At the conclusion of last week's session, the group was loaded on the truck and ready to leave Tolkeen for Novgorod. The group will be leaving the Domain of Man and into the wilderness. Most of humanity in Rifts Earth is in a geographic band which is generally as wide as Texas and Louisiana, but is slanted to the northeast and encompasses Minnesota through the Appalachian mountain range. Outside of that band, there are many sorts of beings and animals, even Vampires and giant insects, which travelers may cross. Past the Appalachians persists glaciers that mark the planet's new ice age. It is probably for this lack of human observers that the CS decided to build a research station so far west. The lands out here are generally flat grassland that gives clear line of sight in all direction.
Kawai glances at Kiirga, "I do not usually traverse this way."
Changeling_Nightmares watches various life forms interact with each other through the window of the truck. "Wow..." she says as a hawk swipes up another bird.
It is 650 km to Novgorod, and you find the truck has a max speed on paved roads of 130 km/h. Kawai goes 65 km/h to be safe.
The area around Tolkeen is familiar. The group has seen it from the ground and air over their time living in the city. As they continue west, things change. Trees get smaller and the lakes become less numerous. Things quickly develop into a rhythm as they travel. There isn't much to see other than the occasional passing vehicle.
Kawai notices that the vehicle battery charge is depleting much faster than it should. There is no way they make it to Novgorod at this rate of discharge. Kawai pulls over the truck to investigate.
Tihan flicks an ear as they come to a stop... but she remains in the mech, in case they need quick access to combat, or she needs to stay hidden.
Kawai uses Compu to contact Kiirga, "We have a problem. We might have to jump start the truck. Want to take a look?"
Tihan gestures a hoof at the comms station as it beeps at her, and puts her headset on. "What's up?"
"The truck ran out of power."
"What? This thing should have had more than enough power to get us there! I guess you want me to take a look at it?"
"That would be helpful."
"Yeah, alright. I'll be right out there." She shuts down the comms, and pops the hatch to climb out of the mech and down to the truck.
Kawai pops the hood for her if that is still a thing. She can feel a lot of heat coming off the battery.
"Hmm. Well, something's sure draining this thing, it's hotter than it should be." She looks around for what could be causing this drain.
Surry scratches an ear at the predicament. "Any way we can use, I dunno, magic to power the thing? Or maybe piggyback off of another power source?" She is riding in the truck's cabin.
"We could use the mechs. I have a feeling they are what drained the battery."
Kiirga pokes and prods at the batteries for several minutes. An inadvertent contact between your tools and a terminal send up quite an arc, and singe a bit of insulation. The battery power meter goes from 40% to 35%. This causes Kiirga to flinch back from it and quickly withdraws her tools. Okay, it's not there apparently. Kiirga goes back in once she's sure the thing isn't going to zap her again. After studying the wires and mechanics for several minutes, and consulting with her teammates, she make another attempt. This one goes much better. No singed hooves or burnt batteries. In fact, the power meter goes back up to 40%. She somehow increased the efficiency of the system. There is enough juice to get to Valderama and maybe even Westerton for a full recharge.
Kiirga pulls back out and wipes a bit of engine grease off of her suit on a rag. "Alright, that should do it. There was a short down in there, and I cleaned up a bit of inefficient wiring while I was in there." She shuts the hood and puts all her tools back away.
"Could we give it a jump or does it need to be replaced?"
"Nah, it's all good now. We'll just need to recharge in the next town."
"How long will that take?"
"Depends on the charging station, really."
"That's fine. Let's keep going."
"But, really shouldn't be more than a few hours." She nods in agreement, and starts climbing back up and into the mech.
Kawai glances at her and once she is in her mech she drives to Valderama.
Valderama is a short drive from where they broke down. As they enter the town, they notice that it is like other towns away from big cities. Something for most everyone, but not much else. The inhabitants are mostly humans, but there are a few D-Bees going about their business, too.
Kiirga watches through the mech's eyes as they come into town. Not just humans here... so it's safe for her to be out. Good.
Kawai sees a motel next to a general store and the sheriff's office. Kawai parks. "How does this look to you, Kiirga?"
Kiirga points the cameras towards the motel.
Kawai gets out of the truck but leaves it running for her. She is not the most knowledgeable when it comes to technology but she hopes keeping it running like this helps. After slamming the truck door she makes a bee-line towards the motel owner.
Chase, the motel owner, "Hello, and welcome to Valderama. What can I do for you?"
"How much for a room?"
"For one night? How many people?"
"Three."
"That'll be 68 credits." He looks outside and eyes the truck for a second. "And another 20 if you want to recharge your equipment. Free muffins and coffee in the morning, if that's your thing."
"Fair enough." Kawai pulls out her card, "Let's do this."
Chase plugs the card into the reader and hands it back to you. "Room 208. Don't make a bunch of noise after 11."
"Why?"
Chase looks at Kawai funny. " We like quiet nights here in Valderama."
"Of course. Thought it was strange you would empathize that."
Chase passes Kawai three room cards. "Call the front desk if you need anything."
Kawai bows then goes to the room.
The night passes uneventfully. The next morning, you find that the truck is fully recharged and not a smoking hulk.
Kawai got up early to lay over the hood of the truck like a model, to bask in the sun.
Kiirga stretches out as she wakes up and climbs out of bed, a little after Kawai left. She goes out to meet back up with her, and watches her curiously. As she approaches, she asks, "What are you doing up there?"
Kawai eyes the doe, "What does it look like?" spreads her legs to get a better look at her.
"Laying on the roof of the truck. When there's a perfectly comfortable bed that we paid for back in the room."
"Just let me know when you are ready to go."
"Just need to turn our room keys back in, and make sure the truck's all charged up."
Kawai fishes out her key from her back pocket then holds it out lazily in an outstretched hand while her other hand raises her shirt up to her bra.
Kiirga chuckles softly at her friend, and takes the key from her palm. "You're gonna get the guys all riled up doing that, y'know," she says with a hint of a smirk at the edge of her muzzle. Someone whistles a catcall nearby.
Kawai shoots the man a look, "Maybe I should kill him." The man walks faster to wherever he's going.
Kiirga snrks softly. "Only if he makes a move on you. I'm gonna go check the room one more time, make sure we aren't leaving anything behind. Stay out of trouble~" She trots back to the room and does as she said.
Kawai grins, her gaze returning to the heavens.
Kiirga spends a couple minutes looking through the room, and, assuming she finds nothing else of theirs there, she returns to the desk and gives them back the key cards.
Jenny, Chase's wife, is at the desk. "I hope you all enjoyed your stay. Do come back."
"Thank you. Have a nice day!" She leaves, joining back up with Kawai
Kawai rolls off the truck, splaying her legs as she does so. She stands by the driver door feeling more energized.
Kiirga steps on out into the sunlight with Kawai, her crystalline hooves both refracting and reflecting the morning sun to create a beautiful pattern on the ground around them. "You ready, then?"
Kawai opens the door and plants a leg inside, "Are you?"
"Yep!"
Kawai enters and starts up the truck, "Thought you wanted to give it a look over."
"Can't do that until you've turned it on and got the battery display up. How's it look?"
Kawai gives all the instruments and radios in the truck a thorough examination. Everything looks fine, if a bit used. She also notices that the radio microphone is plugged into a small box which is then plugged into the radio, instead of the usual direct connection. "Do you think this is stolen?" picks up the microphone before giving the box a poke. The box is roughly the size of a deck of playing cards, and made of metal. It does not respond to her poke.
That's... not a response to her question. She walks over around to the door Kawai is at. "Stolen? Why do you say that?"
"Just a hunch. The dash gave an all clear." tries to remove the small box, "Does this look right to you?"
Kiirga looks up to the little box. "Um... a bit unusual. Maybe it's an adapter for the cables?" Kiirga quickly discerns that the cables going in and coming out are the same.
Kawai opens the other door, "Have a better look."
Kiirga nods, and walks around to the other side to climb up in and get a closer look at it.
Kiirga notices that there is a small wire coming out of the back of the box and going into the dashboard. "Hmm." She scoots in and along and looks at that. Interesting... Now she wants to know where that cable goes. "I think I'm gonna take a look inside this dashboard."
Kawai steps out of the cab, "Need anything?" Kawai, being unneeded, goes over to an empty space in the parking lot to stretch facing away from the street.
Kiirga diligently disassembles the dashboard and follow the wire into a large bundle. It proceeds through the firewall, and you trace it to a fuse block. The wire is a power source for the box. 'Okay, that's simple enough. It's power for the thing. So what does it need power for?' she thinks to herself. 'Could be storing the microphone data. Or even transmitting it elsewhere. Or it could be harmlessly modulating it to make it a readable signal by the radio systems. But, if it is the last one, there's an easy way to test it. Just plug in the microphone directly and make sure it still works.' So... She's gonna need to get back in the mech and use its radio, and have Kawai call her with the box not plugged in. "Hey, Kawai, I need you help with something!" She calls over to the stretching girl in the parking lot.
"Oh?" walks over slowly, "Did you figure it out?"
"I want to test a theory. Hopefully it's just benign, but... Anyway. I need you to call me on the radio, without the box plugged in."
Kawai slides onto the seat, "I can do that. Tell me when."
Kiirga climbs back to the mech. "Give me a few seconds, then go." She slips down inside and pulls the headset over her ears.
Kawai sets the radio to Kiirga's Dragon, "Testing... testing..."
"Well, that settles that. It's working. Alright, shut it off." She climbs back out of the mech to rejoin Kawai in the cab of the truck.
Kawai switches it off, "Want me to pull it out?"
"Not yet. Just shut off the truck, I want to take a look inside."
Kawai turns off the truck as she is told, "I had a bugged apartment once."
"Oh, fun. What'd you do about that?" She asks as she starts carefully opening up the casing.
"I did not have a lot of electronics during that time so it was an easy find. It was in the phone they gave me. We found it and tossed it."
As Kiirga disassembles the device, she strips out two of the six screws which hold the lid on. If an attempt to pry the lid off could risk further damage to what is inside. Kiirga mutters under her breath, "Stupid, lousy screws..." Well, whatever's inside, it's not something she wants working anyways. Probably. She sighs, and puts her hoof to it, and the crystals in it glow as she attempts an interface with it. She senses that inside the box is a digital voice recorder, digital compass, and accelerometer. Such a system could be used for tracking movement, direction, speed, and recording voices. She also determined that the device was set to transmit recordings of activities every morning at 2 AM. Kiirga withdraws her hoof and humphs. "Yeah. That's a bug alright. It's also tracking our location."
"Could it have messed with the battery?"
"Maybe. It is definitely draining some power to do its job."
"Can you trace it back?"
"It's only recording, I didn't see any transmitter in there."
Kawai reaches over to the box, "No sense in keeping this then, " pulls it out with some vigorous tugs. She hands the bug to Kiirga.
"Yeah. It's transmitting back to the guys we accepted this mission from." She frowns slightly at it.
"Did it give you an idea whom we are dealing with?"
"Not really. It's just recording and transmitting data, there's not a whole lot to it."
"Well, now you have a souvenir."
"Yep. If we ever need a bug, I guess I could modify it to transmit data to us."
"Do you need to do anything else before we go?"
"... put the dashboard back together."
Kawai shrugs, she goes back to her spot in the parking lot to stretch. Kiirga goes about returning the dashboard to working order while Kawai stretches.
Designed & Coded by: Maiyunbby
Art by: InkcrossDA
