Road Trip AP - part 9

Session 7:

Once again the racers found themselves escorted out of a hotel.  That was followed by a strongly-worded request to never come back.  (This is becoming a theme.)  There was no time to dwell on that, though -- there was a race to drive.  The club presented the usual random selection of cars.  Luck gave WTF a decent one, that just needed the brake pads changed and the drums tightened.  Eve got to work on that while the others did their parts.

They didn't get very far before an incident happened that cost them one of their team-mates.

George had been pushing himself to produce good routes every day, recklessly opening his mind to the obscene whisper of Inspiration.  One final push was too much for him and his attachments, inhibitions and persona vanished in the blinding light of Illumination.  He picked up a wrench and attacked Dmitri.  Dmitri was taken by surprise and couldn't avoid the blow, but it landed awkwardly and only did minimal damage.  Eve and Edith were shocked, but immediately understood the situation.  George had grown cold and distant over the last few days, in retrospect it was clear that he was losing himself to Inspiration.  They jumped into the fight and the three of them restrained George without too much trouble.

Eve called Judith, the teleporting race official.  Judith was reluctant to get involved -- WTF were George's Collaborative, it was their role to keep an eye on each other and take whatever steps it needed to keep someone from devolving into a monster of Science.  Eve talked her round and she agreed to contact the Peerage to see what resources they could provide for handling George.  WTF left the bound and unconscious man in her care with a sense of relief.

They carried on outfitting the car, but after the shock of George's derangement the work was slow and halting.  Dmitri installed Kevin the gearbox and his voodoo air freshener, but Edith couldn't quite get an even coating of her go-faster paint over the flaking paint the car already had and Eve's work on the brakes took longer than she planned.  Time ran out and the team had to field a car that wasn't entirely race-ready.  They discussed it, and decided to rely on the last of Ziggy's superfuel.  It was effective, it hadn't exploded yet, and it was quickly degrading to uselessness while they ignored it.

The start line was well inside Des Moines' centre, so Fred warned them again about overt Wonder use.  That was an advantage, because it meant the start of the race was all about driver skill, and Edith was one of the best.  After the usual jockeying for position, (with the expected aggressive manoeuvres from Rocket) she managed to get into the lead.  Once they were out of the city, she looked in the rear view and saw Arthur in the Rocket car trying to chew up her advantage.  Her response was to feed the Ziggyfuel into the engine and start tearing up the distance.  This was a curved and twisting road, and the threat was in losing traction and spinning out.  Having Kevin the gearbox mitigated a lot of the danger, so Edith opened the throttle up as far as she dared.  Arthur vanished in her dust trail.

After a period of challenging but uneventful driving, something else appeared in the mirror -- a helicopter.  As it gained on them it became clear that it was a tiny one, too small to hold a human being, and it was travelling much faster than a helicopter should be able to.  It came closer and they noticed that it was a very familiar shade of red.  The mystery of Edith's missing paint was at least partly resolved.  (Edith's player decided not to find out what the pilot wanted and chose to 'dismiss' the stolen Wonder, stripping its immunity to the limitations of ordinary physical laws.)  The helicopter's go-faster coating began to dull and flake as the altitude affected the paint.

The pilot seemed to realise there was no catching them, because it fired several missiles.  The first passed harmlessly through them as Edith activated Kevin, and the following ones didn't have the range to reach them.  The helicopter dropped away into the distance and eventually faded from sight.  That was the last drama to occur before they rolled into Cleveland.

(The other teams ought to have had an advantage in this race, thanks to WTF's misfortune.  Instead, with Edith's player's consistent high rolling and the GM's consistent low rolling for the other teams, WTF came in first again.  Now the only way any other team has a chance is if WTF fails to finish the next race.  At this point, it's their race to lose.)

This night the racers were staying at a campsite on the lakeshore.  It was run by an elderly Genius and her 19 identical daughters.  They looked alike, they dressed alike, and they had the same emotionless, unblinking expression.  They were actually quite creepy.  The teams with less money to spend were staying in tents pitched in the grounds.  That included Alabammy, the Faster Pussycats and Arthur and Junior of Team Rocket.  Howard and Samantha were nowhere to be seen.  Eve and Edith elected to splurge and stay in a cabin, as did Team Human.

The team met George's friend Leroy at the gathering of Geniuses.  He was a tall black man with a calm manner who received some worrying texts from his old  buddy and drove over to see if he was okay.  He received the news about George's breakdown with sadness, but not surprise.  George was quiet, but intense about everything he did.  The sort of personality that inevitably tumbles headlong into Illumination and becomes a monster of Science.  It was only ever a question of when, not if.

Team Alabammy had hunting rifles with them and soon the woods surrounding the campsite had several less deer.  They got a fire going on the shore and started cooking venison for everyone who came by.  The ever-present beer cooler was open on the grass and passers-by were invited to help themselves.  Alabammy were in the worst position overall thanks to the misadventure with the JATO rocket, but if it bothered them they weren't showing it.  They seemed determined to have a good time.

Dmitri decided this was a perfect opportunity to stir up some trouble.  His plan was to use Kevin the gearbox to slip into Arthur's tent and plant Maggie's heirloom plasma pistol.  His player rolled badly though, and Dmitri found himself stopped by a hand on his shoulder.  It was one of the Stepford Daughters, out of phase to reality the way he was and wondering what he was doing entering another guest's tent.  He mumbled the first thing that came into his head as an excuse.  She looked sceptical, but turned him back towards the fire instead of doing anything worse.  Since planting the pistol failed, he handed it directly to Maggie and told her that he'd just been snooping through the Team Rocket tents (the Stepford Daughter could confirm if she wanted to check) and found this.  He'd heard stories about Maggie's grandmother and her pistol and knew from the description that it didn't belong to Arthur.  (His player scored a weak success on convincing Maggie, so while she found it a believeable story, she wasn't prepared to stir up more trouble with Rocket at that stage.)

Dmitri decided to spend the night drinking around the fire with the group that had gathered there.  Leroy was something of a lady's man and took an instant liking to the Faster Pussycats, so he stayed there too.  Eve and Edith decided to get another early night.  Yeah, right.  For any other team to win to win the race, WTF has to either fail to finish or not even turn up tomorrow.  At about three in the morning, Eve woke up as a strange smell filled the room.  The cabin smelled like a bar after a busy night.  A very busy night.  She looked around and found that the smell was most powerful near the sink in the very basic kitchenette.  There was a gust of alcohol vapour coming out of the taps and at the source it was strong.  Someone was trying to nobble them.

She stepped outside, using her cellphone as a light and saw three men squatting on the water tower that supplied her row of cabins.  One of them whispered urgently "She's seen us!" and the three of them bolted before she could recognise them.  There was a crude vaporiser device attached to the pipe leading down into the WTF cabin.  She pulled it loose and took it inside the cabin with her.

Even later, Eve and Edith were both woken by the cabin rattling, then literally ripping off its foundation and dragging across the grass and sand into the lake.  With water pouring in through the windows and door, they grabbed what they could and abandoned the building, only to see George in a speedboat dragging the cabin on a chain and laughing maniacally.  They were freaked out, because they hadn't expected to see their old teammate again.  He was supposed to be safely locked up in a Mad Science hospital somewhere that he couldn't hurt anyone -- particularly them.  After calming down they realised that the -- kidnapping?  Murder attempt? -- hadn't affected them that badly.  Eve had already used up all of her sneaker juice and hadn't made more.  Edith had mixed another batch of go-faster paint, but it was stored in the club workshop.  They'd lost their clothes and personal effects, but they were still in the race.  They headed for the fire to dry out and try to sleep in the safety of numbers.  At the same time they saw half a dozen Stepford Daughters walk into the lake and not come out again.  In the morning, their soaked belongings were waiting for him at the campsite office.  The grandmotherly woman who owned the camp commented that Geniuses make disruptive guests, but at least while they were here no-one murdered any teenagers for having sex.  That tends to cut into the repeat business.