/* Backstory */
Project: Rising Spirit: Listed under Raymond Garrison’s chart form the hospital subfloor. P:RS is related to the explosion at Worthington Munitions factory. WM is a legitimate company – the Mayor contracted with them to buy heavy weaponry – but is also a front for P:RS. USA, Canada, and Aztlán (Mexico) are involved with the project. The actual project is based in nanotech derived from a project that Ebon was involved in earlier. The nanotech is powered from the subject’s “life essence” and the users have to have magical ability to harness the nanotech. The project was primarily involved in rapid healing, but they found other uses that they refer to as “reconstitution”.
/* Session */
Back at the bar, HC asks for a girl drink. He’s earned a drink, so I give him one. I pour him a shot of whiskey and keep the rest of the bottle for myself. The kid’s a lightweight – he passes out not long after. So, I decide to be decent and carry his ass upstairs so he can sleep in the hammock in storeroom. Bad idea. The little shit threw up on me. I left my sick-covered clothes up there with him so he could clean them in the morning. Also? I don’t want my place smelling like that.
I only drink that one bottle of whiskey – just to take the edge off. I need to be “on” for tomorrow. After all, who knows how many people might be “infected” and what sort of Hell may have broken loose. I know at least “Big Red” is loose and that’s not good.
The next morning I’m having my usual bowl of Cheerios and carafe of coffee, and that shit HC comes down. He hasn’t cleaned the clothes he threw up on. Even worse? He thinks it’s my sick.
What the Actual Fuck, HC?
Ebon finds out that the comms/media blackout we’ve been experiencing is a 15 mi. radius, centering around the Archdiocese at Carrollton and Walmsley. We come up with a plan to masquerade as docwagon employees. Eh, it’s not the best plan, but at least it’s *a* plan.
But before we go, I insist that we need to visit Tuan and tell him about Bien’s fate. We drive to the East, and oddly most of traffic Eastward is dark suburbans with tinted windows. G-mobiles. Something’s up.
We get to Tuan’s and he has new fence with a gate, a big sign in red lettering saying:
Trespassers will be shot!
Naturally, HC just walks right in. I stay at the gate and Ebon stays in the van. In short order, HC returns and we skedaddle. We like Tuan, but apparently he took our advice to batten the hatches to heart, and I don’t think he’d hesitate to shoot us.
We figure that since we’re out this way anyways, we should keep going East and see if we can get outside this comms/media blackout. As it turns out we can’t, seeing as how we come up to a blockade. We stop, and a cop comes up. We ask why we cant go to Slidell, and the bewildered cop asks if we had heard about the quarantine. Not wanting trouble, we turn around and head back to the initial task: infiltrating the Archdiocese.
At the Archdiocese we find a VERY solid perimeter of shocktroops and other assorted types of trouble. Op status: cancelled.
As an alternative, I suggest that maybe HC could hack into the Archdiocese, make us the emergency technicians, and then bring some mission-critical systems down. I figured they’d call us and let us into their own building. It’s all moot right now since HC probably cant handle it. Something to keep in mind though for later use when he’s a bit more skilled.
Instead of storming the castle, we head to Anoosheh’s. We knock on the front door, and one of those asshole clones answers. He’s definitely surprised to see us and irritatedly tells us to go around back and get out of public view. Apparently we’re out of the loop on a lot of shit.
We meet up with Anoosheh in her stupid fancy library. Anoosheh gives us brandy (and man is it good), and she even takes some. This is serious. She informs us that the quarantine has apparently been established to contain an outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease. Riiiiight.
We tell Anoosheh about how the comms blackout centers on the Archdiocese, and the mess that’s going on there. I also fill her in about the affairs at and below the party last night, leaving out Big Red.
HC tells her about the Mayor’s son. Ebon’s pissed at HC because that information is worth something.