Some Assembly Required -IC

[Tokko searches for a weak spot in the chaos, a sensitive part of the machine or a fire alarm, a fuse box, anything that can be used for a distraction. See perception test.]

Frag...How about we get the hell out of here before they go on a stampede?

Staring out at the incredible scene before them, Jhon for once agrees with Sparks' uncouth statement. A strange lethargy comes over him and the weapon almost drops from his nerveless fingers.

"Out..." he murmurs, his breath caught in a chest that seems tightly banded in steel. With an effort he forces the words out louder.

"Out! Get us out of here!"

Tearing his eyes away from the weird machine and its host of attendant cyborg drones, Jhon turns to the group and is suddenly struck by the sight of a Meera who seems to have been somehow affected by the chaos in the machine room, or perhaps by the proximity of it and its worker drones.

"Ricky," he calls to the mage doc, "look at Meera! What's wrong with her?"

Then an idea strikes him and he raises the weapon, aiming it at the girl.

"Is she one of them?!"

(Also to clarify, I am using Composure tests for most of Jhon's reactions to stressful situations. St Nougat, if you'd prefer, I'll start showing results in my posts.)

[No need Jagger, I appreciate the role playing. I just wasn't sure if i was clear enough before so I posted a brief clarification to make sure everyone is on the same page. As i said it would not effect the actions at all.]

he tries to shush Meera. " Meera please!" he looks out in fear as the cybogs start turning toward them. "sparks, the door, now .... please..."

"Meera, kindly shut the frag up, you aren't helping." Sparks quickly whips up a special package for the communications protocols and encryption[6d6.hits(5) → [4,5,1,5,4,4] = (2) Two hits to thread a RAT Trojan with the Infectious option Resist Fading 8d6.hits(5) → [5,2,6,2,6,4,2,3] = (3) three hits, making that less of an issue] and uploads it into their transmission stream before closing the doors. "Let's see how that fragging works."

"To fraggin' soon." Sparks dives down and wires a random floor[5d6.hits(5) → [1,3,6,1,2] = (1) one hit]. He then turns, and looks at Jhon for a moment, applies a swift kick to the groin[5d6.hits(5) → [1,3,6,1,2] = (1) one hit]"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FRAGGING MIND?!?!?! IF SHE WERE ONE OF THEM, OR EVEN FRAGGING BROADCASTING, DON'T YOU THINK ONE OF US WOULD HAVE FRAGGING TOLD YOU?!?!?! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US FRAGGING CAUGHT?!?!?!" He takes several deep breaths, visibly trying to calm down, "I know I'm not good with people, but DON'T YOU THINK EITHER TITS OR I WOULD HAVE FRAGGING MENTIONED IF MEERA WERE BROADCASTING ANYTHING? You're the fragging professional, so USE YOUR FRAGGING BRAIN FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN AN ELABORATE COOLING MECHANISM FOR YOUR FRAGGING BLOOD!!!! Right now, your job is getting all the nice civilians OUT OF HERE, AND TO FRAGGING SAFETY!!!!! Now, thanks to you, WE'VE LOST OUR BEST FRAGGING CHANCE TO GET A BACKDOOR INTO THEIR FRAGGING SYSTEMS WITHOUT THEM NOTICING!!!! Am I forgetting anything?"

[Flashing back to Basic with that one....]

As the doors close...

"Ay Dios Mio!! alright" He leans down ot help Meera and then turns his face away from her to the others. "Well, that wasn't good. Ok, let's find another floor and get the hell outta here. Did you SEE how many of those things there were?!! We really need to find a way out. Do you think the other end of hte circuits will get us to the way out? Or should we try somewhere inthe middle?"

He looks about, clearly not hte leader type nor trying to be. He looks scared and nervous as he rubs Meera's shoulder to help calm her.

" And now, we're ALL in this together. NO more yelling at each other!! Lets get through this and get the hell out of here. comprede' ? "

Tokko is in bad shape. He's pale, his hands shaking and his face seems to have more wrinkles then a day before. Dude, you need to calm down. Seeing Sparks opening his mouth to make another wise-arse comment or lash out, Tokko aims both pistols on his head. Up close. I feel we need some groundrules here, so number 1: don't kick the dude with the gun. It's quite self-explanatory, but if you need further exposition, I can provide one. - as he speaks, his face beginning to change, his lips are getting shorter and thicker, revealing his tusks, his eyes are looking bigger and even more crazier as his eyebrow line becoming more emphasized and he drops one gun until it's on the level of Spark's kneecap. Rule number 2: no fraggin' screaming! If you start, the crazy chick starts then the other chick follows until it feels like we have a fraggin' horde of wailing infants on us! And what part of NO TALKING UNTIL ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY haven't you understood?! He pushes the gun's barrel into Sparks face until it hurts. So if I hear one voice above normal volume, I will not care about your tech-wizard magics and I'm going to shoot you in the stomach! You remember what happened with that elf when I shot her in the chest? Wasn't pretty, was it? So call each other names, be a drekhead, I don't care, but if you make so much as a loud fart, I'll turn your insides into goo, understood?

Though Jhon hardly felt the kick to his groin (Damage Resistance: 3d6.hits(5) [2,6,5] = (2 hits), Sparks' tirade gets through and, dropping the weapon to the floor, Jhon grabs the kid by the front of his jumpsuit and lifts him off the floor, bringing the sixteen-year-old up face to face and eye to eye.

"As for getting us captured - who just alerted the entire legion of cyborg drone-heads with his little present?! Who was that, Sparks?"

Jhon lowers Sparks back to the floor, but maintains his hold.

"Listen, all of you," Jhon rasps vehemently, "do you think MCT trains its employees on this kind of drek?! Yeah, I'm a professional - a professional corporate wageslave, just like Andrew there. I have some security training, but not to handle something like this! I'm as lost as the rest of you."

Releasing the kid, Jhon turns away and retrieves the weapon. He stands motionless for a moment, gazing at the dartgun-thing-whatever it is, then jams it behind his belt and looks at the group.

"Listen up, chummers, 'cause its time you hear this and loud&clear. You're all waiting for Tokko and I, or Sparks and Atashi, to rescue you from the boogeymen. Well I got a newsflash for you. We're ALL in this! Tokko and I, Sparks and Atashi, we ALL need rescuing! Tokko and I have the most combat training, but we can't do it all by ourselves! You saw how many of those things were in that room! You think the two of us can just waltz in there and pick all of them off with these things??" Jhon holds up the dartgun and jams it back.

Looking around at the frightened, angry, confused faces, Jhon's own fury abruptly drains away like water through a sieve, and he leans heavily against the wall of the elevator, pressing his hands against his temples. He squeezes his eyes shut for a few moments, his lips moving soundlessly - perhaps in prayer, perhaps in self recrimination.

After a little time, he straightens up, looks from one to another of the group, then says calmly and evenly, "I'm sorry. I know you're all depending on me, as I do myself. But I'm as human as the rest of you. I'm not Superman. I'm doing the best I can."

Jhon looks down at Meera, the girl's fright cutting him deeply as he knows its because of him.
"Meera, I'm sorry. I know you're not one of them. Please forgive me, I was frightened and confused. I was wrong. I won't hurt you, I swear."

He looks at Ricky, asking silently for the mage healer to talk to her, explain to her. Jhon knows she'll listen to Ricky and can only trust that Ricky will understand and tell the girl that Jhon has gotten control of himself again.

Ricky looks up at Jhon, then back to Meera. "Meera, it's alright. I can't imagine what these bastards have done to you. We're going to get you out of here. We're ALL going to get out of here.. TOGETHER. We're all scared, but we're going ot get out of here. Sparks is gonna get us to a floor where we can get moving. From there, we'll find a way out."

He realizes in the hubbub that he dropped his spell and frowns. He takes a moment to recast it.

OOC:

Bedside manner to calm Meera 1 sux, and Glitch


Casting detect life 1 sux

Resist drain 3 sux, no drain

Atashi looks up form the Console as the doors open on the First floor and is speechless by the sight in front of her, she sees the Cyber specters approach and is stunned then by sparks actions she continues to feel frozen and unable to move until the doors close and provides them safety. she watched the goings on previously as though through someone else's eyes unable to control her body as much as she screamed to do so in her mind. Then cam the security of the closed doors and she felt the control come back into her limbs, she noticed where Meera went and wished she could go over there and help her though for whatever reason she seemed to in most cases have the complete opposite effect, usually antagonizing responses ensued. but she learned to cope with it and found the few friends she made throughout life were true friends. she then witnessed Tokko push the gun into sparks head threatening him with it and she couldn't help exclaiming Oh great all we need is another complete Oaf with the group, where did you get your education? the back side of a Soy-Jacks box? I cant believe that drecks like you can even handle a gun when a simple button is out of your comprehension even with a picture diagram next to it displaying how to use said button. however Tokko kept on talking giving off his rules Wow so the Meat head CAN count that's astounding! what other tricks do you have or is that all your brain can handle? then he went on to talk about how he supposedly killed the guard and she laughs aloud HA! you think that was your doing? News flash there drecks, that was his doing she points at sparks the guard was dead before you put a hole in its chest, but what can i say You are as strong as an ox and almost as intelligent she goes back to examining the panel trying to decipher it putting the event behind her almost as quickly as it started, obviously showing her extent yet again with social interactions and her knowledge of such. then she quips in one final remark whilst not paying any head to those around her Oh yea, and the only one who gets to insult and bully sparks is ME!

A thought hits Sparks, after running through what happened on the last floor, "Frag, frag, frag, frag, frag. It's so fraggin' simple, why the frag didn't I think of it before? We're all fragging tagged, probably with fraggin' biometrics. That's why they didn't notice us until the massive freak-out. Everyone stay arctic, and you won't fraggin' trip any alarms just fraggin' yet. Some hot-drek engineer I turned out to be." He looks at Atashi, "You think you can find the datastream on the tags, or do I have to fraggin' do this the painful way?"

Atashi nods but first we have to deal with this specter ((Analyze the specter (6d6.hits(5)=1) to figure out what the hell it is) then as she look out of the lift Oh frelling great, well sparks we know where those things went when they left the guards

after watching that outburst. and seeing everyone calm down Andrew is relieved slightly, but he still feels the tension in the group.

hoping to ease the situation in the party andrew calmly, or as calm as he can, says "hey guys, i know we're all stressin here, but can we atleast try to stay on the same side? atleast until we get outta this place. we're all in the same boat here. i'm sure we have a better chance of escaping this forsaken hellhole if we work together on this. and lastly, this floor seems to be filled with randoids so should we try maybe a different floor or can we make it around these 'coats'?"



after speaking andrew steps back to listen to any ideas that get tossed in, but he stays ready to step in and mediate any situation that will make it harder for us to leave this place.


[he is my 'calm the storm' check]
[CHA(4) + Neg(3) + Tail. Pher.(2) = 9]
[9d6.hits(5) → [1,2,3,5,6,1,4,3,6] = (3)]
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3240360/

"Wait!" Jhon spoke urgently, thinking hard and fast. He was no technical wiz by any means, but something about what Sparks and Atashi were saying struck a nerve in him.

Intuition 3 + Logic 3 (Cognitive Test (?))
Result=6d6.hits(5) → [6,5,2,1,1,1] = (2 hits)

After a few moments thought, his gaze unfocused, Jhon snapped his fingers and said, "You need to know what kind of tags these are, if there are any. MCT often used empathy tags on their workers to induce high work ethics. I've also heard of other emotion-inducing devices for other purposes."

He looked at Sparks intently, "If these tags are empathic-inducers, is it possible that sending a charge through them could set off intense emotional states in all of us? Could they, in fact, be the cause of our emotional outbursts?"

"Nah, pretty fragging sure that's just putting me in with a group. Seems every fragger out there takes offense to me." Sparks looks carefully at the spectre, and has an idea, sending out a handshake protocol to it while Atashi attempts to analyze it. "Haven't you even bothered looking at the psych profile of the chummer you're supposed to skrag?"

"So you know about that, do you?" Jhon says mildly, not showing even a hint of surprise at the young technomancer's knowledge. It seems, at least for the moment, that all the fight has gone out of Jhon.

"You might as well know that I have no personal issues with what you are. And, if it means anything to you or not, if - no, when - we get out of this, I'm quitting MCT. Whether they're responsible for all this or not, I've had enough of toeing the corporate line. I'm sick of busting honest folks for trumped-up corporate bulldrek."

Jhon eyes the kid, then adds, "I'm not blind to the fact that its been you who's gotten us this far. And while you're a serious pain in the hoop," a grin lifts the corners of Jhon's lips, "you've earned your parole, from me at least."

"Wasn't hard to figure out, since the dumb fragger sent the e-mail while I was still sitting in his office." Sparks says, still watching the spectre, "But since Hotness has some programs now, I might need to run decoy for a bit. And frag, is that drek gonna blow......"