Rio Arrives

Log Title: Rio Arrives

Characters: Major Bludd, Rio, Tonka

Location: Starlight Mansion

Date: 10 February 2017

TP: America Burning TP

Summary: The Hologram's one-time manager, Rio Pacheco, arrives at Starlight Mansion.

As logged by  Major Bludd

A red panel van pulls up to the damaged gates of Starlight Music, screeching to a halt and nearly crashing into the fence. The vehicle stops and an odd purple-haired fellow hops out, looking around frantically. He grabs the chain across the entrance, jerking his head sharply in surprise as it simply comes away in his hands. Tossing it aside, he pulls the archway open and then jumps back in his van, driving it erratically towards the main house.

Sprawled out on a sofa upstairs, Bludd is in the middle of a pleasant nap when the sound of the screeching of brakes wakes him abruptly. He bolts to his feet and goes to the nearest window, peering out from the side to reduce his visibility to anyone below. "The hell is this now?" he mutters, tugging on his boots and moving to the staircase. He scans the foyer below for intruders and any of the Starlight Girls or Holograms, then makes an automatic check of his sidearm. The foyer is quiet for the moment, but that doesn't mean one of the mansion's residents couldn't come waltzing through at any time.

Tonka is downstairs working on Synergy's 2.0 hardware, when he also hears the scream of tires. "What the?" Climbing down off the workbench, he dons his jetpack and flies up the stairs and to the foyer, landing on the floor with his optics towards the front door.

Rio slams the van to a stop practically on top of the mansion's front steps and leaps out of the driver's side, leaving the door open as he runs up towards the house. Stopping in front of the barricade, he balls his fists and pounds on the boarded-up entranceway. "Jerrica!" he yells loudly, making quite the racket. "Kimber! Are you there?" He steps back and moves to one of the front windows, trying to peer into the foyer through the broken glass.

GAME: Major Bludd PASSES an INTELLIGENCE roll of Average difficulty.

That voice is familiar to Bludd, but he kneels near the wall at the top of the staircase and holds his sidearm ready anyway. He notices Tonka's arrival and nods to himself, watching the diminutive Autobot and keeping him covered. When a figure moves to the window, he shifts his sights accordingly, and waits for an opportunity to fire at this potential invader.

Tonka steps back a bit, his face registering clear concern at this turn of events. "Rabid fan?" he mutters, and runs to duck under a nearby coatrack where he can still see the foyer but he is hopefully not as noticable. Still, someone pounding on a door like that isn't what falls under his definition of 'good thing'.

Rio gazes in through the boarded up windows, but fails to spot Bludd or Tonka. Rio doesn't seem to be armed with anything besides his unusual wardrobe, but doesn't seem ready to give up. Leaving the van running, he steps back and disappears from view -- although he continues to call Jerrica and Kimber's names, making it apparent that he's moving around to the side of the house. "Girls!" he yells. "Are you there?"

Hearing the voice move toward the side of the building, Bludd hurries down the stairs and toward Tonka, crouching and keeping his gaze on the front door and the windows. "He's movin' round to the back," he hisses at Tonka. "Might be more out front. I'm goin' to cover the back door." Without waiting for a response, he darts out of the foyer and toward the back of the house, listening for the voice as he moves.

Tonka nods. "Righto.." he says, and although he doesn't like the idea, he pulls one of his sabotage explosives out and gets it ready. "Be prepared, or something like that." he says, and he heads over towards the front door to find a spot he can crawl out and take a look outside.

Rio stops at a side door, and pulls on the latch. "Hellooo?" he says, and gives it another tug. Finding it locked, he peers in the small square window into the kitchen, frowning to see it banged up but still apparently in use. "What's going on?" he asks himself quietly, and then moves around towards the back, around by the pool. He fishes in his purple jacket for his keys and as he walks he goes through them, looking for one fitting one of the studios near the rear of the house.

Bludd bypasses the kitchen and presses his back to a doorway on the opposite side of the dining room adjacent, pausing to keep pace with the man outside. This one's not willing to just smash and grab, but isn't smart enough to keep his mouth shut, either. Though Bludd can't quite remember where he's heard the voice before. Without that piece of information, this person still gets treated as a potential threat. When the rattling at the side door stops, he continues moving toward the rear of the house.

Tonka finds a spot to squeeze out to the front porch, and spots the van. He's watched enough TV to know humans don't leave cars like that unless they are either out of their head or seriously pissed off. Getting worried now, he fires up his jetpack and flies around the house towards the back, looking to see just who is trying to get in.

Rio stops again at one of the back doors that leads to a small studio towards the rear of the house, and uses his key to open the door. "Jerrica?" he calls out for the dozenth time. "Kimber?" He lets himself in, starting to move through the house -- unwittingly right towards Bludd. He leaves the door open behind him, not knowing he's being followed by a tiny blue robot. "Is anybody home? Come on, guys -- I'm a little freaked out here!" he admits.

Bludd pauses again, crouching against a wall to reduce his profile. Something is very odd about this: it sounds like whoever this is knows the ladies of Starlight Mansion. Either that or he's doing a good job of faking it. Bludd runs through the possibilities in his mind, but stays put and remains alert. Better safe than sorry. He waits for the owner of the voice to come closer.

Meanwhile, Tonka flies in behind Rio and remains hovering, watching his actions and waiting for a sign from Bludd on how this is going to go down. He puts away his explosive and draws his tiny pistol. It may not pack a punch, but it hurts like hell when it hits the schnoz!

Rio steps towards Bludd, clueless to the mercenary's presence. However, he does hear a small sound behind him, and turns to see -- a tiny flying robot with a pistol its hand? "What the shit?!" Rio explodes, stumbling backwards away from the unexpected sight and landing hard on his ass, not very far from Bludd. "What are you?" Rio gasps, attention still focused on Tonka. He tries to scrabble back away from the airborne Autobot.

Tonka flies in a little bit more, and it's obvious he's really watched some TV as he puts on a deep gangster accent. "Who me? I'm your worst nightmare, bucko. A tiny robot with attitude. Now you gonna spill the beans about what you're doin' here, or do we gotta get tough?" he says, partly for his own amusement, but partly to give Bludd the advantage of surprise since now all the focus is on him.

Bludd bites his lip to keep from laughing out loud at Tonka's threat. Keeping his back to the wall, he rises slowly to his feet and waits for the intruder's response.

Rio stumbles to his feet and gives Tonka a dark look. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" he challenges the tiny robot. "My girlfriend lives here, but she's gone and her studio is burned to the ground. I'm here to make sure she's OK, and if you try to get in my way, I'll get a bat and knock you right over the fence. ?Comprende?" Rio cocks his fist, like maybe he's just going to start preemptively punching Autobots now.

When it comes to raised fists, Tonka doesn't take chances. He raises his little pistol and draws a bead right for the tip of Rio's nose. "Not a smart move, pal!" he says as he squeezes off a round.

>> Tonka succeeds with its generic combat roll on Rio. <<

Rio arghs as he's shot in the nose, and jerks backwards, slipping on the floor and crashing backwards. He hits his head on the floor -- hard -- and then lays there, unmoving. If Tonka killed him, Jerrica's going to be soooo mad! X)

His girlfriend? Bludd frowns in thought, staying in position and listening to what's going on in the room behind him. He's all too familiar with the sound of an unconscious body hitting the floor, and when there's no further noise, he risks a peek around the wall into the other room. "Oh," he says, peering at Rio's unconscious form. "It's the purple-haired guy." He thumbs the safety on his sidearm and drops it back into his shoulder holster, moving to check at Rio's throat for a pulse. He glances up to Tonka with a smirk. "Nice work."

Tonka floats down and lands next to him. "Oh damn, I didn't mean to do that! I just wanted to, you know, scare him!" he says. He looks completely freaked out.

"He'll be fine." Bludd's not concerned, apparently. "We oughta move him, though. Fell an' whacked his head, did he?"

Tonka nods. "Yeah. Stumbled and fell backwards, and whammo!" he says, holstering his little pistol. "You know this guy?"

"He works, or at least worked, with the Holograms," Bludd explains. "Roadie or graphics technician or some such thing." He takes a moment to check Rio's pupils, then nods and bends to lift the purple-haired fellow off the floor. "We'll just stick him on a sofa in the TV room," he says, moving that way.

Tonka jogs along towards the TV room. "Oh... well... guy shouldn't have tried to bust in, ya know? With all that's goin' on!" he says.

"Yeah, probably not the smartest thing." When they reach the TV room, Bludd carefully lays Rio on the sofa. "I'll let Kimber know what happened," he assures Tonka. "She'll take care of him." He glances toward the front of the house. "Probably ought to do somethin' about that van of his though. On the steps isn't the greatest place to park."

"Guy nearly took out the front porch." Tonka says. "If he'd been a second slower on those brakes he'd have come right through the front door."

"Wonder if there's room in the garage," Bludd ponders aloud. "I'll handle it." He pauses and smiles at Tonka. "Suppose we make a decent team, eh?"

Tonka smirks a bit. "Heh... yeah." he says, flying up to sit on the couch.

"Stranger things have happened." Bludd peers at Rio. "He have keys in his hand when he came in? I didn't hear him break the lock."

"I'm not sure. He was already in by the time I got around and flew in behind him." Tonka says.

"Doesn't look like he's got a keyring in his pockets. I'll go check in the other room." Bludd glances back to Tonka. "You working on Synergy still?"

Tonka nods. "Yeah. I'm trying to assemble a sort of mobile emitter that can be carried around, maybe even worn on someone's belt. That way, she doesn't have to be in one place where she risks discovery and or being destroyed. She could be well hidden, and safe."

Bludd nods. "That'll be handy. One second." He ducks out of the room, returning a few moments later with Rio's keyring in his hand. "Found 'em," he says, jingling the keys. "The memory module, though, the bit that's really -her-, there's only one of those, isn't there?"

Tonka says, "I don't think so... she can be copied, I think, and backups can be made. If I remember correctly, Taria loaded the hardware we put together from that module."

Bludd purses his lips in thought. "Well, I suppose she -is- a computer after all. Seems strange though." He shrugs. "Lemme take care of that van before it gets someone's attention." He heads out toward the front door.