Minimum Attainable Threshold
| Staring | Fräulein Ärtzin, Garbo, Liam, Shirayuri |
| With | Adelaide Gaspar |
| Introducing | Ariel, Gemini, Yomiel |
| Previous Episode | S01E11 – Tailwind |
| Next Episode | S02E01 – Beamwalking |
With their efforts to ascend the SCIRE stymied by the Blues and the arcology's drone defenses, the team reverses course and heads down. They hope to find an alternative exit in the utility spaces, and bring word of what's happening inside to the world at large.
Session 1 - 2024/06/20
Multiple Vehicle Collision
Making their way lower in the garage, they discover the ramps between levels are pretty much impassible. People were clearly able to reach the garages during the initial hours of the shutdown, but between numerous car accidents and traffic jams very few people made it out of the SCIRE. There's clear evidence the vehicles and their passengers were fired upon while stuck in traffic. There are some places where the security partitions between floors came down on top of cars.
Treasure suggests moving laterally and heading seaward, believing there to be a way to cross from the parking garage into the transshipment hub and maybe the loading docks. Though more familiar with the layout of the upper levels, Shirayuri agrees. Even if there isn't access on this particular level, Liam should easily be able to smash his way through; the interior walls are far less robust than the armor-clad exterior walls.
They make their through the garage, dodging patrols of Medusas. They appear to be operating in small groups of three to five, hunting together like a pack of lions. The group manages to evade them, but there are no opportunities for any more than a few minutes break.
Bear Necessities
The overhead lights are off in transshipment area and don't respond to manual controls, but there is evidence the area is not entirely offline. The containers are still receiving power for their manifest display systems.
The group opens a variety of containers, looking for loot. They find plenty of material, but none of it useful — dolphin fountain statues, construction girders, jet engines, arcade game console cabinets, and so on. The only remotely useful thing is a container full of candy.
As they get deeper into the area, they identify a sickly sweet smell which Liam identifies as a dead or dying animal. They're swiftly attacked by two disease laden Awakened bears. They're able to drop them with gunfire and magic, and discover the source of the smell: human corpses the bears had been feeding on.
Atrocities in Babysitting
| Who | Fräulein Ärtzin, Garbo, Liam, Shirayuri, Adelaide Gaspar, Ariel, Yomiel |
| When | Saturday, January 17, 2060 (Day 30) |
| Where | Training Center, SCIRE, Level B12 |
On reaching the training level, they find no activity — no Blues, no Dervishes, no Medusas. The locker rooms have mostly been swept of gear, but they do find one suit of security armor that might fit Garbo. They also find the water still functional, so Adelaide takes the opportunity to clean of the blood and soak some of her other injuries. The others avail themselves of the hot water, too.
The locker room is attached to a briefing room or training room of some sort, which opens up on what appears to be a normal house. Garbo believes it be very elaborate "shoot house", a training area for things like hostage situations. They skirt around the outside of it, eventually finding their way into the control and observation room. Most of the systems are off, but two large screens are showing views from inside the house, the field of view showing cameras in typical places you might find them in a home, like the trideo set, kitchen appliances, and bathroom mirrors.
They immediately identify two Whites in pajamas watching trideo and a normal-looking human female in the kitchen. She comes out with a tray full of snacks, and the girl almost immediately knocks it out her hands. In a rage, the little girl shouts at her. There's no audio, but the team is able to lip read well enough: "he" doesn't like popcorn, she's supposed to be a good mother not a racist bitch, and she needs to get back in the kitchen and do it right. The woman has her back to the trideo set's camera, so it's difficult to see her immedate reaction. She cleans up the mess, and when she returns to the kitchen and the refrigerator's field of view, it's clear she is terrified. She brings a new tray, with no popcorn this time and this girl does a complete 180 in personality. "Mother" goes into dining room and inside there is a guy sitting at the end of the table, he looks like he is asleep. She takes his hand just sits there. At some point someone was in the room and watching the house, they had pitched various drink and food wrappers without care.
Fräulein, Shirayuri and Garbo sit down at the computers, amidst scattered soft drink cups and food wrappers (evidence somebody has been here). Between the three of them they figure out that somebody has been observing the two whites — Ariel[1]and Yomiel[2], both angelsand that there is a list of people. (Nothing real scientific note wise but there is notes.) Boy and Girl are listed as Ariel and Yomiel is one of the angels from book of Enoch. It dawns on Ariel is also an angel name. Another thing that is in there, this is 6th pair that have been sent down here. The other 5 pairs were "Disposed of for Unsatisfactory Performance" of their assigned roles. They been here for 10 days.
Garbo notices that she seems so sweet, so damaged, but he is not buying it. She seems too perfect for her role.
Session 2 - 2024/06/27
| Who | Fräulein Ärtzin, Garbo, Liam, Shirayuri |
| When | Sunday, January 18, 2060 (Day 31) |
| Where | Holding Tanks, SCIRE, Level B13 |
At top side of room Fräulein sets off motion sensors of the Dervishes. She locks them in a barrier. The Drone ends up ramming the barrier and breaking it. Group makes it into the Sluice Gates.
Session 3 - 2024/07/11
Group moves unseen and into hiding, Fräulein spends time healing Shirayuri. On other side of tank Treasure slips past Garbo, rubbing up on him, and then tells Liam that Garbo copped a feel, Liam believes her but it still feels wrong. Garbo says he found where think to send commlink out, Liam also found stairs. Shirayuri will carry Fräulein up with the commlink.
A White sees Shirayuri, she jumps up onto the tube at them, White just slips past, and then guard runs at Shirayuri and drops dead.
Garbo had to kill Treasure, Liam knocks out Shirayuri out and we escape through breaking through glass.
Outside SCIRE, we damn near do not make it, still a lot of water and pressure and distance from surface and end up dragged on board a UCAS Naval Destroyer.
| Who | Fräulein Ärtzin, Garbo, Liam, Shirayuri |
| When | Sunday, January 18, 2060 (Day 31) through Friday, February 6, 2060 (Day 50) |
| Where |
We avoid getting thrown into a hole because Garbo reveals he is retired FBI, pulled in to be debriefed. It takes 3 weeks, we do not see each other for all that time either. Kazuki says he is Shirayuri's brother and they buy it.
References
- Previous: S01E11 – Tailwind
- Next: S02E01 – Beamwalking