LifeLines

I saw a Taker talking to a cat about their day.
Obviously they went nuts.

I went straight home and told my mannequin family all about it. How we all laughed...

Whelp, I'm running this in the next couple of weeks. I've got the starting part set out. I'm going to try and do a thing where the Takes assign points to skills, aptitudes, and buy gear in the moment. Either as they need or, in response to questions like "Who set up the deal with Lt. Harris?" Spend one point into Networking or Criminality.

Here's the first section I've got, it leads to Elevation, the first stop.

Session 0: The Recession to Elevation

Slums
The Takers live just outside of here. They'll be here next month if they stay though. Curfew is in effect though they've bribed a guard the let them through no questions. The guard tells them to ask for Hanson at the gate to Free Parking. Hanson isn't a person, it's the code the guards use to know this is a bribe giver and shake them down. Takers might lose something here. In the slums it's all gray prefab building, light comes out of most of them and they can hear sounds of the poor part of town. There are few trees and a lot of shady people out after dark. Everyone is either scared, up to no good, or both.

Free Parking
This is the place everyone's afraid of. For good reason. Curfew is in effect though that just means things are happening indoors. The area here is dominated by tents and cars. People have turned their cars into houses, several have the engine removed and use the hood as a second trunk. Getting to the guards at the end is pretty nerve wracking and the Takers will get jumped if they're not careful.

Guards
The Takers have arranged to meet corporal Lewis here who'll gladly give them a 15 minute head start on the bridge, even showing them where the mines might be. Who made the deal? The guards are unimpressed with anything the Takers have to say, these are 3 year veterans of the borderwall. They'll mock any reason to go out and joke at the Takers.

Bridge
Lewis is good to his word, but 15 minutes is only enough to dash across the bridge (bad idea, mines) so the Takers will have to start sneaking about halfway across the bridge. Foresight checks can remember where mines should be as well as Alertness and Athletics. Failed stealth checks might bring the stoplight and some casual firing from the guards the Takers just bribed.

Into the great wide open
Leg 1: Craterville
The remains of a city, almost everything has been hit by mortar fire and small arms fire. There are plants here trying to grow and few trees. The danger here comes less from casualties than guards across the river taking practice shots at anything moving. There are a few casualties, most of them are pretty badly broken from mortar fire or being winged by recruits on the wall. This covers about two miles before the destruction drops off. There is one encounter with an unexploded munition.

Leg 2: Back to nature
Here there be trees, as the Takers pass the ten mile mark, the constant destruction and monitoring lessens. Another small suburb is here but it's being reclaimed by nature. Lots of animals and plants thrive here. As do casualties though many of them are in motion drawn by the distant thunder of guns from the border. Somewhere in here the Takers should find a place to sleep. It will have surprise casualties. This part is about 50 miles. There should be two possible encounters with casualty mobs. There will also be two or three sites where large scale drone strikes happened. One failed enclave, a big box store with reinforced walls clearly gutted by bombardment Inside are a lot of a lot of self-control checks.

Leg 3: Deal
As the Takers get closer to the Loss proper they begin to see signs of human activity. This is the last 30 miles to Elevation. Looted stores and the remnants of gunfights. There are casualties and corpses here. The state of dress on both is different. Also here they'll meet “High Hat,” the last of a taker crew doing the first section of the jobline from Elevation. He's infected after a bad bite and about to kill himself. But he's got a plan. The Takers can take his (out of battery) Ubiq specs back to Elevation and give them to his Sister in law, Sarah, she'll be able to finish his job and maybe use the money for her and her son to make it to the Recession. It's all he's got. [Gives the party a positive rep spot.] The Takers will again have to find a resting place here.

Leg 4: New Home
The last couple of miles to Elevation, here the Takers see denizens of the Loss going about their business. Including a truck of ranch hands going home, a crew heading out on a job and scavengers going through a picked clean house. Casualties are common here but easily run from in the open spaces. The guards at Elevation won't be friendly but won't be hostile either. The Takers get one free night there sleeping with the Chaff and after that they're on their own. But they did make it in, not bad for Bait. They can pool and get a room to share as passer through though it won't last more than a month or so. Then it's time to learn about work and how to get it. Lots of bonus will for bait available here. Also the jobline from earlier is open.

Any suggestions?

I'm based post-Crash London.

What's it like across the drink? Is the Royal Family even still alive? I mean, besides Elizabeth? Is it true she was Immune? Does that mean the bloodline might be? How is Parliment even working there? We got a Brit in Feed. He bitches constantly about having to 7 Day Drone his precious Earl Grey across the Ocean. No boat, drone.

So, this is all going to be a "What-If" scenario. Nothing like this exists at all as far as I'm concerned, and there is no proof otherwise. This is merely purely hypothetical, based on a conceptual basis.

So, maybe you manage to find an old outpost. No LALAs, no survivors. Few Casualty. Scrounging around the outside of the perimeter one finds massive Mastiff hound corpses. They have bite marks, but evidence of post-mortum coagulation. Dogs are placed about 20 yards apart on 15' chains making a half circle diameter that led to 'kill chutes'. Find evidence of starvation and blood loss from bite marks, which remain Blight free. Find evidence of Casualty remains around those that died of exposure or dehydration. Autopsy of the hound finds partially digested Casualty remains in the gut. Test gut culture against local Immune gut culture, and find 80% similarity along the mammal line and evidence of something else. Something else consists of evidence of biological contamination and gene tampering, applying Hominid Immunity Cells to Canid DNA strands.

Return to site for in depth testing. Find evidence of animal farming. Most animals share 60-65% same gut culture and between 65-95% similarities in gene pool. Find evidence of frozen Canid embryos. Testing confirms Hominid Immunity Cells and 85% gut culture similarities. Embryo is administered Hot Strain in contained environment. Embryo survives. EMBRYO SURVIVES 95% testing procedures.

Question: Beyond human tampering, Blight just out right murders animals. Or turns them latent. Does the evidence of genetically manipulated, Blight resistant animals mean the DHQS are making Bio-Drones? Or does this COMPLETELY MADE UP SCENARIO prove that that man must actively take a hand in that which we destroyed? Does that mean critters like tardigrades and extremophile bacterium might prove resistant or immune to Blight? Does this also mean that Clone Meat is now on the menu?

Lemme first start by saying "What Up from FEED!!"

Based in Misery (That Missouri for you Rec-Heads). Welcome To sign was blasted, so somewhere directly across the drink from some compound called Fort Lazerus.

Names Blood, I'm the guy you might have seen on drone footage attaching tracking harnesses to Cassies and using them to track Ground Weather (hordes) up and down I-55, good ol' Suicide Sprint.

Worst case of burn out I saw was my crew's leader, Fuqwad. I mean, everybody has their own problems, sure, but Fuq? His was both spectacular and silent at the same time.

Let's start with Kiera. Let's just say this, when your leader starts complaining of seeing his pregnant ex-girlfriend everywhere, maybe you should listen to him. That, and smack the SOMA out of his hands.

Fuq was our drone operator and rarely had to leave Feed , so when me and Checkers would bail and start stripping Cassies that wandered away from the bigger storm fronts as they passed, he would fly high and watch for back drafts or loose heads.

One day Check and I were out by Detention (some school where everyone dropped off their kids and left them. They survived because of some soft heart Brass setting fortifications on their little hill). Basic shit, checking generators running PDA systems to keep the hordes cruising down the 55.

We start hearing Fuq screaming at us.
"SHE'S RIGHT FUCKING THERE! RIGHT THERE!"
Which wouldn't have been so surprising if we had not been talking about who was a better Face wrestler in the Attitude Era.
We all knew Fuq was obsessed with this concept, and I was the only one who humored him. Maybe I shouldn't have. I dunno.

Kiera, he claimed, would sabotage equipment, knock over PDAs, and even claimed he had footage (yet to see it) of her standing behind him. In Feed. Our 200+ strong, military surplussed home and garden fortress. A Cassie, right there.

Anyway, homie screamed he was going to end this and crashed this EXPENSIVE drone into one of those refillable oxygen things they used to fill bikes. At a gas station. 3 blocks away. And after a 7 day long siege that cut our supplies to skeleton levels, he was gone. Left a note saying he bailed, but left us a drop box with 200 B's.

I thought I saw him the other day. He either went native, or he and Kiera had that last encounter he wanted.

Anyway, TL;DR, check on your isolated nerds. They are not okay.