The broadcast room shudders as the walls grind closer. Warning lights strobe across cracked monitors, and the main terminal spits sparks while Mara slams in commands.
Buster lands hard between the two Silhouettes and the console bank, a living barricade as the room squeezes tight around them.
Mara
I am almost in. Keep them off me.
One Silhouette reaches for a side panel, but Buster's grab pins the arm before it can trigger anything. The other backs toward the hatch, too shaken to rush him.
The Silhouettes
Do not let him reach the terminal! Lock it down, now!
Buster Jones
The terminal is the tower's nerve center.
Mara yanks a cable free, reroutes it, and the central display flickers from red warnings to a scrolling access menu. If she gets one clean override, the network dies here.
✓ Quest Accepted
Sever the network shutdown
“I shove the silhouette away from the console to give Mara the space she needs, using my immense size and strength to hold the room together and keep it from collapsing as I act as a wall between Mara and the silhouettes”
SUCCESS (Legendary Strength, rolled -1)
Buster plants his feet and drives the Silhouette away from the console, shoving them back from the terminal bank.
The room gives under the impact, but not all the way. Buster takes the strain into his shoulders and keeps the narrowing walls from pressing in on Mara.
Mara
I have the override open. Keep them off the board.
The Silhouette stumbles into the sparking side panel, arms flailing for balance, while their partner hesitates at the hatch and loses the angle to rush her.
A second shove turns Buster into a wall between Mara and the attackers, his wounded palm flashing white as he catches the edge of the console and steadies it.
The Silhouettes
He is blocking the terminal. Move, move!
Mara slams the final line into place, and the central display flips again, this time from access menu to shutdown confirmation. The tower starts to answer.
“I trigger the shutdown confirmation”
SUCCESS (Fair Technology, rolled +1)
Buster presses the confirmation with his bad hand, and the display accepts it. The shutdown sequence takes hold.
Across the room, the stuttering tower relay on the monitor drops to a dead flat line, and the warning lights lose their rhythm.
Mara
It is actually cutting through.
The Silhouette at the hatch recoils as the terminal bank stops answering their commands. The one by the side panel pulls free, staring at the darkened screen.
The Silhouettes
No, no, it is locked out!
Mara keeps both hands on the console, shoulders tight, as the grinding walls shudder once more and then begin to ease. Her eyes flick to Buster, then to the dead system.
Buster Jones
The shutdown is holding.
Outside the hatch, footsteps bunch up in the corridor, and the room is left sealed with the intruders still inside.
Quest Complete
Sever the network shutdown
New Gift: Cybernetic Resilience