Lush Wasteland: A Post-apocalyptic Cyberpunk World - IC

[Meany]

"Oh there is no need for that, Traxen.  The GSG service pack three has that ability built in.  Thank you for the offer, though."  Elberta smiled, right up until the boy starting crowing about how he was ready for soldiering.  Oooh, that simply wouldn't do.

Elberta was a nice lady, mostly.  But she also had to live here, and letting a child wander around with delusions of soldierdom would only end in tragedy that Elberta would end up hating herself for.  The Knight thanked Traxen politely, then took the earpiece and replaced it on her ear, then excused herself from the conversation.  Then she calmly and quietly went over to the boy, and would tap his shoulder to get his attention.

"Excuse me, but I overheard you boasting that the only thing you needed to be a soldier?  Your analogy with Alexander the Great has a few flaws, namely that with all due respect Alexander was very likely brain damaged due to inbreeding, and had killed his own father to obtain those troops in the first place.

Now I don't mean to be rude, but as a soldier and a trainer of soldiers, I must ask you this:  How many people have you killed?  If the answer is none, then you aren't ready."

[Tezkat]

"What! That is so unfair! Did Mom put him up to this? I've only been working for you guys since like there was a Factionless, but now it's okay to bring in total strangers and not me?" He gestured sharply at the new people in the room. "Fine. Whatever. Who cares about your stupid carrots anyway."

He turned and looked up when Elberta tapped him on the shoulder, continuing to seethe throughout her condescending speech. At her question however, he frowned and glanced away.

"Only two. It was back when we were trying to escape from Pohd. The company sent hunters after us. They managed to drop Dad, and I just... I just kept at them till they stopped moving." He brushed Elberta's hand aside. "I was five years old. I've had a decade to practice. It won't be quite so messy next time."

He swiped his hoverboard off its perch and stormed out of the room, leaving a faint smell of ozone in his wake.

[WhiteFox]

   Arial shook her head. "Naya, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to tell Cray that I can't take this job. There's no problem with the mission itself, but the organization he has here is a mess: lax security, sloppy procedures, and poor communication. If he needs any contract work done, I'm still up for hire, and he's still one of my best customers... but I can't join his group in the state it's in now."
   She turned to the room as a whole. "Best of luck on the mission," she said. Then she nodded goodbye, and left.

[Inumo]

"Sparky--" Naya sighed as she saw Sparky's retreating figure. "Don't you realize this is exactly why he thinks you're not ready?" She breathed, too soft for most to hear. She waved goodbye to Ariel. "Sorry to hear it, Ariel. Good luck with your smuggling ventures. Be careful in the storm."

Finally, she stepped up onto the platform. "Alright, I've heard a lot of discussion about this, but it seems like there are three options you guys are suggesting." She placed a hand onto a nearby root sticking out of the wall. A bulleted list appeared on the projection wall, sharing the space with the annotated map. "One, you could do a full frontal assault, going in, grabbing, and getting out. No subtlety, no tech hacking, simple. Two, you can try to sneak in, steal the stuff, falsify the records, and get out without getting caught. No disguises, but it'd require a lot of stealth skills that the group might not have. Three, you create the illusion of a royal party coming to the fortress and infiltrate the base, stealing the seeds and again falsifying the records before getting out... whenever." She let her hand drop. "It's your call. I'll be hear if you have any more questions. Our resources are yours; just requisition them from the guys in the Garage."

[Meany]

Ah, so the little boy's already a murderer.  Maybe he did have the stuff to become a soldier after all.  In five or six years from now, when his was old enough to be held accountable for the monster he might become.  And it seemed Ariel had been true to her word, leaving.

Elberta felt oddly happy for her, and angry at the same time.  Angry for the android's abandoning the mission, and happy that she had the freedom to do so.  "Without Ariel on board, I don't know if we have the capability to falsify a royal visitation, unless Traxen can manage it without leaving the escape vehicle?"

Elberta sighed and sat down at one of the benches.  "What options do the infiltration experts recommend?"  She regarded the two.  The feline...thing.  It was confident, to the point of hubris, but that confidence was obviously backed up with experience and equipment.  The other one was more approachable, and Elberta found herself almost taking a liking to her; almost being the key word.  One did not befriend spies if they valued their backs being un-stabbed.

"All I need to requisition is some lightweight armor, maybe a decent all-purpose rifle.  Have to save money in the mission budget for the more technological people, after all."

[[OOC: Edited due to new muse fairy.  ]]

[Lisky]

Darkshine gave a loud, audible sigh and walked out towards the garage.  He was tired of elaborate plans that involved far too much risk for far too little reward.  He had more important things to attend to... such as the fabrication of his explosives.  

Amateurs the lot of them.  The one person who'd shown promise had left, and, since he needed the materials he had no real option be babysit the party.  He needed some proper support, someone who could actually pull a trigger, and keep moving.

Opening some panels on the jet-bike, Darkshine's first priority was to retrieve his carbine, a high-powered energy weapon that could put a pin-point beam of energy through a man's skull at over 500 yards.  "Hey, Ranger, ping the technophile, and inform him you'll need to sync with his systems to get properly established comms... While i'd much prefer to do this on my own, i was paid to work with the team... If this goes tits up... which it probably will... well... i'll have to try and keep 'em alive."

A few moments later, Ranger pinged a text message to Cybee:
To: Technophile
From: Ranger (Darkshine's assistant)
Msg: In need of comms syncing for future mission, in garage acquiring mission-necessary equipment.  Note that more data is needed for any further planning.  Suggest ending briefing for now, and focus on more important tasks.


Darkshine himself wandered off with a few rods of metal, a small bag of sand, and the data-chit with the information on how to build the weapons and ammunition he needed.  He went to go hunt down the nano-forge and actually get things ready for when the storm passed... the others might not appreciate it, but he knew all to well that all intelligence is time sensitive.

[techmaster-glitch]

   Traxen watched the scene between Naya and Marcus with a little sadness. But as Sparky walked away, it was Cybee who voiced out.
  "Aww, he would have been okay to have along, I'm sure. It wasn't like he was unprepared..."
  "But Mr. Cray does run this base." Traxen finishes.
  There was then the surprising development of Arial excusing herself on her own. Traxen actually did look to her as she left...but after she was well out of sight, he realized he was still holding her suit. Oops.
  With a sigh, Traxen set the suit down on a nearby table and continued to watch the proceedings. Even Darkshine left, and by now Traxen was starting to get uneasy. Naya clarified the plans she'd been hearing so far, and Traxen nodded to them.
  "As said, I don't think we have the intelligence needed to commit to any plan just yet. We should probably just head out to the base, observe it for some time, and then decide on our course of action on-site."
  Traxen looks to Elberta. "Actually, I can set you up with both while in-transit to our objective. As I said, I have a miniature workshop and fabrication setup in my APC. I can get almost anything you want to your custom specifications." Traxen said, grinning slightly.

****

  Back in the garage, Cybee was crunching data and simulating things, as the AI does as a pastime, when she got the ping from Ranger.
  With some small surprise (as far as an AI goes), she contacted her creator.

****

  "Traxen, Darkshine's assistant Ranger is asking about synching the comms. Shouldn't he have stayed with you for that? He's also mentioning the lack of information, and that the briefing should be finished up." Cybee's voice emitted from the device on Traxen's arm.
  Traxen frowned. "Yes, he...should have." Traxen rubbed his forehead. "Go ahead and explain to him how you want. And yes, we should already be about done here."
  "Roger!"
  Traxen looked around to the others. "Well, if indeed everyone is fine with finishing here, shall everyone who's on this mission head to the garage? I can show you all my APC, and get everyone's comms worked out." Traxen asked.

****

  In the garage where Darkshine was passing through, a femenine voice suddenly emitted from one of the largest vehicles in it, the APC.
  "Hello there, Darkshine and Ranger. It's me, Cybee, over here in the APC. About the comm syching, you actually should have stayed with Traxen. You see, we don't comminicate via simple encryption schemes. Unless you've got some pilfered Aeth technology on you--possible, but unlikely--your equipment is not even capable of picking up our communications. Traxen must actually modifiy whatever you are using as your comm device to connect it to our network."
 

[Inumo]

Conference Room

"If we're all done here..." Naya wiped the panel clean, map and all. "I'll send the directions to the base to Cybee, 'kay, Traxen?" Turning to Emily, she added on to Traxen's statement, "You can also find the plans with the guy manning requisitions. Just follow the signs, it should be easy to find. I'll see you all when you return."

Workshop

After asking for directions and following the signs, Darkshine eventually found his way to the workshop. "Whatcha need, sirrah?" One of the techs manning the 'shop asked. "You got the plans you need to make it? Requisitions should have it if you forgot 'em."

((EDIT: Corrected an error in who Naya was addressing. Edit reverted. Seems I was a bit too late...))

[SquirrelWizard]

Emily shook her head at "Sparky's" outburst. "And that is the reason you aren't old enough. You know how, but not why, or when."

She cast a slightly annoyed glance at Naya when she mentioned the requisitions officer, but refrained from speaking. She gathered her equipment and left the briefing room alone with her thoughts. "This is bad, real bad. I'm amazed these people haven't been crushed by now. Factionless... who the hell calls themselves 'Factionless.' Thats a state of being, not the name of a group or organization. Even worse is their administrative skills. We needed the intel at the meeting, not after we split up to prepare. That is assuming there is intel on this base to begin with. Gods, Emily, what did you get yourself into this time. A techi and two lead heads, and the only thing that will be standing between them and them doing something stupid is going to be me working my ass off and probably a miracle or two. Considering how shaky things are, I should probably hit the garage and see what kind of transportation we have available. If anything we can look for a quick getaway vehicle."

Her wanderings had finally brought her to the garage, she stepped in and took an appraising look around.

[Lisky]

Hearing the sounds behind him, Darkshine ducked behind a vehicle.  He slide his fingers into the hidden latch, and flipped the plate open.  Most people announced their presence, especially when they were alone.  Either they hadn't spotted him, or they had other plans... sinister plan.  He took the pieces out, and carefully assembled them.  At first, it looked like a couple of oddly shaped metal plates with rods and coils.  By the time it was finished, the compact hand-gun looked every bit the part that it was.  A small, hand-sized, hyper-velocity weapon, capable of putting the glass beads it used as ammunition through a man at well over 100 yards.

He listened, carefully, there was an announcement that he was going to have to seek out the technophile again.  This information was absorbed, and pushed to the back of the feline's mind.  He was far far more concerned with the here and the now.  Peaking out from behind the transport he'd taken refuge behind, the feline spied who'd entered the garage behind him.  A familiar looking female.  She was armed, but didn't appear hostile.  No signs of a killer on the prowl, the posture was wrong.  She was just uninformed.

He peaked out, setting his own weapon into his thigh-riding holster, making it's grip visible.  He called out "What brings you down here... is the planning session over?  Or did you realize that there's nothing we can do until we get some hard intelligence, as well?"

Carefully moving towards his own jet-bike, Darkshine's movements were slow, steady and purposeful.  He kept his eyes on Emily the entire time.  He didn't trust her, and the fact that she'd shown up behind him, with minimal announcement still made him uneasy.  At least he was armed this time.  As much as a shootout would put a damper on his day, it seemed about par for the course, based on the incompetents he'd been forced to deal with already.

[SquirrelWizard]

"Well, he sure is wound up. Ugh... last thing I need is him trying to find a reason to shoot at me."

Emily gave Darkshine a crooked smile in response to his question, "I must say, I'm impressed. I thought I was the only one in that room who noted the distinct lack of any real Intel. I came down here to get a look at what our options are for transportation. That will factor heavily into what our options will be." She cast a glance back behind her and slowly approached Darkshine, "I'll be honest here. You, me, we're the only people on the team that has shown any degree of competence, and our employers aren't shaping up much better. We need to be working together, not against each other. I've been in recon for quite a while and I trust you can handle your weapons very well; but are you a man who knows when to use your weapon, and when to let a woman take charge?"

[Lisky]

The feline's toothy grin at her seemingly straight-forwardness showed the long, razor sharp fangs he kept oh so pure white.  He patted his pistol and snickers, "I'm not just a gunslinger, first of all.  Those cowboys are a dime a dozen.  I'm more along the lines of a fast reaction force.  A saboteur, an infiltrator, call it what you will, my skills revolve around getting into difficult place, completing a mission, and getting out.  My plans i offer are merely the best options i could see with the available intel.  Which, is to say, not very much intel, which means any plan is bound to have it's run of SNAFUs."

He shrugged, rolled his shoulders back, walked towards Emily.  His movements oozed with the grace of his feline half, a slight swagger to his step, as he flowed across garage.  "I know how to operate under a handler, if that's what you're asking.  The real question, do you think you have what it takes to take on the role?  I've been known to be more than a handful, after all.  It's not that i don't play nice, it's just that most of the time, my supposed other half just can't keep up.  While i'm working the field, My handler is supposed to be handling the intel, feeding me directions, and telling me what to plant where, what to take out, and which doors to use.  The problem is mental dexterity, compared to my natural agility.  Most just don't have the endurance to keep up with my kind of pressure, they crack, or they need a break.  Either way, it generally leaves me with a dissatisfied feeling."   

He snickered at the woman,  "So, are you making an offer?  Think you're up to the task of taming the beast?"  he asked in a playfully voice. 

[SquirrelWizard]

Emily playfully smiled, "I don't know... we'll have to see if this beast is worth taming.. or if he is all strut." she turned and slinked back to the entrance of the garage, pausing at its entrance to glance back at Darkshine, "I've seen all I need of their vehicles, I'm going to look at what Intel they have about the place. Perhaps you might want to weigh in on it later?" Emily flashed him a final devious grin before leaving the garage.

[Lisky]

As the woman left back for the briefing room, Darkshine himself headed off to find the fabrication facilities.  A short, uneventful adventure later, and the feline found himself at the right place. He passed the small drive off to the man,  "I need 5 of the thermobarics, 4 stun-grenades, 2 flash-bangs, 300 5mm glass beads built to the specifications on this drive, and 2 spare power-cells, specs also on the drive.  think you can do all that?"  He asked, he smiled pleasantly at the man and awaited his gear.

Ranger chimed in,   From what i've seen... this is going to go tits up at the drop of a hat, and you're busy making a pass at the first piece of competent ass that walks your way.   Seriously... you should either drop the job, or at the minimum, drop the barracks while you're out.   Go at night, while the security forces are changing, take out the barracks, take out the security room, sweeper-team in and out... 15 minutes, tops.

"while i share your enthusiasm for simplicity... the others are going to be tricky to convince.  Let's just get the gear... okay?"

Fine, we'll talk, later.  Don't forget to see the technophile

[techmaster-glitch]

(OOC: Presuming Elberta follows Traxen)

  After Darkshine and Emily had finished their little conversation, one particular APC with external cameras and microphones controlled by an AI put them in sleep mode. As a digital construct, AIs aren't much for what a biological person would call "thought", as AIs just process and do, no real random thoughts...yet this one was able to distictly think the word "fascinating".

***

  Traxen nodded to Naya. "Alright." Emily had also already left, so Traxen looked to who else was left--just Elberta? Well, it seemed the manpower for this mission was being sapped fast.
  Looking at Elberta, he said "Well, I guess I should show you my APC, then try and find the two other stragglers...can't contact them because they didn't give me a chance to fix their comms..." Traxen sighed. "Ah well."
  After wandering through a few passageways, Traxen emerged into the garage, and walked towards his APC.
  "Welcome back, Traxen!" Cybee's voice said, emitting from a hidden external speaker on the APC.
  "I wasn't really gone anywhere, but okay." Traxen replied. He turned to Elberta. "Well, here it is..."
  The APC in question was sleek, yet very angular, and all black. Despite being one of the larger vehicles in the garage heightwise, it was still a little lower than it was wide. It floated a foot in the air, held aloft by a hoverlift generator. Some small doodads stuck out of the APC, but it seemed most external things, if any, were either armored or hidden. On the other hand, the inside would probably be a lot more interesting...

[Inumo]

Hole-in-the-Wall Workshop

The tech at the workshop hid a smile behind his hand at the sight of Darkshine wandering about in the garage for so long. "Nice little dance with Emily ye did there. Was that you flir'in' or business?" He spoke at a rather rapid pace, and shook his head. "Anywho, 'less you got the mats for those stuns and flashes, you're gonna need ta do withou'. All the plans we go' take bio-components, something we ain't got much of thanks to a lack o' facilities. Thermobarics, on the other hand, well, we managed to scrounge up an older plan that used some more non-living parts." He tapped a few things out on a touchscreen on the wall, before turning back to the leopard. Taking the materials and chit that the leopard was carrying, the tech continued, "I'm assumin' these're for those specialty items you wanted... I'll make sure they ain't used for more than ye want." Plugging the chit into the data port, he loaded up the plans and dumped the materials down a chute. "It'll be oh, thirty minutes 'til yer order's done. Go ahead 'n' do as ye please until then."

Requisitions

Li looked up as Emily asked about the intel they had on the fortress. "Did Cray not...? For the love of...! How did he get appointed in the first place? Wait, right, nobody ran against him. The guy's a paranoid buffoon. Took the original intel with him, and said it was officially 'classified.' I can't believe he didn't even share it with Naya..." Sighing, he let out a breathy, I-can't-believe-it laugh. "Fortunately for you, I made a copy which he didn't explicitly state was classified." Handing Emily a folder, Li said, "Here's what we have. External patrol schedules, equipment, our contact, whatever we could get without having to go in ourselves. Hope it helps."

[Meany]

Your place, my place, or the car?

"Indeed I would, Traxen."  The Knight got to her feet and strode off after the inventor.  Her heels sending clicks into the air, perhaps a bit stronger than they had when she'd first arrived.  She was testing the interface of her new comm. with her eye, as much as she could without involving another party.  While they traveled, however briefly, Elberta considered the advisability of sending her, a Maki escapee, back into the miniature monarchy.  She certainly had the self control to go on a rampage, but knowing bureaucrats as she did, having been one, they should have conveniently forgotten that fact.  Something was up.

Then she saw the vehicle.  To be fair, she'd seen it in passing a few times when going out for leisure drives, but seeing it as an escape vehicle made it seem like the first time again.  "She's lovely, Traxen.  I won't be so bold as to ask to see its specifications.  Just answer me these:  What is its maximum acceleration, fuel capacity, load capacity, and predominant hull material?"

[Lisky]

Setting the timer, Darkshine left the little hole in the wall office, and headed back into the Garage proper.  He heard people talking again.  Clearly there was no protocol about announcing your presence around here.  He was a little unnerved by the entire thing.  People coming up behind you unannounced was a surefire way to get yourself shot... so, practicing protocol on base -should- be a higher priority, or so Darkshine thought.

He continued his graceful prowl, taking no effort to hide himself at this point, while strolling back to the jetbike.  "Hey, ranger, unlock rack 3, i'm gonna grab the carbine and mask now.  I think some of these happy-go-lucky folks need a bit of a wake-up call."

He slowed his pace slightly as the click of mechanical locks ticked in the feline's ear.  He slid the latch opened, flipped the lid opened, and got his gear.  First donning the dark mask and checking the seals to ensure it had both power and provided an appropriate filter against possible contagions and chemicals.  He then retrieved the compact assault weapon, clipped it to one of the simple brackets built into his suit, the carried on.  He had the weapon's stock folded to the side, making it's profile even smaller.  While the weapon was absolutely recoil-less the stock did improve accuracy for longer range shots. 

He clamped the full headset down down, and began a system check.  His face was concealed behind the thick material that made up his armor, and the breather mask.  He checked the readout on the carbine, all system green.  With equipment ready, Darkshine headed towards the newcomers, a shadowy figure, decked out for combat and a posture that oozed with a little bit more predatory grace than usual.  He walked up to the pair at the entrance in silence, cocked his head to the side and asked in a flat tone, "Finally realize that nothing was going to get done in that room? or did you just get tired of hearing yourself talk?"

[techmaster-glitch]

   The voice emitted from the APC again.
   "Hee hee, she called me lovely, Traxen!" Cybee said, in a playful tone unusual for an AI.
   Traxen rubbed his forehead. "She's talking about the APC, Cybee. You're an AI, and the APC wasn't even meant to house you."
   "Well, I like it, so I consider it my chassis."
   Traxen sighed. "Anyway. Actually, I'll show you around the inside, and besides, even if the whole schematics for the thing were handed out, it wouldn't exactly be able to be reverse-engineered by anyone but another Aethean, our systems are a little subtler than most everyone else's. As for your questions... thanks to the hoverlift, it can get up to some pretty impressive speeds, but because of it's mass, it doesn't get to those speeds very quickly, and once it does, it can be hard to handle as it tends to slide. It is rather 'agile' at low speeds, though. It's powered by a microfusion generator, so I usualy only need to worry about feeding it every month or so. As an APC, it can of course carry or even drag a whole lot of weight, but, uh...I've kinda taken up most of the interior space with it being converted in a mini-workshop, and it still needs to house all my inactive robots. As for the hull...one of the better products of Aeth metallurgy, it's a tough alloy intended for armored vehicals. It can take a couple rockets or landmines with little trouble, but not so much with sustained punishment."
   At that point, Darkshine arrived. At least, it could only have been Darkshine, unless someone else was wearing the exact same kind of armor and just happened to put on a helmet. Traxen tilted a head at the man.
   "Not sure what you mean by that, but good, you're here now. Let me see what you've got for comm gear and I'll jack you into my network."

[Meany]

"I'm afraid I don't have the technical knowledge needed for such a tour to be quite as impressive as I believe it would be, but I'll see it anyway.  Thank you for offering."  And the feline was back.  Being snide again.  If Elberta was a less mature person, or less polite, she'd find him annoying.  Since she was neither of those, she elected to consider him an 'eccentric professional.'  Much more politically correct.  "Ah, Mr. Darkshine good to see you again.  What is your opinion of Traxen's vehicle?"

Was that a new gun the infiltrator was sporting?  Hmm, nice.  Very efficient.   Once the cat had finished saying whatever he had to say, Elberta would speak up again.  "Traxen, does your offer to improvise a rifle still stand?  If so,"  the Knight drew out her Widowmaker, and spun the grip to offer it to Traxen, "I'd like it to be of as similar a design to this as possible." 

[Lisky]

Sliding a small chit out of the left side of the mask.  Darkshine handed it over to the technophile.  "Here's my comm-suite.  Do what you must, give it back as quickly as possible."  His was more than a little annoyed that he couldn't just send a data-package with encryption coding and the signal jumping times. 

"An armored vehicle has it's uses in combat.  However, i would point out that this is a stealth operation.  For a support vehicle, it's lovely, for a transport, i'm sure she'll do fine.  For a vehicle to stealthily transport us to and from the site... i'm a bit concerned.  A tank isn't exactly hard to find.   Even if they don't have sensors scanning every square inch of the surface, we're going to need to dismount well away from the tunnel entrance, and move in on foot.  A small vehicle could get considerably closer.  Though we'd need more of them.  Until further data can be acquired, i shall hold my judgment on just how effective a vehicle she really is."

His tone was cold, matter-of-fact.  there was no mirth, nor annoyance, he was stating his rough evaluation from what he could observe.

"I think a better question would be, just what talents do we have to work with for this operation?  And who has actually been tested in combat?"

[SquirrelWizard]

Emily thumbed through the documents she had been given. A brief investigation didn't paint a pretty picture. Reaching over to her wrist comp, she slid the lid back. Touching the screen she typed out a brief message.

Code Select Expand


To: Darkshine, Traxen, Elberta
Fr: Glimmer
Subj: Meeting in Garage
I've retrieved Intel on our objective. Rendezvous in garage for further briefing.


Confirming submission, Emily slid the lid back into place and left Requisitions, heading back to the Garage.

[Lisky]

Ranger relayed the message.  Darkshine silently thanked the girl for her initiative, before replying via his own message

To: Scout
From: Ranger
Subj: RE: Meeting in Garage

Already here with a pair of rather upbeat individuals... they seem to be on the mission... though only god and the commander could ever know why... current assessment puts them as idealistic young fools who are more bravado than experience... The knight might have some ability... but i have yet to see anything but her ability to speak for quite some time without saying anything at all...  Please hurry... otherwise this quartet might be advertising itself as a trio. ;D  mission essential equipment  ready in 30 min... hopefully we can leave once supplies are ready.

He typed the message out, then casually leaned against a pillar... he was half-tempted to draw the repulsor... just to see if either of them had the any type of combat reflexes... however... people getting hurt because of him wouldn't look good for future contracts... so instead he just waited idly for one of them to respond to his earlier question... he particularly focused on the knight... his entire body language practically screaming 'well?'

[techmaster-glitch]

   Traxen accepted Darkshine's comm gear when he handed it over. His thoughts of wondering why he couldn't just get codes were partially answered when Traxen's cybernetic hand slip open again into a multitude of tiny, spindly arms and tools, which quickly and efficiently disassembled the entire piece into its constituent components. Traxen's cybernetic eye repeatedly refocused as he turned each component over, fiddling with them. Moments later, the components were reassembled, and the module was in one piece again.
  Traxen held it out to Darkshine. "There you go, you are now in my network."
  As Darkshine gave his evaluation of Traxen's APC, Traxen just listened. What he said was reasonable and made sense, Traxen was already thinking along the same lines. To Darkshine's question, Traxen replied; "Well, as said, I have many drones and robots with which I can perform reconnaissance and fire support with, but I can also do any field fabrication you need with my workshop setup in the APC." Traxen thumbed to it.
 Traxen then turned and took notice of Elberta. "Oh, sure thing--" Then he saw the gun itself. He carefully took it. "So, just to be clear...you want a rifle, in a similar aesthetic style as this weapon?"

[Meany]

"Yes, thank you."  Was that a tone of disbelief in the technophile's voice?  Oh well, some people couldn't roll with the punches as well as she.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  There was, however a question to answer from the feline...person.

"Mr. Darkshine, I have a fair bit of combat experience.  My most recent sortie was shortly before coming here a half dozen months ago.  I have limited sniper capability, and may make use of genetic manipulations to excel in hand to hand combat, and sprinting.  Does this answer your question?  If not, I'm afraid I cannot help further.  Traxen, if you could tell me when to expect the new weapon, that would be delightful."

[Inumo]

Base-Wide

A call went over the intercom across the base. "Storm's over! Surface is available again!" People start to wander past as they head for the nearest surface access, while some of the more permanent installations flip a switch and ride a lift back up to their surface groves. Garages, meeting areas, most crossroads, all were temporarily packed as the Factionless members emptied themselves of the sunless dirt tunnels.

((Garage people, the driveway back up to the storm is opened up. Emily/SW, there's a hatch in the comm-req sector for you to use. When you reach the surface, the ground will be dry. Some dirt might be caught in some of the trees' bark.))