LogBrink-Jason-16

Game log for the 2015/03/22 session of Brink, as taken by Jason

The party is still on board Deepcore 6, wondering how to cope with the fear of disease and the risks of Ark 17's arrival. Swan decides to vent Deepcore 6's atmosphere and will look for more things to sterilize it later. He takes Raskolnikov aside and warns him that Swan knows he has diseased tissue samples and that if the disease gets into the population on the station, Swan will absolutely fucking murder Raskolnikov. The group gets all the bodies together and then leaves the ship, atmosphere vented.

During the trip home, Ark 17 reaches radio range of Brink.

Gerard comes running into Cipher's lab and tells everyone that theres a ship inbound. He grabs Tatsuko and Molly and goes up to control. Security will not admit Cipher to control, so he asks for Farquhar. Farquhar tells him to fuck off. Cipher says mean things about Farquhar's fucking prowess and asks for information, which does not seem to be forthcoming. Cipher goes to the Den to look for his friend Swan instead, bomb in hand.

Swan, Cipher, and Torch discuss what might be done about the ship. Many ideas get tossed around, but no decisions have been made when Henri calls. He wants the life support gear from Ark 17. The group consensus is that it's going to be a feeding frenzy and we're going to need allies.

Swan calls the Neers and offers to provide security in exchange for a claim on Ark 17's resources, provided that the Neers provide fuel. The Neers indicate a desire to take their time making a plan.

Swan calls Fletch to talk about the disease on Deepcore 6. She indicates that someone named Louis would know a lot more about contagions, but she doesn't know where he is. Someone at the Waxing Gibbous would probably know.

When he comes back from his private office, only Absinthe is still hanging around the control area, so he asks her to go up to Waxing Gibbous with him for a drink. When they arrive, Absinthe calls Cipher just to taunt him. Swan gets the bartender's attention and asks where he can find Louis. The bartender will trade that hookup for a good spool of jacketed copper wire. Once the wire arrives, the bartender points out Louis. Swan asks Absinthe to go over and greet the guy, just to make a good first impression.

Louis seems very intent on his drink and deficient in social skills. Absinthe asks his name and he says, "Why does it matter?" She reads him and cuts right to discussing the disease threat. That does seem to get his interest and he asks them to go back to his place to discuss the situation. The only unusual feature of his tank is that he has a huge fishtank. Louis has heard that Swan's a man of his word and very selective, which bodes well for their conversation. Turns out that Louis has pufferfish in his tank- the kind you get a certain sort of poison from. Swan cuts right to the chase and gives a vivid description of what happened on Deepcore 6, then asks to hire him. Louis accepts, in exchange for transportation and security. They then go back to the Den to see Raskolnikov's samples, with Louis' assistant in tow. The only word the assistant ever says is "roger". Apparently it's a Hodor situation. Roger.

Raskolnikov and Louis hit it off the way people always do with Raskolikov. Louis expresses contempt for the job Raskolnikov did sealing the samples in and begins redesigning the containment system that Raskolnikov had worked on. Louis does a very good job and teaches Raskolnikov some things along the way.

A couple days pass during which the lab remains occupied by Louis and Roger. Cletus comes to Swan and says that they're out of ore and also reveals that she's come down with the disease from Deepcore 6. Well, her and forty more people. Of course the iron ore is all gone so the factory is about to start dropping offline anyway.

Swan goes and starts beating on Raskolnikov, who defends himself by curling up iunder his suitcase like a fat science turtle. Every time he tries to get back up, Swan punches him to the ground again. Roger comes running to find Absinthe and tries to lead her toward the lab. Absinthe comes back and stops Swan but immediately becomes sympathetic to his cause when she hears that people in the Den are sick. Louis advises Swan to proclaim a quarantine of the Den. Raskolnikov points out that the disease should be spreading outward from the source of the infection, but Cletus got sick before any of the people who had been onboard Deepcore 6. The logical conclusion would be that Cletus didn't get it from us. It might have come in through the ore.

Swan summons all Den workers and related folks to a meeting, wanting to bring everyone in before the quarantine. Cipher can't make it but everyone else comes in, at which point Swan tells them they they're going to have to stay here for treatment and isolation.

Torch gets hold of the mob and gets the quarantine established, but Chronos and his people flee on the shuttle and won't respond to transmissions.

Swan goes back to Louis and Raskolnikov.

Cipher's trying to authorize Eyeball into his lab. That will require Oculus' personal approval. He tells Cipher he'll take care of it and asks her to join him in the server room, but in fact, he leads her away. An hour later Cipher asks the security guy where his new technician went, but he doesn't know, nor does he seem upset about not knowing. Cipher explains his true feelings by using the painwave projector in the lab, then dragging Tatsuko and Molly out with him. He left his McGuffin behind, though.

He goes to the Den next, which of course is locked. Swan explains the quarantine. Cipher then explains that Oculus has Eyeball. Swan brings them into the Den and explains that they aren't allowed to leave because there's plague. Tatsuko flips out and starts beating on Cipher. Torch tells her to stop. She tells him he's next. He dashes her head against the bulkhead, which may have been the end of Tatsuko. Cipher performs a mercy killing since she's not going to get better in the plague-ridden Den.

Swan calls Dr Oculus and asks to speak to Eyeball. Oculus claims that since Cipher was a saboteur, he presumably brought in Eyeball to commit computer sabotage, and so she's... not at liberty. He return would be... problematic. Harsh intergogation methods were used. She's critically injured now and Oculus hadn't planned to provide medical assistance, although he might do so as part of a trade. Swan might trade if she was returned alive, but there's no deal to be made if she dies. Flail pokes in just then and tells Swan she's decided to kill Cipher. Swan asks her to hold off on that.

Absinthe visits her sun-drenched field (the psychic maelstrom) and hears a strange sound. Eventually she realizes it's coming from behind her. She turns around and sees thousands of people standing in the field. 171,332 people, to be exact, and they are all screaming. Swan and Torch come in to see the deal. She says she's worried about people in cryo, Torch suggests it would be kindest to kill them quickly, and Swan explains that he thinks with his connection to Ring 8, he might be able to help those poor suckers in cryo.

Cipher also opens his brain up and visits the world of hallways and doors. He hears screaming, and every door he opens reveals a crowd of screaming people with black eyes.

Two days later, the Neers call back. They want to know if they can cut off the power. No. They then tell him that there's no deal to be made with the Ark because of the contagion. Swan asks them to be willing to reconsider later, and they say "so be it." Which could mean anything.

Louis has mostly stopped the spread of the disease. We've lost a few people in the locked-down area. There may not be a cure or a vaccine but quick supporting treatment seems to allow people to survive the disease a respectable percentage of the time. There's some fighting to keep order in the triage area but Swan's troops are very efficient at that sort of thing, and Swan orders a show of force to try to nip any resistance in the bud. Swan keeps reminding Raskolnikov and Louis that time is a crucial factor here. Raskolnikov tries to figure out how to get one up on Louis but the biologist reads him like a book and has no interest in the crazy Dr's crap. He can tell that Raskolnikov hates not being the smartest person in the room and that these days of working as a lab assistant are really putting him on edge.

Oculus and Eyeball call Swan. There's definitely a trade to be done. Sadly Cipher's deadman bomb has gone off and set Oculus' project back further, so now Oculus has even more reason to want to take Cipher apart with specialized tools. There's no hope of taking an observation of the next coronal mass ejection now. Mere infection will no longer please Oculus. He's going to need Cipher turned over to him, alive or dead.

Swan finds Cipher and tells him that Eyeball is up and moving about and generally catches him up on the news. Swan won't give up Cipher but he won't do without Eyeball, so he's going to need to send Absinthe in to get her, with Cipher's support. Cipher puts on a heavy cloak to try to disguise himself under his vac suit, but they find that the quarentine is Neer-enforced. No lock code works to get people out of the Den. Torch cuts them out. Not a problem. Swan gives Cipher very clear instructions: come back with Eyeball alive, or don't come back.

Absinthe is going to have to EVA between rings so it's a bit of a hike. A few rings up they locate an airlock that will give them access to a tram station. They get into the tram and underway before anyone really processes that someone just broke in. They leave that alarm in their dust. Absinthe goes to lie in wait in the bar where Control security like to hang out, The Truncheon, and then somehow mentally communicates an image of their quarry to Absinthe. She finds him and sends him a drink, but it turns out he's into dudes and not real motivated, so that doesn't induce him to start a conversation. She goes to join him and his buddies, who make her welcome. When time allows she asks him about a business deal. He claims not to pay for it, and at least one of the other guys knows that she does sex for hire, so it's hard to get the subject changed. Once they figure out who she's looking for, things get a little more tense. She distracts them from their suspicion by enticing one of them with a little lap dance. Her quarry ends up feeling a deep need to meet up with her later.

When she meets him, he's willing to talk, since they're in private. He confirms that she's alive and held in the transfer area on 48. He could get her in, even. Bringing a friend would be iffy but he'll definitely get her in. He runs home, puts on a uniform, and then brings her in with the justification that she's there to make sure the prisoner to be transferred is in good condition.

Eyeball is pissed as hell and has casts on both hands. The vents where she's being held are too small to fit a person, so she'd have to burn through or find a different way in. Cipher creates a diversion by popping his painwave projector in a tram station, then buggering off, which gets all sorts of guard types chasing after him. Absinthe takes advantage of the distraction to thermite a hole in the vent, cool it with liquid freon, pop through, hoist up Eyeball, and scoot out. No mess, no fuss, and two hours later they're back in the Den. Louis does a scan of Eyeball and confirms that she has no implanted bombs or other traps.

Henri calls Swan to warn him that he's running out of time and other parties are going to grab the ship. The Flycatches don't care about plague. They agree to meet at the Waxing Gibbous in two hours.