IC-OMAHA-Field Trip(Everyone else)

[Mr. Handy]

In the school bus-
"I have .32 rounds," said a swarthy MIddle Eastern-looking man in his early forties seated in the middle of the bus with a teenage boy who resembled him somewhat and a woman with Irish features in her late thirties, across the aisle from another Middle Eastern-looking man. He shrugged off his backpack and opened it up. "My name is Tariq al-Tikriti. The ammo is in magazines, eight rounds each. How many do you need?"

"Well, the aliens were summoned to Earth by a terrestrial species that lives underground," said Stephanie. "It was dormant for ages, rarely venturing near the surface, but it recently did so. These creatures somehow signalled to the aliens to come and wipe us out, like you might call the exterminators if you suddenly found your home infested with vermin. The aliens think their job is done now, so they've left, hopefully. The creatures underground are still around. That's what must have caused the tremors we felt earlier in Omaha." She paused for breath. "I don't know if there's anything left of the government. The President's helicopter went down and he was missing the last I heard. At least some elements of the military have survived. Warren Air Force Base west of Cheyenne was still operational and secure as of midday yesterday. That's where we're heading."

[ImpInTraining]

Donald shook his head at Stephanie's explanation, "Like a goddamned saturday afternoon horror special." He wasn't sure if he believed it or not, but the girl was smart, and he believed that she believed it. That was good enough for now.

To Ryuu, Donald held up the shotgun he was toting, "This is all I got, and I borrowed it. Sorry."

He turned in his seat to face Stephanie and asked, "What about those FBI-type fellows? Were they alien or underground folk? Were they in disguise, or do they all look just like us?"

[Garrett]

I get up and walk over to the middle eastern man, dropping my heavy camping backpack in the back of the bus before taking a seat across from him(In front or behind if not available) with a grin. "Thank you very much sir, I only need three. All I have is a handgun, and I'm afraid I'm not very good with it." I say with a light hearted laugh. As I take and load the bullets I look up and speak loudly again. "Are cell phones working? I couldn't get anything outside but I might have just had bad reception." Again I think of how much I want to check up on my family, if I can't contact them via phone I might have to start walking.

[Mr. Handy]

In the school bus-
"Yes, I can spare three," said Tariq, handing Ryuu three magazines as the young man sat across the aisle, next to the other Middle Eastern man, who slid over to the window seat. "Cell phones don't work, no. Even if the EMP device hadn't fried your phone, the satellites are offline. Landlines may still work, but I wouldn't bet on being able to make a long distance call. The handgun isn't all you have. That sword you carry looks excellent, and it never needs to be reloaded. Do you know how to use it?"

"Those feds looked human," said Stephanie, "but from the description of what they did, they can't be - or at least, not fully. Maybe they're aliens disguised as humans, or maybe they're under alien control somehow. I really don't think the aliens happen to look just like us. That's like something out of a science fiction B-movie. Don't get me wrong, I like science fiction B-movies, but they're completely unrealistic. Then again, if you've ever seen Plan 9 From Outer Space, that's pretty much what the aliens are doing here."

[ImpInTraining]

Donald shook his head, "Sorry... I usually stay tuned to the Home and Garden Network." He looked back toward the front of the bus, out the windshield to see if they were passing anything familiar. Meanwhile, he thought about the feds they encountered and tried to remember if there were anything abnormal about them, strange tics, accents, movement irregularities, and the like.

[Mr. Handy]

In the school bus-
"Oh, I watch HGTV too," said Stephanie. "Mainly for the gardening. I know quite a bit about botany."

Donald saw typical flat Nebraskan land out the window. Every so often, they passed through a small town. He had gone up and down I-80 before in better times, but he didn't recognize anything they were passing. They were less than half an hour from Lincoln at present, and eventually the towns would become suburbs. He recalled that the "feds" did have odd movement, in that they had moved faster than seemed humanly possible. Now he knew why. Their speech seemed normal, and there was nothing unusual about their accents. The man had seemed less familiar with the way things were done and not as intelligent as the woman. And of course they had the ability to paralyze and harm people with the power of their minds. John Lee was dead as a result, and genuine federal agent John Lake had been badly hurt.

OOC,Please let me know when you're ready to move forward.

[ImpInTraining]

When Stephanie mentioned an interest in botony and gardening, Donald's curiousity perked up. "Oh really? Maybe we could share some notes some time. The school is generally interested in keeping the grass green and at a certain length... and some of the trees pruned. But I threw some flowers and hedges here and there to pretty it up a mite."

ooc,I'm ready to push on whenever... if we stay on this bus too much longer, I'm going to start singing 'a hundred bottles of beer on the wall'.

[Garrett]

"You saw federal agents?" I ask the middle eastern man I'm sitting with.

[Spoiler-Button]I'm ready whenever too.[/Spoiler-Button]

[Mr. Handy]

In the school bus-
"Yes, I noticed your garden as the helicopter was coming in for a landing," Stephanie told Donald. "It looks especially nice from the air. That would be great to talk about gardening with you."

"I'm Samir Hossein," said the man sitting next to Ryuu. "I'm not sure they were really federal agents. I wasn't there when they...did whatever it was they did."

The next couple of hours passed uneventfully. Stephanie and Donald had a long talk about botany. Donald had thought he knew a lot about the subject, but talking to Stephanie he realized how little he actually knew, at least compared to her. He learned about a number of new horticultural techinques.

A little before 11:00 AM, the bus was rolling along I-80. The skyline of Grand Island was visible across the Platte River to the north. The river ran from northeast to southwest, and the highway crossed over it on a bridge not far ahead.

OOC,Everyone, please roll Spot Hidden. The base skill level is 25%.

[ImpInTraining]

Spot Hidden - fail,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3727872/]Spot Hidden (25%) (1d100=92)[/url]

After his long talk about plants and gardening, Donald decided he'd catch a quick cat nap while things weren't all that life threatening. He expected the others would wake him up if something transpired.

[Garrett]

"I only need three bullets sir." I say with a light hearted chuckle as I put them in and hand him the clips back. Lifting the sword from its strap on my backpack as I speak again. "I know how to make a swing but I've never really used a sword in combat, this one's never even been out of its sheath, or at least not since I can remember." My eyes grow stoic and my voice excited as I look at my family heirloom. "Father said, carry this and the spirits of all the dead ancestors of our proud family are with me." My heart grows heavier and my voice drops as I speak again without thinking. "This is usually hanging in our home, but it seems the kami of my family are with me during this crisis, not them." Realizing that I was speaking what would sound like nonsense to non-shintos I quickly speak again, faking my light hearted tone from earlier. "Of course I probably need it more then them anyway." I say with a grin as I put the blade back in its resting place. I wonder if I need to do a purification ritual for the zombies I killed, if they were already dead is putting them down an unclean act? I've never killed anyone but father had, he showed the ritual I had to do if and when I did. Oh well, I'm not willing to get off the bus and separate from this group just to go look for a river. I'll probably be heading for home as soon as I get what I need from the military base, I'll just do it on the way.

spot hidden success, 1 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3728398/

[Mr. Handy]

Ryuu Kin,Looking through the unblocked windshield, [b]Ryuu[/b]'s vision was incredibly focused on the road ahead. When the bus was still a mile away from the bridge over the Platte River, he could see all the details even without the aid of binoculars or anything similar. The bridge had been blocked off by a tractor-trailer turned lengthwise and on its side. Both it and the bridge surface were charred, as though there had been a fire there. At one point he saw it from an angle that allowed him to see a pile of burned bodies gathered around the overturned truck. The purpose of the barricade was readily apparent. The truck had been positioned there and then set on fire in order to prevent the zombies from getting across the bridge from Grand Island on the far side of the river. The fire was no longer burning, but it was still quite effectively blocking off the bridge.

[Garrett]

"Oh my do you all see that, someone's blocked the bridge." Ryuu says, perking up and looking closer.

[ImpInTraining]

Donald stirred, shifting the hat from over his eyes where he could see out the front windshield. "Detour?" he asked.

[Garrett]

"This is good, this means the military base is still operating to some degree if the bridge is blocked." I say enthusiastically.

[Mr. Handy]

In the school bus-
Becky cursed under her breath and stopped the bus. She took out her maps and started going over them. "We're not even halfway to Warren Air Force Base yet," she said. "That's just the city of Grand Island across the river. And we don't know when the bridge was blocked. It could have been done 24 hours ago, when all this was just starting. The people who barricaded the bridge may very well be dead by now. However that bridge got blocked off, we're going to need an alternate route, and we can't ask On*Star."

OOC,Everyone may roll Navigate to try to work out another route. The base skill is 10%.

[Garrett]

Ryuu calmly moves to the front of the bus and looks over her shoulder, he was more used to looking at city maps but this wasn't so different. Plus he had some experience with maps like this in his travels. He stares closely for a moment before tracing his finger along a root and speaking. "Couldn't we go this way?"
OOC- I thought we were close to the base, oh well.
Success 27 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3736294/

Ryuu goes back to his camping pack and takes out the large survival knife that was in a side pocket, he sits down and cuts his hair as close as he can with the crude blade. He looks to his new friend with a grin, "I probably wont want my hair in my eyes seeing as we're in a crisis situation.

[ImpInTraining]

Donald nodded, "Save the hair... makes for good kindling to start a fire."

He didn't really get out much farther than the local store, so he had no idea of alternate routes in the area - and he hadn't looked at a map in a very long time excluding the geography maps in the class rooms as he was cleaning up.

Navigate - fail,Sorry... forgot to mark the hyperlink, but I missed by like 17% anyway.

[Garrett]

"If you say so." Ryuu says skeptically, he puts the hair in one of his backpacks pockets regardless though. Looking back at the middle easterner who gave me the ammo I speak again. "May I ask why your so well equipped? And why are we going to this air force base anyway?" Being raised in a criminal organization Ryuu had very little faith or respect for the government, to him a functioning military base isn't exactly the beacon of security it might be for others.

After Ryuu has spoken to the man he turns back to the scientist woman, "If we drive by a car with this EMP on board would the vehicle become unusable, and how hard would it be to get a working one seeing as it's obviously possible?" The realization of the EMP wiping out other vehicles suddenly occurred to him. That was bad, there were far too many people on the bus for him to hijack it. As tempting as bringing a working EMP back to his family was he still probably wouldn't steal it even if he could.

Just in case though could I get a head count of how many people are on the bus,and how many I can see are armed?

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,I answered those questions in the OOC thread.

In the school bus-
"Yes, that could work," said Becky, studying the route through the back roads south of I-80. "We'll probably run into less trouble if we're off the highway, and it might even be faster this way." She folded up the maps again (no easy feat), put them away, and pulled out.

"Good idea to cut your hair," said Tariq. "I won't shave off all of my hair or my beard, but perhaps I could trim them some. Why do we have all of these weapons, you ask? Well, I came from Iraq in 1991, after a failed attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I know what it's like to live under such a shadow, so I vowed to always be prepared and never let my guard down. It's a good thing I did, too."

"Yes, an EMP will ruin any cars we pass, within a mile or so," Stephanie told Ryuu. "Only cars that are over thirty years old without electronic ignitions will still function after they're exposed to the EMP. Of course, there are plenty of cars that we've gone nowhere near and haven't been hit by it. The best thing to if we wanted one of those would be to shut off the EMP temporarily and then proceed to get one. Once it's driven out of range, we could turn the device back on. There's a small risk of the dead wandering by while the device is off, however."

The drive continued uneventfully for another hour. It was around midday when Becky announced that they were halfway to their goal. A north-south road went by on an overpass a short distance ahead, but it was high enough that the bus could fit underneath. The area below the overpass was concealed in shadow from the noon sunlight.

OOC,Everyone, please roll Spot Hidden. The base chance is 25%.