[Aria]

[Saturday September 14th, 2075; Ruins of Graham, Puyallup, Seattle]

@Al: 

It’s cold and uncomfortable out here and it’s a bitch trying to keep your nic stick alight in the wind driven rain.  At least the train is shielding you from the brunt of the prevailing wind, not that that is stopping water finding its way down the back of your neck.

Your preternatural senses suddenly tell that you that you are no longer alone, not counting the two drivers through the plex glass beside you, and turning quickly you realise why you didn’t hear the person coming up behind you… the enormous woman is pacing along the top of the balloon tyre next to you completely oblivious to the elements… in fact you can see that the elements seem to be completely oblivious to her too as her hair or eccentric garments aren’t even stirring

“My, my, ent you a beauty dog boy” her warm smile does its best to take any sting out of the words and you feel a strange stirring inside you “mind if ole Meg joins you for a fag?” And she produces a battered packet of cigarettes from somewhere in her voluminous robes “Got a light…?”
 
@Morgan:
 
You’re meat is safe and undisturbed in the coffin pod leaving you free to browse the delights of the Circus’ host whilst keeping a wary eye on what surrounding monitors have been provided to you by the train and Harrier.  You are mildly concerned about the weather reports coming in but at least the rain should damp down the charged ash that has been messing with your comms despite the signal scrubbers.

You idly watch a trio of circus folk walking back from the second train towards one of the vehicles bringing up the rear.  It hasn’t been unusual for foot traffic back and forth despite a quiet word with Oblique about keeping his folk in line.  The convoy is moving so damn slowly that people seem to feel the need to escape the confines of the cars and stretch their legs…that said there’s something odd about this little group…they pull grotesque rubber masks over their faces and climb on board an RV, a battered FC Bison…

@Ghost and Luz:

An ARO from Morgan flags a trio of clowns that suddenly don masks and scramble out of sight.  Before you can decide whether they warrant closer attention you hear a muffled but unmistakable rattle of small arms fire from towards the rear of your train…

@Flicker: 

You are suddenly faced with a panicing crowd of crew as they scramble away from a confrontation in the car ahead of you…

@Harrier:

Following Morgan’s ARO you get a clear view of the Bison suddenly leave its position in the convoy and begin to roar forwards…

@Al:

She’s damn distracting…but not enough to mask the roar of a shotgun blast from close by your ear

“Oh my…!”

[Csjarrat]

Something about those clowns caught his eye, they were up to something, something not good...
Flagging it to the team with a generic exclamation mark ARO, he dialled up the zoom level on the cam and scried the sensors for some idea of whatever the hell was going on. The gunfire did not help to settle his nerves....

[JackVII]

[14SEP2075 1315 | Cirque de l'Ombre Caravan| Puyallup]

Harrier watched the ARO and feed closely, concern lighting up as the trio of clowns boarded the FC Bison. That concern increasing when the vehicle seemed to be behaving erratically.

<<@Team [Harrier] You blokes seeing this? Trio of clowns just boarded a Bison and it's tearing towards the front of the convoy. Acquiring a target lock and spooling up the Wasp>>

Sending a command to his security drones, the rotors of the helicopter and drones begin to pick up speed. While the vehicles work to gain sufficient lift, the dwarf locks the RV with his sensor targeting.

[8-bit]

<<@Team [Harrier] Alright chaps, I've got a few contacts on our left flank shadowing us. Metahuman of some kind... but grey and ugly looking, maybe ghouls? They do not, I repeat NOT, currently attacking us>>

Ghouls? I guess this might count as a threat. If they start approaching us, I don't think we'll be able to convince them like we did with the Ancients.

Looking more closely at them, Ghost sees no obvious weaponry. They certainly look like ghouls.

Recipients: Team
Sender: Ghost

I can confirm that they are ghouls. They don't look like they are carrying any weapons, so as long as they keep their distance I don't think we need to worry.

An ARO from Morgan flags a trio of clowns that suddenly don masks and scramble out of sight.  Before you can decide whether they warrant closer attention you hear a muffled but unmistakable rattle of small arms fire from towards the rear of your train…

Ghost resumes looking out at the trains and notices that Morgan has highlighted a few of the walkers. Not that they should have been walking, but Ghost could understand the need to move around on this long, seemingly unending trip. He doesn't see anything immediately suspicious about the trio, and is in the process of asking Morgan why he flagged them when he hears the sound of guns going off, in the direction the clowns were heading. He quickly sends out.

Recipients: Team
Sender: Ghost

There are sounds of small arms fire near the back of the train. There seemed to be a trio of clowns heading back there. I'm heading there immediately; Luz, Flicker; you are probably closer. What is going on down there?

Ghost quickly hops down onto the floor of the train and starts making his way towards the rear; a sinking feeling in his chest. Damn, damn, damn. There are probably casualties. Damn.

[Lusis]

"Qué chingados!!! " Luz exclaims as she hears the shot. Quickly, she hops down into the car and begins to move past the performers in the the walkway and beds, staring at the back off the car in shock.

I'm clearing the second train. Moving now to contact.

Moving into the rearward cars, she shouts to the rush of circus personnel starting to crowd the hallway, "Make a hole! coming through! Get back in your beds!" Attempting to squeeze past the dumbfounded people, accidentally knocking a few to the side.

She arrives on scene, the barrel of her assault rifle leading the way.

"Get Down!" She yells at the passengers.

[adamu]

[Saturday September 14th, 2075; Ruins of Graham, Puyallup, Seattle]

Wet.

Al was damned wet. Gritty wet.

But it settled the dust, so he could dispense with the bandanna around his face.

And that meant he could smoke.

Wet was a small price to pay.

He had eyes port, and was trying to decide just how many ferals it might take to actually pose a threat to the convoy, when he noticed the gigantic woman treading tire beside him. Either the circus fat lady was also an acrobat, or she wasn't exactly human. Either way, when she asked for a light - well, there were universal laws that bound all tobacco lovers. He had just produced his big stainless steel Zippo when a shotgun roared just behind his head, and he thanked his voodoo guardians again for the sense to get that damper in his ears.

And events didn't slow down from there. No sooner had he stepped out of the cab window frame than his comm translated Harrier's text to voice for his earbud. Deadly clowns headed his way. He knew it! Had to be the clowns! It was always the clowns! There was some other chatter - about the ghouls, and clearing cars - but that was a world away right now. He spoke into the mic on his collar, sending text back to the team: <<Slow 'em down for me, flyboy, got problems of muh own up here.>>

The woman was still there. "Oh my…" she said, and looked none too pleased at what she saw. Remembering she still needed a light, he tossed her the Zippo. "Half a tic, hon," he said, then took a look himself as he tightened the choke on his own scattergun.

There was blood on the window. A lot of it. Bone too, bits of hair. Couldn't see whose, but it was enough that at least one of the men was dead.

Well, he thought as he reached for the door handle, in a second it'll be two.

[Ericen]

Flicker sighs again and realizes they never let me just watch the plum blossoms bloom, someone always has to disturb the peaceful quiet of my walk.

Flicker watches all the panicking people scream and run by as he deftly side steps the crowd slips up to the door. Tucking into a tight roll he dives into the room coming up with his heightened reflexes maxed and ready to fight. The katana gleams in the light and he feels the balanced throwing spike in his other hand.

Drop your weapons or we drop you.

Message To Team:
I am in the car with 3 armed clowns
Message Complete:

[JackVII]

[14SEP2075 1315 | Cirque de l'Ombre Caravan| Puyallup]

As Harrier's three Roto-Drones lifted off and headed toward the hijacked recreational vehicle, the rigger himself sent a message to the zeppelin.

>>L'Ombre Zep, this is Harrier. Looks like one of the RVs was just hijacked, chaps. Sending targeting ARO, please confirm known passengers.

He sure hoped the zeppelin crew was on their toes this time. After a brief second, he received a message in return.

>>Harrier, this is L'Ombre Zep. The Bison belongs to two of the wire artists and their kids.

Bollocks! Harrier thought; his time with the Lord-Protector's office brought back vivid images of children's corpses. As the Roto-Drones sped toward the vehicle, the Wasp finally lifted off the back of the train, making a beeline for a spot between the front of the convoy and the RV.

[Jayde Moon]

From her place in the kitchen car, Rodeo lazily opened her left eye.  Her view was fully obscured for a brief moment before she remembered to push her cattleman up from her face.  Coming more fully to her senses, her right eye blinked open and she sat up, looking out the window from her seat.  She wondered for a moment just how far the train had gone since they started moving and hoped, perhaps over optimistically, that they were near the end of the journey.  She stretched her arms over her head and then thought about what had awakened her.  Coming more fully to her senses she realized that there was something going on and the sounds of gunfire stretched lazily through her dream-hazed short term memory.

"Well, shit," she muttered to herself.  This was supposed to be a break.  A quick jaunt with some interesting folks and a spiffy show to catch at the end.  Booking passage aboard the train hadn't been hard.  Had she looked like any other chummed, they probably would have told her to take a hike.  But somehow, her Stetson cattleman, Ariat boots with spurs, and real leather bullwhip had convinced a few members of the performing troupe that she was, at least in spirit, one of 'them'.  That was enough to get her a place on the train, for now.

No breaks, though.  Looks like she was going to be forced to earn her keep, after all.  She leaned back into her chair and made herself comfortable.  Shifting to astral perception, she was comforted by the sight of a large Wolf sitting just across from her.  As she watched, it shook itself vigorously, sending a cloud of dust into the air.  Wherever it landed, it disappeared, except on her, where it settled into a fine layer of silty powder.  Satisfied at the level of protection she had set for herself, she closed her eyes entirely and with a thought, fell backwards, out of herself and through the chair.

She took a moment to grab her bearings, noted her meat body resting lazily in the chair she had just left it in and turned towards the back of the train.  With a blink she found herself centered in the car just behind hers.  Noticing nothing in that car, she blinked again, finding herself another car behind.  A couple more blinks took her to the action and she gave herself a moment to take it all in...

[All4BigGuns]

Seeing the Wasp auto-gyro lift off from the train and moving toward the approaching RV, Cutter puts out some more speed on his bike to maneuver himself between the train and RV as well.

[adamu]

[Saturday September 14th, 2075; Ruins of Graham, Puyallup, Seattle]

Al swung the door wide in time to see some idiot in a clown mask two feet away from him fill the rig's control console with buckshot. It was a sawn-off Defiance - no wonder the blast had been so loud. With the door open it was louder, and Al's dampers were working overtime.

Steadying himself on the running board and using his shoulder to keep the door from swinging shut on him, the unshaven little man raised his Remington 990. But the other son of a bitch was quick, dropping his ass onto the arm of the driver's bucket seat and using his left hand to pull the headless corpse close to himself, just in time to catch the brunt of Al's blast. Clown-guy fired back in the same instant, but with only one hand the recoil sent most of the shot over the short human's head, only a couple of pellets grazing the scalp. Those would bleed like nobody's business. Now he'd have to wash his hair, dammit.

Less than a yard apart, both continued firing as fast as they could. But Al grabbed the hot barrel of the clown's weapon and pushed it off line, even as he braced his Remington on the neck-stump of the corpse and fired point-blank into center mass, leaving only a critical few inches of space between muzzle and target to avoid his weapon exploding in his hand. The shots in Al's ear momentarily deafened him even with the damper, but his own first shot propelled the man away from his makeshift cover, his next sent the man off the seat, and his next hit hard enough that his head flopped back against the floor.

But the bastard still managed to hold onto his weapon, which was now free of Al's grip. Had to respect him, he kept firing. Only now his aim was fucked, while Al crouched low on the running board on the other side of the bucket seat, and kept firing himself. His buckshot was crap against the clown's venlar jacket, and the feller got four more erratic shots off before Al's blasts literally pummelled him into oblivion.

[8-bit]

I'm clearing the second train. Moving now to contact.

@Luz - Understood, I'll be there for backup.

Ghost hastily pushes through the trains, but doesn't meet any resistance from the Circus folk. Luz seems to have already convinced them, one way or another. As he finally gets to Luz's position, he hears.

"Get Down!"

He glances at the cowering Circus people behind him and yells, "You heard her. Go!".

Ghost tightens his grip on his shotgun, the adrenaline rushing through his veins, and readies himself behind Luz, ready to fire at any moment.

[All4BigGuns]

Once in position between the two vehicles, Cutter lets his feet drop to the ground for stability and takes aim on the RV's tire and squeezes off a single shot.

[adamu]

[Saturday September 14th, 2075; Ruins of Graham, Puyallup, Seattle]

Al yelled to the rotund lady outside: "Make yerself useful, hon, and see if there's anyone else 'round here fixin' ta kill ol' Al." Then he locked himself into the cab and scanned the three bodies with an experienced eye. Wasn't that always the way? Not a damned thing he could do for poor Frank or Tyrone, but the asshole that had killed them was still breathing. He was raising his Remington to remedy that when it occurred to him that someone might want to talk to the moke, and he shouldn't be allowed to die in his sleep in any case.

But that would have to wait, because the windows on three sides of him showed his world heading at a slow but sure two miles an hour off the road toward a crumbling apartment block. He could just see it - the behemoth of a vehicle run aground on the shoals of urban ruin as hordes of feral cannibal undead swarmed through its every aperture in search of all its juicy innards.

The control console was spark-spewing scrap. Wth nary a second to spare, Al reached behind the seat to where he'd stashed his tools and got to work.

[Aria]

[Saturday September 14th, 2075; Ruins of Graham, Puyallup, Seattle]

@Al: 

Frag what a mess…ignoring the gore, well more or less, you heft Frank out of the way and with tools in hand begin to rummage through the remains of the console to try and bring this wallowing beast under control before it careens into the side of one of the crumbling buildings at the side of the road.

Behind you, and ignoring you exhortation to go and see what is going on, ‘Ole Meg squeezes her prodigious bulk into the increasingly small cabin

“Wud ya adam and eve it?  Mortal blud, so fin don’t ya fink?” as she runs a finger along the side of Frank’s face…the effect is decidedly unsettling

@Cutter:

Compensating for the cross wind and the driving rain you calmly brace yourself before the charging Bison, vaguely aware of the trio of rotadrones homing in above you.  The pistol bucks and the armour piercing slug connects mere moments later, the sabot round shredding the runflat tyre and probably doing significant damage to the wheel itself.  The Bison lurches and comes to a shuddering stop as high velocity rounds accompany Harrier’s ARO…

HALT THE RV! NEXT SHOT IS FOR REAL!

Well it looks like it’s halted…

@Harrier:

Whether it was your shots or Cutter’s forensic destruction of the front driver’s side wheel the RV grinds to a halt and there is a moment of silence apart from the patter of rain on the canopy of your wasp and the whump of the rotors overhead.

@Morgan:

As you stretch your senses out into the matrix to try and isolate the matrix signatures of the clowns your deck alerts you to a live video feed that has just been posted onto the circus’ host.

The camera work is wobbly, clearly from a poor quality commlink, but the view is all too clear, showing the comfy interior of the RV and the four terrorised performers accompanied by the manic laughter of the clowns.  The view point is from the doorway between the driver’s compartment and the rest of the living area and swings from the father behind the wheel with a large calibre pistol pressed to his temple to his family behind with another clown standing over them

“Back the fuck away or we start to ventilate these good people here!  In fact to show we are serious…” the view dips as the bearer nods to his compatriot and the retort of the pistol is drowned out by the screams from off camera… “right, let’s negotiate…” the laughter is tinged with insanity…

@Ghost, Luz & Flicker:

With the three of you in the doorway to car thirteen the circus folk trapped in the car with you decide that crouching against the walls of the car is preferable to coming close to the lethal array of weapons that you are sporting despite the threat of the clowns and their manic laughter.

Despite your orders to drop their weapons the clowns have clearly decided that keeping their hostages between them and you is the best option…

“Frag off and die robot bitch…”

@Betsey:

The last of the circus folk that are coming have squeezed past your astral form and headed towards the front of the land train.  You are surprised somewhat by the astral signatures of many of the people here, there are an unusually high concentration of magical dodads about them, not necessarily active but present none the less... There are a number of unmasked magical auras amongst the performers that you've seen but there is a certain similarity to the other auras that you wouldn't expect to see.  Presumably it's an effect of the magic that they surround themselves in day in day out.

Ahead you can see some of the runners that were picked up in Tarislar to protect the convoy through the badlands on the edge of Seattle…it would seem they could do with a hand, even the one who's aura resembles a gaping pit!

@Morgan:

You wince as the wire act becomes one member smaller.  You watch helpless as the shattered body is dragged out of the driver’s seat before the camera swings back to show the performers wife and two children, a girl of about fourteen and her younger brother, maybe ten or so…

“Now I’ve got your attention…!  We want another fragging set of wheels brought up now or we will see how flexible these three really are…”