Our adventure begins in the sprawl outside the Chicagorg Arcology. Four friends sit in a bakery, run by one, operated by two and frequented daily at three in the afternoon by two others.
Seraphina Ashe, the remaining sister of a pair of paternal twins, owns and operates the finest eatery that can be run in the sprawl named “Ashes 2 Ashes”. Those that know her and her story understand the play on words, and recognize Seraphina’s ability to turn trauma into triumph. Her brother would have laughed at the name and told her she was being dramatic, but then he would be missing the point entirely.
A fixture in the kitchen and behind the counter, Max Gerbowski spends most of their days supporting Seraphina and doggedly earning a living in Ashes 2 Ashes. Max knows most of the town as at one point or another, anyone older than them has likely spent a minute or two mourning the loss of Max’s parents. A pair of entertainers and socialites, RAM could not allow two pillars of hope to light up the sprawl they way they did. These days it is Max’s bright smile and cheerful attitude that brings hope and joy to those around them.
Our third companion sits in a dusty arm chair watching the others, weary from a hard day’s work. Everyone in town knows the name Alex Seed, but few know the man. What everyone does know, is when you need something done, Alex will be the first to offer to do it and the least greedy about it. Alex spends his days until espresso time helping the community wherever he can.
Finally one Buzz Lightyear sits next to Alex, counting the days since he ‘retired’ from the Solar Alliance Protectorate Military. A ranger of sorts, Buzz was well known for never leaving a man behind and was awarded a medal for ensuring exactly that. After a faithful “Peace Keeping” mission to “settle” some “unrest” in the outlands, Buzz became disillusioned with the SAP military and found a quieter life in the sprawl, where he sits most days waiting to find a better cause to fight for.
On a dirty Thursday at 3, our adventurers found themselves sitting enjoying one another's company, telling the kinds of stories about their day and lives that one would expect to hear purely for the passage of time. Though life was not uneventful in the sprawl, it certainly was not the kind of thing that would lead to epic tales of adventure.
If you had been there, maybe you would have heard the commotion in the distance, but our adventurers hadn’t, so when a man they had all known for most of their lives by the name of Tine burst through the door disheveled and ranting furiously about getting her back, they were all a bit startled and unaware of what to do next.
With the commotion in the common room, Seraphina and Max came out to see Alex and Buzz doing their best to seat Tine and try and figure out what had him so bothered. Tine was delirious and through tears and a broken lip, he insisted that the people in the bakery, who were stronger than him, do something about it!
Still confused, Seraphina managed to get him seated while Max brought a cup of water and thy got their first real good look at the man. Tine was a frail looking man with uneven dirty brown hair. He looked to be in advanced stages of radiation sickness, which could happen in the sprawl if one was not careful where they had been drawing their water from. His clothing was torn in a few places and he had the start of an ugly bruise on his face and one arm. Simply put he was a wreck.
Eventually Alex was able to convince the now half feral man to explain what happened. Tine related that some RAM soldiers needed new ‘recruits’ for something. On a sweep of the sprawl, they noticed Tine and Marryanne.
Marryanne was a good bit younger than Tine and came from a good family. She was strong in ways Tine could never be, having had access to food and medicine from a young age. To everyone’s surprise though, Marryanne had found something in Tine to love and so they had been married for a few years.
Marryanne was strong and healthy, exactly the qualities that Terrines looked for when conscripting people for labor on their ships and in their camps. Tine apparently took issue with Marryanne being taken away and the pair of Terrines did not hesitate to explain with a club and a rifle butt how he was mistaken that he could do anything about it.
When Tine woke some time after, sprawled out in the dust of the road he and his wife had been assaulted in, with no one else around, his first thought was to find help and he believed the strong young people who spent their afternoons in the Ashes 2 Ashes eatery, would be perfect for the job.
The adventurers gave each other meaningful looks, knowing full well that any attempt to save Marryanne would be futile. They tried to explain to Tine how the Terreines would be long gone and Marryanne with them. Even if they could have caught up, assaulting Terrines and trying to get friends back from their clutches, was the kind of thing that could get a whole Sprawl town murdered and burned down; RAM does not tolerate resistance.
Tine did not like this answer. Having worked up a froth from his crying and raving, some spittle escaped his lips as he vowed to do something about it, with or without the group’s help. Without a word of thanks for the hospitality he left as abruptly as he had come in.
As time passed the group kept an eye out for Tine, hoping he would not just become another dead potential freedom fighter. Alex half expected to see him take up ranks with “The Raiders”, a local freedom fighting group.
The Raiders were run by a middle aged couple named Jana and Barkley Gerson. Jana and Barkley were members of a commune that was occasionally referred to as “The Raiders House” at the edge of town, which produced food and clean water, but if you knew them and had a hand for it, they were some of the best scavengers of weapons around.
At any given point, Jana’s two children. Ray and Rayleen, could be seen fraternizing with at least five others, around “The Raiders House”. The community was thriving and gaining new members frequently, though not all of them lived in the warehouse. Unfortunately it had been months since anyone had seen Barkley and there were rumors that Jana was ready to assault RAM and find out what happened to her husband.
The Raiders were responsible for small forms of civil disobedience, like selling scavenged weapons and hitting the occasional RAM supply and “reclamation” transport. To this point, the reigning thought on the reason RAM had not removed them, was because they were a small tolerable producer of hope, to an otherwise hopeless population.
One might ask why The Raiders were allowed, why any producer of hope was allowed to exist, and the answer is simple, RAM is as smart as they are brutal. RAM was in the business of control and exploitation. Because of this, they know that a population without hope, is a population that quickly becomes un productive. To that end, as long as the civil disobedience remained mostly non lethal, and a town never amassed enough freedom fighters to actually threaten their hold on it, they knew that small outfits like The Raiders were good for the people’s mental well being, and so rarely took aggressive action to remove them.
A few days after Tine had come ranting into Ashes 2 Ashes, the group was once again in the eatery at three in the afternoon, and no one was able to miss Tine walking down the middle of the road, with a laser pistol on his hip. Carrying a weapon in the open like that, was the quickest way to get shot by a Terrine, and no one really wanted to die that way, or at least that is what the adventurers thought.
Alex hastened to the street with Max and Buzz, where they quickly caught up with Tine. They explained their worry for Tine’s well being while Alex took a good look at the dirty weapon that Tine had strapped to his hip. The gun was an old service weapon from one of the many wars fought in the area. It seemed obvious to Alex that it was scavenged as half of the capacitor clip was cracked and inoperable. Given his path, the group assumed that Tine had purchased it from The Raiders.
Alex offered to aid Tine the following day in learning a bit about the operation of the weapon after explaining its flaw. Tine was grateful for the tutelage and proceeded to make an effort to conceal the gun before going on his way.
The next day, Alex made good on his offer and added teaching Tine to shoot to his list of things to do that day. Tine showed a reasonable aptitude and by the end of their afternoon together, Tine was able to hit most of the things he pointed the gun at.
A week passed and then a day or two and once again it was Thursday afternoon at three. Our adventurers were once again enjoying their afternoon time together, telling the kinds of stories of the day that would fail to entertain even the most desperately bored person, when not very far away, they heard the unmistakable sound of Terrine alarms.
Terreines enjoyed operating with as little notice as possible most of the time, adding to their mystique and reputation of being silent bastards who could carry you away from bed while your partner slept completely unknowing, so to hear a siren meant something dramatic was taking place, and they were under the impression they needed backup.
Everyone but Seraphina could not resist finding the source of the commotion. A few streets over from Ashes 2 Ashes, a scene that was very odd played out is a small clearing between four homes.
A group of Terrines were rounding people up while holding a perimeter around the square. IN the middle of the square, a terrine laid stone dead, having had a laser part its head like there was a zipper in the middle. Max, Buzz and Alex looked on in shock as a pair of Terreines standing over the body of the dead one, animatedly inspected Tine’s distinctly damaged laser pistol. Tine fortunately, was nowhere to be seen.
The Terreines assaulted anyone who was not smart enough to clear out and then things settled down rather rapidly, as they normally would. But things would not stay that way. The following night, everyone woke to the cries of people in town alerting anyone who could hear that there was a fire.
Seraphina woke and thought instinctively to run to the Bakery to ensure it was not the source of the alarm, while Buzz made his way to ward the edge of town where the blaze lit the sky unnaturally casting a haze through the dirty dusty air that made everything glow with an ugly red-orange tint. People were running with buckets to the source of the alarm as they assembled to try and put out the fire.
Alex and Max also headed toward the blaze and arrived to see Buzz with others turn to soaking the buildings around “The Raiders House” as it became obvious that the warehouse was completely lost. More horrifying than the flames that consumed the warehouse was what lay in front of it.
Placed neatly and carefully, with signs of precision execution, laid what appeared to be the entirety of The Raiders. Not even the children were spared as Ray and Rayleen lay peacefully with the dancing light of the fire haunting their cold silent features.
Looking closely at the bodies Max did not see Jana among them, but did notice that the weapon that Tine had owned, that the Terrines had recovered from the crime scene, was placed neatly and carefully in the hands of the body of Ray, the youngest of the Gerson children. The Terrienes had either figured out where the weapon had come from, or made a very accurate guess. This was not just a normal fire or execution, this was a message to everyone who dared to look at it; RAM would not tolerate the death of its soldiers.
The following day, the town mourned its loss the only way it knew how, the bodies were buried, some kind words were said and then people went on with their lives as though their loved ones and friends had not been murdered in their sleep, while their industry burned behind them.
A few days passed, then a week and the following Thursday at three in the afternoon, the smell of the burned building no longer permeated the air and almost everyone had comfortably locked the slaughter of the Raiders in a pocket of their mind, unwilling to confront the reality that there was no real hope of ever shaking off RAM’s oppression.
Buzz and Alex once again sat telling one another about their day, when in walked a familiar face. Randy, an individual with vibrant violet hair that they died with chemicals that likely should not be used on the human body, and bright green eyes that one could easily see their own reflection in if they dared to stare that long into, walked into the eatery almost as though lost.
Randy made small talk with Max, before settling into a nice arm chair in the common room. Buzz and Alex greeted them and Randy seemed happy to see a familiar face. Randy explained that in light of the recent problems with RAM, that Randy had been thinking a lot of who they knew and who knew them.
Randy asked the adventurers if they knew anything about Randy, like where the large scar running from his ear to his collar bone had come from, and the adventurers answering truthfully said no. Randy shared that they had come from Bostonorg, an orphan of hard working parents. Randy had a decent upbringing including some school since his parents worked in a factory in one of the lower levels of the Arcology and so had money to pay for it.
One day, when Randy was somewhere north of 10 but south of adulthood, they arrived home to find that their parents had not. Curious, but careful, Randy aired a bit and when the dinner hour had passed and their parents still had not come home, Randy began asking around.
From what others had told Randy, RAM had raided the factory and took those able bodied enough to work in space to fill a staff shortage on the RMS Felicity. Randy was furious and feeling entitled to an explanation, or consolation, or something headed to the local SAP office to find out what was being done to get his newly enslaved parents back.
At the office, a sergeant was dismissive of the child’s claims. When Randy, an educated child of educated people, living in a society that was meant to have rules and laws, full of fire and perceived entitlement, refused to leave, the sergeant changed his tune. Randy’s naivety was enough to keep him from running when the large man lured him into the back of the station offering to look into the situation. Randy said that he managed to stab the bastard during what happened next, and when he was fleeing, the sergeant’s knife caught Randy below the ear leaving him with a reminder that there was no civility in this society.
The story seemed to take a lot out of Randy, but he said he just wanted to share the small hell that RAM had forced on him and looked forward to hearing the adventurers another day. With that, he left.
Some more days passed and the next Thursday, at three in the afternoon, the adventurers once again occupied their assigned places as the afternoon wore on. As Buzz and Alex once again entertained one another with boring stories of fish caught and doors fixed, Max cleaned the counter and regretted the chocolate croissants that Seraphina had made in a vain attempt to try and sell some cheer into the community.
A man walked into the eatery that no one had seen before. He walked to the counter and spied Max, who he exchanged pleasantries with. As the man leaned toward the counter to speak with Max and ask what was good, Buzz spotted a holster with a clean laser pistol in it, under the overly worn suit jacket he wore. Buzz recognized the pistol’s color scheme, but could not immediately place it.
Max offered the chocolate croissants to the man, who said he would take one. While the man ate the dessert, he asked some pointed questions about the adventurers feelings toward RAM. It was not an unusual topic of conversation, but when the man began asking about what small hell RAM had visited upon them, making his feelings clear, the others let their guard down a bit.
The adventurers asked about the weapon in the Man’s holster, so the man drew it to show them. This made Max and Seraphina begin to draw the blinds and worry about what kind of attention this could draw to the eatery. Having finally gotten a good look at the weapon, Buzz asked what the guy was doing with an NEO service pistol.
Buzz explained to everyone that NEO was the guerilla organization that was fighting RAM where it could. They were well known, but tales of their exploits and soldiers were often thought to be just that, tales.
The man explained his name was Bobby Coopat, but his friends called him Coop. Coop asked Max to box up the rest of the croissants and then paid about 300 times what they would have been sold for to anyone in town.
Coop then drew a data pad from inside his overly worn suit and began to rattle off information about the adventurers that most people would know, but that they did not expect a complete stranger to be aware of. Coop then offered the adventurers a chance to change their fate.
Coop explained that with a single finger print, he would include the four man group on the NEO roster. Over the next month, he would expect them to work within the town to gather information about RAM operations in the area and execute whatever counter terrorism efforts they believed to be reasonable and doable. In return, they would be given a Smart Suit and a weapon.
There was some hesitation to accept the offer and they made sure to confirm that they could back out of the organization if they lost their appetite for it. Coop said that they chose their own level of involvement in the organization, and the equipment was not payment for service; they were welcome to keep it even if they decided that the cause was not for them. With that, everyone thumbed the data pad and Coop thanked them.
Before Coop left, he explained he would be back in a month. When he returned, he said they would have a conversation about the next steps in NEO and hoped that their new cell would do very well in the fight against RAM.
That night, as the adventurers slept, a package was left in front of their door, so that they would have to trip over it before they left for the day. The small foot locker had a print reader on it, and when the adventurers thumbed their locks, they opened on the equipment that was promised.
With that, the Ashes 2 Ashes became the home of a new NEO operative cell.
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