Paranoia: My Name is Troubleshooter

[BlueBard]

The viscous fluid oozes down over the bot and down through the gaping crack in the bot's plastic shell.  You wait.

Nothing seems to happen.

[Viking]

ArrMatee shrugs.  "Another product tested.  Shall we continue?"

ArrMatee gives the Porta-Wall a series of directions so that it may wheel itself out of the conference room, thereby reducing the chance that it will smash through the Troubleshooting team as they discuss options.  He makes sure, of course, to bring it to a halt with the "Stop" command.

"I would humbly suggest that said item," he suggests, nodding in the direction of the Porta-Wall, "travel a good distance in front of the Troubleshooting team as we make our way to the target area."

[BlueBard]

You make your way from Troubleshooter HQ toward the "Disaster Area".

Turning a corner, you see a squad of four Internal Security officers down the hallway.  Just beyond them, you can see unlit panels of fluorescent lights leading into shadows, then darkness.

The officers appear to be well-armed with Blue Reflec, Needle guns, and Neurowhips.  They see you turn the corner.  They seem surprised, but not alarmed.  Their Needle guns are out, but not aimed directly at you.  More or less in your general direction, but not as if they're about to shred you with high-velocity needles.  Yet.

[Viking]

ArrMatee keeps his hands in plain view and makes no sudden moves as he addresses the officers.

"Stop," he says in a normal speaking voice to the Porta-Wall, so that it does not continue to trundle along.

"Greetings, officers!" he calls out.  "Troubleshooter team here, escorting a Power Services technician to restore power to DTH sector.  Permission requested to proceed."

As always, ArrMatee remains ready to call out "Stop" if his words happen to trigger further movement of the Porta-Wall.

[BlueBard]

The IntSec officers look over your group with bored, disdainful expressions.

"Where are your authorization papers?" the lead officer asks brusquely.

[Viking]

"Our Troubleshooting authorization papers self-incinerated due to mission sensitivity," sighs ArrMatee.  He looks over to the Orange-class technician.  "I don't suppose you were provided any separate authorization papers?"

[BlueBard]

Elec-O looks bewildered.  "Nobody told me I'd need any special authorization.  They just told me I'd get an escort to where I needed to go."

"No authorization, eh?" the officer says.  "If you can't produce some kind of documentation that proves to us you're supposed to go in, we can't let you pass."

ArrMatee:
[spoiler]You see the officer wink one eye when he says the word 'documentation'.[/spoiler]

[Viking]

"Documentation, eh?" notes ArrMatee.  "Let me see what I have."

After a moment, he produces the only paperwork that he would have copies of... the various Requisitions forms for the gear requisitioned from PLC.

"These forms show the equipment we've duly requisitioned for this Mission Objective," he explains.

[spoiler]
"Let me know if any particular items provide the necessary 'authorization' you're looking for, Citizens," he adds in an undertone, as he passes the key forms to the Blue officers.  "Or perhaps I can inform you of suspected Treasonous activity that I spotted when we requisitioned this equipment?  We haven't had a proper opportunity to report it to the Computer with the power outage and all, but you fine upstanding Citizens might be able to do something about it... and take credit for it, I might add."[/spoiler]

[BlueBard]

ArrMatee, the rest of your team is a little too close about you to keep anything private except whispering in the IntSec guy's ear... and attempting to do that without warning is probably not advisable.

[Viking]

Then, before attempting to whisper in the IntSec guy's ear, ArrMatee would make a show of not having any weapons in hand, and helpfully say, "Perhaps I might confidentially bring your attention to the more relevant portions?"

[BlueBard]

"Hm.  Okay.  Step into my office," the IntSec guy says, motioning you to move a bit further down the corridor.

"Now," he says in muted tones, "before you try to trick me or brownnose me into letting you pass, you'd better give me credit for having intelligence.  What is it you want to show me?"

[Viking]

"Of course, Citizen," answers ArrMatee.  "When we were obtaining our gear from PLC in this sector, I spotted a crate filled with what looked like blatantly treasonous propaganda.  I figure whoever confiscates and destroys that material will know how to transform that into perks with his superiors.  It wasn't even all that long ago that I spotted it, and we haven't had the opportunity to report it in any official capacity yet.  Which means you can have the benefit of acting on this information first, and to your own advantage."

"I figure that's the most valuable thing I can offer you as a sign of my... heh... 'authorization' and 'loyalty' in this instance.  I mean, apart from that, all we have is the gear we're carrying, along with standard-issue stuff from R&D... which I expect you're not interested in as a matter of course.  But if you want to look over the stuff we're carrying to see if there's anything you need to 'confiscate,' none of us could stop you even if we tried."

"Still, I'd imagine you'd get the best value from the first option, sir.  Let us through to complete our Mission (which really is to restore power to this sector, and which would allow you to move on to more pleasant duties, I suspect), and I'll give you the best details I can manage on exactly where to find the crate of treasonous material.  PLC warehouses not exactly being the easiest places to navigate, sir."

[BlueBard]

"Huh," the IntSec guy eyes you and your gear skeptically.  "You must be new to Troubleshooting.  Here's a free tip: always keep negotiable goods handy.  You clones seem harmless enough, but it isn't worth what will happen if we're caught 'exercising personal judgement in the field', if you know what I mean.  We've got to make sure you're legit."

He turns to his fellows.  "Thum-B!  Call in and request a Field Interrogation unit."

"Excellent!" beams Spyd-R.  The rest of the team stares at him as if he's lost his mind.

The IntSec guy turns and regards Spyd-R with surprise.  "You've never been the subject of a Field Interrogation, have you?"

"No, of course not!  But it will be a great story for the expose I'm working on.  'How Mutant Traitors Infiltrated DTH Sector Under the Noses of IntSec, Planted Treasonous Literature and Blew Up the Sector'.  That's my working title until I come up with something catchy.  Do you have any ideas?  No?  Oh, well.  Let's see, I'll need to take lots of pictures...  Can I interview you?"  He snaps a picture of the surprised officer with his camera.  "Oh, that will make a great image for the front page!"

"But--"

"No comment, eh?  Not willing to talk to the media, huh?  Tsk.  That won't reflect well in my story, I'm afraid."

[Viking]

While the IntSec officer (and hopefully the rest of the Blue squad) is distracted by Spyd-R's impersonation of Pete-R-PKR, ArrMatee-R will quickly shoot the Demoralizer Ray far down the dark hallway.  With any luck, it will make the sound of something rude that a traitor might say, to lend credence to Spyd's fast-talking.

[BlueBard]

"You've got a face only a mother could love!" shouts a voice from the darkness.  "Too bad she's a test tube!"

[BlueBard]

"Who said that?" the IntSec guy barks.  "Thum-B and John-B, go check that out!"

He turns back to Spyd-R, momentarily flummoxed, as two of the IntSec officers warily trot down the darkened corridor, weapons ready.

[Viking]

ArrMatee is being careful with his own movements.  As there were four IntSec people there originally, and the chief officer is dealing with Spyd-R, this leaves one Blue officer unaccounted for.  And ArrMatee doesn't want to make a suspicious movement if someone is likely to be watching him.

If it looks like he's not the subject of attention, he'll risk firing the Demoralizer Ray down the dark corridor once more.

[BlueBard]

"Ugh!" shouts a voice from the darkness, "You're a good argument for flushing the gene pool down a sanitary!"

VZZ! VZZ! VZZ! VZZ! VZZ! VZZ! VZZ! VZZ! VZZ!

The two IntSec officers, Thum-B and John-B, charge into the darkness firing their needle guns.  The remaining two officers' needle guns are out and pointed in the general direction of the darkened corridor.

[Viking]

ArrMatee helpfully stays quiet, and out of the line of fire of the remaining two Blue officers.  Once the sounds of needle gun fire have died down, he'll just as helpfully fire off a third shot from the Demoralizer Ray - once again down the darkened corridor.

[BlueBard]

"There's nobody here!" shouts one of the guards from the shadows.

"Maybe they're invisible mutant traitors," Spyd-R says helpfully.

You hold off firing another shot from the Demoralizer for a moment, not wanting to risk getting caught at it.

[Viking]

Not wanting to get caught at it, indeed.  Rather, he makes an exercise in clone psychology.

"Team Leader, I would not risk angering this superior officer in this delicate situation," he says to Spyd-R.  "Otherwise, he may decide that we are but expendable Troubleshooters who can be sent into the darkness to deal with this problem."

[BlueBard]

"Thum-B!  John-B!  Get back here!" the IntSec officer shouts.

He turns and regards your group with a cold, calculating gaze.

"We can't leave our posts to go chasing after invisible mutants in the dark, as much as I'd love to go hunt down the enemies of the Computer.  We do have our orders, after all.  How fortunate we have a team of Troubleshooters handy!"

He steps aside and waves for you to pass.

"Find those troublemakers and deal with them, and don't bother coming back this way until you do."

[Viking]

ArrMatee lets out a small groan, before putting a forced smile on his face.

"As you command, officer!" he says, with obviously forced enthusiasm.

Presuming that nothing else stops the team, ArrMatee will proceed into the dark hallway with the rest of the Troubleshooting team, the Toolbot, the Orange Tech, and the R&D-Device-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.

[BlueBard]

Spam-R's eyes go wild.

"Nonono!  I dontwannago!  The invisible mutant traitors will get us!" he shouts.

"You'd better move along, Troubleshooter," the IntSec guy growls, "or I'll get you."

Spam-R responds frantically with an elaborate series of hand signals.  The IntSec officer's eyes widen, then he shoots Spam-R with his needle gun -- VZZ! VZZ! VZZ!

Spam-R slumps to the ground.

"Obviously this clone was attempting to signal a secret society.  We all saw him.  Definitely grounds for summary execution.  We'll put in a report; no need to trouble yourselves, Citizens."

Spyd-R looks horrified.  "Oh no!  The bubble wrap got damaged!"

[Viking]

ArrMatee does his best not to tick off the higher-ranking Citizen with the higher-ranking weaponry.

"Thank you for conscientiously volunteering to handle that report," he agrees with a faint smile.  "We'll just retrieve our Mission-relevant equipment and be on our way, alright?"

He looks to Spyd-R for any necessary cues on redistributing the "Team Carrier's" equipment.

[BlueBard]

Spam-R's body is practically covered with keychains from which dangle anything and everything that can be clipped to them, including grenades and plasticups stuffed with energy bars and bags of algae chips.  He was carrying most of Spyd-R's gear while trying to hang on to a large roll of (now somewhat damaged) bubble wrap.

Miraculously, it doesn't appear that any of the grenades were damaged by the needle gun.

Spyd-R sighs.  "Well, I suppose we can't wait around for Spam-R's replacement."  He begins collecting his gear from Spam-R's body.  "You three start reallocating the rest of this gear.  ArrMatee, see how much of this stuff we can load onto the, uh, moving blocky-thing."

(ArrMatee -- anything you can't or don't want to carry and can't somehow attach to the Porta-Wall will be distributed amongst the others.  The general inventory is listed about 2 pages back.  I'm willing to be flexible about how much junk Spam-R was actually loaded down with; I just want to know specifically what  you are carrying and what you load onto the Porta-Wall.)

[Viking]

ArrMatee will start making use of his requisitioned duct tape to attach various non-weapons goods (like Energy Bars and Algae chips) to the "moving blocky thing."  The one item that he'd really like to carry himself is Spam's laser rifle and one of the extra laser barrel rounds.  He'll also agree to attaching an equal share of Spam's keychains and cups to his own jumpsuit.

[BlueBard]

Okay.

BTW, Spam-R wasn't carrying a laser rifle.  (If you were the team leader would YOU give this clone a weapon?)  But he would have been carrying spare barrels.

The team moves forward into the darkened corridors.  Everyone turns on their flashlight.

Elec-O's toolbot leads the way.  You move down the long corridor, then turn left into a smaller corridor.  You smell smoke and the beams of your flashlights reflect off wisps of smoke.

[Viking]

"Stop," calls out ArrMatee, as much to make sure the Moving-Block-Thingie stops as anything else.

"Anybody else have a bad feeling about this smoke?  Since the toolbot is the only one that knows the way, it shouldn't be the first one in harm's way."

[BlueBard]

ArrMatee gets a bunch of blank stares.  Then Elec-O raises his hand.

"I have a bad feeling about the smoke," he confesses, then falls silent.

"Do you have any recommendations, Friend ArrMatee?" Spyd-R asks.