The Handbasket Ride - Episode 2
A solo Electric State RPG actual play report
Content warning: Strong language
Tuesday, October 15th, 1996. 6:27pm
Scene Chaos Factor: 4
Testing the Expected Scene: 10 - over Chaos Factor, so scene plays out as expected.
I don't think there was ever much there, but these days, Baker is the dead centre of the desert around here. Emphasis on the word "dead".
I pulled off the highway about half an hour ago. The freeway between the checkpoint and here had seen better days, and was full of cracks and potholes. Pretty sure some of it was caused by bomb or cannon damage. especially closer to the exclusion zone. The desert through the mountain passes were littered with the rusting hulks of destroyed drones.
The road condition made for slower driving, and the truck was getting a little lower on gas than I would have liked.
So I pulled into Baker, hoping to find a gas station where I could fill up. It looks like this place used to mostly be a collection of gas stations and takeout food joints, but most of its closed now. A lot of the buildings are wrecked and covered with graffiti. There's an old motel that looks like someone torched it.
Even the place with the World's Tallest Thermometer is dark and boarded up. There was a sign full of bullet holes with something about it being 134 feet tall to commemorate the hottest day recorded in Death Valley, or some shit like that. Sounds like it was built by some loser desperate for some attention.
Can Eamon find a working gas station? 50/50 - 91- Exceptional no.
Can he manage to scavenge some gas from abandoned cars who's drivers are lost in their neurocasters? Likely - 59 - no.
There were a couple of gas stations still technically open, but they were all out of gas. They were expecting a fuel delivery last week, but the escalation in tensions with Blackwelt meant that all the fuel had been commandeered by the military. There might be a tanker coming in a few days, but no one really knows for certain right now.
Sometime in the past few years, Sentre had built a neurograph tower just to the west of town. The black cylinder stood watch over the town, its red lights blinking back and forth like the eyes of a Cylon in that show I used to watch on TV as a kid.
And like every other God-forsaken shithole town in this country, people zoned out in their neurocasters as soon as it went online. That's another reason why this place is mostly dead now. People forgot to live, and preferred to escape into the virtual world.
The people who stopped for gas mostly decided to use the neurograph tower, too. Some of them didn't come out again, so there's a crapton of abandoned cars, many with what's left of the bodies of their owners with their heads still locked inside their neurocasters. It's places like this that really hammer home just how doomed the human race is now. I keep hoping that someone out there is going to prove me wrong, but today is not that day.
I thought, with all these abandoned cars about, that I might be able to drain some fuel out of their tanks to fill up my truck. But someone else around here apparently had the same idea, and every single car that I checked had already been drained by the time I got there. I must have checked two dozen cars, and none of them had any gas in them.
I asked one the attendants at the gas station what had happened. He said that the Alberich boys had come through a day or so back with a siphon and a pump and sucked it all out. They might be willing to sell some of it, but he doubts it. I asked where they were, and he said they had a farm about five miles east of the town.
So, I left with a crappy microwave burrito, a Coke, and a bottle of bourbon. Not much else worth getting in that shithole. Frankly, I'm not sure I like the ideas of tangling with a bunch of rednecks who'd be more likely to kill me and drain whatever fuel was left in my truck. That wouldn't help Kate, and that's why I'm here.
I've still got about a quarter tank, maybe a bit more. Hopefully that will be enough to get me to Barstow. I'm probably more likely to be able to get some gas there.
End of Scene Bookkeeping
Nothing went right for Eamon in the scene, so increasing the Chaos Factor to 5.
Adding Find gas to the threads list.
End of Episode Notes
Only a short episode this time, but it was an important one for me. In my head, it was just a quick stop to get fuel in the pickup, but the dice had other ideas. I resisted it at first, then reminded myself that I had planned on playing the dice as they fell, so I rolled with it. I think it helped reinforce the theme that the world is turning to custard at a rate of knots, and the scene is stronger for it.
Nice writing. I guess I’m hooked now.