We Sons Of Daley [Manhattan Blues]

Innate Area Scan. Seems like a good way to not get caught off-guard.

Done. While you're at it you get rid of your Increase Ability Innates, for now. No need, really.

>Sloppy Makeouts

Augh no! No no no. Don't be stupid, you just met her that would be dumb sure you saved her life and she saved yours but that's no reason to go around kissing people I mean come on you thought you'd gotten over this tsundere bullshit when you were fifteen.

Hit the hay<

Either/or/and

With the sun set, Alice sets a fox-fire to guide your way as night falls. It's one of many like it in the city, perhaps left over from lost souls, or SWAMP GAS, like you heard one of the EDUCATED PEOPLE say once.

STABLE DOME CAVE

This is a cave made out of a stable dome of rubble and debris of a fallen TENEMENT BLOCK. The bad news is, there's no more central heating. The good news is, you're pretty sure it's RENT-CONTROLLED.

"You got some FOOD in that pack of yours?" Alice asks.

"Not much more than a days' worth for the both of us. We'll have to live off what we find. If we can kill it."

"... Are you SERIOUS?"

"What?"

She pulls out some METAL SHARDS from some pocket, you're not sure WHERE. "Arlington, I want you to tell me what kind of steel this is."

It takes you a long moment of staring at the shards intently. "Looks like about an inch of TANK ARMOR. Pretty thin for a tank..."

"That's what you were PUNCHING THROUGH."

"That? With my BARE HANDS? You must be joking." You start gathering up some WOOD for FIRE, and cook what remains of your RATIONS.

It's not very tasty, by any standards of the term, but the CANNED MEAT and CANNED VEGETABLES are better than nothing. Alice seems to be reading SOMETHING ELSE as you start prepping for bed.

"Notice you have a few BOOKS." That's actually PRETTY RARE, nowadays.

"Yeah?"

"What are they?"

"This one's CHEMISTRY, actually. The atlas. And the journal is my GRIMOIRE."

"The grimoire of Alice, huh..." You look at the third book, and the smallest in appearance of the bunch. It is bound in GREEN LEATHER. And laid in GOLD on the cover is, indeed, the word ALICE, in what can only be termed big, friendly letters.

"Don't bother reading it, I don't think you'd understand it anyway." She produces something out of THIN AIR- it looks like a sleeping bag- and curls up in it. "We have a lot of work to do tomorrow to make this place livable and find useful items, so I suggest you get some sleep now instead of later."

Sleep when you can is the old rule...

**************

"He's gone. AWOL, boss."

"No, no," The FIFTH MAN, RICHARD WU, says. "If he were AWOL, we could track him. He's obviously DEAD."

"What about the survivors?"

"Eh, let them leave. We have DENIABILITY."

"So if he's dead, who killed him?"

"You saw her yourselves. Alice, the LADY OF NIGHTMARES."

***************

And it was evening, and it was morning, a first day.

***************

You are in the cave. You have very few supplies, and fewer ideas on how to stretch them, particularly AMMUNITION. Once you have supplies, you can probably live on Manhattan Island INDEFINITELY, but for now you have to figure out a way to SURVIVE. You could forage, or hunt, or any of a number of other ideas, but you might need to come up with something in short order. You know from your TRAINING that you need WATER first, then FOOD. Other than that the area seems plentiful enough.

>_

Have you had a nightmare?

Anyway, doesn't Central Park have a water feature of some sort?

There's the big reservoir. If anything's still freshwater on this island it's that. Also you can go jogging around the thing if you feel the need to exercise.

You could probably find birds there, if you're interested in white meat. There's always been ducks and things since pre-bloom. Their population probably grew without humans in the way. Maybe other things, but the walls are kind of high, so I don't think it would be a natural watering hole, unless the walls crumbled to let land animals drink from it.

SpoilerShow

ahahahaha home field advantage

Have you had a nightmare?

Anyway, doesn't Central Park have a water feature of some sort?

You're not sure, your education never extended that well to GEOGRAPHY; but as you look around you do spot a large lake-looking area to the southwest.

There's the big reservoir. If anything's still freshwater on this island it's that. Also you can go jogging around the thing if you feel the need to exercise.

It looks something like a reservoir, so you inform Alice that you're heading that way to try and get your hands on some water.
She nods, and tosses you a pair of intact gallon jugs.

As you walk around, you realize you never noticed just how much WILDLIFE there is when you can detect MINDS within a HALF-MILE RADIUS. A lot of them back off when they hear you approach, but there are a lot of animals of VARYING SIZE, though you can't get any better than that with just area scanning and ki detection, especially with the high amount of BACKGROUND ENERGY going on.

It might not be as difficult as you feared to pick up food. At least, not MEAT anyway.

You could probably find birds there, if you're interested in white meat. There's always been ducks and things since pre-bloom. Their population probably grew without humans in the way. Maybe other things, but the walls are kind of high, so I don't think it would be a natural watering hole, unless the walls crumbled to let land animals drink from it.

SpoilerShow

ahahahaha home field advantage

SpoilerShow

I have no problem with that. Just realize most human-built items will be abandoned and/or plant-crushed like the skyscrapers are.

Hm. You might be able to pick off one of those ducks with your SNIPER RIFLE, but how would you get it back home? You're not sure yet you can get one on the wing...

You could freeze the water and walk on it. How far can you hit something with cryokinesis, though? If you freeze the duck hard enough you could just walk over and pick it up- frozen dinner. Alternatively, shoot it, then freeze it underwater to make it float. Or use empathy (if you can reach) to destroy its senses. Then pick up a catatonic duck.

"This one's CHEMISTRY, actually. The atlas. And the journal is my GRIMOIRE."

"The grimoire of Alice, huh..."

TOUHOU REFERENCE??????????

TOUHOU REFERENCE??????????

You don't know what a TOUHOU is, but you're willing to bet it's got something to do with something your parents called JAPANESE LOANWORDS.

You could freeze the water and walk on it. How far can you hit something with cryokinesis, though?

You have the kick to do that, you're pretty sure, but you're also not sure how good you are at PROJECTING your power. Worse, who knows when the ICE would THAW OUT, if you USED TOO MUCH FORCE. Besides, have you tried to pluck a frozen bird lately?

If you freeze the duck hard enough you could just walk over and pick it up- frozen dinner. Alternatively, shoot it, then freeze it underwater to make it float. Or use empathy (if you can reach) to destroy its senses. Then pick up a catatonic duck.

Hm, that last one might be a plan. And with a half-mile reach, you could probably manage it. Of course the trick is to make it not panic...

You start setting up an AREA and then use EMPATHY to SENSE EMOTIONS.

Yeah, like you thought, most of the minds around you are animals. This whole array of sensing powers is WEIRD, like you're HOOKED UP TO AN INFORMATION SMORGASBORD. It's kind of ADDICTING.

Hm... Prey, predators... You'd hoped you could tell the good from the bad with it, but other than being able to single out those that are clearly SICK or INJURED, you really can't tell.

There are some FISH in one of these ponds, though, so you decide to STUN a few of them with DESTROY FEELINGS and do THE FREEZY THING.

[11 of 11 points left- MAJOR COLD. When it absolutely, positively, has to be a block of ice TODAY.]

It's not exactly SPORT FISHING, but it'll do; you string them up and start heading back.

This has taken approximately an hour and a half, and has secured enough food for most of the rest of the day, as far as meat's concerned.

Well. Once you get the fish out of this BLOCK OF ICE. Hm. That might be a snag in the plan. Well, except that if you have control of COLD... That should mean...

[10/11 PP- ELIMINATE COLD. THAW THAT THAR TEN POUND TURKEY.]

Hm. Well. It looks like you also have a food-preservation system, too- if you want to bother to make blocks of ice, you could see if you could make an ICEBOX, but you would need a container for that.

You're not sure where Alice is right now, but she's not in the CAVE.

>_

Can't you feel where/how people are? :V

Can't you feel where/how people are? :V

That's correct, which means she's more than ONE HALF MILE from where you are. Not surprising, you suppose; she's been here before, so she likely knows where some good SCROUNGING can be had.

Try getting a fire started, old-school. Gather up sup tinder and twigs and sticks. Ideally you learned survival in training. I guess we can't thaw something so much that it catches fire, can we? No, that's for pyrokinesis.
If we're not man enough to start a fire old-school, buy pyrokinesis and free-point cast something to set it on fire. Might as well start cooking/smoking these things.

Otherwise go look for edible plants? Alice probably know the local cuisine better. Maybe you learned plant gathering in boot camp.

Try getting a fire started, old-school. Gather up sup tinder and twigs and sticks. Ideally you learned survival in training.

Not enough to know how to do most of this stuff...

You gather up some dried leaves and deadfall. After a moment, you realize you'll probably want some way to AVOID SPREADING THE FIRE, so you go scrounging outside.

There's a TUBE OF SOME UNKNOWN MATERIAL with a TWO-FOOT APERTURE. It's barely even cracked.

You take a long moment to JUDGE THE PROPER SIZE and another, longer moment to MEASURE TWICE. Then you realize that it's THREE INCHES THICK. You'd be here ALL DAY cutting it... Unless...

You're not sure when your HANDS became deadlier than your WEAPONRY but you're not about to start complaining now. Even here, you decide to take a moment to consider the FORMER PIPE holistically.

Unsurprisingly the first whack doesn't get you what you need, but surprisingly it DOESN'T BREAK YOUR HAND EITHER. In fact, it leaves a CLEAN CUT THROUGH THE MATERIAL.

It doesn't take much longer to get it free and ROLL IT BACK to your CAVE.

You now have an IMPROVISED HIBACHI.

You also have a FIRE.

Your SURVIVAL has been granted a SPECIAL BONUS.

I guess we can't thaw something so much that it catches fire, can we? No, that's for pyrokinesis.
If we're not man enough to start a fire old-school, buy pyrokinesis and free-point cast something to set it on fire. Might as well start cooking/smoking these things.

No, you cant. Luckily, it doesn't seem like you'll need to.

Otherwise go look for edible plants? Alice probably know the local cuisine better. Maybe you learned plant gathering in boot camp.

No, but you did learn it growing up on a SMALL FARM for SEVENTEEN YEARS. You don't have a lot of HERB LORE but you could spend the next hour LOOKING AROUND to see if there's ANYTHING YOU RECOGNIZE, if you wanted.

Heck, this is a CITY, there's a hell of a lot of stuff you could do, including just EXPLORING THE COPIOUS RUINS.

You still don't have an ICE BOX but that may no longer be a CONCERN.

It's three hours after dawn.

>_

Look around for something you can use for a pot. Or something you can karate-chop into a pot. If you can find a suitably pottish object, boil the fish in said object. Otherwise, rig up some sticks so you can let the fish cook over the fire.

Then

pick a direction. Scratch out a little note telling Alice where you're going to be and go exploring/foraging in that direction. Of course, we can always telepathy her when we our radar tells us she's back, but y'know. Just in case.

Look around for something you can use for a pot. Or something you can karate-chop into a pot. If you can find a suitably pottish object, boil the fish in said object. Otherwise, rig up some sticks so you can let the fish cook over the fire.

Eh, it's not that hard to find a GRATE and put it over it, that's why you now have an IMPROVISED HIBACHI instead of a SMALL FIREPIT. You do go ahead and gather some more FIREWOOD and a few METAL SKEWERS, though. This takes about ten minutes.

Then pick a direction. Scratch out a little note telling Alice where you're going to be and go exploring/foraging in that direction. Of course, we can always telepathy her when we our radar tells us she's back, but y'know. Just in case.

You write a note down on some PAPER. Situation being what it is, you're still not some kind of CAVEMAN. She should be able to notice the note.

You roll a die, deciding to head SOUTHEAST.

EMBROIDERY SERVICE SHOP

This is one side of a small mall, that fronts along a large RESIDENTIAL AREA. It faces what used to be a ROAD, but you can't tell which one, merely that it was there; the bloom and the intervening years have turned it into a large MEADOW, which heads to the NORTHEAST and SOUTHWEST.

Inside, ROOTS and IVY cover everything. Old SEWING MACHINES, bent and broken by PLANT LIFE, lay disused. A SORT OF PRESS THING is similarly bent and broken. MOULDERED SHIRTS lie in piles, where NEW PLANTS exist.

OLD GROCERY STORE

This used to be a grocery store. you can tell because now it is a DENSE GROVE of FRUIT TREES, mostly APPLE and other plants SUITED TO ROCKY SOIL. You could forage here, if you wanted, but it looks like the local animals are pretty attracted to it.

DAY CARE

... Nothing here but a graveyard.

OLD RESTAURANT

This old restaurant seems to have a lot of broken glass and METAL everywhere. The food stores, of course, are long gone, taken in the looting, and if you feel like risking hitting a pocket of NATURAL GAS or STORED MAGIC, you could see if there's anything here of use (though it might be a little unlikely).

It took you ten minutes to get here. All these options would take about thirty.

>_

Risk of explosions? Sounds like fun.
See if there's anything of use in the OLD RESTAURANT.

Risk of explosions? Sounds like fun.
See if there's anything of use in the OLD RESTAURANT.

[Arlington makes a Search check]
[Arlington makes a Track check]
[Alice makes an entirely different Search Check. Incidentally, if you want you can still give her commands; that never stopped happening.]

... Hm. They left the fixtures, but what's more troubling to you is that this seems to be a nest of some kind and you can't find the ANIMAL IT BELONGS TO. And it's not any animal you're familiar with, either. It's a CAT PAW, but it's too big for a FERAL DOMESTIC or even a WILD MANX and it's too cold for LION or TIGER.

At the same time you're pretty sure you can get these fixtures free, and the copper and brass will be useful; and of course the metals in the EXHAUST FAN are of use to anyone.

Even better, most of the WIRING is intact; if you wanted you could go ahead and rip that out too.

Your main problems are going to be TIME- ripping the wires, removing the fixtures, all that stuff- and GETTING IT TO THE TENEMENT. It's not so much that it's HEAVY- you can deal with HEAVY through PSYCHOKINESIS if you have to- as that it's BULKY, and OBVIOUS. Most things don't want to bother with HUMANS- they smell bad- but... You wouldn't put it past an injured or sick PREDATOR to make a go of it.

... You smell OZONE. Which is odd, because you know there's no POWER GENERATION and even if there were the GRID IS NOT INTACT.

>_

>Alice: Look around. What were you doing again?

Start loosening as much stuff as you can, but stay alert of anything that's approaching down the street. If there's any innate slots remaining, fill 'em them with Physical Increases. Both to make the job easier and to respond better to suddenly: predator.

How exactly does crafting work in post-bloom?

Start loosening as much stuff as you can, but stay alert of anything that's approaching down the street. If there's any innate slots remaining, fill 'em them with Physical Increases. Both to make the job easier and to respond better to suddenly: predator.

How exactly does crafting work in post-bloom?

Done. You'll be done getting the fixtures out of the way soon enough; though with your ki mostly replenished it shouldn't be too difficult to take something out if it decides to show.

You start to think of the factories back in CHICAGO. As far as you're aware, those factories and their power plants are the ONLY ONES IN THE WORLD THAT RUN. Cobbled together out of parts and duct tape and hope, they're what lets Chicago have its NATURAL ADVANTAGE in TECHNOLOGY over the REST OF THE CONTINENT.

If ALICE is anything to go by, you figure, those that don't SCROUNGE FOR WEAPONRY have to MACHINE EVERYTHING BY HAND. Which means that REVOLVERS are about as high as you can get- you know that INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS and MACHINING are required to MASS PRODUCE the weapons you use- the semi-automatic M-4 and COLT .45 1911 and, of course, the CHICAGO TYPEWRITER.

Those are going to be a bitch to find parts for outside of Chicago territory, and even inside it the TYPEWRITER in particular is a symbol of the GRAND ARMY, being the chosen AUTOMATIC WEAPON of that group.

ADVANCED MATERIALS have to be mined out of RUINED BUILDINGS- especially STEEL is wanted, but MORTAR, HI-POLYMER RESINS, GLASS FOR RECYCLING, LEAD of course... Even back home in Gary the main way to get raw materials was to DISASSEMBLE THE TALL BUILDINGS, TOP DOWN. It helped prevent unexpected COLLAPSE and, if you did it right, ALMOST EVERYTHING WAS USABLE.

>Alice: Look around. What were you doing again?

Alice looks at the cache she's found, and wonders both how it wasn't found, and how the hell this guy- WHOEVER HE WAS- didn't survive. A closer look discovers the second reason- turns out whoever it was had a PACEMAKER. Poor guy's HEART must have gone DEAD in the BLOOM when its TRANSISTOR went HAYWIRE.

But damn, if it weren't for that going DEAD, his guy could have lived in here for a month before his CHELATION ran out... And he has more weapons than even Alice knows what to do with! 6 GENERATION FIVE G21s, a PAIR OF BATTLE RIFLES that, on closer inspection, turn out to be MODIFIED TO MILSPEC, a few GRENADES that are obviously home-made and PATENTLY ILLEGAL... She's almost afraid to look in the MULTIPLE AMMO CANS to find all that LOVELY AMMUNITION is FOULED, which will make everything but the pistols USELESS to her; although Alice can always use more BRASS and LEAD.

And then of course there's the CANNED FOOD, and the TACTICAL ARMOR. She's only HEARD about this stuff. It's a little DEGRADED from LACK OF MAINTENANCE, but it seems such a shame... She decides to cheat a little and REMAKE THEM WITH MAGIC later, if she can get all this stuff back.

It seems like he's got almost two of everything that had parts IN CASE ONE BROKE. Even then the SIX G21s seem a little EXCESSIVE.

He might have been a little PAIRANOID, but no use crying over spilt milk now. The problem is, Alice knows she can't quite carry this much stuff at once. What to prioritize...

>_

First, take the tactical armor. That's pretty rare, and useful if we end up fighting gunners.
Is heavy metal poisoning a serious post-bloom concern? Take the chelation pills next if that's the case.
Take the grenades. Maybe we can get some tips on how to make our own.
Take two glocks, and empty the ammo from the other four and take those as well.
Then the fouled(?) ammo.
Then the rest of the glocks.
Then the battle rifles.

(Unless the ammo is fine in which case take a battle rifle over the rest of the glocks.

First, take the tactical armor. That's pretty rare, and useful if we end up fighting gunners.
Is heavy metal poisoning a serious post-bloom concern? Take the chelation pills next if that's the case.
Take the grenades. Maybe we can get some tips on how to make our own.
Take two glocks, and empty the ammo from the other four and take those as well.
Then the fouled(?) ammo.
Then the rest of the glocks.
Then the battle rifles.

(Unless the ammo is fine in which case take a battle rifle over the rest of the glocks.

... Alice decides she may as well check the ammo.

Well, the bad news is, there are only NINE cans of ammo instead of TEN.

The good news is, it seems like they were packed with a packet or two of silica gel in between each BOX, and even better, they still have that dusty smell of DESSICANT IN A WATER-TIGHT CONTAINER.

The good news is, that last can wasn't full of ROUNDS or MAGAZINES. It was full of GOLD AND SILVER.

As such, she's prioritizing that, and the TACTICAL ARMOR. This trip will take her a while, but as long as nothing goes wrong, multiple trips should be fine, especially running through the SUBWAYS like she does. The local bosses don't take too kindly to 'poachers', but they're so busy squabbling it's easy to evade them, especially since NONE OF THEM DARE TO GO UNDERGROUND. It's quite literally putting yourself under an AVALANCHE WAITING TO HAPPEN.

For Alice, who can WALK THROUGH SHADOWS, though, it's not much of a problem. And who's really going to go looking through a BASEMENT first?

-----

You look up from what you're doing as about FIVE HUMANS walk into your AREA SCANNING RANGE. They'll be about an hour getting here- even the best terrain here is UNTRAILED and ROUGH GOING. It might be time to take what you've got and GO.

And then A DIFFERENT SQUAD SHOWS UP.

You don't know if they like each other, off the top of your head, but you PROBABLY don't want to be here to find out.

Or you could ask Alice via TELEPATHY, but who knows if she's even IN RANGE right now.

Ping Alice. Ask her what the local politics are like if you can catch her. Do this while packing up and getting ready to go home.

[Purchased: MENTAL COMMUNICATION.]

:Alice.:

Alice hears the voice and nearly BANGS HER HEAD against the CEILING of the CRAWL SPACE she has just SHADOW-WALKED to. "Who's there!?"

Amazing. You can hear her thoughts as she says them. So weird! :Alice. I need some information.:

"Fuck you, who is this and how are you in my head?"

She doesn't seem to recognize your voice. Maybe it's not as easy to identify your telepathy? :This is Arlington, remember? You sort of dropped me here without a briefing? Something's come up, and I need a primer on what kind of people send PATROLS into MANHATTAN.:

"..." Alice shakes her head. "I'll tell you when I get back to the cave; for now I'd suggest dropping whatever incredibly stupid thing you're doing and getting the hell out of there before you're caught in the crossfire."

Well great, how are you going to manage that without being detected?

>_

They aren't on the street, are they? You should be able to jog straight back to the cave before you fall into their line of sight.

They MIGHT be in the street; you're not exactly sure because, quite frankly, you don't really KNOW the area, you've just been relying on HUNCHES.

Still, you climb through the broken rubble and head out what you hope was the back door. The forest is thick.

You feel as if you are being WATCHED.

>_

==>

Deep in the dark of the forest, things move in the underbrush. You see a rat walk by.

It's a little different from how rats supposedly used to look, but that's not that unusual. It's almost halfway up your calf in size if you had to take a guess, but that's not that unusual either. What sets this particular rat apart is that it seems to have extra LUMPS IN ITS SPINE. It seems to scurry away when you spot it, almost like it had some idea that you seeing it WASN'T A GOOD IDEA.

Hm. Peculiar. But you don't have much time to worry about it now, you have a cave to return to.

When you arrive back, there's some sort of PLASTIC SUITS that weren't there before, as well as a note:

Stay put. I'll be back soon. --Alice

You get to smoking the fish on the IMPROVISED HIBACHI while you wait, skewering them and letting everything cook. Shouldn't be too long, you suppose.

Indeed, she arrives with a few cans of AMMUNITION, you guess, and a pair of BATTLE RIFLES.

"Good to see you again, Alice."

"Hm. I was going to spend the afternoon getting FOOD, you seem to have it taken care of."

"What's with the iron?"

"Some building manager, if I had to guess. Used the BASEMENT as his personal STORAGE."

"Right, so what's with the patrols? They're getting sort of close to-"

You hear the sounds of GUNFIRE not too far away. Alice nods. "There are four LOCAL BOSSES that are all fighting over the scraps of MANHATTAN. It doesn't help that with the SUBWAY LINES and FOUNDATION PROBLEMS, most of these buildings that haven't PARTIALLY COLLAPSED already are THREATENING TO. So they squabble, and send people to fight, and generally try to be dicks to each other as much as possible while respecting the fact that if they're too MUCH of a dick, they'll get STOMPED by the other three BOSSES working together."

"What's so great about Manhattan itself?"

"By itself? It was the densest building area of the densest city in America. There's more RAW MATERIAL here than anywhere else. Speaking of... There's these, and then there's the GLOCKS. I'm going to go get those, and some more AMMO, and we'll have lunch."

>_