* PART 1 *
It seems like someone knew something was coming. Whether they knew how big it would be, or how fucked up it would leave the world, I have no idea. But someone must have been preparing for it.
Now, fifty or sixty years on (who really knows?) this smooth operator named Nero was travelling with his crew on the way back from a gig they’d completed down south. About twenty minutes out of their destination, they saw a truly strange sight: a woman in strange clothes emerging from a door in the ground that seemed to appear out of nowhere as they rode past. Well, Nero and his crew hadn’t had the company of a woman in a good while, so they thought they’d be happy to make her acquaintance, but they were mistaken. As they turned off the road to ride up on her, she pulled out a mean mother fucker of a gun and opened up on them.
While the boys were busy jumping behind the flatbed for cover, the woman took her chance and ran off into the woods, occasionally looking back to provide her own cover fire, keeping the gang at bay long enough for her to disappear into the thick trees.
Well, Nero didn’t want her company that badly anyway, so they waited a bit to see if she was hiding in the trees looking for another opportunity to shoot at them. But after a bit, he figured it was safe to check out this door in the dirt and see what lay beneath. What he found was unlike anything he had ever seen! Never since before the breaking of the world had so much flash gear and hi tech wizbang been seen in one place. And the place had to be the size of a warehouse, but all underground!
So Jimmy got out his tool while Clover fired up the winch motor and the team started their scavenging with the big metal box closest to the door. Nero tied the winch rope around it nice and tight and signaled for Clover to pull it up and out.
Unfortunately for Nero and the half of his crew down in the hole, they couldn’t see or smell the deadly gas that immediately began pouring into the room as soon as that box pulled off its bracket. Thirty seconds later everyone one of them dropped like a sack of taters.
Clover and the others topside couldn’t really tell what was going on over the sound of the winch, so he just kept it running, and eventually out the door came this metal box about twice the size of a coffin. Once they had it loaded on the truck, Clover called down to Nero to see what was next. When there was no reply he poked his head over the open door and smelled the shit that must have come with all that sudden death. He stood back up, not sure what to do, and then fell over, only half conscious.
Waters rushed over and grabbed Clover by the feet, dragging him away from the opening while trying to stay as far away from it as possible. A couple minutes later Clover seemed to get his head back. No one else seemed inclined to go near the door again.
Not having anyone else left to give orders, Clover took the lead and had the others hop back on the truck. He hated to leave Nero down there. He’d been a good boss. But there wasn’t anything to be done.
The decimated crew continued north, figuring that they could probably sell the strange box for quite a pile of jingle to either the hold’s boss Hugo, or maybe to that weird savvyhead that lived on the edge of town.
The only problem with that brilliant plan was they didn’t know what was inside the metal box, and they didn’t know he was about to wake up.
---
Specialist Jim McClane woke up way too quickly for someone coming out of stasis. This is not how it went when the test ended last time. Had the equipment malfunctioned? The lid to his stasis chamber slid open silently. As the bright sky assaulted his sensitive eyes, something else ambushed his mind. Sky? He was supposed to be underground. What the hell is that noise? Why does my head feel like it’s got a flaming spike through it? Is this chamber moving? Jesus what the fuck is that noise? Who are these freaks, and why am I on this truck? Holy mother of god what is that noise? I can’t even hear myself think! Must. Get. Out.
Darkness.
---
Brick had been busy in his workshop when the remainder of Nero’s crew had arrived on the outskirts of his junkyard. He hadn’t seen or heard anything until his sister Sal came in.
“Joshy, I heard some bang bangs outside.”
Hearing guns wasn’t really unusual, but Sal feeling the need to mention it was, so he figured he’d better go check it out.
When he got outside he saw what looked like the front of Nero’s truck just visible behind the old red plane. He headed out there, telling Sal to stay inside for now. She usually did what he told her, even though she was the older sib. Brick considered himself lucky that even though Sal was in some ways still a child, she didn’t have a lot of initiative to go wandering about getting into trouble.
As he came around that red nosecone and prop, Brick could smell trouble. It stank of blood and gunpowder and shit and fear, all mixed up with the dust and oil of the junkyard. What he saw didn’t make much sense: about half of Nero’s crew was there, lying dead, on the ground and on the flat of the truck. There was also someone he didn’t recognize lying nearby. Unlike the others he didn’t appear to be shot, but Brick couldn’t be sure without getting closer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do that. He clutched his big wrench a bit tighter.
---
"Hey mister, are you alive?" Jim felt a hard poke in his ribs. He slowly opened his eyes. Backlit by the too bright sky hovered a round face with bright eyes, haloed by a shock of unkempt hair, and a steak of grease across one cheek.
“Shit!” Jim thought, “Now where am I? Who the fuck is this guy?” He sat up, and immediately regretted the move. His head swam for a minute and the world tilted. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, then opened them again. He slowly looked around; taking in what appeared to be a graveyard for small aircraft and rusted out cars. To his left was his chamber, lying on the bed of a truck.
“Hey mister, you ok? You need some help? What the heck happened here? Who killed all these people? Omigod, is that Clover? Holy shit. Did you see who did this? Why didn’t they kill you too?”
Jim tried to stand, almost fell, and then got his balance. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Oh man, you look terrible! I’m Joshua, but everyone calls me Brick.”
Jim looked at his hands and arms. They were spattered with blood, but it didn’t seem to be his own. He walked over to the truck and jumped up on the bed. His AR was there, lying next to the chamber. His 9mm was further in, next to a body that didn’t look likely to cause trouble, so he grabbed it and put it back in its holster on his hip.
The funny little guy called Brick was still asking him questions, faster than his mind could process them. Jim knew he needed to get control of this situation fast. He tried to get a read on this guy, see if he was a threat. But when he focused on the man’s face, that noise started to return, more softly now, and suddenly he had memories flashing behind his eyes. He had killed these men.
---
*MC's NOTE*
These events actually come from the introductions and character creation portion of our first session. We played last night and I've been thinking and writing this part of the story to sort of focus my mind on this world that the players have created.
I'll post more once I write down the events that took place once we actually started "playing".