DEAD PLANET 8: “Why don’t you come down here?”

8: “Why don’t you come down here?”

Scotty: Doc Marty. Christian: Kanan “Carrion” O’Tool.

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Marty and Carrion venture into the darkness of the Red Tower. Flashlight scanning the space. A thick carpet of dust. Empty shells, furniture barricades, so much dried brown blood. Something awful occurred here. Still water in the bathroom. A desiccated corpse at the Enviro-Con monitor. The crew scan his badge at the terminal and it opens operational software they have no experience with. A door to the barracks has a steady rumble emanating from deep below. Marty and Carrion leave it closed. Raiding the kitchen and security rooms, looting a satisfactory amount of food/water/weaponry and stuffing it into their vaccsuits like sacks. The duo re-enters the main room of B Floor to find a bright light emanating from the cracks of the door to Enviro-Con. 

Open the door. The computer has changed software: a word-processing application, with text reading: “Why don’t you come down here?” Marty chats back and forth until the other side sends: 

“We’re past the first door.” 

"We're past the second door."

"We've found the elevator."

Marty and Carrion hesitate.

And then they book it out of the Carmine building. Dean is doing donuts in the Kokomo outside with Bobby and Capella in the backseat.

Travel back to the Merida...

DAY 4.

Nightmares. Carrion sees his dead twin. Marty sees the heat-death of the universe. “You did not listen.” Memories of his ex-wife and teenage protege. Dean sees Brekt whispering into a mechanical device in the floor of a massive factory warehouse. He feels like a ghost. Like he shouldn't be here. Like they're about to do something terrible. Waking up. Discussion of heading to the “Dead Gate” at the top of the islands cliff, but reasonable arguments against. Travel back to the moon of the Dead Planet.

Dusk. At Brekt’s coliseum. Beef smokes cigarettes on Brekt’s couch. He’s been amputated above the left elbow; Beef temporarily joined the colony for food and gear. Leer, Brekt’s lady, sits beside the mechanic: blindfolded, once-beautiful, catatonic. She absent-mindedly sculpts a statuette out of hard clay.

In the base level of the bunker Brekt is still touching up Lucy. He’s added “the Ice Box,” a shipping container at the nose of the ship he warns to stay away from (and avoid the reactor and thrusters as well). Dean continues painting a nude pin-up of a 1920s flapper bedecked in diamond jewelry on the side of the ship. Carrion and Beef assist Brekt, speeding up the schedule in the final hours.

Marty travels to the Aphrodite aboard the Kokomo. The corpse of Igor is still a stain. Marty runs over it again. He travels around the Aphrodite. There’s a laser-cut hole on the cargo bay, another matching hole in one of the shipping containers. The statue is gone. Marty makes sure Brekt warned all of the Breakers. Brekt says they’re all off work and didn’t want to touch the Aphrodite. Marty long-range comms Malta within the colony. She denies taking the statue, but is intrigued by these strangers...

DAY 5.

Working on the Lucy...

DAY 6.

Lucy is complete. Brekt finishes the transponder log:

1. Brekt - Captain 2. Dean - Copilot 3. Carrion - Lead Engineer 4. Beef - Asst. Engineer 5. Emery McCoy - Scientist 6. Capella - Security 7. Leer - Muse 0. Bobby - Android 8. The last cryopod is empty for Lady Space, may she bring the Lucy luck!

2411EY.

Welcome to the 25th century. Cryosickness. Stimpaks. Bobby wakes the crew as a comparatively massive ship umbilically docks to the airlock of the Lucy. The docking ship titled “The Paradise City.” Owned by Valecore; owned by Prophet Co.

The AI voice of AHANIA greets the crew and welcomes them aboard the Paradise City. White quartz walls, soft warm light, fountains, artwork, chandeliers. An android servant named Z leads Marty and Carrion to a pool at the center of a two-story plaza. In the pool is a tan Mother Mary-tattooed man with black wraparound sunglasses. They're an augmented reality device that he accesses mid-sentence. He introduces himself as Mr. Gregory Mathers, a C-Level of Valecore. This is the Alighieri Cluster, three jumps away from the Bromion Cluster Marty was previously home to.

After some tense conversation he invites the crew of the Lucy to relax aboard his ship for a few days, an S-Class Shore Leave. Dean sees Brekt whispering to Mr. Mathers. It is eerily similar to his dream. Brekt and Leer stay aboard the Lucy. Mr. Mathers is not seen in the next few days. Only his android servants flit about the resort ship...

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DAY 7.

Massages and sauna...

DAY 8.

Buffet, bar, theater, pool, and gym...

DAY 9.

Marty (undercover as "Emery," the name of the neighborhood kid he mentored 100 years ago) is footed the bill: 18mcr to Valecore/Prophet Co. 

W.B. Cross, a C-Level of Prophet, enacted a hostile takeover of the Company about 30 years ago and now owns the board of directors. Mr. Mathers has discovered Marty's true identity using nano-robots planted in the drink selection. With the loss of the Aphrodite, the shipment aboard, and the interest accrued over 100 years the debt was close to 110mcr. But Mr. Mathers reduced the bill:

Because he offers the crew of the Lucy a deal. Investigate the abandoned Cloudbank synthetic factory, The Deep, and bring back Artifacts created by the facility’s rogue AI, Monarch. Once the debt has been repaid a new deal can be discussed for the crew to make real profit. Marty agrees. He really doesn’t have a choice. The ex-colonists of Tyrant Beggar are lost, too, in a world that has moved on without them. They join Marty on his mission. 

Mr. Mathers sets a course for The Deep. They have a week before they become the first of a new generation of Divers...

> The Lucy is official.

> Day 9: 02 hours post-rest.

> 112 years have passed.

> Shore Leave: Stress converted in Saves.

> 7 days to reach The Deep.

> 18mcr in debt.