Burn While Reading: The Flashback (Scene 1.4)

This is the fourth scene in a text-based actual play of the Veil, by Fraser Simons (@frasersimons), brought to you by our MC, River (@pixelatedcoyote), and players Will and Yoshi (@yoshicreelman) playing as Zinc and Cio, respectively. Prior scenes are linked at the end of this post. This scene is a flashback, and would chronologically appear after Scene 1.2.

Content Warning: Violence.

• MC: You reveal your position because the manufacturer skimped on sound isolation.

Zinc’s feet slammed against the floor like cinder blocks, too loud for the camo to compensate for. He saw the individual's form turn to offset his charge. The individual--now helpfully labeled Hostile 1--spun Zinc around and slammed him into the teller’s counter. He could feel the weight of H1 bearing in on him, standing on his foot, pressing the base of his spine into the counter’s edge. He could feel the vertebra in his spine move as if worked by the world’s most sadistic chiropractor.

H1 had grabbed Zinc’s gun hand, he could feel the fingers searching down his arm towards his gun. This must mean his other hand has the gun--if there is a gun.

• MC: You will take 2 Harm, 1 harm after armor. You are pinned against the counter with your back bending into a C shape. It is excruciatingly painful.

Initiating cortex backup...
    
“Wrong arm,” Zinc grunted with pain as he raised his empty arm up to Hostile 1’s center mass and engaged his plasma torch.
 

• NEUTRALIZE: When you use force to attempt to neutralize a threat, take control of a situation, or maintain hold of something you have with the chance of taking harm yourself, roll. On a 10+, you generate 3 hold and take no harm in the doing. On 7-9, you generate 2 hold and you will take harm in the doing. Spend your hold 1 for 1 during the scene to:
  • Inflict harm.
  • Take away an advantage (requires 2 hold to be spent).
  • Suffer little harm.
  • Force a change of location (1 hold and the MC chooses the new location, 2 and you do).
  • Impress, dismay or frighten your opponent.
• Powerful: `2d6+2`  = (4+2)+2 = 8

“Please don’t die.”

• MC: You get 1 base harm, +1 harm your AI assisting you, H1’s armor is ineffective against this weapon.

The torch burned through Hostile 1’s armor with an acrid smell. Ballistic plastic, they must have known the guard was carrying a slug thrower.

“Oh, I won’t.” H1 growled through the distortion.

The pain did give H1 pause, however. They stopped pressing and broke the grapple with Zinc. He was no longer pressed against the countertop, but he had no path to the money or the vault except through H1.

Somewhere in the back of Zinc’s psyche, he could feel his AI judging him.

Zinc pushed his fist hard into the hostile’s wound, changing the angle of his arm slightly to aim up towards the heart. “Don’t make me do this,” Zinc whispered, certain he finally had control of the situation. “Stand down, call off your friends. This ain’t worth dying over.”

• ULTIMATUM: When you say what you want and what you will do if you don’t get it, roll. On a 10+, they have to choose: make you carry out your threat, or back down and give you what you want. On a 7–9, they also have these options; they can:
  • Clearly remove themselves as a threat.
  • Fortify themselves.
  • Give you something they think you want.
  • Attempt to remove you as a threat, after taking the established consequences.
  • Tell you what you want to know (or what you want to hear).
• Powerful: `2d6+2`  = (4+6)+2 = 12

• MC: Are you willing to kill this punk?
• Will: Yes
• MC: Narrate ending this fool, or at least taking them out and giving them a permanent reminder of their hubris.

For whatever reason, Hostile 1 decided to laugh and cement their fate.

Zinc side stepped and drove his fist hard into the hostile’s wound, aiming up towards the heart. The torch flickered on and off, and he sighed as he guided the now visible body to the floor. His fingertips began glowing as he touched the corpse’s interface jack. “Pull everything you can. Focus on ID and specs on that camo. Maybe we can upgrade.” He grimaced as he scanned for the second hostile, his thoughts straying to his own increasingly strained camo system. “Time is a factor.”

• Will: I’m not sure if this is Risk or maybe Lift the Veil. Maybe this is just a golden opportunity?
• MC: Risk.

• RISK: When you are aware of and act to avoid imminent danger, say how you do it and roll. On a 10+, you do as you describe and the danger doesn’t come to bear. On a 7-9, in the doing of it there will be a cost, complication, or choice introduced by the MC.
• Scared: `2d6+1`  = (6+5)+1 = 12

Suspending backup. Accessing ...

The seconds crawled by. Any moment another hostile could round the door into the teller’s space, and Zinc would be back to square one.

Data downloaded...

Data decrypted, Displaying.

The comm stored a student id and a handful of wrestling pictures. When Zinc looked back to the corpse, he saw Malcolm, previously known only has Hostile 1. The man’s face was unlined by age and sported the faintest of red stubble around the jaw. In his hands, he’d held nothing. No knife, no cutting edge energy weapon. Nothing.

The last of Malcolm’s thoughts appeared on Zinc’s feed. He’d been chanting silently to himself, “No future. No future. No future.”

We now have elevated permissions in the bank’s Veil systems. Exempting us from their cloak.

At least two more perps remained. An unknown quantity of cash was stolen. The haulers either knocked out or or bribed. But maybe none of them were armed. Maybe they’d flee now that their comrade was dead. They say that dead men tell no tales, but that adage is close to a century out of date. 

No. They’d have to come for their friend as soon as they steeled themselves, and they would come soon.

“No weapons? No future? The hell…” Zinc sprinted back towards the vault, dropping his camo. He yelled, “Malcolm’s dead! You got a death wish too, I’m right here! Otherwise, take your friend and leave!” He stands in the entrance of the vault, daring the thieves to approach.

• ULTIMATUM: When you say what you want and what you will do if you don’t get it, roll. On a 10+, they have to choose: make you carry out your threat, or back down and give you what you want. On a 7–9, they also have these options; they can:
  • Clearly remove themselves as a threat.
  • Fortify themselves.
  • Give you something they think you want.
  • Attempt to remove you as a threat, after taking the established consequences.
  • Tell you what you want to know (or what you want to hear).
• Powerful: `2d6+2`  = (5+5)+2 = 12

• MC: What’s your Powerful at?
  
• Will: It is currently at 2 out of 5.

“SHIT!” a voice shouted from outside, clear as day. A young adult approached the bank’s rear entrance with their hands up. They wore a formless coat and baggy pants, and their face was obscured by an old-school hockey mask.
They said “Fine. You win, asshole. We surrender.” They turned slightly towards the parking lot and continued, “Cipher, turn off your toy!”

As they entered the bank, and Zinc’s AI labelled them Hostile 2. As H2 continued, they began to vanish, but snapped abruptly back into focus. The Veil in the bank shimmered as it returned to its default configuration.

A third now entered, heavier than the other two, also wearing a mask. The two dragged Malcolm’s body out the door, leaving only the stink of charred fiber and flesh.

25% of the money is missing from the vault. Your demands did not specify the disposition of the money.

Zinc stood for a moment looking into the vault. Then he sighed. “Damn it. About that technicality …”

​The first scene can be found here.
The second scene can be found here.
The third scene can be found here.