169
We go to Miami to check in on Chiko
We go to Mars Compound - there has been an incident
Chiko appears to be dead
But actually he is a robot
Based on behaviour, the real Chiko never came to Miami
Mars was not aware "Chiko" was a robot
Red investigates the robot
It's an old model - made by Professor Panic, who smashed Canberra
We make plans to take it back to Australia
Random Conquistador-themed supervillain!
And his buddies, who are less culturally insensitive
We stomp them in short order
And go back to Pacific City, where Red requests Uber records on the night Shift left
I go speak to an Uber driver who was attacked that night
The driver saw metal tentacles. He gives me the address of the attack
That doesn't help much, but Red's search for Prof Panic androids prompts a mysterious phone call
We go to meet an old guy with a cane at a deserted bar
170
Xo arrives. Yay, an adult!
Old Guy with a cane is a WW2 hero (Shock and Awesome met him)
Panic was into dimensional travel
He found a world without supers and planned to conquer it and use it as a base to conquer this world
He's imprisoned there, but may be up to no good across dimensions
Or someone else may be on his behalf
He has lots of old data. On old hardware
Red gets the data off the drive and goes to do laboratory stuff
Xo goes to see Danny
She manages to communicate with him at last thanks to a device Red made
Meanwhile, Red finds 4 Prof Panic energy sites in Pacific City
One is very close, so I go check it out. It's a Java Hut, of course
There's a female cop in the place who is giving off the signal
We tell Wright and ask her to keep an eye on this
The second signal is an older guy at the Demon's MC clubhouse
Third is the son of the local Liberal MP
Fourth is a young woman at Pacific City High
She goes to Mars tower ... at Superspeed
It's Jenny Rocket
We make arrangements with Babbage to meet her for "training"
Which for some reason is scheduled for 4am the next morning
This is more advanced than Robot Shift, but it is definitely a robot
Xo races Robot!Rocket and goes so fast the imposter shorts out
Red downloads all of Robot!Rocket's memories
171
The Vanguard are confused by our willingness to cooperate
Red goes back to Mars Tower with them to try and discover leads
I head back home and try to discover sleep
Red traces the android's origin back to the Canberra crater
Red also blabs all kind of stuff to Mars that will never ever EVER come back to bite us
Xo goes to see Danny
I'm ashamed I haven't yet made a joke about 'puppy love'
Xo is grumpy with Red
I make plans to go to a rave with Steve
SMAX assemble! At Mars tower
Mars has discovered that the robot was activated by the Damocles protocol
It has been active for about 3 months
We go to Canberra
Surprise surprise, someone has taken out the Vanguard
We go looking for them
"Give up your powers to the collective"
Star Trek wants their villains back, writer man
We ineffectually fight them
At least until Red gets involved and finishes the whole fight in one attack. Nice one, Red!
We find a major computer network: which is new
And Chiko and Jenny and a bunch of other people
Xo calls Mars to fill him in. He says he will call AEGIS
Red sets off the self-destruct. Nice one, Red
172
Red wakes up in the middle of a crater
In a different Canberra - one that looks like a warzone
I wake up in an apartment block
Surrounded by panicked, armed civilians
They insist I am an alien. Cabramatta really isn't that bad, people.
I get no answer from Xo on my phone. Then I try Red.
We meet up.
Aliens show up. They are not friendly.
We steal their ship. Not that we can fly it.
Red tries to figure stuff out.
I find a PC and google. There may have been 3 supers in this world, about 40 years ago.
Linked to Professor Panic
Are the Earth forces using Panic to try and fight the aliens?
Red traces Xo's phone.
It's underground at some fortifications - human forces
Captain Boxleitner, on loan from the US military
They've found Xo but she is badly burned (from the fight back home) and unconscious
All the people from Panic's base back home are also here
Professor Panic is indeed their weapons expert
He's got a plan to make lots of robotic soldiers with powers
No doubt this is all completely above board
Meanwhile, I assist in the evacuation of some civilians
Red thinks Panic might be siphoning powers out of the people in the pods
It turns out this will kill them
So nope, I won't be having that.
173
Oh look Panic has been building secret weapons for himself
We wreck the machine
It's going to blow!
We do just enough to prevent disaster
I hold off the army while Red turns off the pods
They don't much want to listen to the "don't murder people" logic
Red finds a way to power the robots without killing people
Panic is carted away and locked up
I google my birth name - I am missing, presumed dead in this reality
24 hours later Red thinks the machine is ready
He has also attempted to remove Panic's malicious code
The robots go out to fight the war
Later that night, Panic wants to see me
He claims to have a way back, if we agree to take him with us
I am not interested
(Though Red wants to take him back with us if we can, to stop him taking over this world)
They take us to a secret research base to look for a way home
Red finds a teleporter that can get us back
We just need a power source
Those big alien ships must have something that will suit, right?
174
We have a terrible plan to get inside the spaceship
This is true pretty much regardless which of our plans we use
Shift's luck is out
We beat up some aliens and hack their systems
Jenny Rocket rockets around
I steal a big crystal
This is bad for the ship
We escape the crashing ship, but the boss bad guy turns up
Red and Jenny take the crystal so we can be sure our people get home
Shift and I stay to fight the guy
We win because no-one really knows the new Cortex rules
They want to keep Panic. We're not going to fight them over it.
Somehow, Shift gets left behind
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