TheBeanBurrito Member
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Actually, I really don't have time to devote to this any longer. Gonna have to drop.
Nah, man, it's all good. Midnight Thursday is the deadline anyway. Glad you didn't disappear!
Just a reminder, the remaining players have until the end of tomorrow to post. This is Portyguls, Brent, and Note. Please get these up as soon as possible.
We've decided to implement two things that we'd really rather not:
After Thursday anybody who has not posted will be NPC'd by Potter and I for that post. We both understand that life happens and is more important than the RP in every circumstance, but we also have a responsibility to keep the game flowing. If you miss one week's deadline you can still play. We're not going to kill off characters just for that. Just keep posting and try to let us know if you won't be around. However....
If you have been NPC'd twice, especially in a row, Potter and I will have a talk. You have until the following Monday to reply, otherwise we will be forced to replace your character. We do not want to do this. At all. The RP is based around a six person team, though, and we'd like to keep it going smoothly.
We've decided to implement two things that we'd really rather not:
After Thursday anybody who has not posted will be NPC'd by Potter and I for that post. We both understand that life happens and is more important than the RP in every circumstance, but we also have a responsibility to keep the game flowing. If you miss one week's deadline you can still play. We're not going to kill off characters just for that. Just keep posting and try to let us know if you won't be around. However....
If you have been NPC'd twice, especially in a row, Potter and I will have a talk. You have until the following Monday to reply, otherwise we will be forced to replace your character. We do not want to do this. At all. The RP is based around a six person team, though, and we'd like to keep it going smoothly.
Yeah, I'm still not dead. Working up a post. Should be up this week.
Standard conversation format, guys. You should be using the gdoc to write out your conversations with another player or finding another way to let them write it with you. Don't feel like you have to keep secrets, IC knowledge is not OOC knowledge.
Marc Osias
Marc's gear jingled as he climbed up the side of the building. The rustles of his clothing, his boots scraping against the wall as he scaled, and the occasional grunt dissipated into the silence of the Detroit ruins. The sun was high, yet no birds flew. No insects chirped. Every biozone and surrounding areas were like this. Silent. Empty. Dead.
Even after all this time he couldn't shake the weak feeling that overtook his body every time he went into a zone. He hefted himself up and met a sight that had become familiar to him. Helga was rummaging through her bags, the odd strand of blonde hair protesting her otherwise neat hair. Within a moment it was tucked back into place. John was looking into what distance he could make out through the scope on his Mauser, chewing absently on a piece of jerky. A small fire popped at the end of the room. The rest of his gear was nearby.
"We have a problem." He said, opening the briefcase at their table. "We all know that the zones came from stolen biologocal weapons. Turns out, it started right here. These documents," he said while motioning to the papers and computer discs inside the briefcase, "Contain the entire development history of what they dropped. It's a virus. Twelve hour incubation period. Death within twenty-four hours at the longest. Everything we already know. But....
Until now we all thought that the virus died after forty-eight hours inside the zone and fifteen minutes outside of it. Standard bioweapon development. Turns out, as long as they're in the zones they can survive. They change.
This isn't a weapons grade virus by the strictest definition. It's medical. Was supposed to be the next step in a cancer cure. First they wanted to make it have a short lifespan. Kill the cancer and die off. No room for mutation. Somewhere along the line they worked in a dormant stage. Kill the cancer, die, then go to sleep for a while. Eventually the sleepers die off. Next step was to make it non-lethal. Start animal testing, ramp up the virus' targeting abilities. Make it viable against cancer cells only. Then HeLa tests, etc, etc, cure. Guess which stage of development they were at when the rebels stole it?"
Marc let it sink in.
"They got to making it dormant. Problem is that they had problems in testing keeping it dormant. After a while the strain would change. It'd annihilate everything it came across, then go dormant. Then the thing would just die randomly. Genetic degradation, environmental damage, or something else. They worked in a hotfix at the labs up north. Self-regulating genetics and the ability to take resources from the environment. It wasn't supposed to be more than an interesting development - a milestone unrelated to the project but still noteworthy on its own. So it was supposed to be shipped down to the lower states, a Camp Lejeune in Virginia with either a cure or something damn close. A kill bug, anti-virus, inoculation, I can't tell. That data isn't on the papers. Could be on one of the discs or drives. Lejeune is supposed to have the facilities to deal with this.
Problem is that the rebels happened. The shipment was postponed. Research continued and the new virus had an interesting characteristic that developed. After a couple years of being dormant it woke up.... with the ability to survive outside of the carefully cultured environment it'd been designed to work in. Current evolution projections put it at a year and a half to two years before it could wake up "in theatre." It's been "in theater" for six months now."
He looked from John to Helga, then back to the briefcase.
"There was another one of these. When I was down there I came across somebody else. It got tense, but nothing happened. I grabbed this one instead of the other one. Guy's name is Jameson Deschain. I knew him from before. Sort of. Told him to meet me in Warren today. I was hoping we could set up first, make sure he's not a threat, and figure out who he actually is. If he is Jameson then we might be able to take him along. Guy is - was - smart and capable. If not, we do the usual shoot and loot. Thing is, now he has the other briefcase. The one with the samples. The shipment with the actual cure.
What do you guys want to do?"
Marc gritted his teeth. He'd just learned about the end of the end of the world and the time frame they had to stop it - if they could even stop it. And now he'd shared it with the only two people he trusted. Today is one hell of a day.
Marc's gear jingled as he climbed up the side of the building. The rustles of his clothing, his boots scraping against the wall as he scaled, and the occasional grunt dissipated into the silence of the Detroit ruins. The sun was high, yet no birds flew. No insects chirped. Every biozone and surrounding areas were like this. Silent. Empty. Dead.
Even after all this time he couldn't shake the weak feeling that overtook his body every time he went into a zone. He hefted himself up and met a sight that had become familiar to him. Helga was rummaging through her bags, the odd strand of blonde hair protesting her otherwise neat hair. Within a moment it was tucked back into place. John was looking into what distance he could make out through the scope on his Mauser, chewing absently on a piece of jerky. A small fire popped at the end of the room. The rest of his gear was nearby.
"We have a problem." He said, opening the briefcase at their table. "We all know that the zones came from stolen biologocal weapons. Turns out, it started right here. These documents," he said while motioning to the papers and computer discs inside the briefcase, "Contain the entire development history of what they dropped. It's a virus. Twelve hour incubation period. Death within twenty-four hours at the longest. Everything we already know. But....
Until now we all thought that the virus died after forty-eight hours inside the zone and fifteen minutes outside of it. Standard bioweapon development. Turns out, as long as they're in the zones they can survive. They change.
This isn't a weapons grade virus by the strictest definition. It's medical. Was supposed to be the next step in a cancer cure. First they wanted to make it have a short lifespan. Kill the cancer and die off. No room for mutation. Somewhere along the line they worked in a dormant stage. Kill the cancer, die, then go to sleep for a while. Eventually the sleepers die off. Next step was to make it non-lethal. Start animal testing, ramp up the virus' targeting abilities. Make it viable against cancer cells only. Then HeLa tests, etc, etc, cure. Guess which stage of development they were at when the rebels stole it?"
Marc let it sink in.
"They got to making it dormant. Problem is that they had problems in testing keeping it dormant. After a while the strain would change. It'd annihilate everything it came across, then go dormant. Then the thing would just die randomly. Genetic degradation, environmental damage, or something else. They worked in a hotfix at the labs up north. Self-regulating genetics and the ability to take resources from the environment. It wasn't supposed to be more than an interesting development - a milestone unrelated to the project but still noteworthy on its own. So it was supposed to be shipped down to the lower states, a Camp Lejeune in Virginia with either a cure or something damn close. A kill bug, anti-virus, inoculation, I can't tell. That data isn't on the papers. Could be on one of the discs or drives. Lejeune is supposed to have the facilities to deal with this.
Problem is that the rebels happened. The shipment was postponed. Research continued and the new virus had an interesting characteristic that developed. After a couple years of being dormant it woke up.... with the ability to survive outside of the carefully cultured environment it'd been designed to work in. Current evolution projections put it at a year and a half to two years before it could wake up "in theatre." It's been "in theater" for six months now."
He looked from John to Helga, then back to the briefcase.
"There was another one of these. When I was down there I came across somebody else. It got tense, but nothing happened. I grabbed this one instead of the other one. Guy's name is Jameson Deschain. I knew him from before. Sort of. Told him to meet me in Warren today. I was hoping we could set up first, make sure he's not a threat, and figure out who he actually is. If he is Jameson then we might be able to take him along. Guy is - was - smart and capable. If not, we do the usual shoot and loot. Thing is, now he has the other briefcase. The one with the samples. The shipment with the actual cure.
What do you guys want to do?"
Marc gritted his teeth. He'd just learned about the end of the end of the world and the time frame they had to stop it - if they could even stop it. And now he'd shared it with the only two people he trusted. Today is one hell of a day.
Post is UP! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
GM Story Post
Act I, Scene I: The Virus
Wednesday, August 13th 2019
Detroit Michigan, The United States of North America
0500
“We’re lucky Detroit was never properly hit. Down to two filters.” Marc Osias tightened up his gas mask, taping it to his homemade hazard suit. Beside him John Grimm had taken up a position to keep watch over him as he moved into the city. Mostly. Sightlines were haphazard in ruins which suffered heavy rioting like Detriot, and he’d be pretty much alone once he entered the biozone. Knowing someone he trusted had his back gave him the courage to go in there.
There was still good stuff to be found in the zones. Not many people had both the gear and the guts to head into them.
His voice came out muffled as he finished taping the suit closed. “Keep a look out, all right? I don’t want to get jumped out there.”
Marc gave a last look to Helga before lowering himself down the building they’d climbed into for shelter. From here it was all ruin and two hours of air.
As he crossed into the deepest area of the zone, Marc felt himself shudder inside. The same cold shudder of the unknown he’d felt each time. He’d have to move very quickly now since he had twenty minutes of air available.
He spotted a military convoy - the remains of one anyway. It looked untouched. As Marc approached he spotted the USNA biological symbol on a briefcase. A faint light glimmered by the handle. Despite his racing heart and mounting fear about what would be inside the case he decided to take it. It was then that something moved in his peripherals, and he heard the characteristic draw of air through a gas mask filter - other than his own. “
Jameson walked casually through the ruins of the apocalypse. Upon first entering such a hostile zone, he had attempted to remain stealthy. Yet quickly he realized he was more than likely the only living thing in the poisoned lands. What was there to hide from? And even more so, even if he wished to hide, each breath was ragged and loud through the filters of his mask.
His hair was long and the snout nose of the gas mask seemed out of place against a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and military jacket. He wasn’t overly afraid of what poisons may be touching his skins. He had learned long ago that Death was inevitable, especially in this strange new world. His rifle hung limply from a sling over his shoulder, and he was half tempted to whistle to himself, both for the humor of the situation and to stave off the eery silence of this ruined land.
Walking down a ruined street, he spotted the remains of some form of government convoy, and upon drawing closer found it as ruined as the rest. He hoped dully for more munition among this ruined party, and approached with the nonchalant attitude of a man sure he was alone with nothing but the ghosts of the damned.
Yet Jameson wasn’t scared of ghosts or monsters under the bed anymore, for he knew Man was the only true Monster he need fear. And a Monster he would find.
His first alert was the sound of a sharp breath through a gas mask, yet it wasn’t his breathing. At first, he thought he had misheard. That perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him. Even so, he would drop to a crouch and ready his DPMS Oracle. His heart would race quickly, and his first priority was to take control of his breathing. He wondered if maybe one of his companions had followed him into this ruined place, but knew that none of them had a gas mask, or any form of protection from the death fumes of this place.
Hearing a slight noise moving slightly from the other side of the convoy truck he was standing near, he would duck his head down to find he wasn’t insane. A person obviously stood on the other side of the vehicle, as he could see their boots. He took aim with his rifle and prepared to fire a vicious round through the feet of the man standing on the other side, wishing to be cautious of his safety. He could only wonder who this person was, or what they were doing there.
Yet as he would take aim, a deep humanity in Jameson would stir, and the thought intruded into his mind that he did not know of this person wished him harm, or deserved his bullets. His finger twitched slightly on the trigger, and he nearly sighed before realizing it would be too loud.
“Dammit.” Jameson whispered before deciding to take a more humane approach. He would move swiftly, wishing to utilize the element of surprise. He would move swiftly and silently to the front of the truck, before leaping into a coiled roll to confront this stranger. As Jameson would roll into a crouched position and ready his rifle, he would yell;
“HANDS UP, MOTHERFUCKER!”
But only boots greeted his vision, unoccupied by a wearer. A gasp came to his lips, unsure if he was truly going mad, or…
“NRRA, you so much as blink and you’re done.” Marc’s voice was emotionally dead and loud in the quiet ruins. He’d dealt with looters and rioters plenty Pre-End.
When Marc noticed the man he now had his Model 327 trained on he’d taken a pair of boots from the corpse of a soldier and placed them where he was standing before the stranger noticed his presence. He’d crawled away under some rubble and ended up behind his would-be killer.
“Drop your weapon, hands behind your head, and move away slowly. You are trespassing on USNA territory. Name, rank, and allegiance. Now.”
He didn’t really give two shits about the United States of North America or the National Resource Reclamation Agency any longer but government agencies were intimidating and effective tools in keeping threats suppressed.
Looking down his sights, he cursed the city. He didn’t have time to play sheriff in the middle of a goddamn biozone. He needed to know if the stranger had friends.
Jameson turned to the clever opponent and would smile at him to attempt to defuse the suddenly tense situation. Realizing the man can’t see his face, he instead would laugh openly in the face of the one holding the gun to him. He could hardly take what he said seriously.
“Trespassing? Definitely seems like I’m interrupting some important activites here.” He said sarcastically, and then continued; “ And you mean the United States of Nothing?” Jameson would make a great sweeping motion with his arm, as if to indicate to look around them.
“I’m not scared of jar-heads or Uncle Sam, stranger. Though I am scared of that.” He nodded to the man’s weaponry, aimed squarely at him.
He knew at this point his opponent would be able to fire a round into his chest before he could properly fire back, and had little choice but to drop his rifle to the ground, shrugging as he did so like it was of little importance to him.
“My name is Jameson Deschain, and my allegiance is to none but myself.” Though he lied slightly in his allegiance, he had told the man the truth in his name.
“Come now, if this is my End, at least tell me the name of the one who would end me.” He replied with his own question.
Marc had almost pulled the trigger, but didn’t in the case that the man had friends nearby. When he heard the man’s name he stood silent for a beat. There was no way this was the same Jameson Deschain from Pre-End…. but he had to be sure. The Jameson he knew never would have travelled alone.
“Jameson Deschain,” His voice had a twitch to it, “ Of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Where are your friends, Jameson? I know you wouldn’t have left them.” He hoped that attaching a location to this Jameson would make the man try to correct him, or at least confirm his identity. If it was the same Jameson…. Marc was used to sweating in his suit but not from anxiety. The fucking suitcase is what he wanted, not ghosts from the past and rapidly dwindling air supply.
“I am Marc Osias.” He decided that the man’s life depended on what he said next. Too much breath spent on conversation in the center of the zone would kill them both.
Jameson wished he could wipe the rapidly accumulating sweat from his brow, and wanted to hurry up and die or get the fuck out of here. The man appeared to have heard of him, which seemed to strange to him. He had lead a militia, and worked among other prominent members of the Resistance. But had he truly reached this level of Infamy..?
“You are well learned of my ways, stranger. I would not leave them, if not for the fact my original companions in fate are all dead.”
A flash from the past streaked across his mind like a lightning bolt, and he saw the face of his fiancee sprinting into the darkness of a nearby wood as total darkness descended, and the only light to be seen was the flash of gunfire. Never seeing her again..
A chief lieutenant of his rebellion, Jacob Hastings, loyal to the bone and polite to a fault, lay dead in a ditch with a bullet hole above his right eye, having taken the bullet in a successful attempt to save Jamesons life from a ambush.
A goliath of a man, easily 6’3 and several hundred pounds of muscle, the Enforcer of his group, one Ryan Gasner had taken a solid round of buckshot to his abdominal during the same ambush, and had died in Jamesons arms.
Another of his lieutenants came to his mind, a face he had nearly buried in trauma and mental blocks. But he shook his head, breaking the fierce trance the ghosts of the past had on him. He smiled slightly at the idea that after his long road, perhaps he would be reunited with them once more.
“Marc Osias?”
He felt the wind nearly rush from his body, and it took considerable will to keep him standing. He was nearly positive he was truly mad now, if only because he couldn’t fully grasp that Osias would be even alive in this chaotic world, much less right before him. He was unsure of how to continue.
“Surely it can’t..?” He felt a sudden urge to rip off his breathing apparatus, and to remove the strangers as well. They were hot and cramped, and he felt the urge to see the face of this stranger. To confirm it was truly he from so long ago.
He felt suddenly awkward and unsure, much more experienced with rapists and rebels than a strange friend from the past.
Marc finally lowered his revolver. “Whether we knew each other or not we are running out of air. If you’re the same Jameson Deschain I knew from 2009 then.. fuck I don’t know. Warren is to the north of here outside of the zone. If you want to talk, meet me there before sundown. Tomorrow I’m gone.”
He hated this risk. Jameson hadn’t come up in his thoughts since the NRRA days. It was very unlikely that the stranger would shoot him now. Hazard suits were valuable, and if Jameson wanted to kill him for his gear he’d probably never make it out of the zone in time for any of it to matter.
Marc holstered his gun and rushed to the truck to retrieve the briefcase. He wanted to look around the convoy more but needed enough filter for the bioweapon he was coated in to die off. He took a last look at Jameson before rushing away. He called out over his shoulder.
“Convoy’s all yours. Take whatever you want but you want to get the fuck out of here pronto. After you get out of the zone keep your mask on for a half hour. Whatever’s in here can’t survive outside of the zones for that long. You’re lucky it’s just airbourne.”
Once he got out of the concentrated area he changed direction, double backed, and made sure he wasn’t being followed. There was more time on his filter out of the centre of it all. He remembered the briefcase and quickened his step.
Jameson scrambled to his gun first thing, and quickly picked it up. The stranger seemed to move with a equal swiftness, both seemingly frightened by the encounter and eager to leave this place. He saw the one claiming to be Marc grab a strangely official looking briefcase and scurry out of sight, calling out a last bit of advice over his shoulder as he went.
He decided to give only a cursory look over the ruined convoy once Marc left, still attempting to find ammunition. Finding little, he did seem to find a similar briefcase clutched in the arms of a dead soldier with no boots on. Prying it from the dead, cold, hands of the fallen soldier, he would turn to find the sun high in the sky, reaching its zenith.
Taking off at a light jog, he was eager to rejoin his new companions and tell them both what and who he had found. His thoughts swam confusingly in his skull as he moved with a quick and relentless pace back along the familiar trail to his camp, unsure if he truly should go and meet with this stranger masquerading as an ally from a time now long since past.
Yet as he closed in on the border of his encampment, he knew he had no choice in the matter. Fate had brought these two men together on this day, and he doubted he would so easily be freed of Osias, even if he wished to be.
Wednesday, August 13th 2019
Detroit Michigan, The United States of North America
1100
While Marc decon’d he thought about all that had happened. Jameson here? The whole thing spooked him. The guy looked like he’d been torn ragged by the End. Then there was the briefcase. Marc already noticed that he’d grabbed the wrong briefcase in his haste. What he knew now was that the reason the biozones never disappeared even though the pathogens should have died out was due to their engineering. He knew that they’d been changing and would eventually change into a form that wouldn’t die off rapidly. He also knew that whoever Jameson was didn’t matter as much as what he most likely had: the other suitcase containing the research.
The briefcase he found was full of papers detailing the pathogen, its purpose, where to deliver the research, and how to effectively stop it. Marc laughed bitterly at it all. A stolen superweapon sold to rebels across the world will mutate within a year and a half to two years of deployment. They were on six months away from year one. And a ghost from his past has the cure.
He climbed back into the building occupied by the only two people he trusted and laid it all on them. However they got the other briefcase, it needed to get to Camp Lejeune, Virginia. Fast.
Act I, Scene I: The Virus
Wednesday, August 13th 2019
Detroit Michigan, The United States of North America
0500
“We’re lucky Detroit was never properly hit. Down to two filters.” Marc Osias tightened up his gas mask, taping it to his homemade hazard suit. Beside him John Grimm had taken up a position to keep watch over him as he moved into the city. Mostly. Sightlines were haphazard in ruins which suffered heavy rioting like Detriot, and he’d be pretty much alone once he entered the biozone. Knowing someone he trusted had his back gave him the courage to go in there.
There was still good stuff to be found in the zones. Not many people had both the gear and the guts to head into them.
His voice came out muffled as he finished taping the suit closed. “Keep a look out, all right? I don’t want to get jumped out there.”
Marc gave a last look to Helga before lowering himself down the building they’d climbed into for shelter. From here it was all ruin and two hours of air.
As he crossed into the deepest area of the zone, Marc felt himself shudder inside. The same cold shudder of the unknown he’d felt each time. He’d have to move very quickly now since he had twenty minutes of air available.
He spotted a military convoy - the remains of one anyway. It looked untouched. As Marc approached he spotted the USNA biological symbol on a briefcase. A faint light glimmered by the handle. Despite his racing heart and mounting fear about what would be inside the case he decided to take it. It was then that something moved in his peripherals, and he heard the characteristic draw of air through a gas mask filter - other than his own. “
Jameson walked casually through the ruins of the apocalypse. Upon first entering such a hostile zone, he had attempted to remain stealthy. Yet quickly he realized he was more than likely the only living thing in the poisoned lands. What was there to hide from? And even more so, even if he wished to hide, each breath was ragged and loud through the filters of his mask.
His hair was long and the snout nose of the gas mask seemed out of place against a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and military jacket. He wasn’t overly afraid of what poisons may be touching his skins. He had learned long ago that Death was inevitable, especially in this strange new world. His rifle hung limply from a sling over his shoulder, and he was half tempted to whistle to himself, both for the humor of the situation and to stave off the eery silence of this ruined land.
Walking down a ruined street, he spotted the remains of some form of government convoy, and upon drawing closer found it as ruined as the rest. He hoped dully for more munition among this ruined party, and approached with the nonchalant attitude of a man sure he was alone with nothing but the ghosts of the damned.
Yet Jameson wasn’t scared of ghosts or monsters under the bed anymore, for he knew Man was the only true Monster he need fear. And a Monster he would find.
His first alert was the sound of a sharp breath through a gas mask, yet it wasn’t his breathing. At first, he thought he had misheard. That perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him. Even so, he would drop to a crouch and ready his DPMS Oracle. His heart would race quickly, and his first priority was to take control of his breathing. He wondered if maybe one of his companions had followed him into this ruined place, but knew that none of them had a gas mask, or any form of protection from the death fumes of this place.
Hearing a slight noise moving slightly from the other side of the convoy truck he was standing near, he would duck his head down to find he wasn’t insane. A person obviously stood on the other side of the vehicle, as he could see their boots. He took aim with his rifle and prepared to fire a vicious round through the feet of the man standing on the other side, wishing to be cautious of his safety. He could only wonder who this person was, or what they were doing there.
Yet as he would take aim, a deep humanity in Jameson would stir, and the thought intruded into his mind that he did not know of this person wished him harm, or deserved his bullets. His finger twitched slightly on the trigger, and he nearly sighed before realizing it would be too loud.
“Dammit.” Jameson whispered before deciding to take a more humane approach. He would move swiftly, wishing to utilize the element of surprise. He would move swiftly and silently to the front of the truck, before leaping into a coiled roll to confront this stranger. As Jameson would roll into a crouched position and ready his rifle, he would yell;
“HANDS UP, MOTHERFUCKER!”
But only boots greeted his vision, unoccupied by a wearer. A gasp came to his lips, unsure if he was truly going mad, or…
“NRRA, you so much as blink and you’re done.” Marc’s voice was emotionally dead and loud in the quiet ruins. He’d dealt with looters and rioters plenty Pre-End.
When Marc noticed the man he now had his Model 327 trained on he’d taken a pair of boots from the corpse of a soldier and placed them where he was standing before the stranger noticed his presence. He’d crawled away under some rubble and ended up behind his would-be killer.
“Drop your weapon, hands behind your head, and move away slowly. You are trespassing on USNA territory. Name, rank, and allegiance. Now.”
He didn’t really give two shits about the United States of North America or the National Resource Reclamation Agency any longer but government agencies were intimidating and effective tools in keeping threats suppressed.
Looking down his sights, he cursed the city. He didn’t have time to play sheriff in the middle of a goddamn biozone. He needed to know if the stranger had friends.
Jameson turned to the clever opponent and would smile at him to attempt to defuse the suddenly tense situation. Realizing the man can’t see his face, he instead would laugh openly in the face of the one holding the gun to him. He could hardly take what he said seriously.
“Trespassing? Definitely seems like I’m interrupting some important activites here.” He said sarcastically, and then continued; “ And you mean the United States of Nothing?” Jameson would make a great sweeping motion with his arm, as if to indicate to look around them.
“I’m not scared of jar-heads or Uncle Sam, stranger. Though I am scared of that.” He nodded to the man’s weaponry, aimed squarely at him.
He knew at this point his opponent would be able to fire a round into his chest before he could properly fire back, and had little choice but to drop his rifle to the ground, shrugging as he did so like it was of little importance to him.
“My name is Jameson Deschain, and my allegiance is to none but myself.” Though he lied slightly in his allegiance, he had told the man the truth in his name.
“Come now, if this is my End, at least tell me the name of the one who would end me.” He replied with his own question.
Marc had almost pulled the trigger, but didn’t in the case that the man had friends nearby. When he heard the man’s name he stood silent for a beat. There was no way this was the same Jameson Deschain from Pre-End…. but he had to be sure. The Jameson he knew never would have travelled alone.
“Jameson Deschain,” His voice had a twitch to it, “ Of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Where are your friends, Jameson? I know you wouldn’t have left them.” He hoped that attaching a location to this Jameson would make the man try to correct him, or at least confirm his identity. If it was the same Jameson…. Marc was used to sweating in his suit but not from anxiety. The fucking suitcase is what he wanted, not ghosts from the past and rapidly dwindling air supply.
“I am Marc Osias.” He decided that the man’s life depended on what he said next. Too much breath spent on conversation in the center of the zone would kill them both.
Jameson wished he could wipe the rapidly accumulating sweat from his brow, and wanted to hurry up and die or get the fuck out of here. The man appeared to have heard of him, which seemed to strange to him. He had lead a militia, and worked among other prominent members of the Resistance. But had he truly reached this level of Infamy..?
“You are well learned of my ways, stranger. I would not leave them, if not for the fact my original companions in fate are all dead.”
A flash from the past streaked across his mind like a lightning bolt, and he saw the face of his fiancee sprinting into the darkness of a nearby wood as total darkness descended, and the only light to be seen was the flash of gunfire. Never seeing her again..
A chief lieutenant of his rebellion, Jacob Hastings, loyal to the bone and polite to a fault, lay dead in a ditch with a bullet hole above his right eye, having taken the bullet in a successful attempt to save Jamesons life from a ambush.
A goliath of a man, easily 6’3 and several hundred pounds of muscle, the Enforcer of his group, one Ryan Gasner had taken a solid round of buckshot to his abdominal during the same ambush, and had died in Jamesons arms.
Another of his lieutenants came to his mind, a face he had nearly buried in trauma and mental blocks. But he shook his head, breaking the fierce trance the ghosts of the past had on him. He smiled slightly at the idea that after his long road, perhaps he would be reunited with them once more.
“Marc Osias?”
He felt the wind nearly rush from his body, and it took considerable will to keep him standing. He was nearly positive he was truly mad now, if only because he couldn’t fully grasp that Osias would be even alive in this chaotic world, much less right before him. He was unsure of how to continue.
“Surely it can’t..?” He felt a sudden urge to rip off his breathing apparatus, and to remove the strangers as well. They were hot and cramped, and he felt the urge to see the face of this stranger. To confirm it was truly he from so long ago.
He felt suddenly awkward and unsure, much more experienced with rapists and rebels than a strange friend from the past.
Marc finally lowered his revolver. “Whether we knew each other or not we are running out of air. If you’re the same Jameson Deschain I knew from 2009 then.. fuck I don’t know. Warren is to the north of here outside of the zone. If you want to talk, meet me there before sundown. Tomorrow I’m gone.”
He hated this risk. Jameson hadn’t come up in his thoughts since the NRRA days. It was very unlikely that the stranger would shoot him now. Hazard suits were valuable, and if Jameson wanted to kill him for his gear he’d probably never make it out of the zone in time for any of it to matter.
Marc holstered his gun and rushed to the truck to retrieve the briefcase. He wanted to look around the convoy more but needed enough filter for the bioweapon he was coated in to die off. He took a last look at Jameson before rushing away. He called out over his shoulder.
“Convoy’s all yours. Take whatever you want but you want to get the fuck out of here pronto. After you get out of the zone keep your mask on for a half hour. Whatever’s in here can’t survive outside of the zones for that long. You’re lucky it’s just airbourne.”
Once he got out of the concentrated area he changed direction, double backed, and made sure he wasn’t being followed. There was more time on his filter out of the centre of it all. He remembered the briefcase and quickened his step.
Jameson scrambled to his gun first thing, and quickly picked it up. The stranger seemed to move with a equal swiftness, both seemingly frightened by the encounter and eager to leave this place. He saw the one claiming to be Marc grab a strangely official looking briefcase and scurry out of sight, calling out a last bit of advice over his shoulder as he went.
He decided to give only a cursory look over the ruined convoy once Marc left, still attempting to find ammunition. Finding little, he did seem to find a similar briefcase clutched in the arms of a dead soldier with no boots on. Prying it from the dead, cold, hands of the fallen soldier, he would turn to find the sun high in the sky, reaching its zenith.
Taking off at a light jog, he was eager to rejoin his new companions and tell them both what and who he had found. His thoughts swam confusingly in his skull as he moved with a quick and relentless pace back along the familiar trail to his camp, unsure if he truly should go and meet with this stranger masquerading as an ally from a time now long since past.
Yet as he closed in on the border of his encampment, he knew he had no choice in the matter. Fate had brought these two men together on this day, and he doubted he would so easily be freed of Osias, even if he wished to be.
Wednesday, August 13th 2019
Detroit Michigan, The United States of North America
1100
While Marc decon’d he thought about all that had happened. Jameson here? The whole thing spooked him. The guy looked like he’d been torn ragged by the End. Then there was the briefcase. Marc already noticed that he’d grabbed the wrong briefcase in his haste. What he knew now was that the reason the biozones never disappeared even though the pathogens should have died out was due to their engineering. He knew that they’d been changing and would eventually change into a form that wouldn’t die off rapidly. He also knew that whoever Jameson was didn’t matter as much as what he most likely had: the other suitcase containing the research.
The briefcase he found was full of papers detailing the pathogen, its purpose, where to deliver the research, and how to effectively stop it. Marc laughed bitterly at it all. A stolen superweapon sold to rebels across the world will mutate within a year and a half to two years of deployment. They were on six months away from year one. And a ghost from his past has the cure.
He climbed back into the building occupied by the only two people he trusted and laid it all on them. However they got the other briefcase, it needed to get to Camp Lejeune, Virginia. Fast.
Sorry, we're at capacity for the game. Thanks for the interest, though.
First, welcome Note. We had enough interest to make the decision a difficult one.
Okay. Everyone is ready to go now but we've got a couple roadblocks in front of us still that Potter and I need to handle. The intro post to the game should be up no later than Wednesday - get familiar with each other. Head on over to the chat and stuff. Use the Google Doc freely to write your posts or to write collaboration posts. I'll try to put up a bullet point list of plot points to keep in mind while you're writing.
Okay. Everyone is ready to go now but we've got a couple roadblocks in front of us still that Potter and I need to handle. The intro post to the game should be up no later than Wednesday - get familiar with each other. Head on over to the chat and stuff. Use the Google Doc freely to write your posts or to write collaboration posts. I'll try to put up a bullet point list of plot points to keep in mind while you're writing.
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