Chuu-chuu, and welcome to the brand new SHU. This is Weird Adventures in Space Episode 3, the new superhero sci-fi real play podcast, following a team of alien refugees who have become the unlikely protectors of the Milky Way. I'm Jay, both Blue and Stellar, and I will be the game mixer, because this is a game, it's a tabletop ambased in the fate system. We're gonna tell stories by Roland DICE, and then the fine family of Adobe products make it sound all clean and shiny.
I want to introduce you to the cast first. Hello, it's me, you're Gissel, at your service. I'm Logan, and I play Akita, a bodyguard who is also a single-space dad. I'm Rob, and I'm playing Shyam, a tree man.
I play Arlie, and despite what Bayley believes, Arlie does not have any issues, because she's an orphan, and she doesn't have a dad. Yep, that's not a huge, flicking red light or anything. Hey, I'm Greg, I'm the... Well, some people call me Project Manager, Technical Coordinator, Foreman sometimes, you know, whatever, whatever the need be.
If somebody needs something, then they give me a call. If I can handle it, I come run it. Well aboard, the train, by which I mean me, is leaving the station, by which I mean this introduction. Join us, won't you?
I hereby extend the invitation to you. Hop in the diner car, pop a boiler maker, and get ready for weird adventures in Space Episode 3. Derailed. The episode opens on Earth!
Kind of novel for a space show, right? Or contradictory, maybe, though. You do you. Arlieu, shaman wayfarer, you are three aliens who are scattered across the galaxy, now sitting in a very standard doctor's office.
Shyam is sitting on the examination table, while wayfarer and Arlieu sit aside in the chairs. Shyam, the attending doctor is instructing a tiny robotic mouse to climb up to your ear and look inside the canal. She's assuring you the whole time, he's not going to be doing any harm, as she opens your mouth to look down your throat. Her name is Dr.
Alonso, and she is also known by her superhero alias, Dr. Dudet. She looks at you and says, Well Shyam, I don't know a ton about your body, but you look healthy on me. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing fine, Mars doesn't seem to be having any adverse effects on me, yet, so.
Glad to hear. Have you found any plant life on Mars? Nothing that we haven't but with us. Here's one thing I wanted to point out, can I have your hand?
Yeah, Shyam will reach his hand out. She grabs your hand and places her thumb on top of it, her other fingers underneath across the palm, then she pushes down. The tensile strength of this fiber you grow should give you more than enough grip strength to crush this metal table. But when I grab your hand, you have slightly more grip strength than say an average human.
Have you felt fatigued recently? Have you lost any muscle stability? Well, muscle, vine, tree? How you feeling?
Not that I've noticed, I'm, I've, anything, I've been getting stronger. How about mood, then? Have you felt stressed? Any big problems going on at home?
Or that is? I mean, I'd like to be doing more to help out, but I don't think it's having to, I don't, I mean, no, I'm fine. I trust you. A good doctor is not going to push you around on that kind of thing.
It's really a pleasure for me that you are all here. I'm just home for joy. I'm a boring human being, and this is the highlight of my month. You're only from like other planets and shit, and I get to look into your cells.
Shyam, you look healthy, you can step down. Wait for, can you get on the table? I need to take a peek inside your holes. You're going to do wet wet wet wet holes?
I'm going to inspect them. That's kind of my job. You got a mouth hole, you got ear holes, you got nose holes. Yeah, okay.
It just doesn't sound great. Oh, I gotta be real. You seem a little stressed. A little?
Okay, fine. You seem slightly above your normal baseline level of stressed. Thanks, I'm getting great back. I've been trying to pull the bandaid off, you know.
I hope you know I really did miss you. You all are building a home on a planet, no human being has ever set foot on until like last month or something. I just want to make sure you're safe. You know me, still the same old D.
It kind of feels like you're doing a bit in order to prevent me from making sure your brain and teeth are healthy. I mean, I have secrets. Do you want me to ask them mice to do it? Fine, I'll show you my mouth.
Who did I take the tongue depressor? What's it on your tongue? While you're immobilized, she's going to look back at Arlo and Shyam and say, okay, now that we have a few seconds, you need to understand. I've known Wayfarer for years, and he has been preparing for the RYGOR Corporation to invade Earth for most of his life.
200 years plus. I heard from the union that your team spotted them. Dude, I'd take the tongue depressor out of Wayfarer's mouth. That's because they are, and we did.
Al, I have to level with you. I have concerns about your long-term health. There's just a damn worry all the time, which is not to say that you're wrong to be worried. You've been warning us about RYGOR decades, and the only thing I can say is that my imagination failed to me.
I couldn't ever possibly understand the scope and the scale of this barbarism. If they're bringing more to my doorstep, I will proudly fight by your side. You better be. I will be, and you know that.
There's a lot of things I can't do well, but I keep my word. Also your insides look good. Nice. The mice are taking photos.
Ew. And I said that I am. You put a wooden stick in my mouth. Al, you've been on the planet for 200 years, and you're not used to going to the doctor?
You know what modern medicine was like in the 1800s? I guess I do. Do you want me to bring out some of the old techniques? No, it was like the snow and ages.
I agree. Just for comparison, by the way, I'm a human being talking to three intergalactic space travelers. Y'all are going to spend the next week exploring the galaxy, and I am going to spend the next week exploring my couch with my best friend, Anime. You're good, Al.
Arlo, I need to look at you next. I met Sean. I met Wayfair before. Kinda know how their bodies work.
You are new, though. You are something different. What's going on with you in your life? I saw one of them cutting my arm off.
I guess what I can tell is that you seem to be short one arm. Would you be comfortable with me looking at it? Yeah. She's going to pull out her little arm and bedded in her stubs.
She has a little aquamarine gemstone. Dude, I have a look at your arm inspecting the gem you have inserted there. She sits up straight and clasps her hands around one of her elbows. You hear a big shink noise.
And then her arm comes off. A fully robotic forearm. This futuristic prosthesis that is a little more advancing you have ever seen humans deal with. The dude says, I have some personal experience with this kind of thing.
Sure. I can definitely help you. But I need to learn how your body works. That area around the wound is very clean.
It looks like it's been cauterized. But that doesn't mean you're done healing. After you've been through a traumatic experience like this, your life is different. For sure.
You might need help navigating that sometimes. I'm already dealing with it. That's what the gem is for. She's going to kind of lighten up to have her arm come out of it.
Arlu raises her arm into the air and it ghostly hand appears. It looks identical to her other hand right down to the sigils. But ethereal. See through.
Yeah. Dude, that says, what's that? That's magic. She bends down to inspect the gem.
And as soon as she does, one of her robotic mice assistant begins to make an alert noise. Hold up here, Arlu. Moriarty is pointing me towards something in your tissue samples. You seem to have some kind of disease?
No. Tell me. No idea how that works. You are currently speaking to Earth's foremost plague specialist.
It's a title I take probably too much pride in given the seriousness of the work. How is it affecting you? A little bit of a plague. The only thing that these initials test show is some kind of airborne pathogen.
The rest is completely bizarre. Non-sensical irrational stuff. I've never gotten anybody sick. You mind if I take some skin samples?
What really means skin? She pulls out a cotton swab and says, I'm going to touch this for your skin. I thought you were going to cut a piece off of my skin. That had been bad.
No, there's a more clinical term for that kind of thing. I want to study this plague, Arlu. It has to have some effect on you. Even I can't figure out what that is right now.
It is magic. Ah shit, it's always magic. What did you get the top at though? Are you talking about Wale?
No, I'm talking about the shirt you're wearing. That kind of looks like club gear. Are you a clubber? Do you do a clubbing?
Where'd you get it? Oh yeah, I got it at a store. It looks cute. It looks like some stuff I've seen nearby and like some of these petite shops.
Where'd you grab it? I got to let CP Nichols. You fit right in. You look cool too.
I really hope you feel welcome here. As the official physician of the Union of Heroes, I'm here by granting all of you a clean bell of health. Saying that, despite the fact that Arlu seems to be a plague carrier and is clearly suffering from a massive traumatic event. Give a bigger question.
What can we do about it on Earth to stop Raghor? What can we hear on Earth do? How can I help? Maybe.
I've had 200 years to think about it. That jack shit. Well, how did you find Raghor? The space is so big.
Most things you can wait. It will come to you. We have to be able to do something. I'm not going to give up.
We investigate what they're doing and try to make it as difficult as possible for them. Makes sense? Where do we start? Probably the moon.
It's real fucked up right now. I'll look into the Union's files and pull out the records on any sort of space phenomena. And as she approaches her computer, a base white alarm goes off. Big noises, loud clacks ons everywhere.
Far, far away, somewhere in the Martian asteroid belt, a glowing train slowly chugs through the Milky Way, judging asteroid rocks here and there, the train rides shifting rails glowing with cosmic magic. Nobody quite knows how this train works, but it's a pretty smooth ride. And it's the only reasonable way to travel between Mars and Earth, 36 hours as opposed to four and a half years. Greg and Akita, you're riding the train back to Mars from Earth.
A regular part of your job is meeting up with aliens who have been living on Earth and offering to take them to the Martian colony of Red Hills. You meet these people personally, and Greg's company handles all the paperwork and transit stuff. You meet a lot of scared alien people who are uprooting their lives to move toward this brand new uncertain place. So you being there, your presence, it really means a lot to them when they're sitting there on the train, wondering what's next.
That doesn't mean everything's dour and sad. This is like a day for celebration. You too are in the diner car with like 20 alien families, children and adults and pets all milling around, kids are getting introduced to each other, sharing stories, people are singing and dancing. Greg and Akita are sitting at a small, round gambling table, and they're joined by two alien friends, Squizik and Florb.
Squizik is a middle-aged alien woman whose body is made entirely of bees. Well, Florb is a jolly ooze man. Squizik and Florb are trained attendants for the Union of Heroes. They come with you on every trip back and forth from Mars to Earth.
You've gotten in them pretty well, and right now you're just going to play cards catching up on life. That kind of stuff. Well, what game are we playing? Texas Hold'em.
Turns out a lot of alien cultures like Texas Hold'em. It's really similar to a card game played like in several other inter-cultures. Oh, that's my favorite game. And you get to talk to people.
It's hard to get lost in the mechanics of the game. Akita, are you throwing around cards? You probably just learned how to play. Just like on one of the earlier trips that they had to make, so he's still catching up on it.
You make a notice roll, Ichia? I'll roll for Craig. Let's do. Akita, you've got a solid hand.
But Greg is literally impossible to read. Or at least that's what my dice roll says. He's killing it. In a limited amount of time that you've got to know Greg, he's a really fun guy to have at the guard table.
He's always playing fair. He's got really strange stories about things that have happened on Earth. He's completely nonsensical. One of the kids who was running around the cabin, about two or three feet tall covered in fur had to tell a sass wetch.
He really asks the table, where are we going? Well we're on this train to Mars. We're going to get you set up on Mars. What are we going to do there?
You're probably going to live there for a while. Wow. Really? That sounds cool to you.
I mean, that was kind of the plan. Yeah, my parents said it would be good. Where is Mars? Is that like by Minnesota?
That's where my grandparents live. Alright, well Mars is different than Minnesota. But you might like it. We got a lot of cool stuff set up there for you.
You'll have a new house to get used to. You'll probably meet some new friends. They'll be at new school. I know stuff's probably kind of scary, but everybody's pretty nice.
I think you do. You're nice. I'm not scared anymore. Well, we try.
We're trying to make it as comfortable for you as possible. The blood band sitting at the table, Florb, hands the kid a bag of candy and says, this here means welcome to Mars. Everybody shares here. So make sure you share with everybody.
As the kid struggles to figure out how to open a bag of candy, Akita, I need you to make a second notice roll. Nice stone that I saw minus one. If he was hearing based, then it'd be a zero. Zero?
Go ahead and make another notice roll for this next hand of cards then. Zero. That hand goes to Skisick. And while you shuffle up and draw, kids and adults are coming to the table to talk and introduce themselves.
You've got a lot of interesting people from assault-based crystal family to some shape-changing squid to poets. And then the cab begins to violently rattle, like turbulence on an airplane. The cab is rocking back and forth as if it were trying to continue through a hurricane. In the midst of the rattle, you hear what sounds like a motor outside the cabin.
Almost like a motorcycle or something. And then a fang-tooth chainsaw blade cuts through the roof. That's never happened. All right.
The train does have its own gravity and atmosphere, so you're not going to be zipped into space. But it does look like someone is carving a hole in the ceiling. I'm going to get each of you a turn to react. Well, I jump up, I tell the goo-man and the bee guy.
I say, get the kids and then have and point to the next car, have them get the kids out of here right away. Skisick and Florb start directing families and children into one of the other cabs. But the crowd is terrified and they're not moving back quickly. Kids are going to go up to where the holes are being cut in and just stand guard at it.
Just make sure everybody's like all civilians are away from it and make sure nobody's near it. You're just trying to clear the area? That makes sense to me. A lot of the families are moving into the sleeper cab directly ahead of you.
After a few of the families have gotten into the sleeper car, another blade punches through the small tunnel between the sleeper and the diner cars. They're trying to cut the crowd off. All right. Well, I'm going to look around and see if there's any of the tables or if there's any of the chairs or anything that's like metal or substantial.
And then just try to, if I can get to it, just stick it against the blade or throw it at the blade. Oh, yeah. I'll throw it for that. You threw it at the blade, but the blade cut through it.
Like it's made of butter. Okay. Well, that's not good. Is this, is this look just pretty much like a standard chainsaw blade or is it like high tech looking laser like a laser blade or is it a plasma blade or is it just regular?
It's not a high tech chainsaw. The metal teeth on the blade are made out of some kind of like bright blue metal you're unfamiliar with, but the rest is all rusted out and shitty. So you said there's two holes being cut. There's they're trying to cut a hole into the one we're in and they're trying to cut it off from the other ones.
They're cutting through the ceiling of the diner car and the ceiling of the connection between the diner car and the sleeper car in front of the diner car. Go ahead and make me a noticeable. Ew. Just a wash.
When you look behind the diner car, you see another blue blade punching through the connection between this cab and the back end of your train. The kid is going to take out his professor perfect gun and he's going to shoot a warning shot through the ceiling. Okay. That's plus two for shoot.
The shot from your sci-fi laser pistol punches through the ceiling. You hear a sizzling noise and then a loud prun. How far and how much quicker they getting through the? The families who have not yet escaped the diner car are looking around the room and shock on share of what to do or where to go.
The chainsaws keep punching through the ceiling cutting larger holes of on larger holes. There's not a whole wide enough for a person to jump through. Well, if any attempt to stop the actual blades has failed, I'm going to shift my focus to the people or the passengers and I'm going to tip over tables and chairs and kind of make like shields or guards and just have them usher them to hide under it so that way they don't get hurt from any debris or sparks or any of that stuff. You're able to corral these scared people into one of the safer areas of the room.
Bar top with some protective cover you can use. Akita is going to tell Greg, hey, make sure everybody stays in here and stays safe. I'm going to go up top to see who's attacking. If anybody comes in through the other doors, yell.
He's going to try and jump up through the hole that was just cut in the ceiling. That is a plus six. Well, that means you do a cool flip when you jump through the hole. You're standing on the roof of the strain.
The train hurtling through the cosmos and pulsating with swirling neon light across from your eight dark green humanoid alien. They're nine feet tall with the musculature of a bodybuilder, enormous heavy hands and tusks for teeth. They're dressed in chit-ness leather jackets, plain white T-shirts and jeans, space jeans. They're all carrying weapons.
Chainsaw swords, chainsaw axes, laser pistols. The biggest of the Jutayan steps forward and says, who's this little man? My name's Akita Yama. What the hell are you doing to our train?
Well, I'm jacking it, Tommy. 90 more, you aren't. You really want to give us a tripod, puppy dog? You really some kind of big man?
I'm going to crew of real killer boys. You can come and get it. Of course. That big Jutayan starts revving up his chainsaw.
Kid is going to take an offensive stance. Since I assume we're probably going to go into a fight here. Hey, look, if you want to try to negotiate with an orcish biker gang, you are welcome to go for it. Yeah, I don't think they'd listen very well.
There's a plus three on the dice plus five. So that's eight. Kid is going to try and just launch himself in Superman Punch. The guy here is talking to in the hit, trying to knock him out.
Well, I can tell you this. He did it real bad. You deal eight damage to this guy's jaw, knocking him on his ass and breaking off one of his tusks. He drops his chainsaw blade, leaving it to rattle on top of the train's metallic roof.
His gang of boys looks down around at each other in stone shock. They can't believe how easy it is the big man went down. I need you to make another notice roll. Oh, man.
What is it with notice rolls? Okay, so that's another wash. You are hit with a searing beam of light at the base of your neck. I need you to make a physique roll to stay conscious.
Wow. That's a plus one. And that means you don't. The concussive force of this hard light beam rattles your brains and you slump to the floor.
As you drift off into unconsciousness, you hear a man with a calm, even tone from behind you say. This one is just a distraction. Enter the train. Sweet bit.
Take the families. Take the children. We need leverage. Back to earth.
There's an alarm going off in Dr. Dudad's lab. This just happens to be a lab inside of the Union Heroes adjunct base in Court Star City. When the alarm goes off, a bank of a dozen video monitors blink on with light.
On the video screens, you can see a figure walking through the halls of this adjunct Union base. It appears as if this man's flesh is made out of television static. And when he opens his mouth, you hear the horrid shriek of an old dial-up modem echo it through the base over and over and over. You watch the static man use his hands to grab onto the walls, the doors, the floors, binding them impossibly like they're made out of paper.
Everything he touches becomes flat, a 2D image within a 3D space. Dr. Dudad shouts, what the fuck is that thing? What?
You don't know? Nope. What about y'all? Is this like an alien or something?
Please let it be an alien? No, nothing. I've never seen anything like it. It looks like an asshole.
Okay. You see, three dozen security officers emerge in the base with non-lethal shock rounds. The bullets just pass right through the man-man of the static. And the static monster reaches his hand out and places it on the head of a security guard.
As the bullets are passing through the static man, the guard's body becomes contorted into a flat shape, ripped into pieces, and then scattered in every direction like a bunch of tiny pixels. Clearly not good. Um, I can throw a punch. How about the rest of you?
Okay, let's do it. Yeah, I can hold my own. I'm not sure if I want to touch it. I was not even in the room anymore.
You see on the monitor, the static monster flattening and scattering two more guards. With your eyes trained on the security cameras, each video screen goes black. You hear a low-pitched hum emanate from the screen bank. And then the screen bank blinks back on.
Where you see a masked face covered, eyes, nose, mouth, everything. With these swirling, ever-changing patterns. In a profile shot, this masked figure sits wearing a green military sweater and a long scarf atop that ever-shifting mask. The masked figure says to you, don't go out there.
Mary, what are you doing here? I'm not here. I'm on television. I interjected because I've seen this type of creature before.
And you're in grave danger if you get close. I work for the Union now. And I've been watching the security streams of course. I thought you'd given up your identity to become Jackson King.
Really? I thought she was dead. You were impersonating her. Hmm, maybe.
Your static man is an internet elemental. Internal government documents have them named as facsimile men, summoned with enchanted modems in order to kill the rivals of witches. This is unthinking, unfeeling entropy, ruining and erasing everything it touches. So don't let it touch you.
You'll have to stop it some other way. How do we unsummit it? I'm no wizard. Maybe capture it, dispel the energy.
From past incidents with facsimile men, there was no known solution. It emerged from the internet to kill and then retreated back into cypresspace, taking their lives with it. I wonder how do we fight a glitch? Arlo!
Waifare goes running out of the room. Dudeette also runs out of the room saying, hi, query, bye, query. Arlo, you run into the corridor that you were watching on the screen. And you're looking down the corridor directly at the facsimile man, who is making screeching noises as it approaches you.
It doesn't acknowledge you in any way. I would like to try and crush it with two walls of force in the decidewich. Yeah, give me a sandwich roll. Yeah, please do.
Let's do another good sandwich roll. That's a bad sandwich. I have a wall of force from underneath it and on top of it, come down on it. And up on it.
Your body radiates magical energy when you cast spells, but the energy is consumed and absorbed by this facsimile man. For its move, it slowly walks towards you. That's not great. I'm going to quickly run away.
Greg, about 30 minutes after Akita disappeared, a group of orc bikers and a supervillain dressed head to tone white and gold spandex. Make their way into your cap. The man in the white and gold announces to the room, I would like to take you hostage, please. Okay.
The supervillain gets close to your face. What do you have to say? Clearly positioning yourself as the leader here. Am I the leader?
I guess I'm here. But what do you have to take us hostage for? What are you doing? Money.
I've been going through some hard shifts recently. The union coffers are always full and they'll pay a premium. They're special, one of the kind machine back. Are you taking the dining car?
No. I'll be taking the whole thing. We're removing the parts we don't need, but rest assured, I have no interest in murder and certainly no interest in harming children. Of course, the union doesn't know that.
I will get my trillion dollars and then me and the boys can fly off into the sunset. Well, how are you going to take the strength? What are we supposed to do now? What do you want?
I mean, we don't have any money here. Who are you going to? You can just relax. You can just relax.
Take some time to yourself. I'll join you in the rest of the sleeper car. Keep you in one place, centralize you. There will be enough beds for everyone.
And although I hate to threaten, I will allow my Jotan friends here to track down anyone that attempts to escape. Their gang isn't called the sick boys because of their... manners. Here's the plan.
I make the demands. A couple of those billionaires cry and whine and moan until they all fork over the money. And then we'll all be free. You can take this train home.
And if they don't pay, I turn you. And everyone else on this train into a fucking skeleton. How many people are now in the car? Are the bad guys?
We're on the Superville and there are eight bikers. We're like getting half because the guy who kicked up. Alright, we have means to communicate with the rest of the people. We have...
We can text their cell phone correcting. You have an in-ear communicator you can use without alerting anyone else. You have an emergency double tap. If you can let me retro a thing, when this conversation started, I clicked it to, you know, call the team that's back on Earth, like to, you know, signal them that this is happening.
This is going down. Are we still on the rail? You're still on the rail, but it seems like the train has slowed down. Let me just think this all through.
We got basically, let's take a leader and some henchmen guys. And he's thinking he's going to get... Do his numbers even make sense? Or is he like talking out his ass?
He's saying a trillion dollars over and over again. But it's also kind of hard to tell because he's talking to very calm voice. Right, but the scale of the economy where you see that makes no sense. Does this guy an idiot?
Is there either guy on the roof still fighting the other guys? Or is he back in? You're not sure. He jumped up a hole and never came back.
Okay, so he's not around. Alright. Well, I mean, hey, buddy, I'm telling you this trillions. Who's got trillions?
Your plans, your plan's shit here, bud, if I'm being frank. But I'm not frank. My name's Greg, by the way, pleased to meet you. You don't think there are trillions of dollars circulating in this economy?
I'd look at the US military budget to start. Nobody's got trillions. I don't know how much interest you think the United States military is going to have in this dining car. You're hijacking a dining car?
If you were hungry, you could have just called. We'd have made you something to eat. And how many private billionaires exist on her? In the last 10 years alone, the list has expanded to over 200 slots, each more craven than the last.
Why don't you go hijack their dining cars? We're just a people out of way to Mars. I need this to mean something. I need everyone to know what I'm doing.
I've been gone for a very long time. I don't want to hurt you, Greg, but to survive, I will. Do they have any kind of rig to actually take this car? Or they just showed up?
How are they going to? They're not trying to steal it. It seems more likely that they would try to destroy it. Uh, well, I need to not be talking to this guy anymore.
I was like, all right, all right, buddy, I don't want nobody to get hurt here either. So, uh, let's, let's get out of this car. Let's get everybody to a safer spot. If you're willing to do that for right now, we could, let's, let's get, let's get that far.
And then we'll take negotiations further from there. But this, this car is unsafe for everybody involved, me, you, all these people. So he looks back at the sick boys and nods. The Jotain Orks put down their weapons and begin to file into the sleeper car.
The man in the supervillain outfit says to you, I'm glad you're thinking about the kids. Nobody needs to get hurt here. And I have known desire to hurt you. I really appreciate your, your, your sense of reason.
Well, yeah, nobody wants to get hurt here. So, I mean, I'm not, I'm not about fighting either. I'm more about negotiation. So let's, let's get everybody safe.
Let's get this train to a safe spot and we'll take it from there. How's that sound? The man extends his hand. I shake his hand.
My name is Albedo. You might want to watch. He reaches his hands into the air and you can see waves of golden energy vibrating off of him. He says, in this moment, I am currently interjecting myself into every broadcast signal and radio wave on planet Earth.
He puts his hands down and straightens his posture. People of Earth, my name is Albedo. I have been branded as a supercrow and this label has done irreparable damage to my life. I am owed better when I became lost in space for years.
I expected a welcome upon returning, maybe not a parade, but at least to have someone waiting, even just someone curious. Instead, I lost my home. The home I inherited after my parents passed away. A home where I grew up.
Now I see dozens of glossy tooth politicians and media figures raving about this colony on Mars, where hundreds of aliens have been giving new homes and second chances at life. Where is my home? Where is my second chance? I have one simple demand and I believe it to be more than fair.
I have taken the train between Mars and Earth with dozens of passengers still aboard. I want one trillion dollars. I don't care where the money comes from or how you get it to me. One trillion dollars.
If every government on Earth pledged to reducing their military budget by 10%, these people would be free within an hour. One year of annual profits from the top ten multinational corporations would set these people free. Albedo points to the crowd of hostages behind him. Families who have been stranded on this cab.
Families that would remain lost forever. People of the world, do you really want that guilt on your shoulders? No? One trillion dollars.
You are looking directly at the soulless digital beast. The problem is the Fassimoleman noticed you and is giving chase. The rest of you see Arlu running in the opposite direction. You should turn around the other way.
Can I run by him? At least we don't have to chase her down. Arlu, we need a witch. We need to un-summon.
Does that ring any bells in my head? Will roll? That's far. Yeah.
And it gives you an idea. The Fassimoleman is an elemental. An elemental is a being of pure energy. No physical form.
You don't know what the hell Wayfair is talking about when you mention un-sumiting the man. Because energy can't be destroyed. It can only be captured. Like a Pokeball.
I'm going to stop on my heels and grind to a halt. Eric kicks up on this carpet and floor for some reason. You know in those old 90s show, I think it was called Charmed. They had this weird crystal thing where they could just trap it in like a bunch of lasers or something.
Don't do that. Do that looks at you and goes, Charmed? Charmed? Charmed out of space?
I love Charmed. It's like anime for white moms. Let me know what you need. I can do crystals.
She runs off. I can. Do that as a basic ditch. From down the hall you can hear do that yelling.
I'm right. How the hell did Arlu end up finding a way to watch Charmed? Satellite TV signals are blasted into space where they continue out forever. Earth culture has kind of like a hillbilly charm in certain space sectors.
It's for Kitchy. It's for Kitchy. It's the art of the proletariat. The art of the backwater dumbass blob humans in the mud-filled dirt ball they live on.
Demolition derbies, fried Oreos, chewing pills that you bite the gas station. Like watching Red Green. The man made of static continues to pursue. He's lost Arlu.
He seems to be approaching the group as a whole. Can I make a rock wall up here? See if we can't get through rock. It's electricity.
The ground is good against electricity. Poke you on top of that. Sure, you can throw up that rock wall, but then we have to go and turn on her. Are there plants down this little white, just body burns and things like that?
There sure are. Dr. Dudette keeps several types of flowering cacti in her office. I'm going to try to get the cacti to pin this elemental down.
Can you make me an empathy roll? Yep. Plus five. That's a good empathy roll.
The cacti step out of their pots as if they had tiny little legs. All ten marching line by line at the same time. They swarm the facsimile man and try to tackle it. And you watch them each get destroyed like a fly.
You can throw them into a bug zapper. It does slow them down though. Wayfare? I'd like to change the atmosphere around that thing to make it less hospitable to transmitting signals.
You're creating some kind of chaff. That's interesting. I didn't see that one coming. The weird energy emanating from your body changes the air at a molecular level, creating little chaff flakes, little bits of metal floating in the air meant to disrupt and reflect digital signals.
The chaff sprays everything in the room, blocking the signal to your community. The chaff sprays everything in the room, blocking the signal to your communicator too. The good news is that the facsimile man seems to be breaking apart, leaving little bits of itself behind as it attempts to slowly wave through the chaff. By the time he gets close, he's half formed.
For his turn, he makes a sudden lunge through the brick wall. Missing pieces of his head and torso have been left behind. Argu? Cold's not very good for electrical bonuses, isn't it?
I would like to try and freeze Ray in with the magic. Yeah, you freeze Ray. How's that like to see right over here? Hey!
Plus six! You freeze Ray rips through the elemental, taking the vast majority of his torso with him. His embodied hands and legs continue to float menacingly towards the group. I can say that you're attacked frozen in a block of ice as well, so he looks like he's slowly running, or blazer.
The good app comes back with a big handful of jewelry, rings, bracelets and necklaces. She blirts out. Um, these are my moms. Do what you need to do.
Oh shit. Wait for her, the chaff worked. He's been encasing a block of ice. Now Argu has been given a handful of precious jewelry.
I want to make some more chaff. Chaff? Chaff, chaff, chaff, chaff, chaff, chaff. Make me roll.
I miss too. Oh, it is not chaffing season. Argu, Argu you've been giving all this jolt. Uh, can I magically make them bigger?
Yeah, go ahead and make me a wheel roll. I have plus seven. You were able to extract the jewels and crystals from the jewelry you had gave you. I want to run around and place them in a circle around it.
Like a summing circle? I need three wheel rolls. Plus three. Plus three.
Plus four. He set the crystals down one by one by one into a perfect geometric shape. These rocks glow with the same blue energy flowing out of Argu's hands while she casts magic. And the facsimile man breaks into a million small pixels.
These pixels are absorbed into the gemstones. And do that says, I think we're in the clear. Sweet. Let the professionals handle it from here.
This chaff is giving me migraines. I would like to try and the gems back down and then repair the jewelry that I broke. Do you think I feel bad about it? Do you watch what you do struggling, say?
Don't worry about it, Argu. These gems are much bigger now. I've got something to study. Those aren't bad things.
Do that transforms her fingers into fans and starts blowing the chaff out of the room. What's the metallic flexive and cleared? Wayfarer, Argu, and Sean get an emergency signal on the communicator from Greg. Greg, it's going on.
No response. Good, dad. You have to get your train. Yeah, sorry about your cacti.
Oh, no sweat. I really love seeing my cacti transform into grotesque monsters. No sarcasm. It's like really, really cool to me.
Really cool. Just wayfarer here. I am always like this. And wayfarer is just nothing.
I can at least take you up to the unit hero satellite. I've got a teleporter here next to the bathroom. Maybe take a cruiser from there to the train. Let's do it.
Then let me prep you. You leave this laboratory to walk down the hall and into another laboratory. As you are taking a walk around, you're doing it as frantically smashing buttons and moving from machine to machine to machine. The power, the computers, the internet connections all blink back on.
And as the monitor banks blink on, you see the visage of a super villain who's taken over every radio signal and television broadcast. He's wearing a white and gold outfit, standing inside of the train that you know Greg is on. He's going to be mid-dramatic monologue. Well, I guess I know what's going on with Greg.
We have to get all of them at Space Dream. Nikita, you wake up staring into Dead Space. There are chains tied around your ankle, fasten to the back end of the train. You're floating between split rail.
Your pockets are empty. Everything hurts. And you've got open cuts all over the place. They took your jacket and your shoes, no pistols, no swords, no communicator, nothing.
Oh, holy shit, my head hurts. Ah, God damn that sucked. Alright. Nikita will look around and just take stock of all it you described.
He's got nothing now. Nothing. He's got nothing. At least the train is at a standstill.