IC: Where Do We Go from Here?, (closed game) Options

[Panzergeist]

"Fine," Fade sighs. I'll just try and access it myself. Big Brother wouldn't want his effort to go to waste."

Grabbing a length of cable, Fade takes a deep breath and jacks in to Big Brother.

[Sandoval Smith]

Ace The head that you pull out from beneath the grate is not even remotely human. The face is a smooth oval shell, and although it has eye sockets, the eyes themselves as two slits in the 'skin' The nose and mouth both seem to be extranous details, serving no function. It seems to be made out of some kind of ceramic composite, and the mangled neck that protrudes from the back of the skull is segmented metal, the inside composed of torns wire and tightly packed cybernetics.

Gromitz: It's fairly easy to confirm that the bulkhead will be impossible to get through. Taking advantage of the neat hole punched in it, you try and see into the corridor beyond. There literally isn't much to see. Once you shine some light through, you see debris pressed up to the other side of the hole. Whatever warped the bulkhead also collapsed the corridor beyond it.

As it stands, breaking into a pipe seems to be your best option to get out. The infrequency with which fluid can be heard moving through them seems to indicate that whatever they were designed to flush away, there isn't much of it now.

Greven The metal of the pipes and conduits in the floor and ceiling is certainly thinner than the bulkhead, and some of them look like someone very determined might be able to simply punch through them. A claymore would be more than adequate to open up whichever one you wanted.

Fade: Unplugging the lead from the console, you prepare to attach it the jack in your skull. Just before you take the plunge, you realize that the ware in big brother's head isn't just a metabrain enhancement, it's the entire brain. If its systems were able to hold enough of a charge to keep data preservation functions intact, then big brother might still be in there. If placed into a functioning body, you might even be able to bring him back.

The world blacks out as you plug in, a few lines of static crossing your vision. You are unfamilar with how to proceed, and simply visualize yourself calling out to big brother. You feel a return probe, like a needle brushing across your eye, and the lines start to twist and scratch, trying to form into something.

In the waking world, big brother's remaining hand suddenly jerks, scrabbling against the floor, the arm bouncing up into the air before falling still again.

Fade feels a brush of awareness against his mind. The static twists into the form of a person, and slowly reaches out. You know it's big brother and you reach back. "I need to know. Please tell me." Your hands touch, and in both the digital world and the real one, your body goes rigid at the sudden explosion just behind your eyes.

Light and sound fills your head. People, faces, places, images flash by too fast to recognize, voices roaring in a meaningless babble. As you struggle to keep from drowning you realize that he is telling you. Everything. The data overload is too much to contain, every word and image lost as soon as the next one comes to you.
You see a building towering over a city, but it is far away. You can feel the distance, like years, seperating you from it. You see faces, some you recognize, millions more you don't.

You can feel big brother's struggles as the data rush begins to slow, a scene slowly forming in the background. A windswept field, tall grass extending on all sides until it meets with a blue, cloud strewn sky. As the other images fade away, you get a sense of relief. Something is coming to an end. A river comes into view and there is a sense of anticipation for when you reach the other side. Something will be over, once you reach the far bank, a finale long awaited.

There is a jarring moment of fear. Someone is standing before the river, waiting, A too tall figure in black, with a white face, and a too long neck. Blackness flickers around the edge of the figure, devouring the dataspace around it, tearing it to bits.
Its cloak opens, and its arms unfold, keep unfolding, all razors and claws and murder.

Your conciouness takes a step back. You're watching a monitor now, watching the dark thing tear a woman apart. It looks up, looks at you, and then the monitors explode, a wall of fire rushing towards you.

The view jumps again, and he is running, searching. He is limited to just this body now, and the field, the room, and the fire are all now years behind him. Static begins to lace your view, the colors, the lights fading. He can't do it alone. The Safeguards have been Corrupted. He needs help.

Everything starts breaking apart into electronic snow. Searching, you have to find, have to return-. You feel big brother recede into the distance, pulled away as the power runs out. You have to find-.

Then it all winks out, and you are left floating alone in the void with the single static string of a system on the edge of complete breakdown, and big brother's last two words. Pure humans.

[Jrayjoker]

"Guys, we should save the claymore for later. It looks like the corridor is completely collapsed. I think we can get through the pipe walls without resorting to explosives. I think the bigger ones are our best bet,"

----------------------


Moving toward Big Brother and Fade.

[ Spoiler ]

Perception to notice Fade's situation (6): 8,1,8,3,9,4

[Panzergeist]

Fade jacks out excitedly. "Guys, this isn't a metabrain; It's Big Brother's entire brain! The biological brain has been entirely removed from the body, and this electronic one put in it's place. Big Brother is a sort of biological robot, with a meat body, but totally electronic brain." Fade gesticulates wildly as he speaks.

"His brain has suffered some sort of systems failure. It crashed shortly after I jacked in, and all I saw was a few fragments of his memory which made no sense to me. But, unlike normal brains, his won't decay. We might very well be able to repair it if we remove it from this head and take it with us. If we can repair it, we can install it in a robot and revive Big brother!"

[Whizbang]

While Fade was busy picking Big Brother's brain, Ace was occupied trying to dig up just what was familiar, and yet hated about this...thing. Fade came back, babbling about Big Brother being a robot. Then it clicked just what the thing was. "Speaking of robots, take a look at this." he said, showing his acquisition to the rest of the group.

[ Spoiler ]

great...terminators...

[Panzergeist]

Fade grabs the robot head and examines it worriedly.

[Chance359]

Greven begins looking around the room at different pipes and ducts. Finally he sees the one he wants, rearing back, he makes a snap like movement with his arms sending to gleaming blades out from between his knuckles. "Snitk" the sound of metal on metal echos through the chamber as Greven beings slicing the wall.

[Panzergeist]

"Yes," Fade says, "sneaking out through the pipes sounds like a better idea. The attackers may have left traps behind that bulkhead after leaving. This robot head looks familiar. I don't remember too well, but I think it may have been mentioned as an enemy during one of my teaching sessions. I think it was one of the attackers. Perhaps we should bring the head, in the hopes of studying it or finding someone familiar with the model." Fade stuffs the pistol device into a pocket, hands the head off to the next person wanting to examine it, and gathers his gear up for departure.

[Sphynx]

"Damn it all!", Ares finally screams, as he finishes going through the entire panel settings within the room, "Not a damn thing works even remotely in this tomb.", he pulls one of the blades out from a sheath attached to his thigh and twirls it in his hand absentmindedly. "Afraid whatever happened here either wasn't recorded, or those recordings are destroyed. I say we follow Greven's lead and get a passage out of here. I'm quite uncomfortable in these surroundings.", Ares continues, in a fidgity manner.

[Jrayjoker]

[Gromitz begins pacing along the flooring grates while contemplating the severed robotic head in his hands]

"Everyone, lets take a minute to figure out what we know and what we are going to do. It sounds like something is moving around in the pipes, so we may be at risk of discovery every time we talk, and if we cut open the wrong pipe we could dump a pack of whatever has a head like this (holding up the robotic head) onto our laps. I for one am against that.

"So far all we know is that Big Brother is dead/shut down/offline and he appeared to be holding off an assault when it happened to him. We have a room full of brothers and sisters who didn't make it, limited resources, and no real goal in mind except survival as far as I know.

"Now I am all for surviving, but my mind would be a hell of a lot more at ease, or at least a shitload less scared, if we had some sort of reason for bein' here. It seems obvious to me we were getting trained to do something, but what is it?

"Fade, did you find anything out when you jacked Big Brother, or was what I saw just some electrical charge leftover in his system, cause it sure looked like you were communicating for a second there?

"Ares, anything you can think of we should scrounge from here before we leave?

"Greven, did you choose that pipe because you know something we don't, or was it just big enough? And should we go up or down, left or right when we do go in?

"Ace, did you see where the head came from over there, or did it look like it was in the room and came off in the assault?

"Also, does anyone have a GPS or mapping program? 'Cause I would like to map as we go. I got plenty of memory on my Psec to store maps and notes [picking up the "Atachẻ"] Do we all have com gear (with encryption would be nice)? How are we gonna find more food and water? Has anyone got a scanner or radio to moniter frequencies to see if there is anyone out here other than us and the robodoggies?

[snapping out of his private world]

"Shit, sorry guys. I guess I was feeling a little overwhelmed."

-----------------------------

Gromitz looks worried and is chewing his lip as he paces back and forth in front of the console where Big Brother sits.

[ Spoiler ]

police proceedures (6) to see if there is anything in police training to deal with being sealed in a room with a dead robotic brother after a robotic assault with limited resources (I know its a long shot): 11,8,5,5,3,2

[Whizbang]

"I found it down in the grate." Ace answered, pointing out the place. He then proceeded to pull out his GPS and have it pull up a map of their current location, and handed it over to Gromitz. "Don't worry about it...someone has to keep us organized. Now, perhaps one of us should go on ahead and scout out the pipes, and just what is outside. No need for all of us to fall into a robot ambush."

[Jrayjoker]

"Cool, thanks Ace. I'm going to try to figure out exactly what is going on in that pipe over there. And the tunnel past the bulkhead is collapsed."

-----------
Firing up the GPS and starting the automap option (if it has one).

walking over to the noisy pipe and trying to figure our where it goes, what is in it, other pipe's purposes.

[ Spoiler ]

Perception (6) directed at pipe after noise has been pointed out: 8, 5, 4, 4, 4, 1

[Jrayjoker]

Well, the automap is working at least, but no GPS down here. And it sounds like there were about a dozen things moving around in this pipe, but they passed by without stopping. In that (pointing) direction. It didn't sound like metal feet either, but who knows what it could be.

[Panzergeist]

"I just saw fragments of his memory. There was a river he had to cross, a scary clawed creature that was an enemy, and then he said "pure humans." It isn't helpful now, but if I see those things again in real life, at least I'll know we are on the right track."

[Sphynx]

Ares starts scrounging around for anything that could be of use. He takes time in the process to get a layout on what sort of security the room provides, or lack thereof, and how to better setup a defensive position.

[ Spoiler ]

Scrounging:

[ Spoiler ]

You asked for 6 rolls and your target is unknown ... here are the results:

1: 2
2: 3
3: 2
4: 3
5: 6 + 2 = 8.
6: 6 + 2 = 8.

Security Layouts

[ Spoiler ]

You asked for 4 rolls and your target is unknown ... here are the results:

1: 1
2: 3
3: 5
4: 5

Electronics-Security Systems

[ Spoiler ]

You asked for 5 rolls and your target is unknown ... here are the results:

1: 6 + 4 = 10.
2: 1
3: 4
4: 4
5: 2

[Chance359]

Greven's spurs barely nick the surface of the pipe as he tries to stop them from breaking the surface. Closing his eyes he activates his spartinal recognizer and tracks the movement he hears.

"Now what?"

[Sphynx]

Ares finds what he's been looking for and approaches Big Brother. Having finally realized the significance of the bone structure and revealed skull, he realizes that he has no qualms about messing with the body. "The electrical surge I saw... Big Brother is not a corpse, that's why there's no degredation to the flesh. He's a Bot.", Ares pulls out a seemingly oddball collection of tools he's garnished. "Keep your eyes on those wider pipes please, I'm going to do a little surgery. The rest of you cross your fingers. Fade, this is more your field than mine, gimme a hand please? Let's try and revive him enough to talk at least, and if that fails, let's remove his OpChips for later perusal." He grabs some tools and begins analyzing the head of Big Brother.

[ Spoiler ]

Electronics Roll (Default): 2,2,5,11

[Panzergeist]

Fade pulls out his own microtronics kit and helps Ares jury rig Big Brother's damaged brain.

------------

[ Spoiler ]

electronics br roll: 2 2 4 4 5

[Sandoval Smith]

Greven: Pauses, tracking the sounds as they continue on down the pipe. If whatever was in there heard anything, they didn't react, continuing on their way. The decision now was whether to break into that pipe anyway, or to choose one of the other, less occupied ones.

Ares & Fade: You carefully lay big brother out beside the console, and begin the delicate task of trying to repair the damaged headware. The greatest obstacle is that nearly all the internal pathways have been destroyed. The cyber brain has no power running into it. To connect with Fade, big brother must've tapped it's internal batteries. Problem being, those batteries sole purpose is to maintain the micro charge nessasary to sustain data integrity should the unit lose all other power. If those are drained completely, then everything stored in there will be gone. It is not a problem that can be alleviated simply by wiring the cyberbrain to a console. The power connections are too delicate, and you realize that lack the tools for such a sensitive task.

You quickly comes to realize that the only way you will be able to communicate with big brother again is if you find some way to restore power to his mind. His body is too ruined to be of any further use, nor does it even have enough structure to protect his brain. Leaving it behind seems too risky a proposition, since you don't know what might find its way in while you are gone. As you are already working on it, there seems to be only one option.

The damage to the cyber-brain actually makes it easier to remove. It's still a delicate operation, but after only about twenty minutes, the two of you slowly ease the harware out of big brother's skull, and lower it into a case that Ares was able to scrounge up.
----------------------------------

[ Spoiler ]

Big brother's brain has successfully been stashed. Movement was only heard coming from the one pipe. There are several other equally large ones that are quite silent.

[Sphynx]

Ares looks at the rest of his brethren. "Ok, we can sit here holed up til we die of starvation, or get a move on. Considering I have no idea if it'll take an hour, or a week to get out of here, I say we quit wasting time down here.", With that he walks over to one of the quietest large pipes and begins looking for a hatchway, or a nice quiet way to open it enough to crawl into.

[Jrayjoker]

"I don't know why, but I get the feelin' we want to head up. Let's pick a pipe we can use to get up and reconsider our situation with a little more information. And it would probably be a good idea if we got into any climbing gear now instead of in the pipes.

------------------------------

Gromitz paces around while talking and getting into his climbbing harness and surveys the room for an appropriate pipe that can take them up.

[ Spoiler ]

Structural Engineering (6):
1: 6 + 6 + 6 + 1 = 19.
2: 1
3: 6 + 6 + 4 = 16.
4: 3
5: 2
6: 2

[Panzergeist]

Fade puts on a pair of night vision contact lenses, then dons a set of gecko tape climbing gear. "I must warn you, I can't fight with these gloves on. If we are caught in the pipes, I'll be pretty close to helpless."

[Sandoval Smith]

There are no obvious ways to get into the pipes, so Greven unsheathes his spurs and makes short work of the walls of one of the wider ones, shredding the metal. None of you hear anything coming in response to the sudden noise, and move to investigate the newly opened space below. The pipe's diameter is almost large enough to stand upright in, and a thin trickle of water, less than a handspan wide flows along the bottom. Although the pipe runs flat slightly below the floor of the room, it inclines sharply up to the right, and drops steeply to the left, the automap faithfully updating it's display to show these features.

Gromitz endorses going up, a sentiment that Fade seems to second as he slips on his gecko gloves.

Ares carefully stows the case holding big brother's mind. It's a very disorientating feeling; the only person you really _knew_ turning out to not quite being a person at all.

Ace rolled the ceramic head back and forth in his hands. No where to go but forward, but who knew what awaited them? At least, in a way, you'd be taking big brother with you. If there was some way to bring him back, then maybe all of you will be able to answer some of the questions crowding your minds.
--------------------------------

[ Spoiler ]

I'm judging that the consensus if people do _not_ want to travel in the pipe that those things were moving through. You can go up or down; the steep slope flattens out into a slight incline after a few hundred meters and stays that way. Other pipes feed into this one, some trickling water, but the biggest are barely wide enough to fit your shoulders into. For the time being, it seems that you're following the main line.

[Sphynx]

Ares pulls up to the rest of the team, "I don't mind leading if you'd like, you know there's nobody here better with a weapon than I, and I'm kinda itchin to release some of this annoyance I'm feeling." Ares follows Fade into the tunnel, and takes up a point position, his blades in hand. Strange thoughts begin to enter his mind as he seeks the shadows for an unseen assailant. If you prick me do I bleed?, he asks himself, not so sure that he's not also a bot, and not wanting to find out.

[Jrayjoker]

"Well, we should probably be as quiet as we can while we're in here, so no firearms," Gromitz says while holstering his silenced gun and readying his axe and knife in their holsters. "Fade, can you scout ahead and anchor my line at the top of the incline so the rest of us can climb up? Ares, stay with him, like he says, he's up a creek if he has to fight with those gloves on. I'll pull up the rear since I can anchor to the line and catch anyone if they fall. And keep an eye on the side pipes, just because we heard big things before doesn't mean there aren't little things as nasty as they can be in here too."

------------------------------

Gromtz pulls up into the pipe and hands Fade the climbing line from his gear, spooling it out as needed.

[ Spoiler ]

Atheltics (4):
You asked for 4 rolls and your target is unknown ... here are the results:

1: 5
2: 1
3: 1
4: 3

Stealth (4):
You asked for 4 rolls and your target is unknown ... here are the results:

1: 2
2: 6 + 5 = 11.
3: 1
4: 5