3 (delay). Squad D stands up, and shoots at Alphonse. D-1..3 hit 2x, D-4..5 missed, D-6 hit 1x.

1. Gallowglas “taps” C-1 again, with the flag of her sword, for 43/13, putting him well into GM’s Discretion.

At the top of the stairs, Gorman, who’s max END has been reduced to negative values by Stick’s drain END power, moans and says “What have you DONE to me!” He gets up, draws his TASER, and shoots at Stick, missing by a mile. A-6 groans and says “He did it to ME, too!” He also shoots at Stick, and also misses. A-5..1 all shoot at Stick with their various weapons, and all miss. “Welcome to the Big League, boys,” shouts Stick, gleefully.

Back at the main engagement, B-1 and B-3 begin Recoveries. C-2..5 get up and shoot at Alphonse. C-2 and C-5 hit 1x, C-6 hits 4x. Squad D, not knowing what else to do, shoot at Alphonse again. D-4 & D-5 hit 1x, D-6 hits 3x. All but one hit (44/11) bounce. Alphonse, apparently unphased, says “Are you guys about done?”

1. Jazz fires Ground Zero at the corner of the stairwell behind Squad B, near Slammer and Psyclist. Slammer dives for cover up the stairs, towards Squad C. He makes it out of the way of Ground Zero just in time, damage is 47/13.

At the top of the stairwell, Stick whacks A-6 with the Tonfa for 33/8.

Back on L4, Alphonse moves back down onto the landing with Squads C & D, sidles in between them and the near wall, and uses her T.K. shove to slam both squads back into the far wall, for 38/10. C-2’s armour does not activate. Knockback damage is 43/12. The armour of C-3, C-6 and D-3 fail to activate, D-2 fumbles the activation roll.

On L2, Ghost continues her search for the Server Room. She finds a lab, with Dr. Tompkins working with a genetic sequencer. Still invisible and desolid, she moves on. She thinks to ask Stick where the Server Room is. Reaching the Server Room, she enters (still invisible and desolid), and looks around. It looks like all the servers have crashed. The last command entered on the console was “zeroize”. “Uh-oh,” Ghost thinks, “we need these servers to unlock the collars.”

1. Gallowglas thunders up the stairs, hurdling unconscious bodies, all the way up to Alphonse’s level.

2. Gallowglas runs up a few more flights, ends up on the landing below Stick. Jazz also moves up the stairs, at a more sedate pace, while pulling out a cigarette. She stops just be low the landing with Squad C & D piled in a heap (and a bit spilling down the stairs). Alphonse moves up the stairs as well, stopping on the landing immediately below Squad A and Stick. As she passes Gallowglas, Gallowglas says “Leave someone for ME!” Stick says, to Squad A, “Time is up boys, surrender now or you won’t wake up until next week. On your knees, interlock your fingers behind your heads … you know the drill.” Gallowglas calls up from below “Don’t surrender! I want to kick your asses!” Stick then hits Gorman, again, for 39/9.

Slammer starts a Recovery.

A-5 fires his TASER at Stick, and misses. A-4 fails his morale check and surrenders, dropping to his knees and interlocking his fingers behind his head. He’s a little surprised his cohorts do not do likewise. A-3 snaps “Traitor!” to A-4, then tosses a grenade at Stick, temporarily deafening him and doing minor STUN damage. The grenade blast also catches Gorman, A-6 and A-5. A-5’s Flash DEF fails to activate, and he is knocked out, and temporarily blinded & deafened as well. A-1 & A-2 fire their blasters at Alphonse, to negligible effect (only 3 STUN!).

Back in the Server Room, Ghost, now solid but still invisible, tries to boot the servers. She is unsuccessful, they’ve been wiped. “We don’t have time to restore these from backup,” she thinks.

1. Gallowglas runs up the stairs to Alphonse’s position, just below Squad A, and punches A-1 for 53/16, and 24m Knockback for 55/16. A-1 is down for the count. Jazz continues nonchalantly up the stairs, lighting a cigarette. Alphonse steps up and punches A-3 for 43/12, and 6m of Knockback. He falls at Stick’s feet. Stick hits A-5 for 48/12. A-5’s armour does not activate. Slammer gets his Recovery, and runs up to Gallowglas.

Ghost goes desolid again, and returns to the Control Room with the intent of interrogating Dallas Williams, the Warden.

1. Gallowglas backhands A-2 for 52/14, with 12m Knockback for 18/6. He drops, unconscious. “For the blood of Clan Asgaill!” she cries. Stick runs down the stairs, to L3, to the cells where Agni and Cassandra are being held. The doors are, unsurprisingly, locked. Alphonse zip-ties A-4, the one who surrendered. Slammer follows Stick down to the Detention Block on L3.

In the Control Room, Ghost realizes that Dallas is seriously out of it, and will not be able to answer questions any time soon. She searches Dallas’ office, and finds a spare collar, hooked up to some kind of charger. Concludes that the collar electronics need to be kept charged, and that they must swap the collars off the prisoners for recharging. There should be a large bank of collar charges somewhere, probably on Level 2 (which she did not fully explore, but seems like it had the right kind of functional spaces).

All the soldiers are unconscious, but a few start Recoveries.

Post-12 Recoveries, for those who qualify.

All the collars locked on prisoners beep loudly, the status LEDs all turn red, and the LCD panel on the front lights up with “5:00”. A second later it changes to “4:59”.

Turn 4.

1. Gallowglas runs after Stick and Slammer, passing Jazz along the way. “What the actual fuck is going on?” Jazz asks as she passes, having just seen Stick and Slammer passing this way as well. “Everyone is out, and Stick went down to L3.” Gallowglas replies.

2. Jazz continues up the stairs to Alphonse. Alphonse zip-ties A-1.

In the detention block, Stick inspects the door mechanism with his Chi-vision. The inner side of the cell wall is heavily armoured (10D, 9B), as is the door. The outer side of the cell door is normal construction (5D, 3B), and the mechanism is in between. The door slides manually, along tracks inside the wall. There is a solenoid-driven latching mechanism. Stick strips the wall to expose the door mechanism of Agni’s cell. Slammer steps up and examines the mechanism. A Security Systems roll shows him how to unlatch the door. The far end had been held in a recess in the wall, it now pops out and can be slid open.

William Bear Claw calls in over the radio. “The prisoner’s collars have all just entered some kind of countdown mode. It looks like 5 minutes until they blow.” Ghost examines the collar she found. It clearly has electronics, as there is an LCD panel and status LEDs, but everything is dark. There is a ratchet clasp, like that on handcuffs, that connects behind the neck of the wearer. There is no key slot or other mechanical release mechanism apparent, presumably it is released electronically by some remote signal.

Ghost calls for someone to come up to the Control Room, and help her wake up the Warden (Dallas). Wm. Bear Claw responds, and turns into his Eagle form.

Stick, who is still deafened by the grenade blast, cannot hear the exchange. He notices the people outside reacting to the collar mode change, and those wearing collars turn their heads down to look at their control panels. He deduces that something BAD is going on with the collars.

1. Gallowglas runs the rest of the way down to Level 3, and joins Stick and Slammer in the Detention Block. Bear Claw, in Eagle form, flies up towards the top of the pit, where Stick jumped off and kicked the door in. He gets a bit more than half-way.

Lt. Gorman and A-6 wake up. A-6, who is also at negative END, misses his CON roll and is sick.

1. Jazz zip-ties A-2. She says to Gorman and A-6 “Stay down, I don’t have Stick’s compunctions about dead people.”

In the Detention Block, Stick slides Agni’s cell door open, enters, and begins examining his collar. Agni is unconscious, and his collar is showing “4:55”. Stick “sees” the ratchet mechanism and its release solenoid, and thinks that it could be released by Telekinesis – if the telekinetic could only see it. Stick also sees the fine wires cast into the plastic housing that form an anti-tamper defence. He believes he could slip a small drill bit between the wires, and then release the locking mechanism. He also observes a few other sensors connected to the main circuit board, and surmises those are for preventing the collar from simply being yanked off by brute strength. He announces his finding over the radio, and adds that he is temporarily deafened but can see that something is happening with the collars, that there is what appears to be a machine shop on Level 6 with the reactor, and two people hiding down there. Gallowglas starts giving orders. “Alphonse, run down to the machine shop and find a drill. Jazz, head back down to the pit and get Suzy and the other prisoners up to the Control Room so we can take their collars off. We will all rendezvous in the Control Room.”

Alphonse stops zip-tying Squad A (aware that 3 are conscious, another is starting to stir, and only two of them are zip-tied), reconfigures her multi-power for Running and runs down the stairs, hurdling unconscious bodies along the way. She makes it to Level 6 in a half-move, and blows through the door. One of the Reactor Techs hiding there swings a hockey stick at her as she enters, but misses wildly. Alphonse asks the two techs “Is there a drill here?” The second tech points, and Alphonse finds a portable drill, a set of bits, and extra batteries.

Back in the Detention Block, Stick says to Slammer “Tear open that wall and open Cassandra’s door, its the same as this one, but reversed left-to-right because its on the other side of the hall.” Slammer does so. Having an example to work from, he is able to tear open the wall in a half-phase, and release the lock mechanism with the other half-phase.

In the Control Room, Ghost takes the spare collar she found, and locks it around Dallas Williams’ neck. The collar beeps, the status LEDs all light up red, and the LCD panel lights up showing “5:00”. A second later it changes to “4:59”. “We can practice taking theses off on you,” she thinks.