A Hazy Shade of Winter

[Dracos]

"Enough to kill you with a pen."  Dracos responded smiling and kept driving.

Dracos
Timeskip, GM-san?

[Brian]

Driving atop the mountain road, taking the mountain route and occasionally admiring the mountain view, two inevitabilities occur simultaneously.

First, your phones all begin to beep, as the trace warning activates.  Secondly, you come across a tiny (yet obviously populated) mountain village.

It's 4:26 to judge by the dashboard clock, and the signs say, "Last food/rest stop for 500 miles!" but it's both dated, and looks like an advertisement, so could be lying.

[Rezantis]

Rez reaches into his pocket and turns his phone off, then reached into the back seat and grabbed Ginrai's phone (since Ginrai was asleep), and turned it off as well.

[Dracos]

Dracos turned off his phone and shrugged, "Okay ladies, who needs food and who wants another five hundred miles on the road?"

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"Food soudns good.  And Ginrai's not going to answer, because he is A-S-L-E-E-P."

[Dracos]

"mkay... Why not..."

Dracos pulls off at the exit, heading into the village and looking around for what they seem to have.

Dracos

[Brian]

No fast food.  Two (opposite ends of the village) of what appear to be, and most likely literally ARE, mom-and-pop diners, a trio of gas stations, and a 'Elk Lodge'.  No actual hotel or motel, though.

There's a few newer establishments -- a Radio Shack, a Verizon store (right across the road from a Nextel dealer), and the road leading south looks new (and newly widened, as well).  This little town may grow up in a few years, but for now it's the kind of sleepy place that can probably afford you a minor degree of anonymity.  Additionally, there's a general store, if you need to stock up on groceries.  No clothing retailers, but the store probably stocks jackets.

[Dracos]

"Okay, thoughts, let's get some protective jackets, some non-perishable foodstuffs, lunch, gas, some extra laptop batteries, some extra maps, and...anything else?"

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"You won't find laptop batteries around here.  A pocketknife for me, just for the utility factor - I had to leave mine behind.  Also, a spare jerry can of gas would be wise.  Ahm . . ."

Rez pauses.

"And some kind of trail indicating that we're heading out into whoop-whoop-land to lay low might be nice, but I don't think we're that lucky."

[Dracos]

"Oh, and rope.  Now let's get moving, you get the survival gear and gas and hmm, a couple of hypercompact tents.  I'll get maps, batteries, foodstuffs.  Meet back here in twenty-five."

Dracos heads off to the radio shack and then the grocery store, searching for the stuffs.

Dracos

[Rezantis]

Rez notes Drac's lack of observancy, and just heads over to the General Store and starts poking around, looking for the aforementioned gear.

[Brian]

Between the two of you (Ginrai planning on driving the nightshift, and therefore doing the switch-off for guard shift with the Lucky Pipe), you manage to find almost everything you're looking for.  You're gouged on the price of the camping gear (that's probably this sleepy-little village's closest thing to a tourist trap), but you do get it.

Then again, given your withdrawl, your funds aren't too low, unless you need to start worrying about bribes.  The only thing you can't find, as Rez surmized, is the laptop batteries.  The cell-phone stores are set if you want cell-phone batteries, however.

And during the forty minutes you were gone (and dragged Ginrai to a washroom), your car was unmolested to the best of your knowledge.  The local residents don't even look at you twice.

[Dracos]

Dracos picked up a couple extra cellphone batteries and then got in the car, setting up an easy to eat sandwich from the rations they got from the store and driving off with the other two eating in the car.

Dracos

[Brian]

The horizon beckons you.  The hours blend into a maddening blur alleviated only by occasional breaks in the weather.  Slight fog when entering the Great Smoky Mountains, followed by an all-out blitzkrieg-style attack of mother nature against you as you descend.  You guess that you missed getting snowed into some sleepy village by hours, at most.

At about Pikevile, Kentuky, after a shift in drivers, Ginrai takes over while Dracos and Rez sleep.  Using a simply established plan of 'keep only one phone active unless more than one person is awake', it's shut off quickly when the triangulation warning kicks in.

Morning finds Ginrai made good time, just ahead of (surprise) more snow, though it's thankfully lighter than it was further north.

With Rez giving Ginrai a breather, he switches on the radio, and you catch this:

Code Select Expand

The situation surrounding the bizzare attack are still unknown, but the nation is once again on a 'high' security alert, given warnings of further violent terrorist activity.  Mr. Philip Bloom and an as-of-yet-unammed associate are assumed to have been killed in the blast that leveled his home late Saturday night.  Dental records have yet to be verified, but the FBI warn that those responsible are at large.

President Ewling issued a warning that with advances in U.S. Military technology, both the United State's defensive force, and organizations such as the F.B.I. are even better eqipped to deal with these threats.  He then promised that, "Justice, as has been stayed these recent years, will finally be done."

[Dracos]

"...Fuck.  Phone call time.  Pronto."

Dracos smacks himself awake.  "Rez, pull over at the nearest payphone."

As soon as they get to a payphone, Dracos grabs the phone, funneling the coins in and quickly dialing into what should be the extremely secure fidelity accounts phoneline, getting a bloody rep quickly and giving them the obtusely long list of required questions to assert his identity and get into his account.  As soon as he does so he has it locked from being foreclosed and distributed on case of death (as their policies should require several days at best to ascertain and do all the paperwork) and upgrades the account to whatever fucking hypersecure ultragold platinum they are offering that week.

When he finishes the call, he shakes his head, "I need to get a letter to my folks.  Otherwise they are going to smack me seven ways from sunday when I come back from all this shit."

Dracos