My host should be grateful this movie is so damn entertaining.
An old military jeep crawls across the arid and cracked ground, raising a small trail of dust behind it as it approaches the camera.
The surrounding area is utterly flat and devoid of landmarks, with only the rare parched leafless bush around to denote distance.
The camera pans to follow the jeep as it drives by. It's a utilitarian thing, two seater with a cargo bed. It's got a spare tire attached on its left side and various tools like shovels and picks locked in place around its frame. It lacks a roof, forcing our two scientist protagonists (Dan and Steve) to wear what looks like pith helmets to protect themselves from the hot desert sun. Light white shirts and sturdy-looking cargo shorts complete their attire.
As the camera pans to follow the jeep, its destination is revealed, the only distinctive point in this featureless desert. Mystery Mountain.
A quick examination reveals that the use of the term "mountain" may have been an exaggeration on the part of whoever named this place. It's nothing more than a hill made of blocky rocks, sand and dirt piled together. And while it is a high hill, it's height made all the more impressive by the lack of anything to compare it with, it's nowhere near the height of a proper mountain.
The scene changes, now showing the jeep as it descends on a wide depression surrounding the base of the hill. The jeep rather comically collides with a bunch of small rocks in its path, causing it to stop and the drivers to jerk forward.
Dan turns the engine off and looks at Steve. "I guess we can't make it any further in the jeep."
"Yeah, looks like we're going to have to make the rest of the journey on foot." replies Steve and gets out of the jeep.
"With all our gear? Across the desert?" complains Dan.
"Mystery Mountain is right there you big baby. Now try the scintillator again, will you?"
Dan gets that machine that looks like a hairdrier taped on a box again and waves it around.
Meanwhile Steve gets more "scientific equipment" from inside the jeep and sets it down on its hood, along with a couple of round water containers, a couple of searchlights and a hunting rifle.
"Couldn't be deader." he says after a few swings and sets it down inside the jeep again, reaching for a water container.
"You saw it this morning, it was going off like crazy." replies Steve. He takes a pair of binoculars from inside the jeep and uses the to survey the surrounding area.
"Well, it's not now." says Dan and drinks from the container. He seems to immediately regret it though, for he spits it out the next moment and groans. "This thing is literally boiling!" he exclaims.
The scene now shows rocks shown with the classic viewing-through-binoculars effect.
It's obvious it is simply a piece of cardboard or similar cut and put in front of the camera, since one circle is slightly angular and bigger than the other, while the other is more egg-shaped than circle-shaped. They are the same boring large blocky rocks that seem to exist everywhere on this "mountain" and they continue to be so as the camera moves for a couple of seconds. But then a pile of dirt along with smaller irregularly shaped rocks comes into view.
"Well I'll be darned." says Steve and lowers his binoculars, offering them to Dan. "Take a look at this! Little more than halfway down and to the left."
Dan obliges, taking the binoculars and bringing them to his eyes.
"What do you see?" asks Steve.
"A pile of rocks." replies Dan in a disinterested manner.
"Yeah, but it doesn't fit with the rest. Come on! It's not that far." Steve says with excitement.
Steve scoops up some of the things laid on the hood of the jeep and starts walking off camera.
"Oh, I wish I had taken a job at an office. Somewhere air conditioned. Where I wouldn't have to..." Dan continues to complain to himself, picks up the rest of the things and goes after Steve, forgetting his water container behind.
<Boy, am I glad they're not my eardrums, technically!> Ike thinks to himself, trying to stay positive.
Put the helmet back on, load another rocket into the RPG and fire it at an area slightly to the right or to the left of the entrance - whichever seems most explodable and likely to cause catastrophic structural damage and isn't covered by the rectangle.
You get up on your knees with a groan and put your helmet and accompanying head armour back on. Your ears still hurt a bit and you can't hear that well. There's only the continuous beeping of your interface.
You take a spare rocket from inside your bag (only one more left) and try to find a good place to aim towards.
Density of concrete, coupled with windspeed, carry the two... Hey! That's it! You know what you have to do! You just have to hold the bazooka trigger for .46 seconds and aim 51
o high! The missile will go over the wall and then the wind will cause it to turn, hit the enemies behind the wall and push them into a mine for a total of 75 damage, simultaneously destroying the wall there!
You take aim and prepare to enact your brilliant battle plan. You fire. The missile flies over the wall. It keeps going.
<You missed.>Well, if the knowledge of your host is to be trusted, those things can keep going for 2 kilometers.
<You missed a building.>Let's hope it doesn't hit anything important.
<A large building not a hundred meters away.>You turn towards the burning car to grab another missile. You notice the orange light coming from behind you too late to react.
You turn around just in time to see what's coming towards you. It's a huge sphere of fire. And following it is a trio of smaller spheres circling around it. And around each of the three fireballs circle three smaller ones.
Your armour protects you from the brunt of the blast, but some of your exposed skin is seriously burned and the heat causes you major discomfort.
Thankfully, the firewave passes a moment later. But now the bag with your spare ammo is on fire.
<Better do something if you don't want to go out with a bang. And unless you can stand the heat, you should probably relocate out of the kitchen.>
Bryan
<"Don't worry about distracting me, it's always nice to talk to somebody, even if that person doesn't agree with what I think. As to being late, this could be beneficial to me. If the explosions are distracting people, then maybe I can get closer before I am seen. I still have a chance.">
Faron
Keep driving. If I get to the building stop a block away and look for an entrance away from the commotion.
You'll get there in a bit. Shouldn't be long now. 1 to 3 turns probably, depending on how things go.
>Get up. I know it's hard, but get up. Look around and find anything that looks important or pertinent to you and take it, and then disembark from the vehicle if possible. If you don't have the energy to do so, I'll take control until you can move on your own.
Your host tries to get up. Back still hurts. Feels strange. Like there's something else there. No time to look at it now.
He can't get up. Legs feel weak. He manages to fall off the gurney he's lying on. Plastic tubes going into him pull his skin, causing more discomfort. A body softens his fall. Looks like a police officer. Hit his head in the crash.
Another groan. There's a paramedic here. Probably injured in the crash too. Hasn't come to his senses fully yet, although he seems to be coming to.
There's nothing belonging to your host around here. Not even his clothes. Just a lot of things you'd expect to find in an ambulance. A heart monitor. A defibrillator. A gurney. A wheelchair. Scissors. Syringes. Drugs. The list goes on.
From here...
Awena//Theri
Oh goodness no-No! We're under atta-...
Awena! I...I won't possess you, but my knowledge is free for you to use. It was wrong of me to do so before if it wasn't fully your choice. I believe in you, however. Do what you think is best!
Irene's talk, and moreso her actions, got Theri thinking. She was a thought in her host--but not her host. She had an influence on her decisions, but utter control was wrong straight out.
<We're alright!>
Give control to Awena. Share knowledge/memory.
You focus on allowing Awena to use your knowledge. It feels hard. Like you're trying to mentally push something solid through a kitchen sieve. Very few things get through, only fragments. Your interface beeps many times.
<Perhaps this would work better if you focused on sharing a single thing first.>Awena remains unsure of what to do for a few seconds, simply trying to regain her bearings.
The voices around her sound like they're coming from far away. The injured man keeps struggling in front of her.
She slowly approaches him. There must be a way to help him. Just have to figure out-
A hand grabs her from behind and forces her to turn around. A man is shouting at her.
"-listening to me? You have to get out of the way!"
A moment later, as if to punctuate the man's statement, something flies by very close to the roof of the building, leaving a trail of exhaust in the dark night sky.
When Awena fails to respond in time, the man simply grabs her and starts dragging her back towards the cover the armed men have made with their boxes. A pair of two others grab the injured man and drag him back to cover with them.
There's the sound of wind blowing. Everyone grows silent and pauses to look at the fires around the room transform, becoming streams of flame rushing up and through the broken skylight windows, filling the room with their heat and orange light.
A moment later the effect stops and everything returns back to normal, the flames significantly weaker now, the room darker.
Zoe//Irene
Its job. Pretty direct. Does he even know what his host is capable of, or does he seemingly care more to issue orders instead of turning it on. Now.
We're under attack.
Return to the flames--provide sweeping attacks and focus on the (last remembered) direction of the assault//offense. Focus to jam weapons and disable firing mechanisms.
You try to focus both on strengthening your compressive anti-combustion field and launching another firewave at your enemy's last known position. But the effort proves too much for you. The field destabilises, looses its precision and collapses but you manage to stop the effect before the opposing effects devolve into a whirlwind of pyrokinetic force.
Without the effort of maintaining the field holding you back, you try again. It feels a lot easier now, more natural. You don't have to carefully adjust the area your power affects. You just have to push and it happens.
Remembering the locations of all nearby fires you can, you make them burn faster for half a second and then take the resulting surplus of flame to use for your attack. You gather it in the sky and then arrange it into a large, simple sphere of fire of enormous size, with smaller spheres circling around it to add to its width. And then you launch it to the last known location of the attacker.
You are not certain about whether or not you hit anything. But you think you still have most of the fire you gathered still under your control.
Meanwhile...
Jordan raises an exhausted hand to his interface.
<"John, I'm done. I'm lucky if I leave this thing in a bodybag. I just survived a tall drop just by adrenaline and luck, but I think this is the end of the line. It's up to you, now.">
Rest but stay alert. Is the leg broken and out of place? If so, snap it back in. If not, try and find something to make a splint with.
I'm going to assume you mean hand, since I'm pretty sure your legs are (surprisingly) fine, unless I forgot something.
Your right arm is
broken and bleeding moderately. Your left arm is dislocated. Your ribs are either fractured or broken, can't really tell.
You decide to focus on
your left arm first.
You start ramming your left shoulder against a nearby metal support. It's neither the most medically appropriate nor the most painless way to fix a dislocated shoulder but it works after a while.
<<I hope you're clear, because I'm coming in with more explosives. Bombs on the inside seem to be the way to go here, and I'm sticking as many in there as I can.>>
Summon more if I can while flying in closer. Get to the hole and get inside. Start scanning for targets.
You get another cube. This one also has a different composition than the others and is set in the same detonation frequency.
You really wish you had a way to understand the chemical components of things.
You get inside the charred insides of the BETA and begin carefully ascending.
As for targets, that really depends on what you want to hit and how much you're willing to risk. The area you want to damage is the chest, where the two armoured "hearts" of the BETA reside, one for energy and one for information. There also seems to be a dozen or so robotic arms in there, working on repairing things and transforming the information sphere into some kind of humanoid robot.
You could attack directly and try to place the bombs there. Or you could try doing something else.
OOCI posted my action a few pages ago.
Ah, sorry, memory is not one of my best traits.
That's why I try to keep notes with everything in them.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1148662 times)