A thought occurs to John.
<<Hey Angel, did you break that thing? Can you bring it up here?>>
<Probably.>
Try to bring that thing up there. Ride on top. Whee!
You remove the car from on top of the bot and step on its most steady looking pieces before trying to fly it to the construction site John has set up on.
You can't balance the robot properly and end up falling on your ass. Luckily, you don't get hurt.
Then, for the sake of not wasting your turn, you remember that you can teleport and so you touch the robot and do so to return to John.
While John does his techno-voodoo-postmortem on the remains of the bot, you keep an eye out for things.
That eight-legged robot on the neighboring building has finished tearing apart an antenna and messing with its wiring and has now moved to a transformer.
John grinned. "Gotcha." <<That boom was me- one piece of robot down. I think Angel got another.>>
Summon more DU shells. Make sure one's loaded.
If Angel can get the broken robot up here, check it with my feels.
-tsar pole-
-pole tsared-
Well played. Our team has been frighteningly competent this round, but your kill is certainly the best yet.
((Yep, his is one of those actions where you wish he gets either 6 or 1 just so that you can write the results.))
The next shell (DU normal) jams between the rails of the auto-loader but it's nothing a good kick can't fix.
You summon another shell. This one is very big. It will barely fit inside the coilgun.
Angel returns with the crushed remains of the bot. It seems to have been some sort of tracked vehicle with 8 tentacle-like manipulators before it met its end. You touch it and focus on understanding it.
Your investigation reveals nothing of terrible interest. The robot uses fairly simple yet powerful parts, similar in some ways to the ones used by your coilgun. High density batteries and almost superconducting wires, frame made from a strong yet lightweight metal alloy, some tools at the ends of the tentacles, cameras and what you presume to be its motherboard linked to a long range antenna. Most of those pieces have been broken and it takes a while for you to piece together how they all fit together.
Aha! There you are invisible snarky girl. I like you, you're funny. Ever tried pole dancing before?
But in seriousness, I need to know more about these robot things. Are they fully mechanical, no biological bits? Who created them?
Time to get a better weapon. Remove 2 of the dead robots legs, motors, power source. Find something that will make a good crossbow body, like a plank or something. Attach the legs to the plank, so they are naturally contracted. Attach the motors and power source too. Remove a light switch from the wall, wire it to the crossbow. Run a wire from the end of one leg to the end of the other, to act as the bowstring. Use a binder clip as the catch. Make it so when I flip the switch, it will extend both legs, pulling the wire taut and acting as a crossbow.
"Haha. Interestingly, no. I've done lots of things but never that. Never occurred to me, really. Maybe I'll try it, when I have some time. Should be fun."You unTar your pole and retrieve the remains of the robot. Most of its wiring has been severed but the rest of its insides seem to be surprisingly intact. It feebly tries to move one of its legs to catch you but it can't do much at this state.
"Anyway, are you talking about the drones? The drones are all made and controlled by the BETA and it does not seem like these contain biological parts. BETAs don't like using biological parts in genreal, don't know why."You pull away the control circuits from the drone like the guts from a fish and it stops moving. You also retrieve a heavy black cube you presume to be the battery and (after a dozen or so kicks) two of its legs.
"If you're talking about the BETAs themselves, then I don't know. They were here when this universe was first explored, at least that's what I've been told. The Library says they probably evolved naturally, maybe from some other form of Demon."You can't find a light switch on the wall but you do find a light switch in the wire of a lamp, so you cut off and use that.
You use some of that wire you had collected along with a drawer, the bot's legs and battery, some screws and the lamp switch to make what looks like a crossbow. The legs themselves have no elasticity so it depends on the leg's motors pulling as hard and as fast as they can to fire with any measure of lethality. It won't win any engineering awards (or any beauty or elegance awards for that matter), but it seems to be working.
"Dunno, I'm not really into science and history. I'm more of a learn-what's-necessary-to-do-things-and-then-do-them kind of girl. Most of what I told you I know from that time I had to fight one."
Abort. Wait for us to pass a place where I can leap out safely, and do so.
You're currently hovering a couple of feet off a helipad-like thing in the spaceport, so landing is not a problem. Getting out of there however, is. You're a bit too... wide, to get out of there very quickly. But after some pushing, you manage to get out.
The sphere with the lenses turns to "look" at you with its biggest lens and begins approaching you with short bursts from its thrusters.
Meanwhile...
Great. Whoever this other player is has no problem killing me. That probably rules out Angel, and maybe Irine...
Might as well use this chaos to my advantage.
>Get Raul out of there now! Use the chaos and duck low through the escaping civilians. Exit through the front door and onto the sidewalk, preferably among more civilians!
"Dang! Silly civilians!"
Follow them fools! If I get a clear shot at the fake agent, take the opportunity. No hesitation!
Ike fires another round and manages to clip his target in his upper left arm, drawing some blood but not causing severe damage.
Kalle doesn't let the pain get to him and starts running for the door, along with Raul, trying to take cover among the civilians.
Ike curses those silly civilians for obscuring his line of sight and starts running after his target. His interface continues beeping and he feels a bit tingly.
Raul and his escort manage to marginally increase their distance from their pursuer, they're almost at the door, partially obscured by the crowd. Ike could try taking a shot but the chances of it hitting something else would be high.
He he he
Go to the side door and lock it with whatever means are around (chair, smashing the lock, glue, a length of pipe).
Alan: Plant thoughts of ice cream in his head after this.
You run. The moment you reach the service door on the side of the building, you see the bartender opening it. He doesn't have time to do much more than look at you in surprise before your fist sends him on the floor, lying on his back. You empty the contents of your remaining bottles on the door and light it on fire.
Well, that was cool. Now, let's go get some Ice Cream!
Your host begins walking back towards his car, thinking about where he could get some Ice Cream at this hour, but your Interface keeps beeping and your already blurry vision gets to the point where you can see nothing but darkness. You can no longer feel your host body or his thoughts.
Desynchronized. Attempting to reconnect...
Bryan
Excellent, my plan worked. Now I have a different problem. This car is going to cause problems.
Faron
Is there an empty car nearby that I can take? If so take it. Otherwise look at the condition of my car, is it in any danger of exploding? If it is, start running.
This isn't GTA. Cars don't explode like that. Worse thing that could happen is the car catching on fire and you either suffocating or burning alive. And it doesn't look like it's on fire right now.
This area is empty of functional cars, or even non-functional cars. Looters have long ago picked those for parts.
You engine stalls and stops working.
{Irine}
Seize control of the fires inside the general area of the fleeing car,and prevent them from doing anything.
{Zoe}
Flag down the car behind us and comandeer/recruit it/the driver to aid the pursuit.
If the car speeds up, and seems to be trying to run me over, dodge.
Your host keeps running.
You focus on preventing the fires in the car from doing anything. This includes expanding. The car is obscured by a building, but you can hear the grinding coming from its naked wheel stopping a moment later.
The car stops near you.
"Hey! Are you alright? Need help?" asks the woman inside.
Your host feels surprise. She knows her (barely) but she didn't expect to see her here. Why is she here?
You notice that she has an Interface with a clear crystal.
Peregrine
River, do spirits have some kind of cultural connection? They obviously symbolize something. Fire and water? Red and
Blue?
Theri wondered. The gunshot was straight ahead, and this was where the multicolored fish went, and it was on her right. The colored hummingbird turned at the intersection--quite too early for it to be where the gunshot diverged, and more than not an alternate path...
She pondered, and tapped her host. The firebird was both a symbol of life and death, yet the waterfish was a symbol of hope, in her best idea.
Influence the host.
Follow the fish. We have to make sure Zoe is alright. Follow the river and don't go against it. We need not assume.
How's that, River? Getting better?
"Yes, spirits, at least the ones I know of, like symbolism a lot, cultural connections. Don't know why. Maybe 'speaking' in that way seems natural to them.
Your analysis seems correct. That's what I would have chosen, anyway. Then again, I almost always go with my instinct, so I might not be the best judge about those kinds of things."
You continue driving, the fish swimming besides you. When your destination finally comes to sight, you can see Zoe running towards an intersection and Morgan's car standing there with a shredded tire.
You stop the car next to Zoe. The fish is swimming in lazy circles around her. This is it. You have to help her.
"Hey! Are you alright? Need help?" asks your host.
You notice that she has a silver bracelet on her wrist, almost the same as the one on yours, except for the fact that its crystal is clear instead of blue. Even though you can see it, your host doesn't seem to notice the one on your or Zoe's wrist.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1147920 times)