MutantHigh Episode 4: Deadzone

[Tokiwong]

"Fine, just fine." Clair says from inside the wreck to Shalimar, his head still spinning slightly from that crash. Shielding that many people isn't easy, but he had hoped he would be able to shield the aeroplane as well, apparently to no luck. He takes his time though, letting Joey and Eris talk to Domi the most, they were better at making some one feel comfortable than he was, really.

Finally getting out of the crashed jet, he makes his way towards the new girl. "Hi, my names Clair. Don't mind Joey, he acts the same around all of the pretty girls." Looking awkward for a moment, he continues, "The institute will probably be looking for us soon...hopefully. Until then, do you think we should try and find the rest of Domi's crew?"

Joey glances to Claire, "Glad you could join us, and yeah that was the plan to help Domi out, and then try and find out way home, and you forget the plane failed so any other plane or rechnology it seems will most likely fail, we may be on our own for awhile. Not bad though, we have supplies, and if we can get back to her encampment some maps."

 

[Aenion]

“It is a tourist trap, nice place to party, but not a great place to really relax. Hey getting into that magazine is no small feat that is cool. Your pretty cool betty Domi, definitely a change of pace from my normal company,” he says with a shrug.

“Not bad, but they tend to bicker with each other every now and then,” he replied with a smirk, while he scanned the tree line, “man I could go for a cerveza right about now.”

"Thanks Joey, you're pretty cool yourself," she says, "I guess all parents tend to do that."

"Hi Clair, nice to meet you too ... I figured he would do that," she greets Clair with a friendly smile, "All technology is down for miles around, maybe if we find this King Putumayo guy he can tell us what's causing it."

 

[Shalimar]

"I'll be fine without any supplies, so whoever is going to use the supplies needs to carry them for themselves." Eris says as she lowers the supply packs to the ground outside the reaper. "Can we start moving, I don't like being in this spot very much, we have all we need, so lets get moving." She hops down to the ground, letting her nose search for the path that Domi had used to arrive, and was therefore the way to the girls camp.

"They are very strict about somethings, not about others. It wasn't so much that we wanted to take out the Reaper, as they told us that we had trainging exercises and stuck us all on the Reaper to get us there, or something." Eris said, instinctively not liking the new girl on a primal level, she was enticing Joey away from Eris, and that made her competition. She couldn't be too glad when this little adventure ended and Domi went back with her parents, or wherever she would go.

 

[Radiant]

It is impossible to follow Mistral's trail since she was fyling high above the jungle. She herself can find the way back without so much trouble though since she just had to follow the river south.

 

[Radiant]

www.deltatimes.com
The truth can’t be silenced!

This ravaged planet:
Welcome back, admit it you missed me. Last time I talked a lot about history and America, but now it is time to take a look at the rest of the world. It is not as if one could learn a lot from the government controlled news. But don’t worry if you think we got it bad read on and you will find that the rest of the world followed us straight into this hell.

-South and Central America:
The lands south of the American border share one thing in common. With a few exceptions they’re all governed by by petty dictators popped up by the CIA or the KGB.
Remember then I told you that all the countries started wars like an addict who couldn’t get his stuff for too long after the vanishing? Well the ones down there never stopped. The whole continent is aflame in bushfire wars and guessing from the length they held this up it doesn’t look as if they intend to change that anytime soon. It is pretty useless to list who fights who since that changes so fast that the new would be old before I can write it down. Most of Central and South America is just the kind of unstable banana republic you’ve heard about in the news. Anticommunist fascists-or just about anyone else supportive of the US Military government-are supported by the CIA. The other side gets their weapons and money from the Russians. That make’s a really great mix for a party. Even the drug lords war with each other over both customers and prime croplands.
What does all this mean for us?
In this case assume “us” means delta. Well, in these lands, deltas are a prized commodity. If you powers are revealed you can expect a visit from government, the local drug lord or depending on how the region stands politically even Delta Prime or Crimson Pride.
Maybe even all of the above. If you refuse to enter the services of your visitors-which can pay pretty damn well by the way-well let’s just say a lot of good deltas have disappeared in the jungle and never been heard of again.
Of course there are some exceptions.

Mexico:
America’s neighbour to the south is by far one of the most unstable countries in the entire hemisphere. The fascist government is constantly fighting of coup attempts from within and rebellious guerrillas from the various provinces.
The Mexican government has changed hands over 20 times in the past 40 years, and the delta policy has bounced up and down like a kid on a trampoline. It all depends on who’s in power.
This week, the country’s being run by General Juan Alberto Gutierrez.
Alberto managed to claw his way to power in a bloody, delta backed coup he led himself. That’s right, Alberto’s a delta. Even worse his own group of mutants known as “Los Diablos” had a at least two dozen men at that time. That easily double their usual number, talk is that the rest where members of the Killer Angels (yeah I know the names sound ridiculous to me too). That was before they freed Reaver from prison a while ago and since then they have not been seen there. If that means there holy prophet does not approve of it or something else entirely is anyone’s guess.
Unfortunately the fact that their leader is a mutant doesn’t mean that the Mexican government’s all that friendly to deltas. After all, deltas are the of Alberto’s power so he does not want them out of his grasp.

Costa Rica:
Costa Rica’s almost like a slice of heaven on earth, especially if you’re a delta. First of all, it’s a tropical paradise with miles of pristine beaches and unspoiled jungles and oceans. But that’s not all. The elected president of Costa Rica is Senora Marta Allende Alonzo. Allende is beutifull, distinguished women in her late ‘50s-and she’s a delta.
Deltas are free citizens in Costa Rica, accorded the rights of any other citizen.
However it’s not all perfect there, the borders of the country are ravaged warzones since Panama, Columbia, El Salvador and about anyone else around stage incursions on a regular basis. At least the country takes a lot less fire than it’s neighbors since it never stages attacks on it’s own. There is also the fact that sometimes invaders get their asses handed to them by one of the immigrants. Costa Rica is the target for many deltas fleeing from their home countries and sometimes they get a little angry then people start shooting at their new home. The country has almost four times the mutant population of any of the states surrounding it.

 

[Radiant]

www.deltatimes.com
The truth can’t be silenced!

-Europe:
Europe is just as fractious now as it has been since World War 2. These days, the conflicts are rarely between countries. Instead most of the problems come from within. In the last few years the whole thing has grown together into the European Community but most countries are so busy with themselves that they rarely get to decide anything. It is amazing they even managed to decide on a common currency but even that was not accepted by some major players like Britain.

France:
The French have the most laissez-faire attitude about deltas in all of Europe. They pretty much treat them all the same: They don’t like any of them and they wish they’d go away. It’s not that the French actively persecute deltas. They leave that to their government. They just seem to resent them on a personal level. They seem to find people flying around in the air or bouncing of the sides of buildings gauche.
There are is only one restriction law against deltas in France. It is pretty long but basically it says “don’t ever use your powers”. If your genes carry the delta factor there you can live on normally but if you ever use your powers you get locked away for life, that’s it. There are no exceptions, even if you do it to safe someone’s life or such. There also is only a single agency responsible for handling these problems. It’s simply called “Noir” and they show up then ever a mutant broke the law and take him away. They always show up with big white really high tech looking trucks and wear completely sealed of suits that make them look like they played in “Outbreak”. If you broke the law-remember it? After all it’s only one-they come and take you away. No one knows there and no one they took ever showed up again. Creeps me out.

Germany:
Germany was pretty much shattered at the end of WW2. The entire country ended up under allied control after the was, much to the soviets dismay. At the end they didn’t have any Alphas around to argue with Superior, so they just let the argument go. In later years they’d come to regret having given up any claim to the industrial giant, but there really wasn’t much they could do about it. Now the country is close to being the small clone of the US. Whatever we did here the Germans followed a few years later. Unfortunately that also means that they are now ruled by a military government and have a law very similar to the delta registration act. They even have their own small version of Delta Prime, the KDK-Kommado Delta Kräfte- and the primers sometimes even send over teachers. For most Germany is just the arm of the US in Europe and that isn’t far from the truth.

Great Britain:
Britain has it’s own watered down version of the delta registration act but at least it’s not as bad. You still have to register and if you don’t they lock you away but if you do nothing really happens. You loose some of your right and can be sure that you will be questioned for every petty crime that happens in your neighbourhood but they don’t draft you in the military without even asking. The really bad thing is that everyone will know that you are a delta, it even says so in your passport. They have the rapid response teams of the boobies to take care of any delta problems and these actions are famous for their lack of blood. Unlike most other forces with the same job the rapid response team prefer to catch their targets alive. Britain’s deltas mostly thanked that with not trying to kill them either. Of course there are casualties but they are a lot lower than in other places. Also if they catch you, you get one last chance to avoid going to prison. You can join the delta knights. This group consists only of conscripts who haven’t registered and are used as a special forces for the most dangerous tasks. They are much like Delta Prime but unlike them they are not picked only from the best and trained to perfection. On the other hand they are all there on free will so who can say what is better. Casualties are high among them but if you serve for five years you can retire. You get registered and can live on with your life or take a job with the police or the military.

Ireland:
Ireland is a lot like Britain with the exceptions that their police action a bit more bloody and that that the place is crawling with heavily armed factions. These people don’t have much to do with deltas as such but sometimes you here really bad news about them getting involved in the conflict. The worst part to date was when a rather explosive alpha Catholic was attacked by some loyalist thugs and decided he had enough. The guy had the power to blow up parts of his body and later regenerate them (at least I guess so, alphas where not know for having drawback with their powers). No one knows why but he must have been so angry he decided enough was enough and just blew himself up. Completely. Most of the downtown of Derry was levelled by the blast. Thousands where dead in an instant. At least he did not have much control over the explosion-I guess because he was dead- and it went mostly skyward, otherwise the whole city might have been destroyed. You’d think that kind of disaster would give people pause to think, but in fact it just made things worse as blame for the incident was tossed around faster than bullets. In retaliation for the “terrorist act”, the Irish Parliament was blown up three month later with a good old bomb. It’s gotten worse since.

Italy:
Italy was on the loosing end of WW”, and it’s been paying ever since, Still the military leaders seem to have a soft spot in their heart for it. You rarely hear of efforts to destabilize the government. In fact the Italian government is one of the most stable in Europe or even the world. (Besides the US of course, you can’t get it much more stable than 40 years without a change in the ruling regime, except for deaths of old age.) That’s likely because it is reputedly the most corrupt. The Cosa Nostra has its hand in just about everything that goes on in Italy, and that alone keeps things running smoothly. It reminds me a bit of old Chicago that way.
The only exception is the Vatican, The pope and his cadre of delta powered Catholics known as the Covenant see themselves as above petty politics, even in Italy.
Since the pope declared delta powers a gift from god that must be used for the good of mankind you can be pretty safe as long as you work in some official capacity or for the church. But if you don’t there is nothing to prevent the usual anti-mutant history from catching up with you.

Spain:
Spain has been rocked by a civil war that’s been going on for decades. The bright side is that there are no laws against mutants there but on the other hand they get caught up in the same trouble as everyone else. The mood in the populace is not too favourable for them but it could be worse. The Basque separatists in the northern part of the country have never stopped their terrorist actions. That has not made it into the news for most of the time since they did not have that much power but recently they managed to recruit a few local mutants. One or more of those must have been members of the Killer Angels, because nearly a year ago they started to blow up Spanish officials. In exchange for the help the Basques promised that an independent Basque state would accord every delta the rights of a full citizen and take them in regardless of their criminal record in other countries. Believe it if you like.

 

[Tokiwong]

Joey grabs a pack of supplies, "Just in case, Domi lead the way back to your encampment, and lets get out of here."

Joey walks beside Eris, "Thanks for getting the supplies."

 

[Shalimar]

Eris, nods and turns to walk into the jungle, leaving the ration packs for the others. She turns back before taking more then a step. "Your laying it on awful thick J, a girl could get jealous." she says in a husky whisper, rubbing her shoulder on his arm as she moves past him, if Domi were another Feral, she would know that Eris had just scent marked Joey, then again, if she was truly a feral, that might have led to some very close competition.

 

[Robbert Raets]

As the other discussed the next course of action, Jack drew his bruised, acheing body out from the cockpit. "Good thing I was wearing my combat uniform", he said, as he examined the shattered armor plates on his arms. He stripped off the now-useless uniform, revealing the swimming trunks and the too-small G.I. Joe tshirt he wore underneath. Standing on top of the Reaper, he tried to get his bearings and tested his Snare on a four-inch bug that flew by.
"Um... is there any bug repellent in those supplies? Or emergency pants?"

 

[Shalimar]

"Do you really want to get the bugs to leave you alone? Just break off the head of a match and swallow it, the sulfur will get into your bloodstream, they'll pick up on it and it will leave you alone, then again, not many people like that solution, scaredy cats." Eris says, as she takes a last sniff around the Reaper to see if there is anything else useful, like a gun oil from a recently cleaned gun, or anything at all.