More Futurisitic Fun Than You Really Wanted, part I of V

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I'm writing this down as a reminder to myself.  The next several weeks promise to be hellish.  They'll be infuriating, with dead ends, and they'll be unpredictable and, worse, people will probably be involved.  Actual people, not Paynites, who are at least reliable even if I don't trust them.

I have to find this kid before he dies.  If he's not dead already.  His hopes didn't look too high with those Nessies chasing after him.  Oh, and his hopes didn't look too high with the government and just about everybody else seeing his face all fucked up on the tele.  Wonder what happened in that building.  I'll have to ask him when I meet him.

When I meet him.  I've never done this sort of thing before, but how hard could it be?  There cannot be a lot of Sam Sams running around.  If anyone else is after him, well, they'll be dealing with Nessie.  They'll be hearing her song for the first time, they'll watch her slither and consume.  Nessie is old news to me now.  I know her well enough that she won't be a problem.  Keep an eye out and a sharp stick handy.  They know the Hessian.  They don't know me.

Bloody hell I ramble even when I'm writing.  Right, I'm writing this down as a reminder.  I'm writing this down as encouragement, and well, because it's important:

Do not underestimate Sams.

You did it when you were an Operator.  Your wife hadn't been long scattered and all of a sudden people were disappearing and your world was blown open by monsters and you met this, well, just this naïve kid.  Only he wasn't that.  Actually, he was that, he is precisely a naïve kid.  But he's not just anything.  And you underestimated him while he played his hand better than you ever could.  Maybe he didn't mean to, but you were made to look just as much a fool as the Paynites he escaped from when he finally got out of the tunnels.

Clearly the media and the government underestimated him.  They were both there when he introduced them to his old mates from the sewers.

And he keeps outdoing us all.  Somehow, be it luck or savvy or trickery, I don't know.  He's surviving, albeit in a manner few would envy.  So again:

Do not underestimate Sams.

That is all.  Go find him.  And burn this page except for the bit about your partner, you dolt.

Sams and Hayes live once more!! 

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

EXCELLENT!!! 

[P3nT4gR4m]

click for big

[Luna]

Holy FUCK!  I haven't even had coffee yet...

If anybody wants me, I'll be in a little ball in the corner, holding my old heavy list shield.    (It is, for the record, aluminum...)

[Doktor Howl]

[Luna]

Fuck, this is was a brand new keyboard...

[Don Coyote]

THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?????

You sir, owe me a new computer and lungs.

[Doktor Howl]

THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?????

You sir, owe me a new computer and lungs.

EN GARDE!

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

No one knows where they came from.

There are theories, of course. Laboratory experiments gone wrong. Hidden species of dinosaur that somehow survived. A combination of nuclear radiation and genetic damage from too much chemicals in the ocean. The natural evolution of a predator that can take down man.

And it is taking us down one person, one town, one continent at a time. England has gone dark. Australia is entirely silent. Japan sent several rather disturbing messages that cut off in mid-transmission. North America's missing persons file has quintupled in size. Even China has been hit hard, though our proof is the sudden fixation they have on problems within their own borders.

The United States government thought it was some kind of elaborate hoax. Then they saw the footage from the school in England and suddenly things got worse. As if being exposed to the public in one country upped the ante and dropped the secrecy in every other country.

Now I'm being sent across the ocean with money and weapons to find someone in England who can help us. If anyone is left to find.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I'm away for one lousey week and you bastards have almoast let the Nessie thread fall off the bottom of page 2. 

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I only figured out how Khara gets the hooks yesterday. I haven't had time to write it up yet! SORRY!

[Adios]

I'm away for one lousey week and you bastards have almoast let the Nessie thread fall off the bottom of page 2. 

Let that be a lesson to you then. 

[Doktor Howl]

Day 1

Yeah, so Payne & Pix asked me to come help.  Some booze-addled crap about beasties in the sewers...Of course I thought they were nuts, but I'd never been to Southampton, and thought I'd go just for the hell of it.

Then I saw the monastery basement, the suits, the Payne Juice, the whole thing...And the bodies they'd recovered after their last trip in.

So, anyway, Payne asked me to take a look around, maybe make some suggestions.  I don't think he meant to actually go in the sewer, but I had to see this sort of shit for myself.  I was never the kind of guy that could listen to anyone else.

I grabbed my kit bag, and headed down to the hatch.  Some woman - a kid, really - was down there, said "Hold up, and I'll measure you for a suit".

I pointed at the ragged remains of a couple of what looked like spacesuits, and remarked that theses suits hadn't helped the guys who were wearing them.

"That's better than nothing.", she replied.

"I'll take my chances."

"No!  We have regulations, here!  Nobody - NOBODY - goes out without a suit."

"I'm not part of your weird little army, kid.  Payne asked me to look around, I'm doing it my way."

"I gotta check that with control."

"You do that."

She ran off, and I started unpacking my kit bag.  Boots, duster, Bisleys, 12 gauge coach gun, flashlight, a half a dozen MREs, and a couple of two quart canteens, a few boxes of shells, 3 socks of RDX...Wait, wait...Oh, yeah, here they are.  Cheap fucking cigars.  Don't leave home without 'em.

Methane?  What's that?

I heard the girl returning, yelling something, as I closed the hatch behind me.

to be continued

[Jenne]

Oh I totally dropped the ball on finishing my part of this--sorry, Rog.  But dang, you did awesome up there!

There's so much to catch up on ITT, I had a hard time settling where to put my narrative.

[Doktor Howl]

Day 2

Okay, in America, we build our sewers in nice, straight lines.  You can't really get lost...And even if you did, you'd just go up through a manhole cover.  Apparently here, they have Goddamn grates welded over the drains.

I'd been wandering for what seemed like a week, but by my cheap old wind-up Timex, it had only been about 15 hours.  All the tunnels looked the same...And so did the boot prints in front of me.  Son of a bitch, I'd been wandering in circles.

Still no sign of these "nessies", either.  According to Payne, they're thick as flies down here, but I hadn't seen any sign of them.  Just tunnel after tunnel, with nothing more dangerous than rats.

I decided to take one of the small feeder tunnels, to see if I could find a maintenance hatch, or something.  About 30 feet down the tunnel, I saw it...A human figure, mostly buried in the ooze that covered the floor of the passage.

Coming up on it, I found one of the suits, torn to pieces, with bits of someone inside.  The stench was awful.  I also found tracks...The suited guy crawling, and some weird, three-toed prints that looked like the world's biggest ostrich had chased him down.

The guy had a sword of some kind, which I took, along with a sack with some more rations.  I checked my scatter gun, and continued on.

About a quarter mile later, I emerged into a large room, some kind of pumping station.  There was a mezzanine above, with stairs leading up.  Hoping for an exit, I headed up the stairs...

...And behind me, someone started to sing.  It sounded like Anna Nalick singing in some foreign language.  It was beautiful.

I spun around and fired both barrels.  Something shrieked, and fell back down the stairs, making a loud racket.  A very loud racket.  It looked like...Well, you've heard the descriptions.  This one wasn't as big as I'd heard, must have been a young one.

I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and ran up the stairs.  Up on the mezzanine, there was what looked like the remains of a sanitation crew sort of scattered all over the place, and yet another tunnel heading out of the pumping station.  There were also more tracks.  Lots of tracks. 

Jesus H Christ, what had I gotten myself into?

To be continued.