Road Trip AP - part 7

Session 5:

Team WTF's car arrived in Denver Colorado, third in the current race, but still ahead on points.  Fred was there to receive them and directed them to the workshop the club had provided for the teams to remove their Wonders from the day's car.  While removing theirs, WTF noticed Leonie (the Faster Pussycats' navigator) throwing tools in rage and Maggie holding her back from physically attacking Team Rocket's driver.  Arthur seemed completely at ease, waiting for Leonie to throw the first punch.  Fred arrived at the double to break them up, then Leonie stomped off.

WTF had passed the Faster Pussycats' car in a ditch with a long scrape along one side, as though they'd been forced off the road.  That would be against the rules, of course.

The club was using a local hotel as a headquarters, the Astor.  Most of the teams were staying there.  The top two floors were blocked off for renovation and the remaining rooms were cheap.  There was a nice library nook, where Edith settled in for a snooze after all those hours on the road.  George went to nap upstairs in the WTF men's suite.  Dmitri headed for the bar and started downing vodka with determination.  Team Alabammy joined him there, whooping and shouting about their victory in the race.  Ziggy and Chad called in to say they were off running an errand, because Ziggy 'knew a guy' in Denver.

After a while Edith was drawn to the sounds of celebration in the bar, and George came down for a quiet drink too.  Jimmy tried to start a fight with George, but gave up quickly when he indicated he wasn't interested.  When he tasted his drink, he realised the threats were just a distraction from the fact someone had spiked his beer with Dmitri's vodka.  He sent it back for a replacement, which caused Team Alabammy to laugh and trade back-slaps as though the prank had gone down exactly the way they hoped.

Leonie came in and ordered something pink and umbrella'd, but Maggie followed her in and took it off her.  Leonie swore, kicked over an ice bucket and left again.  Seeing WTF were present, Maggie took the opportunity to talk with Edith.  She revealed that Rocket had side-swiped them into the ditch, a move that was completely against the club's rules.  The observer in space didn't see anything because there was cloud cover -- which is weird, because there wasn't a single other cloud the whole day.  Rocket had to be creating opportunities to cheat.

She offered Edith a truce between WTF and the Faster Pussycats as long as they both went after Rocket.  Rocket had to pay.  Edith agreed, and passed the message on to the rest of the team.

All the teams met up for dinner in the hotel restaurant.  Team Alabammy were still making noise, but Rocket seemed to be in unusually good spirits too.  The Faster Pussycats were scowling into their salads and Leonie was openly playing with a butterfly knife.  Team Human were passing around a bottle of Tabasco sauce  and encouraging each other to try it.  David David upended the bottle and took a swig.  The other two leaned in to hear his opinion.  He nodded approvingly, and the whole team ordered mugs of Tabasco.

Eve noticed Team Rocket's Samantha quietly leaving the table and walking out into the hotel foyer.  Mindful of the agreement with the Pussycats, Eve followed.  Walking as quietly as she could manage, she spotted Samantha in the foyer phone booth, talking into a box that she held up to the receiver.  Eve couldn't hear her whispering, but the box was repeating something about a family crisis in an older woman's voice.

Not long after that, Edith got a call from Chad to say that Ziggy had been called home for a family medical emergency and Chad was going too, for support.  When Edith and Eve compared notes, they realised that Samantha had stolen their trick and was using a voice changer to psych out the competition.  Edith passed the news on to Maggie, who thanked her for the heads-up.  Eve sneaked into Reception to look at the registration book, which showed her which rooms Team Rocket were using.  As a mild form of revenge, she took a roll of sticky tape from the gift shop's stationary shelf and completely taped up their doors' card readers.

WTF discussed the situation and decided that being the team that got the best night's sleep was their highest priority.  Using tools she'd smuggled out of the club's workshop, Eve and George threw together a short-lived mad-science-monitor device to seal their windows against being opened from outside and warn them about any intrusion attempts.  Eve didn't actually have the Science to take on an extra Wonder, but George was able to help out there as well.  They all went to bed early.

During the night, Eve noticed her monitor device apparently tracking something across the ceiling.  She turned the light on and investigated the room thoroughly, but found nothing.  After some discussion, she and Edith realise that whatever it was detecting was above the ceiling, on one of the closed-off floors.  They watched the monitor, ready for any surprises, but it settled down after a while.  That was when a tremendous screeching noise came from down the hall, approximately where Team Rocket's rooms were.  Eve stepped into the hallway and discovered Team Rocket in their pyjamas, shouting at a couple of hotel staff while noise and clouds of vapour billowed from their doorway.  It continued until security arrived and entered the room.  Eve saw them carrying out a set of taped-together fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.  Team Rocket was still complaining, so she closed the door and went back to bed.  Shortly, the monitor detected something above the ceiling again, moving back in the opposite direction.

Much later that night, George received a couple of visitors.  It was Jimmy and Billy-Lee.  They'd heard that George was good with computers and they needed help.  They wanted to celebrate the day's win by getting Chad to cook up another batch of special brownies, so Tommy-Ray went out to get some more of the magic ingredient.  Colorado is a state where you can legally buy weed, but Tommy-Ray didn't try.  He got picked up by the police for trying to buy from an undercover officer.  George could hack him out of jail, right?  This could force them to drop out of the race, Tommy-Ray was their designated driver.

George didn't see any reason to help them, but on the other hand it would mean they owed him a favour, and he'd thought of a way he could do it without leaving the hotel room.  He cracked the police arrests database and left a note from a governmental IP address stating that Tommy-Ray was an FBI informant and should be released without charges laid first thing in the morning.  He shrugged off Team Alabammy's thanks and went back to bed.

Eve's monitor woke her up again, alert to something outside.  There was a familiar blue glow, and a distressed cow hovered past the window.  It stopped, legs wind-milling on the other side of the glass, as though the blue light was searching for something.  Not finding it, it moved on.  Peering into each window it came to, the cow yanked awkwardly sideways each time it jumped to the next.  After a while, the cow hurtled up into the sky with a receding "mooooo --" and the usual mysterious lights darted away into the night. 

In the morning, the racers met again in the hotel restaurant for breakfast.  Tommy-Ray was there looking tired and depressed, but he had a breakfast beer to help him get over it.  Maggie and Edith fell into conversation again.  Maggie wasn't admitting anything about the night's events, but she let Edith know that the truce was concluded.  They were rivals again.