Why Do You Need A Testing Facility That Far Into The Desert?

Session Four: Stop That Train!!

Available: Maurice LeBec, Sir Alistair Montgomery, Chloe M, Ares Astral, Hank Scorpio
Guest Starring: Agent Smith, Agent Johnson

The morning after the events at Carnegie Hall, the group were contacted by Atlantic Philanthropies and told to meet at a building in the city. Once there, they were met by two agents from the Department Of Investigation. Someone had stolen a piece of valuable technology and the DOI requested the assistance of AP in it's recovery. The agents were "not at liberty" to discuss the details of the stolen technology, but assured the party that it was in their best interests to help.

And so, off to San Francisco!

They knew that the stolen goods were being transported by train, and the agents had leads as to which one. They arrived at the train depot and began investigating the container storage area. Chloe had to turn on the heat to help get passed the guards at the gates, one or two decided to sneak in, and soon everyone was snooping around. Maurice found a long, office-like building toward the back of the area and ducked in, just in time to see some shady characters handing a thick envelope to a plain-clothes youth. Maurice waited for the courier to leave and managed to pickpocket the envelope, open it and return it to the young man all without being seen. Inside he found and took blue-prints for a one-man jet propulsion device, a rocket-pack!

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had managed to dramatically disable all the Mafia thugs in the depot, even finding a few more on the street behind the offices and interrogating them. Learning that the container with the stolen goods was already well on it's was to Salt Lake City, they quickly decided to give chase.

This was the point where I folded my arms and listened in amazement as the players took the initiative and began a whole scene that I never expected. My notes read "Players learn where train is and race to catch it. Once at the train...", fully expecting to just say "Ok, you arrive in sight of the train as it screams down the tracks..." Instead, the players all took it upon themselves to have an elaborate race to get to the prize first. Ares and Maurice took Gir, Ares' Martian tripod, Agents Smith and Johnson took their Custom Ride, a fully kitted out Stunt, Sir Alistair took his own Stunt gadget, a one-man clockwork helicopter, and Chloe and Hank simply relied on an excellent driving stat, nabbed the mafia car and took off while the others agreed on the "rules". The spontaneous action was hilarious, as all sorts of back-stabbing and shenanigans came to a head! Sir Alistair spent a while fiddling with his copter, thinking he could make it faster, but it would "Need More Cogs". Unfortunately, without Sir Alistairs player even seeing, Maurice's player rolled to pocket a few cogs in order to slow the contraption down. Because both rolled the same, I simply negated the effect of Sir Alistairs tinkering!!

Eventually things got back on track, so to speak. Everyone arrived at the train, though some were shakier than others. Gir put a foot through a passenger window and Ares had to reign it back from zapping the screaming "fleshbags" inside. They checked the containers attached, but the one they were after was nowhere to be found. Searching the rest of the train was fruitless. I threw in the old "Runaway Train" trope here as well to give them something to do onboard, but while they were solving that, Gir detected a cargo container in the mountains. Once the train was safe, they backtracked along the tracks to a split that lead upwards into the hills. Following it, they discovered an abandoned mining facility with several storage buildings and an unusually high number of armed thugs for such a dilapidated area.

Fighting and explosions later, Maurice had explored one empty building and a second with several large cargo containers. The rest of the party arrived in and helped search the containers until they found the one they were looking for. Cracking it open, they recovered the missing technology, as well as the young man wearing it, much to the surprise of everyone involved.

At this point, I threw in more mob thugs and a leader to give the players someone to question and learn more about who was in charge. As it was getting late, we left all the questioning for the next week, but they did they did learn that the vile Doctor Eternity was somehow connected!! Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun!!