Day 3:
On day three of their exploration of the Red Mesa Research Facility, Dr. Max Grant and the coyote split off from the rest of the group while they're taking a lunch break at the medical center. Our heroes head off toward the office area, dealing with a couple of automated turrets en route. There, they encounter several Automatons. In the ensuing firefight, the tunnel is collapsed, and the People Mover is badly damaged.
Neo-Samurai Jim attempts to scout out the enemy position to see if there are any Automatons left, but when he peeks through the rubble pile, he finds four Automatons and four Black Hats standing there, assault rifles trained on him. They unload with their weapons, though Jim still miraculously survives, in part because of just how little of him there is to shoot at through the rubble pile. Leonard pulls a risky stunt, fixing up a stick of dynamite attached to a crossbow bolt, and he fires the lit stick through a gap in the rubble. Jim gets out of the pile in time to avoid the blast.
While the heroes are checking to see if anybody survived, two remaining Automatons walk through the flames and rubble, and proceed to demolish the People Mover. Amazingly, our heroes survive this encounter, and deal with the last of the Automatons at the offices. For their trouble, they manage to recover several Hellstromme Industries assault rifles and hand grenades, and the contents of the security office weapons locker. Leonard recalls what he's heard about the Black Hats - namely, that their weapons are all booby-trapped to thwart scavengers. Sure enough, the weapons are rigged with explosives.
Back at the medical center, Jim is put through the "healing machine", and Leonard puts the booby-trapped weapons to use, rigging up the "Gurney o' Doom" - a medical gurney laden with the explosive weapons and hand grenades, plus a few other explosives for good measure, set up so that the gurney can be triggered reasonably easily. The group makes sure to park the gurney clear across the medical center, while they set up barricades and camp for the night.
Their rest, however, is interrupted when some Automatons come in. Everyone keeps low, trying to avoid the attention of the Automatons. The machines go over to investigate the "gurney o' doom", and Karl Dracomortat lets loose with a hand grenade at just that moment. The resultant explosion and secondary and tertiary explosions blow up most of the medical center, blast out the walls, take out the Automatons, ruin the medical equipment ... and knock out the heroes, who had been taking cover behind a barricade of up-ended gurneys and beds.
When the heroes finally come to, they find that it's now morning again. They salvage what they can, strapping their remaining belongings on four gurneys, and wheel them out into the corridor. They discover that some more Automatons are coming through, but there is a collapsed section of the tunnel that the machines are trying to clear. Leonard rigs up a little "surprise" for the robots with some dynamite and gunpowder, and everyone beats a trail down the corridor as fast as they can. Sure enough, they hear an explosion back down the corridor once the robots get through and trigger the trap.
The posse travels on to the library, in search of information on how to shut down the power reactor. While they're there, Leonard's activity on an operating computer terminal draws the attention of Multivac, the central computer of the Red Mesa Research Facility. Multivac speaks to our heroes of the "Denver Intelligence", and how an "alliance" has been formed. Multivac claims that by means of using the central power core, it can change reality ... and demonstrates this by warping reality in the immediate vicinity temporarily. The heroes "agree" to head on to the cybernetic center to be "improved" so that they can "better serve" Multivac ... but Multivac is distracted by something, and then another voice comes across the speakers, warning the heroes that some Automatons are being sent to the library to apprehend them. Leonard leaves another "surprise" for the Automatons, and they all rush out, heading for the Power Center (and they leave yet another explosion in their wake).
At last, the heroes reach the power center, where they find a new "People Mover", and meet up with some scientists and a soldier stationed at the base. They arrange to have another "People Mover" summoned, and then Leonard goes to work, removing the safety restraints that limit the Movers to only 30 mph, raising this to 60 mph (on a straight-way) instead. He also removes the remote control features on the vehicles, so that Multivac can't pull the same stunt that they just did in order to summon the vehicles. The posse loads up their gear and the scientists onto one of the People Movers, while the second one is rigged up with explosives. They then drive around the power core, and send the "rigged" People Mover toward the central column, while the other one heads out of the area as fast as its wheels can take it. There's a big explosion, as the power core is destroyed, followed by some ghostly phenomenon as the ghost rock reactor goes critical.
So, our heroes rush out on the People Mover, aiming for the garage area of the complex, in hopes of finding some transportation to get out of the complex before a chain reaction totally destroys the whole facility!
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