The problem with the Juice(r)

Friday, May 21st, 2009

The last thing that happened to the group is a building blew up in front of them, and Maxwell the CS Scout saw a juicer on top of the opposite building.

Custer had already flown away from the explosion, grabbing the mercenary next to him. Prior to the explosion, Veras had bolted away from the traveling group.

Maxwell gets on the radio right after he sees the figure on the building. “Juicer, opposite building rooftop!” Custer sets down the merc, and quickly flies up above the roof. When he gets there, he sees the juicer running from the rooftop edge towards the middle of the building, where a large sized jet pack is waiting.

“Juicer Icarus Flight System on the roof, I'm going to take it out.” Custer starts shooting his rail gun at the jet pack, but the juicer was closing quickly, so he fired a mini-missle at the rooftop, essentially vaporizing the roof, and causing the Icarus to drop through to the floor below.

Maxwell, continued to monitor the situation on the ground, while Veras rounded the corner of the block to get a better view of the situation. She starts pulls herself up to a fire escape on an apartment complex and begins climbing the stairs.

The juicer, seeing the explosion and the results, doesn't lose stride and jumps down into the hole at full speed. He quickly hides, and is out of view of Custer is his SAMAS suit. Just as Custer is about to get on the radio, he is blasted by the juicer's signature assassin rifle. He returns fire, and attempts to supress any further attacks, which is successful. The juicer attempts to dodge the laser shots, but is mostly unsuccessful, and loses ground trying to get to the Icarus. Just as he gets a lucky and jumps into the Icarus, he snags his foot and gets his head blasted away Custer.

“Victory to the proletariat, juicer down,” says Custer over the radio.

“Wait there, I'll be right up,” says Maxwell. He enters the building and begins climbing stairs. Inside, he sees that people have taken refuge inside, staying out of the sun. Most seem pale and have gaunt skin, but seem to mostly ignore Maxwell or give him a wide berth.

In the meantime, Veras has climbed to the roof of the building and is surveying the landscape. While she is doing that she gets another message:

“Good to see your alive. Meet at 0050 hours at Riverfront Park Center.”
A map appears along with the message, and shows the location roughly to the west.
“Bring your friends if you'd like.”

Custer begins inspecting the Icarus. It seemed badly damaged, and wouldn't have any specific information, so he begins looking at the juicer. His head was blown clean off by the laser, so his body was mostly intact. He had his laser rifle on him, but otherwise nothing else stood out. Maxwell gets up there fairly quickly, and helps Custer go through the equipment. They take everything of value, and then Maxell gets on the radio “Veras, why don't you get over here and take a look at this.”

Veras looks at the equipment, and makes a guess as to it's value. “I thing I might be able to find a buyer for something like this. Give me a second,” and she leaves the building.

Custer pulls out a portable music player, and pushes the play button on it out of curiosity.

“If everything goes as agreed upon, you'll get your five mil. Just remember, no survivors, and no witnesses. I don't want it traced back to you, or to me,” Custer hears from the small portable device. He pops out the disk, and begins examining it on his computer system. “I don't know where this came from, but it does kind of confirm he's our guy,” indicating the decapitated juicer.

Veras comes back with a guy in a black leather jacket and pants. 'Oh, I see what you mean...,” he trails off. “Well, this looks like juicer equipment to me. Not much demand in that, if you know what I mean. How much you want for it?”

“Two mil,” says Custer immediately, apparently pulling a number from nowhere but delivering it with authority and conviction.

“Two mil? I think half is more than fair. Look, it's got laser marks here, and here, and the generally scorching...”

“Okay, split the difference, one point five.”

“Well, the way I figure it, you can't fly this thing, or otherwise move it, or you would have done it and I wouldn't be here talking to you. What's to say I don't come back and take it when you leave?”

“It won't be here when you come back,” says Maxwell, hoisting his rifle.

“Right then, a mil, that's my final offer.”

“You got it on you?”

The man pulls out a card, about 2 inches by 3 inches, and a quarter inch think, solid black. “Yep.”

Maxwell takes the card and scans it with his computer. “1 million Bandito Arms credits,” his headset relays to him.

“Nice doing business with you,” he says, indicating to the others to make a quick exit. After descending two flights of stairs, they hear another explosion. “Damn juicers,” says Custer.

In other gaming news, I've pre-ordered HackMaster Basic. I'm actually quite excited, as it has a definite old school feel. Thought I've never played AD&D, I probably could have if I wasn't playing Palladium Fantasy instead. So, things that other gamers my age take for granted are in the game. Armor has damage reduction in addition to AC, weapons have speeds, and other awesomeness.

Also, we didn't game on Sunday so the next Kalamar game will be the 31st.