3/3 Irene 2011/12/26(Mon)21:31 No. 375324 ID: c460ad
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First I need to stand up.

"Fifty-One. Follow me. We're getting charged, and we're getting out of here."

Oh yeah, now it's 0n!

I'm impressed. Well, get to it. No telling how much longer the generator will go undiscovered by the scavs.

1/2 Irene 2011/12/27(Tue)00:53 No. 375383 ID: c460ad
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I go to the hall, get Fifty-One to give me a boost, and start wiring my Charger Aug into the Light Socket. I temporarily drop Ramo... the knife.

"Irene?"
"Yeah?"
"You're not gonna go all Axe-Crazy on me, are you? I've never seen a sleeper recover that quick before. Cept' the ones that go on killing sprees."
"...No. I haven't... recovered either."
"...Oh. Just keep yourself together then, 'right? I don't know how long it'll take for some Gatherers to wander in from outside. You might have to help fight. I don't got much bullets left."

I swallow hard and try to ignore what Fifty-One just said. I... I have to keep it together.

"Great. The CDM you shoved in me's asking about these 'Gatherers'. How did they manage to take down the entire world in a day if you can take them down with just a knife? For they matter, what else they can do? It's asking about that too."
"Numbers. The more cores get together, the better they fight. Their cores are like augs. The more they have, the more they can do. The more fluid, the bigger they get. When they first came, they came all at once, from all the same places. They were huge and they could do anything. Nobody could do a thing against them. It was like a flood."
"You were saying... that they drained sythetics and dragged them away. What did they do to Organics?"
Killed most of 'em. Dragged some of 'em away. Didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who they dragged and who they killed. Nobody knows what happened to the one's they took."
I try not to think about what they did to the ones they took away.

Looks like I'm wired in.

2/2, ANIMATED Irene 2011/12/27(Tue)00:55 No. 375384 ID: c460ad
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Charging...

Irene 2011/12/27(Tue)00:57 No. 375385 ID: c460ad
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"Shit."
...Power's out.

Well, feel your way along the wall to the ladder.

Also, you need to give juice to our buddy?

Use your LED lights.

We still got a ton of charge out of that! A full day's worth! We're doing good. Give Fifty-One some of that and turn on your lights so we can see.

Think it might be a good idea to try to get the geothermal generator running now? Oh, and ask Fifty-One if the wind generator's still working.

>>375399

But wouldn't that attract the gatherers? Have to put a stop to them before any sustainable power generation solution can be implemented. They'd just dismantle it and cart it off to... to wherever they cart stuff off to.

Irene 2011/12/27(Tue)02:52 No. 375411 ID: c460ad
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I turn on my LED Lamp. Fifty-One turns on his as well. I drop the knife, take off Fifty-One's faceplate and get to work. I give him about twelve hours of charge. Damn this is creepy.
"We're gonna need more than this to get to central."
"I was just thinking that. Is the Wind Farm still in good shape?"
"Busted to hell. What'd you expect?" It's been in the open for Eighty-three years. The pieces that haven't been taken were wrecked by years of weather damage."

>Think it might be a good idea to try to get the geothermal generator running now?
I'm partial to trying my luck outside. The thing's been in disuse for over eighty years, and I'd have to find a way to bring the plant out of lockdown to even access it. It isn't likely that it still works, though I could try if you insist.

I hear some rattling behind me, then the sound of metal hitting concrete. This can't be good.

Turn around.


PicK up knife before you do that though.

Oh and slide over to Mr Droidy-droid's right so you don't get accidentally shot by his guns.

A door opened. Figure out which door then be ready to stab.

>>375411
Uh-oh.
Sounds like something nasty just knocked the grill out of that air vent.

Quickly get out of Fifty-One's line of fire and pick up your knife. Look for what came out of the vent.
I hope 51 has light-amp vision or something, 'cause we can't see anything. Curse this wimpy LED lamp.

Maybe later you could wire your charger to that light you took down. If there's time, which I doubt. Still, keep that in mind. It's going to be a dark trip all the way up otherwise.

Irene 2011/12/28(Wed)19:46 No. 375861 ID: c460ad
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I grab the knife as quick as I can, but I fall on my back.

Fifty-One fires a shot, then hits it again on its way down. The sound of the gunfire is deafening.

My limbs feel like they've turned to jelly. Wh-What the hell have I g-gotten into?

Mmmm. Jelly~

Reeney, you are GoIng to have to 5teel (Not in a literal way in which you may attempt to cover yourself in steel alloy) yourself, because until we get out of here things are just going to get wooooorse.

remember the goal.

>>375861
It's just one of them. One knife blow can kill it. Circle around if it's not dead and shove that thing right in its core..

Irene 2011/12/29(Thu)09:42 No. 375983 ID: c460ad
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>>375861
>>375950
Right. Stay focused on the goal. It's only one of them. I need to stay strong. I'm sure this isn't the worst of what this world has to offer.

Looks pretty dead.

"Shit."
I'm starting to hate that word.

"What now?"
"Three bullet holes. I killed this one already. Salvager-Type must've gotten in.

that sounds not good. work your way to the ladder.

What? No! Take its battery duh!

Insert knife in seam.
Pry open.
Take charge from battery.
Smash the sphere's components.
It's not much, but you're going to need every little bit.

Ask Fifty-One if these damn spheres can communicate over distance. 'Cause if they can, this area's going to get swamped very soon. Time to get moving.

...I really hope these things can't climb ladders...

Irene 2011/12/29(Thu)17:19 No. 376048 ID: c460ad
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I pry the Gatherer open and extract its charge, then tell Fifty-One to stomp out its insides.

"Smart. Wouldn't have thought of it."
"CDM helped with that."
"I'm missing mine already. Still think it's malicious?"
"Yes. I'm getting it fixed though. It's useful, but you still jammed it in me without asking."
"You're stubborn as shit, ya know that?"
"Whatever. How long a distance can these things communicate over?"
"With a transmitter core, about half-a-mile. Without one, more like five-hundred feet. With all this dirt between us and the surface, I'm one-hundred percent sure that this one didn't tell its buddies about us."
"Alright. We going up then?"
"Sure."

We're heading for the ladder ASAP. Who should lead? If Fifty-One does, we've got guns forward, but I won't be able to see anything when we get to the top. If I lead, I'll be able to see whatever's up there, but I might not actually be able to fight back.

right now you are the brains and he's the brawn, brawn first.

>>376048
Always go guns forward.

Irene 2011/12/30(Fri)07:32 No. 376188 ID: c460ad
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With Fifty-One leading, we start our ascent. It's a long way up. If there's anything you want to talk about or ask either me or Fifty-One, now's the time.

i guess ask him who they were hoping to find.

Now would be a good time to ask how Metro survived the Nanoburst. Also, if he knows where the spheres get power when they aren't leeching it out of people. They don't seem to concerned with maintaining infrastructure.

>>376305
A working geothermal power station would be an indefinite power source. The wind turbines too.
Why are they not maintaining major power sources instead of trying to drain synths and droids for scraps?
Just how intelligent are these things?
'Cause I suspect "not very" when in small numbers.

>>376197
And why were you down here looking for Ramone?
Irene only knows him as a co-worker. The kind of guy who keeps a knife in his boot, and goes on about some Glorious Revolution.
He sounds like a loon to me.
What does he have to do with anything?

1/2 Irene 2011/12/31(Sat)11:04 No. 376535 ID: c460ad
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I relay these questions to Fifty-One

>Now would be a good time to ask how Metro survived the Nanoburst.

"Depends who you ask. Church of Balance says the Power of God and the Balance of Organic Unity or some such shit. Lunatics. Something in Metro Central Park is keeping the Gatherers out though. Or any tech. PC Engineering says it's some sorta "electromagnetic phenomenon" or somethin'.

Coalition say their own technological superiority got'em through it. I say luck. The university over there was testing some new tech shield when the nanoburst hit. Stopped em from gettin' the worst of it. They've been improving on it ever since.

Scavengers are mostly like you. They were in the right place at the worst time, and they got lucky. Most of em' came here from other places thinkin' it would be safe here because people survived.

Us? We survived because we were an idea crazy enough to survive. Democracy through AI-oriented distributed computing: The Plurality Core. No more pointless paper-pushing, no more corruption, no more arbitrary decisions by a clueless lot of military and corporate puppets. Everyone gets a say in everything that matters, every possibility looked at. The AI does the rest. Most of our founding members died in the Nanoburst, but a couple of us lived. They gathered in Central and decided that the revolution was still worth fighting for. They scavenged as many of the Distributed Decision Modules as they could get, and started giving them to anyone who wanted to fight for Democracy, Equality, and all that other nice stuff.

These days, we're mostly people The Church or Coalition won't take, and people who won't settle for scraps anymore. We want Liberty.

I'll level with you though, there aren't many of us, and we're losing both people and CDMs by the day. We mostly survive because we're sneaky, and the Coalition and Church are too busy killing each other to care. Gatherers don't seem to think we're worth it."

>Also, if he knows where the spheres get power when they aren't leeching it out of people. They don't seem to concerned with maintaining infrastructure.

"Nobody knows too much about that, but word from Scavengers and other Solo Operations Scouts that got lucky enough to make it farther than a couple hundred miles out out is that they've got working plants. I guess they just can't keep'em running this close to central with all the Coalition soldiers, Balance Honor Guards, and Raiders about. Least not in peace anyway."

>And why were you down here looking for Ramone?
>Irene only knows him as a co-worker. The kind of guy who keeps a knife in his boot, and goes on about some Glorious Revolution.
>He sounds like a loon to me.
>What does he have to do with anything?

"PC command seems to think that he knows something about the Nanoburst. Thale looked petty grim when she gave me the order to go out for this guy.

Don't know too much about him. It was before my time. He sounds like a loon to me though. Was part of a minority that thought we should just kill everyone in charge and replace'em. Started saying about a day before the Nanoburst that the "Glorious Revolution" was upon us. Told everyone to go hide somewhere, 'cause it would be bloody.

'Till recently, everyone thought he was dead. Then a scavenger showed up with some Wind/Geo plant schematics. A couple of the guys from PC engineering noticed the emergency shelters, and PC Records remembered that Ramone worked in one not too far away. Looks like he was alive enough to make it out of here. Don't ask me where he got the battery power to do that.

2/2 Irene 2011/12/31(Sat)11:07 No. 376536 ID: c460ad
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>Irene only knows him as a co-worker.
He... was a friend, actually. His crazy kept me sane. Seeing someone fight that hard with every fiber of his being was... empowering, in it's own way. He told me I could do it too. That I just might not have to be a 5th-class my entire life because some bureaucrat looked at a 12-year-old girl's test scores wrong. That even if I couldn't win, I could still make them hurt. I got a tattoo to break with the non-deviance regulations. I broke other stuff whenever I fixed something. Stole some equipment. Small stuff.

But... if Ramone had anything a all to do with... this... I'll show him where to stick his Glorious Revolution.

Irene 2011/12/31(Sat)12:04 No. 376547 ID: c460ad
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We reach the top.
"Shit! Gatherers!"
I hear a gunshot, and Fifty-One recoils.

>>376536
His knife was in one of those things, so I'm pretty sure this is not at all what he wanted.

He was probably involved with that distributed democracy AI thing. It's possible that self-replicating nanotechnology was involved, but this looks more like sabotage than anything else.

ask if you should start going back down.

Ramone actually managed to off one of the things with a knife moments after they attacked for the first time. That's kind of impressive. Not likely there's more of him left than a knife though.

You did keep the knife, right?

Aw, dammit!
Back up! Back up!
Make it so the gatherers have to climb down; They'll be easier to shoot that way.
Stick that knife in your mouth (by the handle) so you can climb down faster.
Look down the shaft to make sure nothing is coming up.
(Please let nothing be coming up. Please, please, please...)
----------------------
For later: Find Ramone
He's your only thread to what led to all this.
He was also a friend; Someone from your world.
That's worth finding. Maybe even worth saving.

I guess you should be ready to try and catch him if he falls.

going back down might take to long, keep going up if your almost at the top

>>376702
I think they're at the top. That last image looks like Irene's view of Fifty-One taking a shot over the edge of the shaft. Though I could be wrong.

They should still back up, so the gatherers can only come from one direction: Down the shaft. Not all the way back down; Just a bit back.

Irene 2012/01/03(Tue)13:52 No. 377193 ID: c460ad
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"St-start climbing back down!"
"What!?"
"Just do it!"

I stick the knife in my mouth and start climbing down. I hear another gunshot. This had better work.

how strong an impact can you take? you could drop, or grab on to the sides and slide down.

Back up enough that they can't nab Fifty-One from the top of the shaft.
They'll have to climb down, which should slow 'em up. Makes for easier targets.
Once far enough down, stop and shine your light upward.
Try to keep as much of the shaft lit up as you can.

...Hope they don't literally drop on our heads...

Irene 2012/01/07(Sat)13:39 No. 378226 ID: c460ad
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We move down the shaft as quick as we can. I shine my LED at the wall to my left to light it up a little more. Fifty-One hits one of them.

Shout "Shoot right above you, Fifty-One!"
(51pleasedontmiss51pleasedontmiss51pleasedontmiss)
Be ready to climb up and stab that gatherer if it hits Fifty-One.
(51pleasedontmiss51pleasedontmiss51pleasedontmiss)

"straight up coming down the ladder!"

if it get's him keep going down, remember the proverb "I don't have to out run the tiger, I only need to out run you"

>>378490
No, we are not throwing Fifty-One under the proverbial bus. We're armed with a knife, verses who knows how many of these things. Fifty-One goes down, we may as well throw ourselves down the shaft.

Irene 2012/02/03(Fri)14:37 No. 384133 ID: c460ad
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The Gatherer strikes Fifty-One before I even think to shout.

"No!"

I feel the knife puncture it's shell. I think I killed it.

>>384133
Toss it down the shaft.

Get your knife out of that thing right away.
Chuck the dead gatherer down the shaft, otherwise the one above Fifty-One might go for his head.

Shiiiit, boss, looks like life hates ya.

How far aRe we from the floor, Sister-hood? Can we drop down that laDDer and Resident Evil those ugly mOthers?