and chairs closer to the foyer's entrance (but, of course does not yet block it completely, since there are three people still on the other side).

[mjorkk]

Dr Kunda tilts his head as he hobbles towards the fabber Were I not about to do just that... you would learn how... poorly we... researchers ... respond to.... orders. You may take my knife if it helps her slides his knife across the floor towards Jacob It wouldn't be any good in my hands anyway... Sir Through the language barrier, it's uncertain whether he's teasing is friendly, or genuinely spiteful, but the neurological tremors in his hands make the gift's genuine nature plain to see.