Paranoia: Happiness is just a laserblast away

[Caz]

"Scrubot," Colgate addressed it, "did you kill that man?"

All the while her hand rested on the wrist of her cyborg arm.

[B4UTRUST]

"I," the bot begins to stammer.
"I don't know! I don't think I did. The last thing I remember is..."

The bot stopped and leds on the top of its case began to flash wildly as it tried to process data. The leds winked off and it stood still. When it finally spoke again it was in a deeper monotone voice.
"I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything!"

[Caz]

"If you didn't kill him, then help us find who did," Colgate said.

[B4UTRUST]

"That's not really my job, Citizen. I clean and that's it..."

About then Colgate's PDC beeped signaling another incoming msg.


The lights on the Scrubot dimmed. It made noises like it was sniffing the air.
"DIRTY! UNCLEAN!" the scrubot shouted, its cleaning brush whirling to life with malious intent, droplets of blood flinging off in a spray. "VILE!"

The scrubot surged forward, cleaning instruments moving up and down, various cleaning products spraying out, causing the room to fill with a mix of lemon and pine freshness.
"PURGE THE FILTH!"

[Caz]

Colgate didn't even think, simply turned up the knob on her cyborg arm and pushed the button. A bright streak of fire shot out toward the bot, and Colgate leapt back as she watched the various brushing attachments burst into flames.

"--I thought that was a laser--!" she said to herself with wide eyes.

[B4UTRUST]

As the flames hit the scrubot the cleaning sprays likewise burst into flames, creating minature flamethrowers around the scrubot. The brushes on it burnt off, mixing the smell of burnt hair with the lemony freshness. The metal of the frame blackened as it continued forward on its attack course.
"VILE! UNCLEAN!" screamed the scrubot again. "Mr. Bubbles says take me off the list!"

[Caz]

Colgate realised what the problem was, then, and as she ran safely out of the bot's path, she fumbled with her PDC, selecting the option to be taken off the mailing list.

[Dark Silver]

John, staying having safely stayed out of the room, but well within earshot distance, looked in once Colgate had clicked the link.

"It went nuts after you got that unsolicited PDC-mail. It reminds me of this time in ILF Sector, when I was interrogating this Commie Mutant Traitor...everytime he heard a word, he'd go lagityfoo and zap his interrogator with energy bolts...." of course John went into the entire story while holding his Laser Pistolon the Scrubot.

[B4UTRUST]

(OoC: Background music for this scene: Terminator Theme Song)

As the link was clicked on Colgate's PDC another message popped up on hers.


The scrubot advanced on the troubleshooters as the others' PDCs likewise beeped with incoming messages.



The makeshift flamethrowers formed of the ignited cleaning spray were turned towards the three, merging the flames into one large pyro of cleaning fury. It continued its deadly advance towards the troubleshooters, spraying more cleaning solutions into the flames, making them grow in size and heat.
"CLEANSE! PURGE! KILL!"

[Dark Silver]

Thinking Quickly, John moved behind Jim, while firing off his laser pistol at the Scrubot, screaming at the top of his lungs as he did so.

"DON'T KILL ME!! DON'T KILL ME! DON'T KILL ME!"

[Josh]

Jim took discretion to be the better part of valor and turned, running directly into John as he went, screaming bravely at the top of his lungs.

[Caz]

Colgate ran back into the office, slamming the door behind her with little to no concern for the fate of her fellow troubleshooters.

[B4UTRUST]

As Jim turned and slammed into John the two spilled to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs once more. This was beginning to become a regular event for them it seemed.

As John fell a can of B3 slipped out of his pocket. The can hit the ground hard and bounced three more times before rolling to a well-shaken stop in the path of the scrubot. The scrubot's flames began to grow in intensity, moving from oranges and reds up towards blues and whites.

The can began to bubble from the growing ambient heat. As the scrubot grew nearer to it the can ruptured. When it did it exploded, a miniature mushroom cloud appearing in its wake.

The scrubot was blown to pieces, sending shrapnel everywhere, carried along the shockwave of the B3 explosion and added its own secondary explosion as its power pack containment failed, another mushroom cloud appearing.

The door that Colgate was hiding behind was blown inward by the titanic forces, throwing her against the wall behind her, squished into a fine grease by the steel door following her path into the wall.

Shrapnel flew in every direction, shards of metal and sprays of firey cleaning fluids ejecting every which way. The flaming solvents stuck to whatever they touched, burning brightly.

Sadly one of the things that the fluid stuck to was Jim. A pine-fresh flame enveloped his back. The burning would hurt. A lot. His hair likewise caught on fire and his skin bubbled, blackened and cracked. His pain was short lived however. A piece of metal passed cleanly through his back, through his heart, made a fine mince of his lungs and left an equally large hole in his chest as it penetrated John's torso, pinning him through the heart. The blood that pooled under them quickly dried as the heat burned their corpses. The can of B3 that John had given Jim blew then as well, creating a sizeable hole in the catwalk above the foodvat they were on. Synthmetal railing and synthconcrete flooring fell along with the few remains of their broken and charred corpses into the churning foodvats below, adding their nutrional values to the food that would be produced for that evenings meal. Who knew, they might even be lucky to reclaim some of their own nutrional value with their next clone! Oh happy daycycle!

Thier death was not alone, however. The film crew, FX engineer and Harry-Y likewise plumeted to their nutrition inducing deaths. A few moments later the fire supression systems kicked in and flooded the foodvat with a synth-halon gas. The RED clearance IntSec guard quickly donned his gas mask. The INFRAREDs behind him were, however, not so fortunate. Nearly half of them died from toxic exposure and almost 3/4ths of the survivors sustained injuries from shrapnel, splashes of boiling food vat goo or being crushed underneath the bodies of their INFRARED coworkers.

About 10 minutes later, the troubleshooter clones arrived back at the foodvat...

[Josh]

Jim-R-Bum-2 stared at the carnage that was the remnants of his predecessor and whistled, hands in his pockets.

Well, better Jim-R-Bum-1 than he, right? Of course, this meant he was now exposed to a grisly fate. He gulped nervously and waited for somebody to tell him what to do.

[Caz]

Colgate-R-NAF-2 stepped in shortly after Jim did, surveying the scene and not even able to find the remnants of her past self.

"So," she said. "I believe the bot has been taken care of."

[Dark Silver]

John-R-BKL-3 came to the debris, and cussed loudly in Jim-2's ear.

"That's just great, just great. I'm already one my third self, you worthless...." John kept grumbling as he looked at the wreckage.

"Ah well....at least our work is done!"

[B4UTRUST]

A few moments later the crew of Shooters showed back up with Harry-Y in the lead.
"Troubleshooters!" he shouted happily. "That was great! Monumentous! Exhilirating! Now lets keep it up. Now that you've managed to persevere and overcome the deadly scrubot you're free to investigate the gruesome murder inside the office."

He held his hand up and began counting down.
"Roll in 4, 3, 2, 1, and action!" he cried as he swung his hand down.
"And welcome back to 'Shooters!' Last time the shooters faced the perilous mad scrubot. The team managed to beat back the obviously traitorous bot and save Alpha Complex from uncertain forms for destruction. Now they prepare to investigate the cause of this heinous murder. Lets join them!"

Harry-Y walked over to the team, the cameraman following.
"So tell me faithful troubleshooters, how do you all plan to go about investigating the murder? What clues have you found? What exactly do you think was the reason the scrubot murdered this citizen?"