Chapter 2 - Ruins of better days

Elan looks in the vent and instead of seeing Graham sees Statton. He scowls, not entirely sure how that's possible. Graham is large (larger than Elan at least) and it isn't really feasible that Statton would be able to slip past him.

The conclusion is obvious: Graham is a teleporter. Ol' Mustache has been holding out on me, Elan thinks.

Elan is forced to admit that it's also possible for Statton to be a teleporter, but Stuttering Statton? Improbable. No, it must be the dashing Graham. Elan wonders how the old man managed to avoid a life of crime for so long. Midlife crisis? It was all starting to make sense.

Statton and Graham work their way around through the dust of the vents. Now it's Statton's chance to be first, to act as the dust plow. Finding a second vent, Graham whispers to Statton, then takes up position.
"Once we take out the drone, you can teleport to the reactor panel and try to shut it down. Elan and I will cover the door. If that door opens, teleport back to your vent, and shoot until that drone is destroyed. If for some reason you get hurt, teleport to this vent. I'm keeping a Lazarus patch on hand for quick treatment. Go, and let us know when you're in place."
Graham digs for the patch, awkward as it is in the vent, then slowly moves towards the vent until he can see the drone. He halts there bringing his pistol to bear, and bringing his compad close to his face. He sets the pistol down gently, and taps his message: "Statton moving to last vent, won't take long. Taelor, start your move to the catwalk. Taelor and Statton, let us know when you're in place."
Graham waits, ready to start the countdown once he's heard from the others.

Taelor takes a deep breath after reading Graham's message. It was go time. She had to admit, she was scared. She'd been in a few fights since landing on Astyoc, but she had always had someone to watch her back. Elan at the very least and he was a capable fighter. Now, she was by herself, in a place crawling with security drones. Once, she took her shot, she'd have revealed her position. If the boys didn't do their part, she'd be up to her neck in shit.

Oh well, too late to back out now.

//K. On the move// she messages back.

She moves the instapanel and listens at the door. Once she's sure the hallway is clear, she steps out, moves down the corridor to the staircase and leaves the rigged drone control module there, out of sight behind the doorframe. If they end up needing the distraction, she wants it to lead the drones away from the vent access.

She then sneaks to the door leading to the warehouse and carefully opens it. She slips inside and gets into position on the catwalk, ready to unleash hell on the UPS with Elan's laser rifle.

//Rdy// she sends to the others.

Elan maneuvers his way into position. He has mixed feelings about being in the vent. For one, it's a bit of cover, or at least obscures his true location. On the other hand, it makes dodging or fast moves all-but-impossible. All things being equal, he'd probably prefer to be in the open.

He makes sure his telekinetic defenses are in place. In his experience, they're more effective in deflecting blows rather than stopping them. That's part of the reason why he wants to move: he wants to combine his natural agility with his unnatural ability to gentle steer shots away from himself. It doesn't always work: a blow coming right down the middle will find its way through his defenses, like when he got punched in the nose by that lady a week ago. That was embarrassing.

Graham's going to have an awkward angle with his pistol, he thinks to himself, imagining how Graham will have to contort himself to point the gun out the vent. Can he really hit like that? And it's going to be going off right in his face since he needs to be looking out the vent at the same time. Will the flash affect him?

Of course, the good news is that Elan's own attack is comparatively silent. Maybe the droid kill-bot will respond to Graham's shot first, riddling Graham with bullets while Elan keeps up the assault.

<<Ready>> he taps, propping his compad against the side of the duct so that he can see the countdown out the corner of his eye while he lines up his shot on the droid.

An eerie silence falls over the the scene just before the Go, as everyone concentrates on their shot. As if in slow motion three shots are fired almost simultaneously. Twice the gentle fuzzing of the laser weapons plus one barely audible very low thump disrupt the silence and break the peace. The large drone shakes as the invisible force thrown at it by Elan hits its shell. Scorch marks indicate where the lasers hit. Without much of a reaction it stays as it was, gentle smoke coming out of the holes.
With a crack Statton suddenly appears in front of the terminal and starts typing and sliding on its screen. Lost in his task, he seems to have forgotten about his surroundings, making it impossible to know whether he is making progress or not.

In the meantime in the main hall Taelor waits patiently for the moment of truth, hidden behind her makeshift bunker her rifle aimed at the UPS. Many thoughts fly through her head, but she tries to silence them. At Go time she trains the rifle once more precisely on her target and... Just before she pulls the trigger the catwalk makes a deep groan and shakes slightly. Taelors shot being rattled by the tremor in the catwalk strays from the target and hits the wall behind without any effect. Cursing under her breath Taelor follows the scenery below, trying to concentrate on another shot. The drones below seem unphased by her shot and continue with their task. Taelor is almost ready for her next shot when the catwalk produces another groan and with a crunching sound Taelors end of the walk drops a good meter as the support structures break under the unfamiliar weight and decades of maintenance neglect. The instapanel bunker slides to the end of the catwalk and with a loud clank falls onto the production floor. Taelor also starts skidding towards the same fate and desperately tries to catch hold on anything that could break her fall.
At the same time the drone activity stops dead, all drones stopping wherever they stand.

Determined not to end up in the mosh pit of drones, Taelor grabs for the rail flying by. She manages to get ahold of one bar and grabs. She yelps of the pain in her shoulder as the joint breaks her fall. Tears shoot into her eyes, but she doesn't loosen her grip. Pushing through the pain she pulls up her other arm to grab onto another bar and easing the pressure on the hurt shoulder. Instinctively she rolls over towards the wall, bringing the floor of the catwalk between herself and the drones.
Once safe, she takes deep breath and takes a look around. The catwalk hangs at an angle, but so far it holds. The drones on the production floor start driving around. Some spreading out apparently trying to detect the intruder above, the rest heads for the exit door at the end next to Cerebrus.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! thinks Taelor as she lies on the unstable catwalk. She was going to die. They were all going to die now that she'd failed. Their bodies would rot in this forsaken place on this nowhere planet. The population would continue to leave or turn into zombies. That asshole Cerebrus would rule its ruins like a petty despot. FUCK!!!

She takes a deep breath, steadying her nerves. It ain't over 'til it's over, her younger brother Kyle used to say when she was beating him at whatever game they were playing. He'd even managed to eke out a win a few times. She'd always admired his tenacity. Fuck it, if I'm going to die, I'm going to go out swinging.

She clutches Elan's laser rifle, takes another deep breath and rolls over to the side of the catwalk. She points the rifle at Cerebrus' UPS, barely taking the time to aim, and pulls the trigger.

Whether it is anger or defiance of the seemingly impossible situation, when Taelor fires a burst of shots into the UPS the light indicators on it fade with sparks jumping out of the entry holes of Taelors shots.
Alas, Taelors feeling of triumph is immediately interrupted by a burst of shots as she gets spotted.

Statton suddenly looks up, a desperate look distorting his face. "I-it locked me out. Nothing I can do. A-and I think it knows we're here..."

Hearing Statton, and knowing that cutting power is paramount, "We can't do this nicely any more, time to do it the hard way. Come on, we're going to blast our way through the power cable."
Graham points his laser pistol at the main power.
"Stand clear, Statton, it might get hot over there!"
He aims, and fires.

Taelor grins as the UPS goes down, then rolls away from the edge of the catwalk and the drones' return fire, triumphant. I did it! she thinks to herself. She reaches for her dataslab to inform the others, but her arm feels unusually heavy. She lifts her head to see what's up and notices the trail of blood going from the catwalk's edge to a pool slowly growing under her.

"Oh..." she says, feeling strangely calm. She reaches for her pocket with her other hand, pulling out her dataslab. //ups down. hurt. pinned down. im sorry. good luck//

She puts the dataslab back into her pocket, then chuckles at the futility of it. A place for everything and everything in its place, her mom used to say. Old habits die hard, I guess. People, not so much. Case in point.

Giving up already, Gopher? Sarge? I guess. It hurts too much. That's how you know you're alive, kid. Now, MOVE!

Taelor groans. Couldn't she just die in peace? She looks up at the doorway a few feet up and wonders whether she can pull herself up with an injured arm. Only one way to find out.

She rolls onto her stomach, careful to stay out of sight of the drones, and starts crawling up the catwalk's slope towards the doorway. Once she got there, she would trigger the rigged drone control module, hopefully distracting the drones long enough for her to climb up. The timing would be close, if it worked at all.

Taelor grits her teeth and keeps crawling.

The stress in Statton's voice is too much for Graham, and he knows he has to move. If power isn't cut immediately, Cerebrus will bring everything to bear. He pops the vent cover with the heel of his hand, drops to the floor, and points his laser pistol at the main power cable, ready to fire...

Elan concentrates on the security droid, the kinetic energies building up inside him. He focuses his aim, his eyes narrowing as he lets the pressure mount until it reaches a breaking point and then SNAPS! The telekinetic blast rips through the vent and tears into the droid across the room.

Elan takes a second to admire his shot before deciding that he's had enough of the ducts. The shot has already open up the vent and so he pushes his way out before depositing his grimy self on the floor.

Ever-observant, Elan notices that Statton's already at work. Wait, so Statton is the teleporter?! Elan does his best to suppress feelings of envy. He makes a mental note to discuss possible criminality with Statton when/if they escape the current situation.

While Statton works on the console, Elan races over to secure the door. There's a very real part of him that would prefer to leave via the door, but he's not interested in trailblazing at the moment. Instead, he goes over to the big drone and tries to rip off a chunk of it - an arm, a leg, whatever's convenient - to blockade the door, if possible. He's certainly not strong enough to do it on his own but his telekinetic powers are good at chopping and breaking.

"I-it locked me out," Statton announces. "Nothing I can do. A-and I think it knows we're here..."

Elan accepts the news and nods. Things don't always go according to plan. Graham emerges from the ducts to shoot the main power. Following Graham's lead, Elan turns his telekinetic attack on the power cable too.

His compad buzzes. //ups down. hurt. pinned down. im sorry. good luck//

"Statton," Elan interjects, "Taelor's in trouble. Can you get back there right away and help? I'll work my way back as quickly as I can."

Then it's back into the vents, racing back at double-time and ignoring stealth in favor of speed.

Statton looks up from his compad, right at Elan. He nods and without another word he disappears with a crack. Moments later the pads chime with a message to the group //back in the closet. Taelor can you come for medaid?//.

In the same moment the door to the reactor room bursts open and drones roll in, led by two of the smaller drones as the ones from the space port. Chaos breaks out. The front drones open fire at the two men standing over the cable leading into the ceiling. The rumble of more drones in the back is an almost subsonic omen of bigger problems. Graham and Elan yell at each other both telling the other to fucking shoot already.
Graham pulls the trigger over and over again until black smoke blinds him from seeing what he is shooting at. The bullet whizzing by, he barely notices.
Elan tries to concentrate on his invisible forces, despite the noise and chaos around. He manages to form a sharp blade with his thoughts and sink it into the cables, when his concentration is broken by the feeling of fire shooting up his left leg. He looks down and sees a red stain growing on his pants. He must have dropped the defenses for a moment in the chaos. He wills up the defenses again and turns around, expecting the next wave of bullets.

Then it becomes dark and silent.

Taelor pulls herself up the slope of the catwalk, her arm hanging uselessly by her side. Every step is an effort. She looks up again to see how far it is still, when suddenly she feels as if she was thrown into a cave. It's pitch black around her and it becomes silent.

Graham freezes momentarily as the lights go out, his eyes shifting back and forth, scanning for something to focus on. He suppresses a moment of panic, knowing that drones had just appeared in the room. Still frozen, he listens, but all he can hear is the adrenaline-fueled rush of blood in his own ears.
"Elan?" he ventures in the silence.
The continued lack of drone sounds gives him hope, and he pulls a glowbug from his belt for a little light, keeping his pistol aimed in front of him. He presses the power tab, and the full contents of the room become visible again.

Taelor stops crawling. Losing her sight couldn't be a good sign. How was she supposed to climb up if she couldn't even where she was going? She slams her good arm down on the catwalk in frustration. As the sound echoes through the warehouse, she realizes everything else had gone quiet. Maybe she hadn't lost her sight, the lights were just off! The others had managed to shut down the power source!

She sits up against the wall and fishes her dataslab out of her pocket. Its electronic glow instantly lifts her spirits as it lights up her surroundings.

//back in the closet. Taelor can you come for medaid?// She sighs with relief as she sees the message from Statton.

//catwalk collapsed. could use a hand up. drones are off// she messages back.

She tucks the dataslab into her bra and resumes crawling towards the end of the catwalk.

"Yeah," Elan answers Graham, his voice a bit hoarse.

"I got nicked," he says once the glowbug has been lit, indicating the wound on his thigh. He tests it, seeing if it can bear his weight. "A grazing flesh wound, but it burns."

He glances back at the vents, weighing whether it would hurt less to crawl or walk.

"Let's see if we can limp out of here," he suggests. "I don't want to rub a hundred years of grime into an open wound if I can avoid it."

He finds the drone that shot him and drops a mental anvil on it, trying to smash it like an egg spiked into the ground.

He makes sure his low-light goggles are positioned to take advantage of the glowbug's illumination, then pushes through the open doors to see what's beyond.

"Hold on, let's not move until we see what we can do for that leg. We have some time, the rest of the stuff can wait. I don't think we're going to have any visitors."
He tucks the laser pistol into its holster and gets his compad.
"How's Taelor, Statton? We could use you down here, if Taelor's ok. Elan took one in the leg. I keep stuffing cotton balls in the hole, but it's like his leg is hollow or something, and I'm almost out of cotton balls."
He waits for Statton's response, but takes a moment to snap pictures of the reactor, looking for identification of components -- manufacturer, model numbers, anything he can find.

Statton appears in the doorway, holding a lit glowbug. He looks at the fallen catwalk and the trail of blood with a horrified look on his face.

"Little help?" says Taelor, from a few feet down.

"S-sorry," answers the doc, looking around for a place to put the glowbug down, then lying down on his stomach and reaching out to Taelor.

She grabs his hand with her uninjured one. After a bit of struggling, Taelor manages to get up through the doorway and into the corridor. She sits down, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. Statton gets right to work. He cuts open her jacket's sleeve to have a look at the injury. He cleans the wound with antiseptic and gauze, then applies glue sutures. He finishes up by putting a spray-on bandage to protect it.

He takes out his bioscanner and gives Taelor a once over, a serious look painted on his face. He nods and smiles reassuringly when he finishes. "It's not as b-bad as it looks. The b-bullet went straight through. I'm g-going to g-go check on Elan." Then, Statton teleports away with a pop.

Taelor gasps at Statton's disappearance. She stays silent for a few seconds, stunned.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!?"

Elan avoids sitting down, if only because he's not sure he'll be able to stand back up. His leg is sore and tight. It still bears his weight and he can limp around but he's concerned that if he stretches it out it will lock up and never release.

"So this is what it's like to get shot," Elan muses out loud, knowing full well that this wasn't even a particularly threatening wound. The drone had the courtesy to miss both his his bones and his organs. "Doesn't feel very good. I must be allergic to bullets." He wants to keep talking to avoid going into shock. The wound isn't bleeding that rapidly but he puts pressure on it all the same. Doing so hurts, but the pain helps keep him focused.

"Actually, I'm supposed to elevate this, aren't I?" he realizes. "Keep it above my heart. Let gravity pull blood away from the wound rather than toward it." He grudgingly gets on the ground and kicks his leg up against the wall, keeping an ear open for movement while waiting for Statton to return.

Graham heads towards Elan, a look of concern crossing his face as Elan gets on the floor to prop his leg up. He kneels at Elan's side, and positions himself so he can see the door. He sets his pistol down next to the glowbug, and says "Here, let's get a look at that".
He barely gets the words out, when a sizzle and slight *pop* heralds Statton's arrival, causing Graham to turn his head. Statton steps up to take a look, Graham clearing the way after grabbing his pistol off the floor.
Graham just shakes his head slowly, his surprise renewed at the doctor's sudden comings and goings. He watches as Statton works, and when Statton seems to have matters in hand, Graham puts his hand on Statton's shoulder, meeting his eye with a level gaze.
"Give it to me straight, Doctor. Will he every play the electro-technical keyboard-driven sound-synthesizer again?"
Graham's eyes sparkle, his other hand twirls his mustache.

After Statton is done with Taelor and Elan the team has time to look around. The hallway leading out of the reactor room ends in a staircase only some 8 m ahead. On the way three more drones stand motionless as if frozen in place. Elan, Graham and Statton carefully walk up to them but nothing happens. Still, instinctively they make as big an arc around them as possible, too fresh is the memory of the chaos only minutes ago.
The staircase leads upwards. Carefully the group edges up the stairs, not trusting the newly found peace just yet. The first landing opens to another short hallway leading back in the direction as on the floor below. Again, several drones stand unmoving as if headed for the stairway.
But the group for now continues up the stairs. After another longer climb, Elan fights as long as can, but does need help from Statton and Graham eventually, the trio reaches the end of the stairs leading straight ahead in a perpendicular direction of the hallways on the previous two floors.

Taelor sits on the floor in the scarce light of her dataslab and reflects about the last hour. A perfect plan, going to shits by a broken bridge, still making that important shot, almost getting turned into a sieve and then Statton. She did not see that happening when she got up this morning. Suddenly a light catches her attention. Quickly she turns off her dataslab and grabs Elan's rifle. The light bounces around, not like the steady headlight of a drone. It grows stronger and stronger, coming up towards the bend at the end of the hallway. She tenses her muscles trying to steady the rifle in the general direction of the light, when the light comes around the corner and she hears the voices of her friends. She drops the rifle again and relaxes.

"Heyyyy!" Taelor says with a grin as the others turn the corner. "Y'all made it to the afterparty!" She chuckles.

Sheesh, is this blood loss or did Statton give me something for the pain? Either way, I feel goooooood.

"I take it y'all got the ol' beep-boop? Fucking serves him right. Asshole."

"Yeah, the ol' beep-boop is taking a nappy-nap. I was starting to really not like that guy, but at least he kept the lights on."
He appraises Taelor's condition, the paleness from blood loss, Statton's handiwork on her arm.
"That looks kind of rough, but you should see the other guy. That backup unit won't be backing up anything else -- not in this lifetime. And if you hadn't gotten it first, we wouldn't be here talking about it."
He gives her a smile and grateful nod, then gestures to her arm.
I'm sorry, it looks like we were a bit slow. If we'd been a little quicker, maybe that slug wouldn't have gone through your arm."
"The good news is that we can rest up a bit, and get started first thing in the morning. The bad news is that with no drone activity, there's no telling whether zombies will make their way into this place. We'll make sure that the stairway is covered, lights out. Does that sound about right?"

"Yeah, let's get some rest," Elan agrees. His leg still aches but at least Statton stopped the bleeding. The doctor confirmed that it was just a flesh wound: it would burn for now and it would itch like crazy as it healed, but there weren't any long-term concerns as long as it didn't get infected.

"I'm not worried about the zombies, at least not for tonight. Given their physiology, they can't see in the dark. I would presume they are following their circadian rhythms, which would have them sleeping right now.

"Second, if they behave like feral animals then they're not going to change their habits quickly. If they don't usually enter the complex then that's not going to change soon. I'm guessing they'll slowly notice the absence of drone activity, but it might take some exploratory tests, some probing of the perimeter, before they push deeper into the complex. And, even when they do, they're going to be limited by natural resources, like light."

He looks at Taelor's arm. It's clear her wound is much worse than his.

"Did you get a good war story?" he invites her, knowing it's not only good for social bonding but also cathartic, especially following a near-death experience.

"Oh, man, did I ever! Shit. There I was, getting ready to take the shot," Taelor says, mimicking aiming a rifle as best she can in her current state, "when I hear this metallic groaning sound. Everything starts shaking," she starts weaving side to side. Suddenly, she stops. "Then, WHAM! The catwalk drops!"

"I fall flat on my stomach, wind knocked out of me. On the warehouse floor, the drones start milling around like ants," she says, raising her left arm and wiggling her fingers to illustrate.

"So I tell myself, 'shit. If I'm not going down before getting the job done!' So I roll to the edge and just start blasting!" She makes a gun with her hand and shakes it in the air. "Pew, pew, pew!" She lowers her arm and looks at Elan with a grin. "I hit the fucker right in the UPS."

She looks away and shakes her head. "Bastard didn't like that. The drones started shooting back! I roll back into cover. I was feeling pretty good. Badass space adventurer, you know?" She sighs. "That's when I saw..." She lifts up her injured arm a bit and winces. "Ow... too soon..."

She sobers up. "All that blood... I thought I was done for. I thought about my brother. My mom. For some reason, my asshole of a drill sergeant." She half-smiles, looking embarrassed.

She shrugs. "Anyway, I started crawling towards the doorway, figuring maybe I could climb up. Made it about halfway there when the lights went out. Statton came, pulled me up and stitched me up."

She pauses. The silence drags on for a bit. Just as Elan's about to speak, Taelor says: "Then, HE FUCKING VANISHES INTO THIN AIR!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?"

With the excitement and adrenaline of the day winding down, the little group starts to get weary, and beds down outside the closet, and within sight of the stairway. If needed, they can retreat into the ventilation ducts, though no one relishes the idea.
Looking around as everybody starts to bed down, Graham sees a remarkable lack of preparation. "We're so lucky we didn't get forced outside...with injuries...in the dark...They'll learn in time -- I hope."
He pulls the thin blanket out of his survival kit. He'd planned to use it for warmth, or a cushion, or a place to put his head, but he has two injured crew to think about. He steps over to Taelor, and holds it out. He glances at her arm, then opts to unfold it himself. As he starts to put it over her, she objects, but he quickly cuts her off.
"Shut up. You're hurt, and we need you functional in the morning. We don't need you going into shock overnight."
His usual friendly demeanor is gone, there doesn't seem to be a joke or a smile at the ready. He approaches Statton to discuss watches overnight, then goes back to rummaging through the survival kit.
"I have a tarp if anybody wants to use it as a cushion or a blanket."
He sits with his back against the wall, to keep his eye on the stairwell.

Taelor was taken aback by Graham's harsh tone. What the hell is he so upset about? They won! And he didn't even get shot! Maybe he's just tired.

"The blanket will do, thank you. I can use my backpack as a pillow," she says.

She didn't want o leave it there. After the day's events, they should be celebrating. She thought for a bit, but, ultimately, there was only one way she could think of to cheer him up. "So, how much do you reckon we'll pull in if we strip this place bare?"

moarhair wrote:

She pauses. The silence drags on for a bit. Just as Elan's about to speak, Taelor says: "Then, HE FUCKING VANISHES INTO THIN AIR!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?"

"W-well, you know, it started somehow. I get all dizzy and confused, b-but if I concentrate and it is really important, I can be somewhere else. It's, you know, I cannot scientifically explain it." Statton blushes. He seems shy and a bit embarrassed about the fact he cannot scientifically conclusively explain his gift.

moarhair wrote:

"So, how much do you reckon we'll pull in if we strip this place bare?"

Graham's head presses back against the wall, and he closes his eyes, listening to Statton.
"To answer your question, Taelor, it's hard to say. A lot of things have to go right, but I'll try to line it out a bit. First, the cheap stuff, and this is all very rough, mind you. Let's say each drone is worth a thousand credits. A basic security drone, new, is about 5k, and worker drones around 2k. How many drones have we seen, and how many haven't we seen yet? So there's a fair amount there. Again, that's the cheap stuff, and simple to attach a price."
"The rest depends on how we go about it. There's a fully functional reactor in there, and well-maintained. Sure, it's old, but it makes power on a back-woods world, and power is going to be valuable as they open the old city back up. Astyoc Power and Lights may pay a handsome sum to have an already-existing reactor in that part of the city, or they may want to bring it back. Either way, it's an operational reactor -- could be worth 100k, 200k, 500k -- really hard to say."
He pauses for a second, and opens his eyes.

"And then there's the big stuff. It's not unusual for governments to support local businesses and local banks. Cerebrus probably ran every transaction for the government of Astyoc, and that means every payment made or received by the government, every deposit, every automated piece of business is stored on Cerebrus -- complete with account credentials. Cerebrus is likely to know the location of every asset that's ever been taxed on the planet, up until 100-150 years ago. Those banking computers can be turned on again, and when they are, we have the credentials to access the old and obsolete government accounts."
Graham lets out a deep breath. He'd sacrificed much to be on this planet at the behest of Diogenes, just to end up near-broke when that asshole pulled the rug out from under him.

"It's going to be hard to secure all of that for ourselves, but I think I can get a solid chunk of it. It may be worthwhile to borrow the security protocols from Cerebrus' programming, power the security drones, and maintain a physical presence in the old city. It would help us secure the spaceport maintenance areas, too, so we can get ships and parts. Lots to consider, and the nanite technology is a totally unknown quantity."
He goes silent, his demeanor flat, with the wheels clearly turning in his head.

Thelonius wrote:

"W-well, you know, it started somehow. I get all dizzy and confused, b-but if I concentrate and it is really important, I can be somewhere else. It's, you know, I cannot scientifically explain it." Statton blushes. He seems shy and a bit embarrassed about the fact he cannot scientifically conclusively explain his gift.

Taelor grins. Leave it to Statton to feel embarrassed about having fucking superpowers. "Well, whatever it is, it's a neat trick."

She listens to Graham's spiel. It seems like they might make quite a bit of cash out of this. The only caveat is... "Who the hell's got the kind of cash to buy all of this on Astyoc?" She regrets her words as soon as they leave her lips. Graham wasn't back to his cheery self, but he had seemed less upset. Throwing a wrench into the wheels she'd set in motion was, in hindsight, a piss poor idea.

moarhair wrote:

"Who the hell's got the kind of cash to buy all of this on Astyoc?"

Graham considers the question. Cash is always a problem on present-day Astyoc, for sure.
"If you have something of value to someone, they'll find the money. The power company probably has money for a reactor. Individuals have enough wealth for security drones, if we choose to sell. Some things may have to go off-planet, like the nanites. But before we do that, we get data on the nanites from Cerebrus -- what they do, how they work...for all we know, they're the secret to fixing the zombies."
"Anyway, all the banking stuff doesn't need to have a buyer -- we can take advantage of that ourselves. Or, if we just want to cut-and-run, we set up the company to sell data retrieved from Cerebrus. As far as buyers, though, there's some money available, no doubt. The only things that require high rollers are the reactor and the nanites, and whoever is in the market for items like that will have the money. Did you see how quickly it went from 'do the zombie work for free' to 'oh, by the way, here's 11,000 and some valuable equipment to use'? There's money there, just waiting for someone to talk them out of it."
He closes his eyes again, thinking about which chess pieces he'll be putting in motion. He smiles an inward smile -- Diogenes won't be in his way. Not for a while, anyway.

Taelor breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Graham was in problem-solving mode and hadn't taken her question as an affront. She thinks about unloading all that tech and Mani Losa's meagre technical capacity.

"Maybe the guy who hired Jasper, Senn and me to transport that package would be interested in the nanites. Maybe other stuff we can't unload here too. From what I can recall, he was some sort of corporate executive and I think we picked that case up from some sort of research facility?"

"Could be", replies Graham, "but I don't trust Cerebrus. His idea of a 'cure' and our idea of a cure might be worlds apart. His version of a cure might be far worse than making people zombies, and we won't know until we pull his data on the nanites. For all we know, it would turn all the zombies into an army of devoted slaves."
His eyes pop open.
"Hey, does anybody want an army of devoted slaves?" he asks with a hint of enthusiasm, slightly raising his own hand, as a semblance of a grin appears on his tired face.
"No? Just me?" He puts his hand back down, but the grin stays. Whatever mood he was in seems to have passed, but he drifts back into quiet thought.

"Wow," Elan says with raised eyebrows when Taelor concludes her war story. "That's much better than mine. There was a big security drone but we got the drop on it before it even knew we were there. Then we were taking out the power when one of those little egg-bots rolls in and plunks me in the leg! The little fragger. But nothing nearly so dramatic as your situation."

Then there's a lot of back-and-forth over their potential haul. Elan finds himself getting hungry so he opens up a ration bar - powdered legumes of some sort mixed together with vitamins and minerals, nutritious but not delicious - and washes it down with some tepid water. He elevates his leg and then accepts the tarp as a blanket of sorts. He's colder than usual, perhaps due to the loss of blood.

"Let's temper our expectations around payoffs," he suggests. "A hundred years makes art more valuable. Tech and intel? Not so much."

He looks around at the detritus surrounding them.

"I think the raw materials will still have value, but this complex as a whole only becomes valuable if we get the Cloud under control and the economy can return to a semblance of its previous self. Licensing the Cloud medtech to the mining companies might be the most immediate path to profits. The nanite goo could be valuable but I haven't got a clue how to find out. Monetizing the rest of this" - he gestures to the surrounding building - "might take months or years."

His leg pulses. He pulls the tarp up to his neck. The sweat from crawling through the vents is evaporating from his skin and cooling him off. He does his best to trap his body heat.

"Let's break things up in 90-minute watches," he suggests. "I need some rest. Will someone make some tea or soup or something hot when it's time for me to take a shift?" He closes his eyes and slides down the wall, fatigue settling in for the night.

Tecumseh wrote:

[color=#ff0000]"Let's temper our expectations around payoffs," he suggests. "A hundred years makes art more valuable. Tech and intel? Not so much."

"That is tempered", Graham chuckles.
"Everything I've listed is barely scratching the surface. I hadn't even considered art. The data on Cerebrus is literally a roadmap to all the art in old Astyoc. Of course, much of the old city won't be preserved, and not everything here will pan out the way want it to. We can certainly be realistic about that. But make no mistake, this was a thriving and advanced place with considerable inter-system travel, and there are lots of places the scavengers have never reached. A tiny fraction of 1 percent of this city's leftover wealth is extremely valuable, when concentrated in just a few hands."

He considers what he's just said, and adds "And like any gold rush, the ones who get there first get the gold. If we're not the very first, we're way up there."

Despite the uncomfortable environment, coldness, moisture and all the other factors that speak against it everybody quickly falls asleep. It is a dreamless sleep of pure exhaustion, mental and physical that even after wake-up leaves everybody tired.
After a few hours of rest, with varying success on watches the group once again rises. The pads say it is late morning, but it is still very dark in the cellars. Only a few rays of light make it down the staircase leading upstairs.

After a short breakfast of tasteless field rations and some water the group starts making its way back upstairs. Carefully climbing the stairs they reach lighter floors. On the ground floor finally sunlight washes through the broken windows into the building leaving everybody blinded after the long time in the dark.
Some more drones stand around still, a monument to industrious work, just hours ago. A little later the four friends walk out of the large foyer of the government tower onto the plaza. The bright sun reveals the dirt, blood and cuts in and on their clothes, witnesses to last nights events.

Before the group gets ready to leave, Statton checks on Taelor's arm. He removes the bandanges, cleans the wound and covers it with a fresh bandage. Then, he injects her with some painkillers.

"It's healing well," he says with a shy smile. "You'll be b-back to full c-capacity in no time."

"Thanks, doc," says Taelor, feeling much better than the day before. Her arm hurt like a bitch, but the pain meds were slowly kicking in. "I do wish you hadn't cut the sleeve off my favorite jacket," she says jokingly. Statton's face falls and he starts to stammer out an apology. Taelor chuckles. "Don't worry about it, man. I'm more attached to the arm." She winks at him and stands to help pack up the makeshift camp.

===============================

The fresh air of the surface brings a smile to Taelor's face. She looks to the sky, eager to take the Tsunami up and leave this place behind. She looks back down at her colleagues and notices how grimy they all are. She's probably just as bad, if not worse. "I cannot wait to take a shower," she says, to no one in particular.

Graham squints and scans the ruins. With no immediate sign of trouble, he chirps "Who grabbed one of the field radios? Let's call up Tsunami, and find out their status."

He gets his own compad, and pins an 'X marks the spot' note for future forays to the government building. He expects to be back on at least one of those trips, but hopefully not much more than that.

"If we get lucky, we'll spot a zombie on the way back. Getting paid for the job will really help get things moving in our favor."

He looks at Taelor and Elan for signs of doubt. If their injuries are too much, he doesn't want to push them. Graham thinks he'll be able to tell from their faces. Maybe.

"I have it," says Taelor. She unclips the field radio from her belt, brings it close to her face, and presses the button. "Taelor to Tsunami, Senn, Jasper, do you read me? Can you confirm the ship systems are released? Over." She releases the button and waits.

Graham sees no sign of doubt on Taelor's face. If anything, she looks eager.

A bit of static comes out of the field radio, when, with a crackle, Jaspers voice answers "Tsunami here, great to hear from you Taelor, you had us worried. Could not reach you all night. The controls of the ship are free again. Where are you? Is everyone ok? Tsunami out."
The radio cracks once more, followed by static.

Taelor grins. "We slept underground. We're okay. A few bumps and scrapes. We're on our way back, we'll be there in a few hours. Over."

She turns to Graham. "Did you want to ask them anything else?"

"Sure, ask them about zombie activity around the ship. If we can find one close by, we won't have to drag one by its feet for a few kilometers."

While Taelor wraps up the radio conversation, Graham absent-mindedly looks at Elan's feet and legs, trying to judge how much he's favoring his leg. He nods to himself. And Taelor is either good at faking it, or she feels pretty good.

"Nothing else to add. Other than breaking the cardinal rule, we're looking pretty good."

Elan isn't sure what the 'cardinal rule' is. Graham probably mentioned it but Elan has already forgotten. Elan's cardinal rule would be "don't die" so, by his definition, they have not broken the cardinal rule.

He enjoys the sunlight. If it weren't for the layer of grime on his skin from crawling through the ducts, he might look a little hollow and pale from the blood loss.

"Maybe a hot meal too," he adds on to Taelor's wish for a shower. "Or a massage. Are there any masseuses back in town?"

He moves a little slowly because his bandage is tight, but he doesn't complain. If anything, he seems to press himself harder than necessary to get back to the Tsunami as quickly as he can.

The hike back to the ship turns out to be rather pleasant. The acceptance of the fact that the drone problem really has been solved slowly sinks in and the group is also not bothered by any feral humans. Once and again a pack can be seen retreating into one of the many entrances of the ruined buildings, but they seems to be rather trying to avoid confrontation.

Shortly before the group reaches the Tsunami two ferals can be seen crossing the road and hurrying into the entrance across. If they were 'normal' humans they would be mid-thirties, very lean, but quick footed. Given the fact that they are... changed, it is hard to tell their actual age. It is also unclear what gender they are of.

The hike had been invigorating. Taelor's arm still bothered her, but moving the rest of her body had felt good, especially now that the ominous weight of Cerebrus wasn't hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.

She feels elated as they near the spaceport, eager to return to her ship. It's a weird thought, to feel so attached to a cramped shuttle she's spent so little time on, most of which she can't even remember. Still, it was the closest thing she had to a home on Astyoc and it held the promise of being able to leave this cursed rock.

Taelor stops when she spots the pair of "zombies" scurry across the road ahead. She cocks her head towards the disappearing ferals. "We're pretty close to the ship. These guys might be our payday."

The hike had been taxing. Elan's leg still bothered him and he ached after a night on the hard floor. But at least the ominous weight of Cerebrus wasn't hanging over them like a goddamn guillotine.

"Yeah," Elan agrees with Taelor.

"Is this kidnapping, morally if not legally?" he asks rhetorically. "What if it's the target's best interests?"

The hypothetical question touches on multiple competing philosophies, including anarcho-primitivism, deindustrialization, and the abandonment of large-scale organization dating back to the Neolithic Revolution. He skips past all that before the conversation goes off on a tangent.

Elan looks to Statton. "What the best way to brain them, medically-speaking? Can we bonk them on the head or do we need to be more pacifist about it? I'd lure them into the ship with field rations, but they're so skittish I'm not sure they'd take the bait."

"I don't think there's any need for that. I can still make the shot," Taelor says, unslinging the tranquilizer rifle from her shoulder with a wince.

"How's the leg? Graham and I can handle things here if you want to keep going to ship and rest. Maybe you can send Jasper our way to help carry our patient back?"

Moarhair wrote:

"I don't think there's any need for that. I can still make the shot," Taelor says, unslinging the tranquilizer rifle from her shoulder with a wince.

"That's happy news, I thought we'd left them on the ship. We're not far from Tsunami, so if you see a good opportunity, go ahead and drop one. If you can, catch them in the open. Not excited about the prospect of digging around inside some dark ruins where we can get jumped. I hope the tranq is fast-acting."

He keeps trudging along, lost in ought. Elan's question is a good one, one that may not have a a good answer.

"This planet has already suffered an ecosystem trauma, and there's a new equilibrium. For whatever it's worth, the feral humans have a new life now, living as animals in the ruins with their feral family units. It's possible that curing the population will just introduce a new trauma, and there's going to be upheaval until a new equilibrium is reached."

He turns to Elan to give a slight shrug, and keeps walking.

"At the same time, the civilization of this world doesn't accept that its own history is slowly being buried in the dirt, reclaimed by the planet. They don't want to see that happen, and they're paying us pretty well to help. Both cases are valid, in their own way. I'm also willing to be that data on Cerebrus will give us some insight -- but we won't get that insight until we finish this job, get paid, and retrieve Cerebrus."

He turns again slightly to give Elan a quick smile. Graham grudgingly admits to himself that there may be more to Elan than he thought. Does he struggle with issues of right and wrong? He hopes so. People who don't struggle with right and wrong are robots, locked into their own certitude. Yes, Elan is a promising human.

He looks to the sky, soaking in the sunshine, and looks for Tsunami in the distance.

As Graham and Elan discuss the philosophical implications, Taelor lifts the rifle and aims it at the retreating ferals. She didn't see any moral problem with capturing one of these people. They were sick and they weren't of sound mind, so they couldn't refuse treatment. The end. But if it made the boys happy to wrestle with the issue, they were welcome to.

She takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, sighting down the barrel's length. Just as their quarry is about to disappear into an open doorway, she squeezes the trigger. The dart hits the taller of the pair in the thigh.

"Right on the money" says Taelor, sounding self-satisfied.