(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #36 - It Could Be Baked Beans

 Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, investigating Rho Facility, to aid the Hissers of Notex

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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout.  Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers.  

Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. 

Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often.  Recently "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies.

Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend.  He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters.  Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does. Looking for trouble in all the right places.  Recent jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock he has named Chambray.

RHA-9: A lab assistant piece of "Living Metal" that seems to have befriended the group... for now!

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Upon receiving their physical boosts from RHA-9's "laboratory research," the explorers gathered their wits and decided to take the lift further up.  Swiping the yellow keycard inside the lift, only 

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...showed up on the display.  Sonny pressed four.

The door opened up in the center of a large room.  The room was littered with desks.  Some were flipped, some crushed, others with crushed bodies of soldiers beneath it. Some intact terminals were on the ground, most were smashed.  Numerous blast marks and bullet holes covered the walls.   The group cautiously stepped out, spread out and slowly worked their way through the carnage.  

Pete was first to detect the noticeable path through the debris. It looked relatively recent and had crushed weaker items under foot.  

The weasel whisper-shouted to the group, "There's something on the opposite side of the room."

The group hunkered down in position.  Pete skulked around desks, barely getting glimpses of a living metal moving slowly through the room. 

Sonny asked "RHA-9, are there other bots in this facility."

Silence.

"Squiggles, the damn bot doesn't think I exist, can you ask him for me?"

The worm obliged.

"OF COURSE," RHA-9 replied to Squiggles, "BUT I DO NOT RECOGNIZE ANY MODELS RIGHT NOW."

As Pete continued to track the living metal, his eyes caught a red light that appeared to stare back. 

"PROTOCOL.  LETHAL FORCE."

Pete scurried for cover back towards the group.   A *THUMP* could be heard from the living metal. An object bounced off of two walls and a can-shaped object landed in the middle of everyone.  

"Oooh," Squiggles exclaimed.  "I've seen those before. It could be a can of baked beans."

***BOOM!!!!***

The can exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere. Most managed to dive behind some cover, but still were quite bloodied. 

RHA-9 began spinning around, "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!"

Lathar managed to roll out of the way, scurrying past the lift doors and catch a glimpse of the living metal.  His aim was disrupted by a wild weasel in Sneaky Pete shooting with his blaster.  An explosion erupted on the living metal's body.  His follow-up flintlock shot went wild, and drew the attention of the machine.  

The actual security bot was much taller and had a grenade launcher.  

Others took better cover and fired flintlocks causing damage, albeit minimal. Sonny yelled at the living metal, "Stand down, Alpha-Red-34-Triple-90101- Alpha"

The living metal did not comply.  

Lathar finally got off his shot with his blaster rifle, firing high over the machine's head, exploding into the back wall.  

RHA-9 stopped spinning around and started heading towards the lift doors.  It returned to spinning around and emitting  "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!"

The living metal turned towards Lathar and fired a different weapon than before,

"PROTOCOL.  LETHAL FORCE."

A blaster shoot flew from the weapon.  The warrior swung back behind the corner as the shot hit where he had been, chunks of concrete flying everywhere, still injuring him.    

Pete had found some high ground within a stack of desks and fired again, but missed. 

Sonny reloaded and cursed their living metal companion, "RHA, if you could listen to me, I'd ask what to do, you stupid tin can."

Squiggles, still amazed RHA could talk to him again acted as the middle man.

"THAT RHA UNIT IS FOLLOWING IT'S LAST PROTOCOL INSERTED BY PERSONNEL.  WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DESTROY IT BEFORE I DESTROY EVERYTHING."

Meanwhile Lathar turned the remains of the corner and fired a center-mass shot at the enemy living metal.  It exploded in sparks and it finally stopped firing.  

Combat ended, RHA-9 began beeping faster and faster.

"RHA-9, the threat is over, stop beeping!"

"OK!" and the beeping ceased.

RHA-9 explained that if he taken any damage, his protocol was to detonate his "Yorkum capacitators."

The group went eerily silent.  The last time they dealt with a Yorkum resulted in the destruction of Koto damn and the Caves of Ulmin below.  They immediately ordered RHA to head back to his lab and initiate any repair protocols he was capable of.

Squiggles expressed his injuries, "I'm a step away from self-destructing myself."  He and Pete were given the last of the healing syringes. 

Lathar was dead set on opening some of the doors bordering the large rooms.  Sonny convinced him to search the desks first before kicking open doors.  

The search of the desks revealed four items:

1. A call center headset.
2. A single glove (left-hand)
3. A book of "mechanical engineering"

and a weasel hand, rising among the wreckage, holding a RED keycard.

Discord erupted among the group.  No one wanted to go further up, but Lathar was still obstinate to open doors on level 4, while the others wanted to go down to level 3 and see if the red keycard opened the medical wing.  Healing seemed paramount before the mission could continued.  

They finally cajoled Lathar to come with them, but upon entering the lift, using the red keycard showed.

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Lathar was pumped  "Let's go to six..." 

"NOOOOOOO!" was the chorus of the others, all in unison.

The using the green keycard, they accessed the medical/research floor again.  The red keycard failed to open.

Dejected, they finally consented to Lathar's plan, although the rest of them huddled inside the lift. 

Lathar simply pushed over the door to the first room that was simply demolished.    The second door also was opened, but he was shocked to find it blocked by a pile of skeletons just inside the door.  Despite his tough-guy persona, it failed to budge.  The peanut gallery in the lift cajoled him to keep searching, hoping to find anything to help their injuries, but he called over to the new super-muscled Squiggles and guilted him to help.   One good shove by the worm and the skeletons were pushed aside, erupted a cloud of spores which engulfed the human and the worm.   Squiggles fell, and Lathar dragged him back to the lift.  Each one was covered in what looked like a thick layer of dark brown dust.  

Sonny tried to wash the dust with water off the non-breathing Squiggles.  Lathar decided a swig of ancient rum was enough for him, and he poured some of it over his head.  

Realizing his condition was worsening, Sonny had the group grab  the worm and take him back down to the lab.  Pete, acting as translator, simply ordered RHA-9 to "fix him."

The living metal scurried about, adding numerous tubes and vials together, forming a large concoction which it drew into a syringe.  With electrical prods inserted in to worm, RHA scurried them out of the room.  The lights then flickered for a few moments, but RHA soon allowed them back into the room.

"TEST INCONCLUSIVE.  SUBJECT IS STABLE". 

They entered the room to find Squiggles standing up from the test chair, steam pouring off his body.  His physique had changed from a muscular worm to far more human-like.  

More disturbing was all his exposed body was covered by thick layer of white fur.

A picture of furry Squiggles in the style of Dr Seuss.

GM Notes:   Lessons learned (A) security bots know angles (B) Gamma World has death's door rules!

I also don't profess to be an artist, but AI art generators are not having a fun time with Gamma World characters and situations.  Not many references for human non-artists to draw a furry earthworm, either.

Next: #37 - Upstairs, Downstairs