Session 3: Road Trip! - kaseido/NeoTokyo GitHub Wiki

304 Rand 3 Sun -> 4 Water

Dr Dologoi says you have to spend at least a full 24 hours doing nothing physical, or he’ll come over, rip out your intestines, and give them back to you in a shopping bag. And that goes double for you, Kestrel.

So, time to firm up your plans for your trip to Haiphong and the Drift Arcology.

Rina keeps working on her security system to ensure people can’t lock her out of it. Lane catches up with her fanfic. She thinks all they really need is walls and bandwith, so just something over a dumpling joint.

She passes it off to Rin who finds a place for $100NB/night, 5 night minimum, internal plumbing, over a dumpling joint. It’s apparently owned by the restaurant downstairs. Rina works up an ad for the dumpling shop: something for their landlord as a hostess gift. “Eat Good Dumplings!” A cute cat eating a giant dumpling, and a little rat down in the corner also eating a dumpling, to show different people can come together to eat dumplings 😊Rina shows it proudly to Lane, who approves: “That means they’ll like us and leave us alone.”

The bus now only smells mildly of antiseptic. They rig the bus with kitty hammocks, and old episodes of Mr Squeek on replay.

Lane sends a message to Tiffany asking for what support they can hope for in Haiphong. TreeHouse is at their disposal; if they need a mercenary company, call Eloise.

Rina calls ahead for the kitten death squad for an escort: she owes them for not letting them fight last time, after Jiefan pointed out that last time they went to the Wreck they got ambushed by the Dogs of War.

Clothes are discussed: Rina points out that their couture supplier isn’t what they want for this trip. Lane says tactical outfits. Tacticool is not hard to find in NeoTokyo. They’re going to expense it. TIL Global Designs: they’re dressed like what corpos think sci-fi mercenaries like that. Lane suggests they could go undercover as shooting a movie. Rina’s wearing a sci-fi long hoodie in flickering urban camo.

It occurs to the group that they need food – both human and cat -for the trip. Thankfully ConBrands kibble does for both. They head to a nearby convenience store. Lane talks the clerk down to 140NB/case. They have the following cases: 1 Bacon Cheddar, Caramel Crunch. Rina opens up a pack of each of Fizzy and Chili Lime, spits out half, says “Fizzzy!” and puts the open packs back on the shelf.

The team drives out to the Wreck, and pulls up to the barricaded bottleneck at the entrance to the wreckage of the Pyramid: yes, this is the spot where gangs extort “immigration fees,” straight up rob you, or sometimes just shoot you for shits and giggles. But there’s nobody there. Jiefan says she’s not going to drive the bus into the wreck and let you all get trapped from behind last time: she’ll stay and defend the bus while you all go get the cats.

But… it’s deserted. Weirdly deserted. Not a boosterganger or a begging urchin anywhere to be seen. It’s dead silent but for the creaking of rusted beams far overhead.

Then… BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP, BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP, and everyone feels the bass of each beat in your very gut. Then a scream, a cat’s scream – but not one cat, many more -dozens? Hundreds?

were a kit: this is the Gathering of the Colonies, and it only happened once before, after the Bombing.

And there they come. Out in front a huge cat, maybe Maine Coon, maybe spliced with bobcat genes. One laser eye and what looks like a stripped down Klingon disruptor strapped to his back.

Then, colony by colony they come, marching to the beat, breaking on either side of the bus, marching on, until it’s a sea of uplifted cats, cybernetics gleaming, all in perfect formation, marching in place, leaving an empty lane in front of your bus.

Their paws must all be mic’d – their march is shaking the rubble foundations of the pyramid.

Down that lane march the two new Colonies, one in scarlet ribbons, one in gold. They come to a stop in front of the old cat, two meters in front of your bus.

It’s dead silent. A cat from each colony steps forward a body length and turns to you, Bombalurina, and chimes in unison, “Permission to come aboard, Ma’am?” You can hear the smirk behind the deadly solemnity.

Rina looks very very solemn and professional, and slides the door to the bus open, and bows deeply. Speaking just to the cats, "Welcome aboard, Cats Abroad!”

The old cat must be wearing a Universal Translator: you all understood that. He looks up at you all and says, “Our future rides with you. Keep the kits safe, grow the Clowder, eviscerate our foes.”

More softly, just to Rina, “Go, Granddaughter. You’re doing so well.”

He turns, marches in place to a four-count beat, and the wail begins again. The Clowder marches back into the wreck, tails high.

OK, that was something to tell your descendants about, but now you have 32 unruly cats aboard a party bus. One of them finds the controls for the conference table: as it rotates down into the floor, a Drinkmaster 3000 bar rotating up, a flurry of panties escapes -which the cats think is hilarious, and they run around, leaping across the backs of the seats, panties over their heads.

How long is it to Haiphong?

One of the cats has settled on Lane’s pillow. Rina’s in the back among the hammocks, covered in cats, a general purring from the mass. Everybody who eats the case of Fizzy gets horrific gas, and the windows don’t open. Rina had the Caramel, so she’s exempt. Rook is really glad she didn’t partake.

Middle of the night, they need a pit stop. Rina whistles at Rook, who’s driving, and tells her to pull over. It’s real dark for anyone without night vision. Rina gives the cats about 20 minutes then screeches out in cat, “if you don’t get your asses back here, we’ll leave without you, have fun walking the rest of the way, and gives them another 10 minutes.

Everybody who eats the case of Fizzy gets horrific gas, and the windows don’t open. Rina had the Caramel, so she’s exempt. Rook is really glad she didn’t partake.

The road is four wide lanes, but not tremendously well maintained. The shocks on the bus do a good job of smoothing out most of the ride, but there are some pretty big dips. The bus is just coming out of one when Rook sees some sort of Frankenvehicle coming up fast, and the sound of bullets whizzing by.

Rina tells all the cats to get down on the floor, and scurries to the back of the bus. She looks for a network on the attacking vehicle, but nope. She goes to the Drinkmaster and gets Kestrel’s help to do an upgrade to make the seltzer guns shoot tlong range. They rig a stream of ghost pepper vodka.

Jiefan makes a shot and the driver is dead, on fire, and covered in vodka, and giving off toxic pepper smoke fumes. The gunner keeps trying to Autofire and missing. Both mooks get covered in vodka and are about to catch fire. Rina manages to set everyone but the gunner on fire, and the truck spins out of control, exploding, as it’s already on fire.

They pull over, get the kitties settled, and give them all a snack – no Fizzies! Rook wants to eat them now that the bus is ventilated from the back window having been shot out, and knocks off a shot of ghost pepper vodka. Rina and Kestrel rig up something to cover the back window. Jiefan politely takes the wheel from Rook, who smells of ghost pepper vodka and farts.

The cross-country highway intersects the Haiphong ring road. Right before it does – yeah, there’s a bunch of concrete bollards, a lot of guys with rocket launchers and SMGs, and it looks like the bollards in the middle are on wheels. Yep, shakedown time.

The border guard comes over and gets a huge whiff of ghost pepper and cat farts. Lane winks and smiles: “Whatcha need, big guy?” There’s a cat on her shoulder. He just backs up and waves the bus through. 32 cats wave through the back window.

They arrive at the restaurant. Jiefan is like the last person on the planet who knows how to parallel park: she gets them into a tiny spot right in front of the dumpling shop. Rook: “Don’t tell them about the cats- there might be a pet deposit!”

Lane figures out that the rest of the cats can settle with the colony here until it’s time to go. Rina doesn’t want to let them go – she’s having a great time! The cats drag the rest of the kibble off with them.

Lane introduces herself and Rina to the proprietor. “Shower fast, discount expires!”

They shower, and head downstairs all fresh smelling to eat lunch (at 20% off). They’ll make Kestrel take the bus to the body shop and scrub it out.