Two months ago.
Wyatt Butler sat hunched over in his desk chair, listening to his ex-wife Christine rightfully chide him for failing to pick up their son for Wyatt’s weekend. A case had fallen on the private investigator’s desk, a wealthy woman suspecting her husband of cheating, and she offered cash that Wyatt couldn’t pass up.
This wasn’t the first time, and it was that fact that caused Christine to erupt. When she paused to hear what he had to say for himself, Wyatt promised that everything would be different next weekend. He had already thought of a great idea. He wanted to take Paul to Big Sur and do some camping like Wyatt had when he was a kid.
The call ended, and Wyatt sat back in his chair, physically exhausted from it. Lightning flashed outside his second-story office window, followed shortly after by a cracking peal of thunder. Money was tight, but he should be able to afford the trip next weekend. His phone buzzed, indicating his delivery of Thai food from down the block had arrived. The detective tapped the button on his phone and unlocked the front door so the delivery man could come up. A moment later, a knock on the door.
Wyatt opened the door to discover it wasn’t his food. Instead, a sickly-looking woman stood there holding herself up with a cane and a pair of shaky legs. He automatically helped her into a chair inside his office. He got her tea and learned shortly that she was Teresa Chapman. The name clicked for Wyatt.
The papers had been full of the murder and the trial. Andre Chapman was convicted of murdering Bianca Murray, an aide to the President Griffin administration. There had been an outage of the CCTVs in the area for two days, so the prosecution relied on the testimony and datatapes of a witness wearing a neurocaster. It was one of those “in the wild” joints where a user could overlay elements of a virtual world onto the real one as they went about their day.
Teresa was convinced that her son was innocent. He had no priors and no reputation as a violent person. The prosecution had argued that Andre was a neurine addict and had binged the whole day before. It was true that he tested positive for it in his system, and he couldn’t account for his whereabouts at the time Bianca was killed. That and the eyewitness sealed the deal in the eyes of the court.
Teresa gingerly pulled an envelope from her purse and slid it across Wyatt’s desk. He looked at her as she endured a coughing fit, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket. There was ten thousand cash in the envelope. This woman was clearly going through chemotherapy, and Wyatt suspected Andre had been her primary caretaker based on the shape she was in now. He turned for a moment, looking at the rain-streaked window. Another flash and crack of thunder, the light illuminating his office and casting long, strange shadows for a moment.
Wyatt could see it in his mind’s eye – his beat-up Camry pulling away from Paul as the little boy sat on the front steps of his mom’s house. But he couldn’t take the money from a person in this condition. He pushed the envelope back to her. Sighed heavily.
“What was the name of that eyewitness?” Wyatt pulled a notepad from a desk drawer, then a pen, and began taking notes.
Now.
Wyatt slumps down next to the Explorer, resting the gas canisters beside him. Stella was napping in the backseat, and Taco poked his head out of the passenger seat window, wagging his tail at the sight of Wyatt. The detective didn’t like animals, but this dog sure liked him. After a brief rest, the P.I. walked around and opened the back of the vehicle, loading the gas canisters inside.
Stella popped her head from the backseat, roused from her nap.
“You see Crystal recently?” Wyatt asked. The teenage girl yawned and shook her head.
Wyatt didn’t like this. The sun was hanging about as low as it could go without calling it quits. The night was coming, and they needed to be together and in this Explorer on the road by then. California City was a big question mark, and with the military presence and the drone that was following him being shot down, everything was feeling off.
Traveler Event: A Threat catches up with the Traveler that may put the whole group in danger.
Crystal discovers an abandoned office park, and the decaying signage on the once lush grassy green space in front of the building tells her there had been medical companies: HavenCare, Arctura Biotech, NexaLife, and Lumera Pharmaceuticals. They were names of things her family couldn’t afford. She doubted they could now.
Crystal figured there were probably meds that could be useful if they hadn’t been looted already. After an hour of searching, she found that the offices were cleared out in a hurry, and empty filing cabinets had fallen on their sides. A flame-scorched wastebasket next to a paper shredder. She did notice the elevators hinted at floors unavailable to her without the proper security clearance. She grabbed some pens and paper, which are always helpful and surprisingly rare nowadays. People just popped on their neurocasters and scribbled things down in the headspace.
The sound of a clunky, roaring engine causes the woman to hit the floor reflexively. She army crawled to the windows, a long line facing the front of the office park. It’s not until she gasps for air that Crystal realizes she is holding her breath. She tries not to think of the compound and what happened back there, but that becomes harder when she sees the four unload from the beat-up van. Nick. Sergio. Ollie. Roxanne. Her pulse quickens, and Crystal can feel the panic setting in.
Emotional state: Excited, in a manic way
Tilt: High Bad for the Travelers
Crystal can’t leave her hiding spot, and it’s getting dark.
Wyatt had given Crystal his other walkie-talkie before they had separated, telling her to keep it on in case he needed to talk to her.
(Wits check (5) – 1 success)
Crystal responds, explaining that some people who were looking for her just showed up but doesn’t want to explain further. She uses the name “The Children of the Eclipse.” She explains where she’s at and how she got to the office park, but they need to pull the Children of the Eclipse away so Crystal can escape the building.
Wyatt drops Stella & Taco a safe distance away and lets Crystal know to look for him after he executes his plan. Wyatt attempts to create a noisy distraction to get them away from Crystal’s location. He lays on his horn on the far side of the office park from the building Crystal was hiding inside.
(Agility check (4) – Failure – Push the Roll (Lose -1 Hope) – 1 success)
Wyatt lays on the horn and slowly pulls the Explorer into an alleyway between buildings. He can hear the Children shouting and then glimpses them leading an old, janky Kid Kosmo drone on a leash. The detective expects they’re using thermal imaging on the unit, but who is remotely piloting it? A voice comes from the robot, Wyatt can’t catch every word, but it sounds shaky, like someone who isn’t all there. And it sounds like a child. Wyatt feels his stomach turn, his hope diminishing, but he calms down.
Wyatt attempts to outrun them in the Explorer so they don’t know where he’s going.
Ford Explorer – Maneuver: +2 | Speed: 2 | Hull: 7 | Armor: 4
Round One – Zone: Short
Action #1
Wyatt floors it in an attempt to speed ahead. Behind him, the Children load back into their van.
(Agility check (4) + Maneuver (2) – 2 successes)
Wyatt takes advantage of some debris in the road to block his pursuers and slow them down.
Action #2
Wyatt looks for any place he can pull into and hide. There’s a gated community to the left with its gates torn down. He makes a hard turn and attempts to lose them in the crisscross of streets and cul-de-sacs.
(Wits check (5) – 1 success)
The detective has focused on the road ahead while his eyes dart back and forth to the rearview mirror, feeling better the longer he goes without seeing his pursuers. Then, they appear as a dot in the distance. He can’t let up off the speed.
Round Two – Zone: Long
Action #1
Wyatt knows they aren’t letting up and decides to see if the authorities might scare them away. He drives toward the Army troops they saw earlier, blocking the road west out of town.
(Wits check (5) – 1 success)
The Children slam on the brakes as Wyatt slows down and drives past two armored jeeps, blocking a road veering right. As soon as Wyatt sees them do that, he hits the gas to increase the distance even more.
Action #2
Wyatt doesn’t have time to waste on this shit any longer. He’s back in town and starts some maneuvers he’s used before. This is much easier than that damn flying. For a moment, he wonders if the army found it and what they know he doesn’t.
(Wits check (5) – Failure – Push the roll (Lose -1 Hope) – Success)
Wyatt becomes distracted for a second, suddenly thinking about the effort that went into framing Andre Chapman for the murder and sending this drone after him. He was so stupid to underestimate the people behind this thing, and now he’s fucked. Wyatt suddenly thinks of Paul and Christine. If these people know who he is, then they know about them. He can’t let that distract him for too long and manages to go long enough without seeing the Children he feels safe that he’s lost them.
Zone: Extreme – Children eluded
Wyatt returns to the ladies and Taco, who are waiting at the Sweet Pickle. They discuss whether they should move on tonight or not. Wyatt can’t get over the idea of getting ahold of that shot-down flying drone, plugging his neuro caster into it, and finding out who was following him and why.
Tilt: Medium Bad for the Travelers
Stella voices her disagreement. She thinks they need to get out of there as soon as possible because the Children are nearby and hunting. Wyatt agrees but asks that they drive him toward the old racetrack, park there, and wait. They can leave without him if he’s not back in an hour. Crystal and Stella reluctantly agree.
Wyatt tries to get close enough to gather recon about the drone, and the military jeeps he saw shoot it down.
(Wits check (5) – Failure)
There is a much larger military presence, and Wyatt realizes he will never get in there to look at that thing. They have put up some tents, so whatever they found must be serious. Damn. He’s unsure who to give this evidence to when he returns to San Francisco. He doubles back to the racetrack parking lot. He, the ladies, and Taco head out towards Bakersfield.
Event Trigger: Conversation with Stella – Personal Background
Wyatt tells her what he saw, the remote drone, and wants to know more about those weirdos, The Children. Crystal remains cagey. She just says she joined up with some people and didn’t know how bad they were. She left, and they want to force her to come back. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulls out a rubber-banded wad of bills and offers them to Wyatt as he drives. He looks at the pain in this woman’s face. He’s reminded of Chapman’s mother in his office.
“Keep the money. I’ll get you to where you need to go safe, okay. Those people…they aren’t taking you back.”
The rear lights of the car fade into the distance.
Meanwhile
The officer clears his throat to attract Captain Galloway’s attention. The commanding officer is sitting in the back of his jeep, looking over a map of water lines that run through California City, as the men examine the crash site of the flying drone.
“We cracked the thing open, sir. I think…I think you should see this.” the young man says.
Galloway is annoyed but puts the schematics aside and hops out of his jeep. The soldier leads him to a tent where the science fellas have been brought in. The captain staggers when he looks at the table; the flying drone’s top cracked off. Inside is a curved clear plastic container housing a human brain floating in a translucent blue fluid, wires plugged into it.
“What in god’s name?”
PopCult Reviews 
3 thoughts on “Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Three”