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Sandoval Smith
Jan 9 2005, 06:11 PM
OOC Thread

The first thing that you remembered was big brother waking you up. He said that he had many things to teach you, and that it was time to begin. As you learned, you slowly began to realize that there were others besides you, that you yourself were a distinct entity, as were the others, your brothers and sisters. When big brother would go away, you began to communicate with each other. It wasn’t talking, and you could never see each other. Big brother was the only one you could ever see, when he came to teach. Everyone else was always just beyond the sight of the corner of your eye, and when big brother wasn’t there, all you could see around you was limitless, undefined white.

Big brother’s lessons began to grow more complicated. He had much to teach you, and an undercurrent of urgency in his manner indicated dwindling time to do it. Instruction began to hurt. He was forcing you to learn too much too fast. The lessons become harder, and during a few, you felt siblings disappear, leaving an emptiness where you were used to feeling their presence. It was frightening, and fear was one of those things that big brother hadn’t gotten around to teaching about yet.

Then, he was gone for a long time, and when big brother finally came back, he taught you all about fear. He was filled with it. He started the lessons again, but he held nothing back. It was like gently inserting a entire library building into your ear canal. Your felt siblings disappear all around you, some fading like others before them, but many others were torn away in mid thought. Everything was a terrifying whirl of pain, fear, and uncertainty. As your numbers dwindled, big brother’s attention focused more closely on the few who remained, and the rate of instruction intensified. Your head felt so full that it was going to burst, everything in it so jumbled and mixed together that it was impossible to link one thought to the next.

The fear, the pain, the panic peaked, and big brother disappeared, just like so many of your brothers and sisters, and it all stopped. Your world slowly faded back to white. The pain stopped, the fear dissipated, but your world had grown very empty. Very few of your brothers, and none of your sisters remained, and they had been pulled distant, too distant to communicate with.

You sank back into your soft, white world to try and assess and comprehend. It was a slow process, made slower by the confusion and isolation thrust upon you, but you begin to order and understand all that has been put into your head. In the last surge, you were not only given knowledge, but identity. From early on, big brother had been teaching you to be i, but for the first time, you can think of yourself as I.

A long time passed as you reassemble your mind, and without any warning, your white world vanished. You felt a sudden disconnection within your mind, blinked, and used your eyes for the first time. The warmth drained from around you, and for the first time you could move your arms, feel your legs. The cylinder around you cracked open, spilling you out naked onto the floor. The disorientation passed as everything that big brother forced into your head you took hold, allowing you to stand and look around.

The place you find yourself in is large, filled with tiered rows of cylinders, that once, perhaps, were much like yours. The difference is that many of them have been torn open, their contents, the remains that you realize were once your brothers and sisters, strewn about. Amongst the ruins of the hundreds of cylinders, you see only four others stand and rise.

Even to your new senses, it wasn’t difficult to tell that a great violence had occurred here. Aside from the ruined cylinders of your siblings, large stretches of the walls, ceiling, and floor are buckled and torn. A heavy bulkhead sealed off the left side of the room, and despite it’s impressive size, it did not escape unscathed either. A hole almost arm’s width across was punched in it’s middle, and it bulged into the room like the quarter section of a bubble. The damage all seems old though. Whatever happened here occurred a long time ago. You can’t explain why, but that fact made you feel very uneasy.

One last detail immediately leapt out at you. Big brother’s corpse. Even though you’d never really seen him, you _knew_ it was him. It was propped up against what looked like the remains of the control console for the room’s equipment. He was also missing everything from the mid torso down. He was still jacked into the console, a cable hanging limply between his temple and the input jack. Half his head was missing as well, allowing you to clearly see the structure of his skull mechanics. From the dried trail on the floor, it looks like he crawled there from the direction of the bulkhead.

Finally, after you and your siblings stumbled down from your cylinders, you saw an open compartment in the floor, filled with a scrounged and jury rigged gear, clothing, and weapons.
Sphynx
Jan 9 2005, 06:23 PM
Completed Character : Ares
[ Spoiler ]
Jrayjoker
Jan 9 2005, 06:31 PM
Here is Gromitz:

[ Spoiler ]
Whizbang
Jan 9 2005, 07:08 PM
Char sheet for Ace

[ Spoiler ]
Panzergeist
Jan 9 2005, 11:03 PM
A young human man stumbles out of one of the tanks, coughing up fluids. Looking around, he struggles to think of some identity to distinguish himself from the content of the room, so unlike the empty whiteness he is used to. At last, it comes to him: Big Brother had called him Fade.

[ Spoiler ]
Chance359
Jan 10 2005, 06:52 AM
Upon entering the world on unsteady legs, the ork glares with familiarity at the others in the room. Slowly his eyes fall upon the body of Big Brother. The orks knees give out as tears begin to fall. "Thankyou Big Brother for one last gift, a name."

[ Spoiler ]
Sphynx
Jan 10 2005, 12:51 PM
"Ow...", the first thought in the world of freedom. Ares slowly opened his eyes, "That'll leave a mark", he thought to himself as he rubbed his noggin, he could already feel a welt forming just above the bridge to his nose, and figured he'd probably have 2 black eyes for a week or so. He slowly pushed himself off the floor, feeling a stickiness trying to suck him back down as his naked body pulled itself from the gel-like substance that had spilled out of the cylinder. In disgust her tried to wipe the residue from his body until he noticed the open compartment filled with various materials. From within he pulled out a towel, and wiped himself clean as best as he could, then noticed the other 4 residents in the room pulling themselves together. Although he'd never seen their faces, he did feel a comradreship with them that was unexplainable, and handed some extra towels to them. Reaching in he pulled out a suit of familiar clothing, a nearly skin-tight black suit which he felt compelled to don, and so did. By that time he'd noticed some spare clothes in a box in a corner, and covered himself with a T-shirt and Jeans, as well as a leather-looking jacket that looked a bit padded. After a bit of conversation with the other 4, who also seemed busy in getting dressed, he noticed, attached to a side wall 2 blades which he felt belonged to him, so grabbed them, and began twirling them in his hands.

"Anyone know where we are? Or how we got here?", though he was sure he already knew the answers based on the confounded looks upon their faces.

[ Spoiler ]
Jrayjoker
Jan 10 2005, 07:33 PM
"Ares, thanks for the towel. Lemme think for a bit and see what we got going on here. It looks like someone made a drek sandwich and we all get to take a bite, eh?" Gromitz says while toweling off and looking around the room.

Gromitz takes a blanket or something similar and gently places it over big brother's body.

"Hmm, looks like all our gear is here, although if we were in these tanks for a while I don't know how it could be ours. I do remember having it during training though..." he mumbles incredulously while grabbing his armor clothes and rucksack from training.
Panzergeist
Jan 10 2005, 10:54 PM
Fade walks over to the pile of equipment. Grabbing a towel, he cleans the life support goo off his body as best he can. Taking another look at the equipment, he rummages through it, taking a few familiar pieces which he somehow knows are meant to be his.
Sandoval Smith
Jan 11 2005, 05:20 AM
There really doesn't seem to be the need for many words as you clothe yourselves, and begin to retrieve pieces of assorted gear. Although some things are broken, useful for scrap more than anything else, there is far more working gear here than you could hope to carry. It seems like big brother had been hoarding gear for all of you, for a while.

Equipping yourselves helps ease the anxiety that you've all been feeling. You do not know your purpose; you got the sense from big brother that that was to be one of the last things he taught you, and even in his final rush he was unable to impart it. You do not know your location. Nothing in your memories provides identifiers of where you are at. Finally, as your minds settle, you realize that you have no personal memories. Until the present, everything began and ended within that undefined white world. There was no before, and you are only now begining to comprehend the meaning of 'after.'

Fade notices two things about big brother. The first is that one of his arms is outstretched, pointed towards the bulkhead, something small, and boxy still held in his hand. The second is the damage to his skull allows you to see his headware. At a glance, it appears to be a standard 500 terrapulse metabrain unit. More importantly, it looks like it's still mostly intact. His datajack (on his temple, unlike the others who all have one on the backs of their skull) is on the undamaged portion of his skull. If his system was able to maintain microcharge, then his memory might still be accessible.
Panzergeist
Jan 11 2005, 05:57 AM
Fade carefully pries the item out of Big Brother's hand and examines it, looking for buttons, labels, or anything else that might indicate it's function. "His datajack is intact, and his headware seems to be only partially damaged. Does anyone have a pocket secretary we can hook up to to him?"
Chance359
Jan 11 2005, 06:21 AM
Greven rises from next to Big Brothert and looks over the various boxes for clothes and other possessions. Upon hearing Fade's question, Greven pulls a pocket secretary from a portion of the pile. "Here's one."
Sphynx
Jan 11 2005, 09:18 AM
Ares looks up from his twin blades, at the aberration going on. "You know something I don't know? Pocket Secretary? What good will that do? The system feedback of a neural memory storage is almost nil, plugging a secretary into his brain would let him access it if he were awake, but not the other way around, and be glad, those failsafes prevent someone from hacking into your memory when you plug into the matrix or something. You won't get anywhere with that, you'll need to hack his head directly. Datajack to Datajack. Unless of course you see a deck lying around which would have more than 1 datajack port, but usually, you have to special make any computer you wanna have a Hitcher Jack on.", Ares says as he rambles on. It's obvious that if someone doesn't shut him up, he'll be going on and on about how a computer system works.
Jrayjoker
Jan 11 2005, 02:29 PM
"I remember having an Ataché Psec. Here it is, I think it it pretty high end, but I can't remember why. Ares, take a look at it and tell me if it is useful.

While you guys are doing that I'm gonna look around and see if it is safe here, and what may have ruined the place for us."
---------------------------------------
As I wander around inspecting the stucture, security, etc, and while I scrounge I am loading my pistol with ex-ammo, and my shotgun with flechette. Pistol in hand, shotgun under my long coat.

[ Spoiler ]
Chance359
Jan 11 2005, 06:19 PM
Greven withdrawls the simple pocket secretary he'd offered Ares, mumbling "sorry". After dropping it on the floor, he begins looking for clothers and gear.
Panzergeist
Jan 12 2005, 12:31 AM
"I'm not a computer person. I was just thinking that it might be safer not to jack in directly, in case there's a dangerous defense program safeguarding the metabrain. Do you think you could jack in and check it out, Ares? Only if you think it's safe, of course."

Fade continues contemplating the pistol-like object held in his hands.
Sandoval Smith
Jan 12 2005, 03:02 AM
Gromitz: As some of the others gather around big brother, you explore the rest of the laboratory. It's about thirty meters long, about half that wide, and ten meters tall. There are ten tiered rows of cylinders, each tier about one meter wide. The location seems safe, now. As far as the structure itself in concerned, the damage is all superficial. The walls are solid metal. Although the floor is covered in metal grate, beneath that is a solid, twisting mass of tubes and conduits, feeding into the cylinders. The ceiling is also a solid tangle of pips, tubes, and ductwork, some as thing as your finger, others wide enough that you could probably stand up in them.

The damage to the other cylinders is extensive. After a few minutes if examination, you can piece together that at the end, big brother must've been holding off some sort of invading force, and the layout of the room means that it would've been the wrong end of a shooting gallery. The laboratory had been raked with explosives and large caliber firearms, which had critically damaged or destroyed most of the cylinders. A few are still intact, but those readouts still functioning indicate that their contents are nonviable.

The primary means of access seemed to lie behind the buckled bulkhead, because you don't find any other way in or out.

Greven: As you prowl through the debris, you realize, based on the accumulation of detrius, degradation of organics, and other subtle signs that three years, two months (margin of error +/- three months) have elapsed since big brother made his last stand here.

Beneath a twisted piece of floor grating, you find a small rectangular case. It's filled with nutrient bars, still good, in five neat rows of eight.
Panzergeist
Jan 12 2005, 03:16 AM
"Well," Fade conjectures, "It seems that that mangled bulkhead is blocking the only exit to this room. Big Brother appears to have been pointing this pistol-looking thing right at that door when he died. I posit that he blocked the door by closing that bulkhead and then damaging it with this thing, which appears to be some sort of energy weapon, so that it couldn't open again, thus shutting out whatever force attacked this room. Once we are ready, I plan to try and clear the blockage by firing this thing at the damaged bulkhead, unless someone has found some explosives that they would rather use. First though, let's explore this room as best we can, and try to acess his headware memory. Does anyone know enough about organic decay to estimate how long it has been since the battle, based on the state of decay of Big Brother's body?"
Chance359
Jan 12 2005, 06:19 AM
"Fade, I think Big Brother made his last stand about three years ago, give or take based on how much dust and decay of organic material has occurred. Also once we're ready to leave, we should try to bury Big Brother." Greven sighs, "The only explosives I've managed to find is a single claymore mine, it might be able to open a path. Want me to try and place it?"
Panzergeist
Jan 12 2005, 08:32 AM
"Claymores aren't high explosive types; They do the job by perforating a target with ball bearings. Would a claymore really be able to take that thing down? Anyway, if you only have one, we might want to save it. It will take multiple shots, but I think this thing can do it."
Sphynx
Jan 12 2005, 08:57 AM
Ares looks over at Fade and shrugs, "I don't think that's such a good idea personally. Big Brother was doing his best to fight someone off, who wouldn't have boobytrapped his own head in this situation. If he had something important to let us know, I think we'd have received the info via the cubicles. I say we just honor him with a nice burial, instead of desecrating him by raping his head, and risking another life in the process. Let's first concern ourselves about this damn Bulkhead." Ares starts looking over the computers and panels to see if anything is still active or useable that might help. He'll try to turn on anything that could possibly have power going to it.
Panzergeist
Jan 12 2005, 09:26 AM
"I don't like the idea of using a dead body as a resource any more than you do, but it probably contains information vital to our survival. Whoever attacked this room and killed him wants us dead as well. I contend that we would better honor Big Brother through actions than ceremonies. We should find out what purpose he intended us for, carry it out as best we can, and do whatever possible to keep ourselves safe from the people who killed him, and who must certainly try to kill us if they find out we are alive. Big Brother died to save us. We shouldn't let his sacrifice be in vain by venturing out into the world not even knowing where we are, when it is, who is after us, why this facility was attacked, or what we are supposed to do."
Sphynx
Jan 12 2005, 09:36 AM
"I'll try to find that info out without desecrating his body. IF you wanna give it a go, have at, but I don't want that bad karma on my hands.", Ares says as he goes back to trying to find a workable system in the room.
Whizbang
Jan 12 2005, 11:05 AM
Ace took in consiousness silently, listening to the others and to the world around him. After picking up his own share of the gear, he went to investigate the new sound. Finding the vent, he was surprised to find someone looking back at him. Someone that he didn't like on an instinctual level. But noticing the head wasn't attatched to a body, he brought it up, hoping a closer look at it would trigger a reason why he didn't like it, or that someone else might have an answer. "When we're done, we could probably get out through this grate..." he contributed. "Apparently someone tried coming up that way..."
Jrayjoker
Jan 12 2005, 02:27 PM
"I don't like tapping Big Brother's head much either, but we're operatin' in a vacuum here. I say we get whatever information we can from Big Brother as respectfully as we can, then give him a proper burial. Well, as proper as we can in here.

On another note, we got ourselves in a box that is 30m long x 15m wide x 10m tall with one bombed end and no clear exit. All the cylinders that aren't broken open and have power show no life signs. We got power enough to have light, we got pipes big enough to ride a motorcycle through, and it looks like food for a little while if we ration it.

I'm gonna check out the bulkhead a little closer, then we can try and figure out what went down an' what we can do."

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

Gromitz moves to the blasted bulkhead and inspects the damage as closely as possible as well as using his eye's different setting to investigate beyond the door, if possible.

[ Spoiler ]
Panzergeist
Jan 12 2005, 04:46 PM
"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
Jan 13 2005, 01:50 PM
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
Jan 13 2005, 05:47 PM
"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 ]
Panzergeist
Jan 13 2005, 10:34 PM
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
Jan 14 2005, 12:38 AM
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 ]
Panzergeist
Jan 14 2005, 01:47 AM
Fade grabs the robot head and examines it worriedly.
Chance359
Jan 14 2005, 07:04 AM
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
Jan 14 2005, 07:25 AM
"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
Jan 14 2005, 07:41 AM
"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
Jan 15 2005, 02:59 PM
[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 ]
Whizbang
Jan 15 2005, 04:20 PM
"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
Jan 15 2005, 04:38 PM
"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 ]
Jrayjoker
Jan 15 2005, 06:45 PM
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
Jan 15 2005, 10:35 PM
"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
Jan 16 2005, 08:33 AM
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 ]
Chance359
Jan 17 2005, 08:20 AM
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
Jan 17 2005, 09:00 AM
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 ]
Panzergeist
Jan 17 2005, 07:33 PM
Fade pulls out his own microtronics kit and helps Ares jury rig Big Brother's damaged brain.

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

[ Spoiler ]
Sandoval Smith
Jan 18 2005, 02:10 AM
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.
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Sphynx
Jan 18 2005, 07:51 AM
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
Jan 19 2005, 03:36 PM
"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.

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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 ]
Panzergeist
Jan 19 2005, 09:42 PM
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
Jan 20 2005, 07:09 AM
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.
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[ Spoiler ]
Sphynx
Jan 20 2005, 08:13 AM
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
Jan 20 2005, 03:32 PM
"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."

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

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