Content Warning: Strong Language
Thursday, October 17th, 1996. 4:41pm
Scene Chaos Factor: 3
Expected Scene: Highway west of Barstow
Testing the Expected Scene: 9 - Expected Scene
I've been driving for a few hours now and I've finally made it past Barstow, heading west towards Mojave. It's good to be back on the road, finally heading in the direction I wanted to be heading, instead of dancing to Sentre's tune. Even if the road I'm driving is complete shit.
After Vinit left, Bellon came back into the room, and debriefed me. She wanted to know how I'd managed to track Shani down, where I found him, and all that sort of crap.
They'd found the memory card in Shani's bag, and wanted to know if I'd read Shani's research. I could honestly tell them that I hadn't, and had no idea what it was all about. She asked a bunch of questions around it, without actually telling me what the research was about, until it became painfully obvious that I was telling the truth and really didn't know anything about the research. Not even what it was called.
Of course, I didn't tell her that I'd taken a copy of it and planned to have a read of it later on. That's really none of her goddamn business. I'm more curious now, given how long she went on about it though. What the fuck was Shani up to?
Anyway, the debriefing session went for well over two hours, and about the only thing she didn't do was shine a desk light and stick bamboo skewers under my fingernails.
By the time I was ready to leave, Nym and Vinit had already been taken off to get medical care. I have no idea where the Sentre had taken them, and no one would tell me. When I asked, I was told that it was an "operational security matter".
Thankfully for me, Bellon was kept her end of the bargain. She had the soldiers fill my Bronco's gas tank, and even gave me two full jerrycans of gas as well. Probably a good thing, because it was running on vapour by the time I had gotten back to the roadblock.
And she did rustle up that half pack of cigarettes, even though I don't smoke. I did laugh and take them though. They might come in handy later.
Did Bellon make any veiled threats? 50/50 - 19 - Yes
Meaning Tables: Actions - 44/92 - Fight, Trial
She did say, though, that it was in my best interest to keep what I had seen and learned to myself. She would hate for me to run afoul of the Pacifica legal system. I got the distinct impression that the legal system she was talking about was less about me facing trial in a courtroom, and more about soldiers and a shallow grave.
It's probably a good thing that I didn't hit on her.
So here I am now, driving west along the old Highway 58, and getting closer to the old Edwards Air Force Base. It probably would have been really cool to have been around here before the war. The old USAF used this place for a lot of their flight testing, so there was probably all sorts of weird shit zooming around. Even NASA used it when it was first testing the old Space Shuttles.
Not that NASA even exists any more. It fell apart at the same time the country did. That meant the shuttles never made it past flight testing. Just another reason to hate the way the war sliced the USA up.
Was Edwards AFB destroyed during the war? Very Likely - 58 - No
Is it still active? Likely - 53 - No.
From what I heard, Edwards got hit pretty hard during the way, but not enough to completely destroy it. The main runway was damaged, as were a lot of the airfield buildings, but that could have repaired those pretty easily, but for some reason, the Pacifica military ended up pulling out and abandoning it. Not entirely sure why.
Is the weather good for driving? 50/50 - 52 - No
Right about then, as if Nature had somehow heard what I was thinking about, the wind started picking up pretty badly, and sand and dust started blowing over the highway. Visibility suddenly dropped and I could only see about a hundred yards in front of me. Everything beyond that was nothing more than a beige blur, so I slowed right down to a crawl.
I guess that's why they abandoned Edwards. Pretty hard to maintain flight operations when your airfield constantly being browned out by dust storms.
Well, that, and the assault drone ships made long runways completely unnecessary. When your ship uses magnetrine tech, you can launch vertically, instead of needing a long take off run. Not much point in keeping a traditional air base running when you just don't need it any more. The fact that we're probably also only about fifty miles as the crow flies from the Blackwelt border might have had something to do with it as well.
The wind died off after about twenty minutes, and the visibility improved. That's when I spotted black smoke on the highway mile or so up, which did not bode well. Hard to tell how big the fire is, or what's actually burning at this distance, but it's spooked me a bit. It's not a huge fire, but there's enough smoke going up to make it look like it might be a tyre or two.
I pulled over to the side of the road, then grabbed my backpack from the back seat. Standing on the pickup's running board, I used the binoculars to get a better look. The terrain around here is mostly flat as a pancake, so getting that little bit extra height let me see further than I could standing on the ground.
Wits Check: Does Eamon spot anything through the binoculars? Five dice - 4, 4, 4, 6, 6 - Two Successes
What does he see? Meaning Tables: Descriptions - 89/27 - Rudely Extravagant
It hard to make out at this distance, even with the binoculars, but there's definitely a vehicle burning up ahead. Looks like it's been burning for a while.
Just beyond the smoke though, there's what looks like a Greyhound bus, parked perpendicular to the highway, blocking the road. Someone's tagged the side of it with graffiti, but I can't make out the words from here. Hell, I can't make out the words in most graffiti when I'm standing right in front of it.
Is there anyone near the bus? 50/50 - 19 - Yes
As I'm watching, two guys on dirt bikes appear from behind the bus and ride slowly up to the burning wreck. It looks like both of them are carrying long arms, but I can't tell you what they are from here. They pull up next to the wreck and hop off their bikes, and walk around it, weapons ready.
Fuck. Good thing I spotted the smoke early and stopped to take a look. I don't like what I'm seeing here, and I would have hated to have driven into some sort of ambush.
Do they look like survivalists? Very Likely - 99 - Exceptional No
Result is a double, but as it's over the Chaos Factor, there's no random event.
I couldn't get a very good look at them, even though my binoculars are pretty damn decent, but they looked like they might even be Pacifica military, judging by the way they moved and covered each other. They were constantly scanning around the area, watching each others blind spots and all that sort of thing. They knew what they were doing, and they seemed like they were expecting trouble.
They checked inside the burning wreck, but they didn't stick around after that. I guess if there was anything left inside, they weren't interested in it. I kept watching until the two guys got back onto their bikes, and rode off, heading north away from the highway.
Well, shit. This changes the equation. My straight run to Mojave is now looking like it might be a bad idea. If the burning wreck is any indication, there might be trouble with marauders, or some shit like that. Particularly if the Pacifica military is scouting things out.
I climbed back inside the truck and put the binoculars back in their case, which I put on the passenger's seat. I wanted to keep them close at hand, in case I need to check stuff out quickly. I opened up the glove compartment, and pulled out the old AAA roadmap that I kept in there. I unfolded it, and laid it up against the steering wheel.
My original plan was to head west past Edwards AFB to Mojave, then turn south and head towards the mountain pass south of Palmdale. But there's a lot of highway, and a couple of townships between here and there. If there's trouble on the major roads - and that wreck and bus roadblock says there could well be - then sticking to the highway might be a suicide move.
But, by the looks of things, there's a lot of unpaved roads heading southwest from here, provided I'm willing to cut through Edwards. Pretty sure the pickup will handle it, if I'm careful. Fuck knows what's out there now that the Air Force doesn't run the place any more, but I suddenly feel more comfortable heading that way. It might be a shortcut too, which I could use after the delay in Barstow.
Right, through Edwards it is.
End of Scene Bookkeeping
Eamon's spooked by the vehicle fire, so the Chaos Factor rises to four.
I’m treating the previous scene as the end of the first Stop, so I need to do a bit of list maintenance. I’ll remove the concluded threads, and a couple of instances of the characters that Eamon has left behind, but I will leave them on, in case of random events.
Removed Find Gas from the Threads List.
Removed Locate Nym Shani in Barstow from the Threads List.
Remove two instances of Nym Shani from the Character List.
Remove two instances of Vinit Shani from the Character List.
End of Scene Notes
After the previous scene with Vinit, I thought about playing through the debriefing scene with Leah Bellon, but realised that I would largely just be rehashing the previous dozen scenes. Aside from maybe giving us some witty banter between the two characters, that sounded kinda boring, so I elected to skip ahead to the next part of the journey. I was done thinking about empty Barstow.
This scene was an encounter stop, that also doubles as some foreshadowing of what could come in the upcoming scenes. I don’t have them all planned out, but when you put a whole bunch of armed people in vehicles - some nutball survivalists, and some hardcore military types - in a largely empty desert, then there’s some potential for Mad Max style shenanigans, which I like the sound of.