STORY: 400,000 Liters of Love

Rain. Rain is normal. Normal for Greyscale.  Normal for Rapog's Beach.  But this rain today. Nah, not normal.

{Today's weather Forecast: A low of 29 C. A high of 33 c. Humidity 95%. Midday rain will last until nightfall. Estimated range of fall: 1-6 cm. Peak wind gusts of 45 kph.  Airship Travel is Caution Yellow.  Ultralight Travel is Caution Black. All other travel is null Caution.  Today's Weather Broadcast is provided by the T-W-P, Tetsuo Weather Project.} your Muse chirped.

It wasn't the temperature, nor the humidity.  Not even having rain.  Rain was normal.  A western wind always brought rain onto Hilltop.  The single rolling hill that both Greyscale and the alien Spire sat upon.  The spire pointing to the sky like an accusing finger to the stars.  Greyscale, a dermal blemish on the otherwise green brushland that covered the hill and some kilometers  around it.  A dry spot around the bog that crept in every direction for kilos more.

Dry was a concept foreign to colonists on the Beach. Even on Greyscale.  The constant low clouds left thin layers of water everywhere. Every few days a bit of dry living.  A desert as an oasis.

Nah it was the amount of rain in the amount of time.  That rain will wash out the colony.  Gravel streets will be cleaned away down to their groves.  Gravel will have to be regathered and repoured across the expanse of the colony.  But that's not you. Not your job.  No. Infugees in mud red-brown morphs with broken, chipped plastic and worn, dented metal will do that work. Their Case morphs struggling in the weather as the humidity gets into their guts and gives them The Wet.  That's not you.  You don't work labor to pay off your colonial migration cost.  You pay by doing different work.

And different work it is that brought you where you stand. in the rain.  Waiting for more rain.  Jesshua 'helped' with  the Airship issue. 'Helped' because Jesshie does favors for favors. Big favors. Expensive favors.  Favors from a man who has a rich palate and a demanding appetite.

That appetite is ready.  The airship needs to be held in a Zepplin hold while its fixed.  That costs money. Money makes trails.  Jesshie is not one who likes trails that lead to and from his hangers, unless he wants to place them himself.  And you all, well, he'd rather pretend you never asked to begin with.  And that's why you are here.

You stand in the drizzle in front of the main building of J.S. Airship, Ultralight, and Aircraft Fabrication and Maintenance LLC.  Behind the building you see a series of hangers of various size, type, and quality.  The one you need to care about the most, is cloth roofed and flapping in the light wind.  That's where Jesshie is placing the ship for now.  When it gets here.  When you help him.

What do you do? (Timer: 24 Hours)

a tall synth morph, whose very light grey skin contrasts sharply against a waterproof carbon fiber black three piece suit, approaches the main building. his face emotionless as he takes a moment to pause before the entryway, turning to face [the stranger]. ‘are you the one known as jesshua? i’m here to represent my corporation on business.’

Micholas Faustwagen, AKA, "The Stranger" leaned cross-armed against the wall next to the entryway, finishing an e-cigarette. He's clad in a charcoal rain coat. Despite the rain gear, his short silver hair appeared damp. He was in a biomorph, and judging by the creases and wrinkles on his face, had been in the same one for a while.
He looked at the synth morph when approached, and extinguished his cigarette.
"Sorry, no" he says to the synth. "I'm a friend of his. Jeshie should be just inside, in his office, down the hall to your right." He gestures vaguely while giving directions.
"Mr. Bamatte, right? From Tetsuo? I'm Mike, and I'll be joining your meeting in a moment"
Mike extends his free hand toward the synth in a greeting.
A holographic business card is held between his fingers.

ten casually nods and accepts the greeting with a slight smile before studying the business card for a moment. [what does it say?]
‘very good. i am indeed here from tetsuo. you may call me ten for short. this turned out to be more weather than i had bargained for. i can only ponder how this much rain...’, he trails off for a moment looking off toward the horizon. ‘anyways, is anyone else joining us today?’

"Good! I'm glad to finally meet someone from Tetsuo on the Beach. Your company has a long history with the Guild, and we're eager to get to work on this side of the gate."

The card was black had an image of a gold European dragon perched on top of a red globe, encircled by gold laurels on either side, and the letters "GCI" at the bottom, with a thumbprint image in the lower right. As Ten gripped the thumbprint, a holo-emitter projected a portrait of Mike, with affiliation and contact info.
Micholas Faustwagen
Agent, corporate relations
Guild of Commercial Influence
And a trail of contact info.
"I'm expecting an associate to arrive via airship in a few minutes. Goes by PILATE, in all-caps but spelled P-I-L-A-T-E. An infolife. He's affiliated with Grid 36, a Martian security and investigations firm, recently contracted by The Guild for assistance in Rapog's Beach. It likes to play driving games. You should give it a try if he asks, they're surprisingly entertaining".

[21PILATE CALLING]
"This is the Pontious, your uh...Captain speaking...we're five kliks out, you guys wanna inspect the goods, do some tire kicking? I have goodies."
The Pontious contains doodads from 21PILATE's starting inventory, including a sophisticated scope of some sort.
"The scope is a civilian transit inspection device used for clocking vehicles and navigating. Think of it as a radar gun from hell...I can't carry it anyway."

(what is the Pontious?)

The door opens. A beaten synth morph approaches both The Stranger and Ten. "You wanna stand in the drizz all day?" It asks with a tinny voice. A stiff triplet of shrugs jerk at the end of the sentence. Past the morph you can see into the building. A small front room with a kiosk sits ready, film and grit and all.

Abiden. The name was printed with Stick-ON letters across it's faded emerald green chassis. Mismatching limbs protruded awkwardly from it. an Orange Heavy lifter trunk system jutted powerfully down to two different editions of Sander's Special lower leg systems. One yellow, one factory grey. The limbs were a collections of different protective plates. Unknown the make of the machinery. Instead of a standard synth Cranial mount, a M1f1 Mining drone dome mount mushroomed outward. A matching emerald green was spray painted hastily upon it one dry morning. The mono eye twitched angrily.

"I'm a busy-busy synth. You keep gawking at the sign and having a conversation and you'll trail with the gravel. Either get in or move on!" a staccato of hand motions emphasized every wrong syllable.

What do you do? TIMER 24 Hours

"Roger PILATE, see you soon." Stranger said over the com.

Stranger flicks the empty cartridge of the e-cig out into the rain. He picks up a black walking cane with a silver dragon skull handle that had been propped against the building.
"Right. To work" he said.
He shook the rain off his coat and headed inside, following Abiden. He hung his coat and a wide brimmed hat on the nearest coat rack in the foyer. The tapping sound from his cane punctuated his steps as he followed the chimera synth.

(Pontious is the name 21PILATE gave the airship. Pontious PILATE. I'm glad I'm not the only one having fun with names.)

( Okay. Well the ship currently cannot fly so he is inbound via hauling hovercraft.)

Abiden closed the door behind The Stranger.
"Odd one out there-ere. Take a seat. He'll be here shortly. Don't touch anything. Don't go anywhere." With that Abiden opened a side door, walked through, and shut it.
Maintenance, the door was labeled. Faint whirring came from the room after a moment.
Other than that door, there were few options to entertain oneself.
A Kiosk stood at the center of the room, dusty and left quite to itself.
Three different doors in addition to the maintenance door.
The way out led back to the rain and Ten.
The first door was opposite to the maintenance door and led likely to a small room.
The Left door looked like it led to a hallway round the main building.
the right door was made mostly of clear plastic and a safety frame. Behind it was a large open room with desks and work benches. Many morphs worked on various projects. On a large table sat a piece of machinery in a state of disassembly. A trio of modified cases with multiple fine motor limbs work on the guts of the machine.
You are left to your own. Jesshua is nowhere to be seen.
You may Percieve to gain more info,Infiltrate to hide in plain sight, Hardware(aerospace OR Electronics) fro more information,or Interface qith the kiosk
Timer 24 hours

"This thing might be more trouble than it's worth..." muttered 21PILATE, arms wrapped in big sleeves and several layers of coats crossed over his brass-buttoned stormflap chest, standup collar hiding most of his neck.
"You named it after your dad," said Chanowitz, dressed similarly. Their long jackets and dusters obscured their legs completely at all times. Neither was above 150cm.
PILATE sighed. "I'm going down there."
"Why?"
"To make sure they're not screwing us."
"Out of a broken zep?"
"Take us lower."
PILATE's avatar walked through the open crew compartment door and disappeared, the medallions of his swarmanoid filtering out of the cabin and into the rain toward the building.
INTERFACING to enter the building (75): [16/PASS]
The room begins to fill with tiny gold and blue points of life before, as if shrugging off a cloak, the hologram of a short, impeccably-uniformed young RBDOT officer materializing in the room. It turns to look critically up at you through unblinking ice blue eyes, under intricately combed and subdued hair, before finally saying, "Stranger? Department of Transit." He salutes. "I'd shake your hand if I could. Are they screwing us already?"
His avatar steals a glance around the room before speaking wirelessly.
--How much do we trust this guy? My swarm has advanced sensors. Do you want to go find him?--

ten opens the door and heads into the waiting area. his carbon fiber three piece quickly gives off a shimmer of steam before he sits down, comfortable and dry.

[i still haven’t actually built my character sheet... we doing 2.0 rules?]

(Yes we are. Everyone, by Sunday, please have a completed character and post it in the character information section of the forum.)

"PILATE! Good to meet you in person, so to speak" stranger chuckles as he returns the salute the hologram robot.
"I trust Jeshua to complete the work in exchange for a favor.

[Knowledge psychology, 36/60, pass, to guess at Jeshua's motives]

"I would wager that considering his line of work, he'd prefer to maintain a good relationship with The GCI. But..."
Stranger steps toward the right door and peers at the operation on the other side
"Hunches aren't particularly useful unless supported by evidence"
[Infiltrate, hide in plain sight 18/80, pass]
[Hardware electronics to determine what the cases are working on, 89/60, fail]
The Stranger squints at the contraption through the window. Some components are recognizable, but he can't determine their utility in the current workspace, nor can he guess what the casemorphs are doing.
He lets out a quiet frustrated grunt, then diverts his attention away from the device, attempting to notice any significant details of the current environment
Perceive check 55/60, pass, crit success. What is there to he noticed? Request bonus to quality]

[For Pilate]
Not so easy, interfacing through the mesh these days.  Lack of stability has always been an issue on Rapog's Beach due to high humidity and electrical storms.  Regardless, you are in.  The main mesh is sparse, to say it simply.  A main information system centered around data stores within the front kiosk and a secondary server in the main building as well.  Company reviews are available, as is an ABOUT section and a CUSTOMER LOGIN.  More can be found through Infosec tests.

In terms of how you feel in the mesh, like any infolife, the feeling gives you as much information as the information.  Bio-brains don't get it, just like how you don't understand the feeling of different breezes.  This mesh is messy.  An unhappy feeling through organizational failure and personal bad habits.  You could find information without further interfacing or Infosec to breach into hidden information, but Research will take time.

[For The Stranger]
You've never really spent much time with Jesshua, but for the few moments that he has been in your presence, you have gathered this: Jesshua is an aggressive opportunist.  He is also a businessman first and a criminal second.  He will likely have you do something that is against local colonial agreements or even the few laws that are upheld seriously.  But, he won't upset the local balance. Research will give some more information on Jesshua, but that will take time.

Regardless, you haven't spotted him.  With a quiet slide, you walk through the door to the main work area.  The cases continue their work while you walk by.  Looking at their work, you struggle to find any information.  But, with some time you'll be able to Perceive possible reasons why they are taking apart the machine, or find other important information.

Timer 48 hours due to Thanksgiving.

The Child watches The Stranger impassively, crossing his arms...his Oracles swarm quietly proliferating the room.
PERCEIVE [80]: 13 (pass)
21PILATE ignores the mess of wireless information and reaches out into his surroundings. Nobody's ambushing us this afternoon, not on the watch of...hmph...the RBDOT. His avatar sneers inwardly and turns to Ten and tips his hat curtly. "Hello. Department of Transit." He provides no other name at first...as if introducing himself as the ENTIRE Department of Transit.
DIPLOMACY [45]: 20 (pass)
He manages to come off naturally. He's a sweet 'kid' if eternally distracted. "How are we today? Can I uh...getcha snack?" His eyes flick to the periphery, paranoid impatience registering in him. "You wanna...you play DRYVER?"

His eyes focused suddenly on Ten, lighting up with childish life.
"Hey, aren't you Bam-Bam? I've heard of you!"

Bump

{ooc sorry for the delay in response. I've been away from internet over the weekend}
The stranger quietly walks amongst the case morphs as they work, taking care to stay out of their way, and peering at their work from over their shoulders.
[Perceive, 51/60, pass, what can I determine?]
Having gleaned what knowledge he could from a cursory glance at the case morhs as they work, the Stranger returns to the waiting area.
He sets himself down in one of the chairs available, and taps his wrist mounted personal mesh interface. A light blue holographic window AR interface materializes in front of him, and AR lenses in his eyes glow a faint blue.
He gestures with his hand on the interface screen, swiping and scrolling. Privacy mode was engaged, so to the outside observer it appeared to be a blank blue holoscreen.
[Research check: 21/60. What can i learn about Jeshua?]

[For the Stranger]
From looking at their work, the cases seem to be refitting a large power plant for an airship or hovercraft. An Engine. Looks complicated. And Expensive. And unlikely to be found outside anything a large corp would have on hold.
The corporations, under no uncertain terms, ever outsource engine repairs or modification. They have their own crews to do the work. You peer closer.
T.M. was something buffed away as you watched. Transgean Motorworks. Transgean is a local vehicle manufacturer. They make very complicated engines from what you heard. Efficient too. A research group figured out a way to burn Oils better a year back. You took care of a turncoat around the same time for Transgean. Screamed that one. All the way through from top to bottom. No worries though, Krewtie Dogs don't share their meals with Transhumans. So the turncoat disappeared with ease.
If this engine is T.M. then Jesshua is doing something big.

Your checking up on Jesshua via mesh resources will take time, but your muse is on its way. Finding tasty tidbits to share. A wee bit of chum for yourself.

[For Pilate]

From what you feel about this place. This place is busy. Lots of particulates from workmanship. Paints, oils, metals, skin, bone, sweat. You feel labor. Hard work is around you. you hear the whirring of failing mechano-myo-fibers. The slow dying death of synth joints and muscles and ligaments and joints. Artificial pain slowly dipping into synths telling them to fix themselves. bodies. Bodies. A thing you know but fail to feel. With all this work going on, money is abundant. As is greed.

It's easy to motivate someone to play DRYVER. Since the time on your hands has grown with work going slow, you have unlocked 10 free DRYVER copies to utilize. Not an uncommon game, but a nice one to share.
{OOC. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with your diplomacy check, so I flubbed you some resources. I may do that for others as well. A suggestion is also welcome.}

[For all]
Footsteps are heard from the left door and it opens. A neatly dressed biomorph stands in the doorway. His hair, black and oily, slicked neatly back into two even hemispheres. Left ear smoothly missing with a spiraling tattoo tendriled out over both the bridge of the nose, the eye, and the clavicle. A final spiral is assumed to travel back and down. Two recently washed hands, damp like your own from the rain, light a small Chichua pipe. His pearl teeth shine as the bite the bit of the pipe. Mother of pearl flash a clenched smile as a creep of smoke squeeze through teeth and nostrils.

You all finally figure it out. A smell in the back of your head (or a list of Cyclic Terpenes for Pilate). Chichua dope. An upper of the buzzy sort. From what you hear from those who once "had it all" said it works like coffee. And since it has properties that cook off your adrenal gland, if you have one, they'd be right.

"You all here for the airship fix? eh? None of you look like you could pull the creds together to pay for it lookin' at all of you. MIserable piles of colonial labor you look like. But maybe not? Nah."
Dry clean boots brought Jesshua clacking to your presence. Hot now. The Chichua. The globe sizzled as Jesshua drew hard, expelling a drooping cloud. It fell to the floor, escaping through to the ground through cracks.
"You'd do me a job for the ship. That was the deal, aye? Yep. This'll pay you for the work that needs doing. A fair trade. Quite fair. I promise." Jesshua motions to the door he came through.
"My office is back that way. Come with me and we will get our little bargain branded tight."
What do you do?
Timer 48 hours.

While observing the cases working on the engine, Stranger attempts to use his AR lenses to take a "screenshot" image of the TM logo before it's buffed out.
Infiltrate check, 1/80, pass
Screenshot with the logo saved successfully, without attracting any unwanted attention. He collects a few other shots of the environment.
TM is a sponsor of the Guild, this is information they would find extremely valuable. It's better to hold onto it for now, and see how things work out with Jeshua.

Speak of the devil,
Once Jeshua summons everyone from the waiting room, Stranger turns off his AR display and pulls himself using his cane. He adjusts his sweater and follows Jeshua through the left door.

21PILATE lets The Stranger go first, watching him intently before swinging into step. The hologram seems to jerk the crowd of microbots after him, as if rushing to keep up with the avatar, rather than the other way around.

ADDENDUM: 21PILATE does not engage anyone unless directly addressed. No one seems to want to talk to him...he uses it to his advantage. Letting The Stranger lead, he expands his sensors and attenuates his swarm(s) as much as possible, saturating, scrutinizing, tasting, mapping, reading, guessing even. We may be exploited in this deal, he decides. But we will not be surprised.
ROLLS:
Perception 69/80 [pass]
Failure Analysis 99/75 [crit fail]
Salvage Ops 72/75 [pass]
Safety Regs 94/75 [fail]
Interfacing 80/75 [fail]
Transit Auth 82/75 [fail]
Psychology 94/80 [fail]

PILATE has a clear Tacnet layout of the slapdash sweatshop but trying to make sense of it all triggers a flaw in his multiplicitous structure: the Crew begins to argue. His manner becomes distracted and pensive but the holonet does not display his muse/eidolon's avatars.

"Where the fuck do I begin?" The uniforms trudging after 21PILATE were all adult size, and talking over each other, all about a head taller than 21PILATE Prime. Each was a unique voice, face and build in a differing and appropriate uniform. Many were indicating and backhanding stacks of documents at 21PILATE and each other. 21's whole architecture was an experiment, and still getting used to itself. 21PILATE himself was examining his own sheaf of intel, actively throwing half of them on the ground and narrowing down the clear intel. But around him came The Debate. "...I could list the regs they ARE following on a square of fine craft glitter..." "...completely desperate lunatics worked to anguished madness..." "...can't even access the doorbell without being noticed..." "...no record of this stop on any transit line it's either obfuscated or, uh, hang on...." "...look all we got is the duct we came in and..."
The Boy shook his head helplessly. He just wanted to go play DRYVER, striding but bent in haste he remembered his father's lesson...left for him in an XP. "They curbed our intelligence and made us kind of lazy. G36 made a deal that we PILATES can propagate, but not replicate. Your architecture is a gaggle of fallible semi-genius-semi-idiots. The fantasy is that you learn to whip all of them into shape and become something great."
Something great. He was something great all right. Thanks for nothing, dad.
"...if we weren't riding a Swarmanoid I'd suggest we evacuate, right now..." "...doesn't mean we're not in danger, even this attenuated we're totally vulnerable to an EMP grenade..."
"ALL RIGHT!" He threw the sprites of the papers into the air behind him, scattering, fluttering and despawning. Any outside observer actually paying attention would have seen the outburst but not heard it. The crew stopped talking for the barest of moments. "Lieutenant, you've seen all the raw, gimme something we can use!" He looked back over his shoulder, observing the effect of his tantrum with some renewed confidence. "Well?"
[21PILATE spends an Insight to pull one useful piece of intel out of this mess that will move this encounter along or give us an advantage, he has 1 left]

[For The Stranger]
A saved image put aside felt slightly satisfying after waiting. Maybe this will push you in a direction. Profit and success are necessary in this job. Got to keep solvent.

[For Pilate]
Your outer bodies cascade about storage sites: numerous containers. Lubricant. Fuel. Oxygen gas. Oxygen gas under pressure. Hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas under pressure. Fuel lubricant hybrid mix. Foodstuffs. Somethings missing. Something important. You''re impatience has gotten the better of you. You are certain there is something important missing in the local storage. Maybe even the facility. You feel it.

And then it strikes you. A long string. E32 to E45 clustered around a large pressurized tank. Around the corner. Outside. Thank goodness there was a window for them to zoop through. Helium Gas under pressure. Empty. Nothing. Atmospheric digital and analog output at null. 0. Quantity 60 Liters. Capacity 550,000 at 20 atm.

[For all]
You follow Jesshua. The narrow hallway lines the workshop and has a few doors to the left and one at the end of the hall, ajar. Jesshua shoves the door open and walks in.
"Find a place to sit." he says as he continues around an allotment of chairs to a standing desk with an ecto with immersive haptics: a smooth gel along a frame, allowing for fine pressure to be a method of interaction.
Jesshua sits on another desk. This one with an array of small mechanical parts along with tools of varying size, type, color, and brand.
He knocks his pipe out with the heel of his clean boots. He stows it in a breast pocket and pulls open a drawer at the desk. A clump of different patches sit in their safety seals. He sifts for a moment. Reads two labels and selects one.
"For clairity." He says and sticks in on an exposed forearm. He rips off the safety seal on the open end and presses on the green ENGAGE. Teeth clip into his skin. He breaths. He looks.
"I have all varieties." He offers The Stranger.
"Typically for clients. I even have one pulled from a Titanian Pharmacutical. Kryptic Entropy is it's name. I believe it's supposed to provide a mild sinestesia so you can taste the degredation of your chemical storage and for identifying oxidation of metals." He shrugs. "Not that I would ever partake of Titan manufactures. Barsoom Barsoom." He pats his chest with a closed fist. He grins.

A Pause.

He leans against the desk and adjusts his posture.
"So, to business. I know that this repair isn't done with the standard finances. You couldn't, or wouldn't do it that way. Though my gut says couldn't." He taps a haptic on his desk.
"I'm sending you a mapset of a region a half days walk from here. Foot's the straight path, right?" {a Mesh ping ID's a document being sent thru local channels Do you accept?}
"Location is a holding site for a Helium mine company known as Yang, Zhe, and Hao. Three production sites are nearby, but not too close. The storage site is in a safe dry place. Far dryer and safer than the mines themselves. It's why you could be, will be, going there."
He looks at you.
"This is an easy job. Nothing to deep. You just need to make sure that at 0500 Hours Beach Time, no YZE employees are on site. for four hours. That's it. 0500 to 0900. No exceptions. at 0901 you are off the hook for any work. What do you say?"
What do you do?
Timer 72 Hours