Phase Q/Group Games
Natalya and you and a ragtag group of other refugees gather your supplies and your thoughts together. The shop operates officially as a satellite hub for civil organization in favor of progressive causes. For a few more hours, anyway.
You notice a Flowriser sticker in the shop window. It must have caught your subconscious glance when you were running through the streets. This place is doomed, you think to yourself.
Natalya had gotten involved involuntarily, almost. Her partner at the time – now deceased – had served in the Triad forces. When the system turned down his med care, his health deteriorated. She needed a second job to care for them both, but the closed economy had no slots available. Unable to afford care, he passed away and she turned to help.
The Flowriser tubeworks supplied her with short-term shelter, and set her up with a part-time position at the shop. It now operates as fundraising source for the Flowrisers.
Together with Natalya, a roughneck ex-con named Smitty, and a down-and-out vagrant named Tommi round out the corps. Your group starts dumping voltagers, which all report directly to Triad forces.
Natalya smirks. Smitty hands you a rusty piece of metal. “Not sure if it works.” Examining it more closely, you see that it’s a gun. Not quite antique, but almost.
Hit it. A brick smashes through the front window, which you hear from the back room. “Fyucheez!” someone yells from the street. The four of you crash out the back. “Hop in!” yells Natalya. She climbs into the driver seat of her compact car, while Smitty gets in the passenger side. You and Tommi follow in the rear.
Natalya turns the key, failing a few times before the car sputters to a start. As a gang of Triad teenagers run around the side of the building, chasing and throwing rocks at the car, you take off, barely getting away.
“Where should we go?” Natalya asks, somewhat panicky.
Smitty thinks a sec, then points to the highway. “Let’s get out of the city. They’ll start by locking down the streets. It’ll look good on the news. They won’t bother us out in the country. We can find a farm or hide out in the bush.”
“For a while,” says Tommi snidely. You have a hard time telling if Tommi is male or female, if either.
You quickly reconstruct what you remember of the countryside. You once went camping in the area. Vague reminiscences of smoky bacon and coffee intermix with rough geographical sketches. “There’s a creek down southeast of here,” you say. “I’ve seen an abandoned building out there.”
“Was it a barn?” asks Natalya.
“No, I’m not sure what it was, but more of a cabin or a lodge or something. Not for farming.”
“OK, let’s check it out.”
Phase Q: An interactive adventure.
