(...continued from TML BUN 563 msg# 7072)
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THEY CAME FROM BEYOND
episode 3
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Whew! It's been over a month since my last installment. It
didn't feel like that long ago. Well, I better get a move on.
Without further ado...
For those of you new to the TML, this is a continuation of the
telling of one of the adventures I ran my Traveller players
through earlier this year. It is loosely based upon the movie
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers", and takes place on the planet
Junidy in the Aramis subsector of the Spinward marches, backdated
to the year 1053 IR. Episodes #1 and #2 are contained in TML
messages #7007 (BUN 557) and #7072 (BUN 563) respectively.
A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to prompt you guys into using
the TML as a central Traveller material-swapping depot, I
promised to upload some NPC's to get the ball rolling. Instead,
I shall go one step further and post the PC's who partook in this
adventure.
The Player Characters:
- ----------------------
Baraka "Bugeyes" Lews
Rogue, informant
Statistics: Career: Criminal Rank:
Terms: 4
Race: Human, Solomani Gender: Male
UPP 585989 Age: 34 / 34
height: 1.68 meters weight: 58 kilograms
hair: brown eyes: brown skin: light
Skills: Linguistics (Zhodani-3), body pistol-2, Taser-1, Large
Blade-1, Axe-1, Tactics-2, Demolition-2, Med-1, Computer-3,
Ground car-2, Hovercraft-1, Forgery-3, Streetwise-3, Bribery-2
Possessions: Cr60,000, forged TAS ID, 2 high passage, low
passage, body pistol, several spare clips, taser, 2 compressor
masks, a utility pouch, and some spare jumpsuits. A flat in the
Astoria Whaldorf (a rental complex in the seedy district).
Background: Baraka developed the annoying neuroses cleptomania
and pathological lying at an early age. He eventually grew out
of these short-sightted compulsive drives, but they developed into
an overriding disregard for the law, and aspirations to make big
money the fast way: By cheating. By being caught and punished
so many times in his youth, he learned the value of truth, and
the importance of the reputation that came with telling it, or
in his case, selling it -- To whomever was willing to pay.
Unfortunately, even though he had saved up quite a nest egg, he
was still a small-time operator.
Arthur Lawrence Cage
ex-Imperial Marine
Statistics: Career: Marine Rank: Force Commander
Terms: 2
Race: Human Gender: Male
UPP A87865 Age: 34 / 26
height: 1.92 meters weight: 86 kilograms
hair: black eyes: brown skin: dark
Skills: Tactics-2, Energy-Weapons-2, Assault-rifle-2, Leader-2,
Linguistics (Zhodani-1)
Possessions: Cr32,000,
fusion gun FGMP-15 - held by Junidy Down customs.
Background: Recently mustered from the Imperial Marines, where
he spent most of the last 8 years on the security force at
Jewell/Jewell, Cage returned to his homeworld for one last visit
before embarking on a mercenary career in the hopes of financing a
journey to the Capital of the Imperium. He was currently staying
with "Uncle" James, a good friend of his father's.
James L. Tiberius
Ex-Police Detective
Statistics: Career: Law Enforcer Rank: Leutenant
Terms: 13
Race: Human, Vilani Gender: Male
UPP 878EB7 Age: 50 / 46
height: 1.83 meters weight: 74 kilograms
hair: black eyes: green skin: olive
Skills: Handgun-3 (Revolver-4, Body Pistol-4), Rifleman-2,
Small Blade-2, Cudgel-2, Tactics-2, Stealth-1, Comm-1,
Computer-1, Forensic-1, Legal-1, Instruction-1, Leader-1,
Admin-1, Bribery-1, Disguise-2, Forgery-1, Gambling-4,
Intrusion-1, Streetwise-2, Interrogation-1
Possessions: Pension; Cr22,500, Hunting Rifle (30-06), Revolver
(44), Body Pistol, High Passage, Forensic Kit, Makeup kit
(Cr500), Kevlar body suit (Cr3500), Laptop computer w/comm
(Cr1500), backpack (police issue), Combo mask (Cr150); A condo
in the central district.
Background: It didn't seem natural to him, life as a civilian.
He had been on the force for most of his life, and now that he
was retired, he felt empty. He missed the excitement and the
sense of fulfillment it gave him. He was considering opening his
own private detective agency, but that would probably turn out to
be mostly on-line missing-persons work. He longed to be young
and on the force again.
Episode Three
-------------
It felt like forever before the elevator arrived. As the door
opened, Baraka had the overwhelming fear that one of those things
would be inside... But the elevator was empty. With a sigh of
relief, Baraka buried himself into one corner of the tiny room.
When the doors closed, Baraka became quite conscious that he was,
for the moment, trapped -- just like in his apartment. As the
elevator descended, Baraka's stomach entered his throat. He was
still queezy from his ordeal, but he had nothing left to give.
He took a couple deep breaths, and afixed his compressor mask.
When the elevator stopped, and the doors began to open, Baraka
once again was overwhelmed by the thought of another one of those
humanoid monsters leaping through the doorway at him. As the
doors parted, he could see someone standing there. Baraka
dropped his brief case, and fumbled for his his utility pouch.
Grasping his body pistol tightly in both hands, he lunged forth,
and aimed it point blank at the creature's face. "DIIIIIIIE!" he
screamed at the elderly woman dressed in a pink jumpsuit. It was
Mrs. Bluutz, the building manager, and she was looking rather
shocked with fear at the moment.
Baraka melted, then winced. Feeling like an idiot, he quickly
hid his gun behind him. "Uh, sorry maam... Uh, sorry about that.
I, I've had a rough day." Pretty sure he was going to lose his
apartment, he left her standing there in shock and made his way
to the building's main airlock. Ten paces later, he stopped,
turn around shaking his head in disgust, and went back past Mrs.
Bluutz into the elevator. The landlady just stood there, her
mouth wide open and silent, glaring at him with wide open fearful
eyes, as Baraka retrieved his briefcase and departed once again
for the nearest airlock.
Since the atmospheric pressure outside was not enough to sustain
human life (though llellewelolly found it quite adequate), most
buildings were pressurized and thus had airlocks. As the doors
opened, Baraka overcame the urge to draw his gun again. He had,
in a very short period of time, aquired an acute fear of doors.
Doors sealed you in, and you never knew what was on the other
side. At least not anymore. He reluctantly entered the chamber,
and as he waited for the air to thin, his mind raced. "What if
the streets are crawling with those things!?" he thought. The
outer doors opened, but people were passing on the walkway
outside normally enough.
Baraka hurried along the sidewalk. Finding a public phone was
easy. Because of the dangers posed by the its atmosphere,
Junidy's cities had emergency pressure-booths placed at intervals
of every 150-feet on boths sides of the street, so you never had
to go further than about 75-feet in the event your
compressor-unit failed. Each pressure-booth had a communicator,
and therefore performed the dual duty of comm-booth. For
comm-users, it was mandated by law that you must exit a
pressure-booth for someone in atmospheric distress, unless you
were in the same trouble yourself.
Baraka went no more than 150-feet before he found an empty booth.
He entered and shut the door. The comm-unit's vidscreen
prominently displayed the following message: "Please wait for
booth to pressurize before disengaging your air supply. For
emergency pressurization, press the Enter key." A second or two
later, the unit's rather aluring female simvoice repeated the
same message.
As he waited for the air to thicken, Baraka sighed and leaned up
against the back wall of the booth and casually looked around. It
was weird - there wasn't a daddy-longlegs in sight. Then he
noticed a man walking by who was staring at him intently, not
breaking eye-contact until he was completely passed. "What the
fuck's your problem?!" Baraka yelled, knowing the man probably
couldn't hear him anyways, since he was inside an air-tight
booth, and the voice amp in his mask was turned off. Then he
shook his head in disgust. "Asshole."
At that moment, he noticed a vargr walking by. As was often the
case with aliens, he couldn't tell if it was male or female. He
was glad vargr had to wear compressors just like everybody else
(except dandies) -- fights with the wolf-like beings could get
pretty nasty, but the face masks served as defacto muzzles. It
too stared at him intensely. Baraka looked down to see if his
weapon was exposed. No, it was safely hidden inside his utility
pouch. He reflexively checked his jumpsuit for foodstains.
Nothing. He looked at his reflection in the vidscreen to check
his hair. It was fine, but he noticed a smeer of green on his
neck. He began to wipe it off as he looked up.
The vargr had passed, but now there was a middle-aged lady
standing only a couple of feet away to one side of the
transparent booth, her two beady little eyes staring out over her
air mask and straight into his eyes. Baraka was beginning to
feel trapped again. There was a loud DING as the vidscreen
displayed the message: "Pressurization complete. Deposit
credcard, or press 9-1-1 for emergency service." Startled, Baraka
convulsed as if he had received an electric shock. Noticeably
shaken, he stared back at the strange woman, looking more than a
little nervous. She was expressionless, and was looking right
through him. He held up his credcard, to show her he was about
to make a call. He flicked his voiceamp switch and yelled, "Go
to the next one lady!" She didn't move. The vidcomm spoke,
"Pressurization complete. Deposit..."
Baraka noticed a couple other people walking by who were staring
directly at him as well. Not inquisitive glances, but intense
blank stares. He muttered, "To hell with this!" and pressed the
Esc key on the commconsole. The vidscreen displayed the message,
"Depressurizaton about to begin, please re-engage your air
supply. Press Enter when ready." Baraka did. The voice came on
and annoyingly repeated the message. Baraka had always wondered
if the voice was modeled after a living woman or designed from
scratch. He often fantasized about meeting her, but that was the
last thing on his mind at the moment. He just wanted to get the
hell away.
Baraka kept an eye on the lady as he waited, but glanced around
sporadically to make sure he wasn't surrounded. After what
seemed like ages, the bell sounded again, and the door finally
opened. The cowardly snitch ran down the street, holding his
briefcase clutched up against his chest. His compressor was not
self-adjusting, so he reached up with his semi-free hand and
cranked it up a bit, to accomodate his increased physical
activity, turning one of the knobs on the side of his mask. As
he gained some distance, he could have sworn he heard a scream
in the background. He turned off his voiceamp to muffle his
heavy breathing.
After jogging several blocks, Baraka resumed walking. He glanced
around nervously, and eyed people suspiciously as they walked
past. He had entered the central district. There was much more
traffic and many more people out and about. Baraka continued
walking, taking it all in. Things seemed back to normal. After
several minutes, his fear having subsided, he tried to think
things through. Was his imagination running wild? Or was he
just being paranoid? He almost shot his landlady for freaking's
sake. "No." He thought to himself. "I was attacked by something
not from this world. Maybe assassins from some distant planet, I
don't know. But they looked human, and people just don't melt
when they die." Baraka started to feel light-headed. He reached
up and turned his mask's airflow back down to normal. His
thoughts resumed. "No. It was real, alright. People were
staring for no reason. That woman."
Baraka stopped at the next pressure booth, but then thought
better of it and continued on. He wasn't about to trap himself
again. But that was going to be a problem. Society on Junidy
was based on structures which confined people, or rather, which
held in the air they needed to breath, or took them from place to
place or floor to floor. He walked across the street, which was
bumper-to-bumper with electrocars (petroleum-based fuel was
prohibited by the Air Preservation Acts). He headed in the
direction of the Galaxia Deluxe, to use the vidcomms there.
Baraka began talking to himself. "Hold on. Who's going to
believe this shit?" he asked outloud, his worried voice muffled
by his air mask. "No one ever believes them in the movies, but
they always tell anyways. Idiots! I'm not going to get locked
up. I'm keepin' my mouth SHUT. Waitasec. Except for
'Ghostfiends from Hell'. Now that movie made sense. Yeah, Jorga
Porshe was cool. The guy actually had brains. It was my
favorite line too. 'If it sounds so crazy that you have a hard
time believin' it even after seeing it with your own two eyes,
then never tell a living soul until you can prove it with
conclusive physical evidence.' I love his movies. When someone
stands out in the open, they got shot, plain and simple. Just
like it should be."
Baraka stopped himself from wandering further from the critical
issue. "The bodies. The bodies are proof. But what if they're
just immigrants from some weird-ass planetoid? Waitasec. What
am I talking about? There are no bodies; they're mush. I better
get rid of the mess. Screw that, I'm not going back there. Big
Eddie's after me. Either Big Eddie wants me dead, or he's one of
them, in which case he still wants me dead. Or maybe he just
wants to eat my brain or something, in which case he still wants
me dead. I've got money, I'm getting off this rock."
If only it was that simple. Baraka knew that the reach of
well-financed criminals like little shit-head Eddy extended well
beyond their homeworld's orbit. With just a photo and a few
credits for enticement, bounty hunters could pretty easily track
you down by bribing a customs clerk to run a visual comp on local
emmigration records. Plus, they had many other tricks. He
wouldn't be safe until Big Eddie was dead.
There was only one person he could trust who might handle this.
Baraka continued on his way, passing comm-booth after comm-booth,
intent on making his call from the Deluxe. How the hell he was
going to talk him into it, he had no idea.
To be continued...
Rodge.