Kelly, who had been through this song and dance before and had picked up some of the magic words, was quick to react.

"Stand down soldier!"  It was in a military(ish) tone and cadence (Kelly didn't really remember most of the world before the war after all, what cultural references she did have were from her parents).

Poor Dean and Delilah both were soon the victim of having Kelly, who had scrambled to interceded, in their face.

"No time to explain but you set off the big guy's crazy code.  If you want this to not go poorly for everyone present, fucking play Simon Says with me like your life depended on it."

She was just barely old enough to know Simon Says was a pre-war children's game and this is where the jokes the Templars told came from.

"By the... peace officer martial law emergency powers authorization act of... last year... from the... the government yeah that's it that said I, Kelly MacLeod, am a duly appointed and authorized authority... officer... of the... government place you under... arrest.  You have the right to... the usual stuff.  I don't have to say what.  It's in the, uh, martial law emergency powers authorization act of last year.  Place your... hands on your head."

It was the least convincing performance since the last pre-war child had plead the dog ate his homework.  Kelly really had no idea what she was even trying to say, she had, by trial and error, learned certain magic words seemed to, well, produce results.  Harry could tell her what to say, but he also couldn't, like now.  Kelly could only stare at the strangers and hope to God and all the saints they went along with this madness.

Fletcher's eyes went wide as he caught only the last part of Kelly's "game" and not the quiet first part about "playing along."  He just caught the part about "arrest" and "place your hands on your head."  The mechanic goggled in surprise, dove for the ground, and put his hands over his head protectively, "Whatthefuckhellshit!"

He cracked a half smile but didn't respond.  Too public and too many ears for him to make a wise crack about laps.  Ah well!  He did a tiny nod of acknowledgement as they moved at the same pace but didn't say anything.  They were together in this; wasn't going to leave her hanging.

As they got closer, he heard the 'borg in the rig start yelling as the blond started rushing up.  He narrowed his eyes a bit.  "If that's all it takes to set the 'borg off, he either needs to get fixed or he's going to need to be put down before he kills someone," he muttered softly.  Wouldn't be the first time they had to put someone down who didn't really deserve it but there'd been no other options.

He'd been there, fighting the Combine's 'borgs during the battles so he knew how tough they could be.  But he wasn't exactly eager to be a Combine prisoner, even if it was just 'play time'.  He opened his mouth after the blond, Kelly it was, mangled the whole Miranda Rights thing in an attempt to 'fake arrest' them.  But before he could say anything or even 'comply', he staggered a step, clearly wincing in shock or pain from something.  With one hand pressed to the side of his head and the other extended forward, he staggered/stumbled the last few step until until his hand was pressed against the armored front of the rig...

OOC: I'm just assuming there is a version of Miranda rights before the world ended...
This message was last edited by the player at 12:00, Tue 08 Jan 2019.

The first thing Kelly got from Delilah was decidedly not cooperation. More of a funny look. That mystified, vaguely-insulted expression of someone dying to say, 'what the actual fuck are you doing?' Then the gears turned a little quicker, 2 and 2 were added together, and realization dawned in her eyes. So did a sharp twitch at being told she was the one under arrest.

Delilah shifted her gaze to the hulking mass of man and metal in the cab, and her eyes narrowed with a quiet anger. Her relationship with people of the cybernetic persuasion wasn't one of daisies and sunshine, and the way her lip quivered and contorted into an involuntary snarl, well, that communicated her distrust in a way words never could. "We ain't gonna kill anybody, Dean, until they do something to deserve it." The whole time she spoke, Del's teeth never separated, clenched together hard enough to make her jaw bulge.

That didn't change when she turned her attention to Kelly and slowly raised her hands up, fingers lacing at the back of her head and cracking as she flexed them against each other. "Sword-babe, you gotta work on your law- and soldier-speak," she hissed. "I got a little experience-- Dean?" The other waster staggered and stumbled as though possessed, and possessed wasn't an ideal state for anybody, so sayeth the Book of Delilah Wolf.

And just like that, Delilah lost that day's round of Simon Says. Or Kelly Says, as she'd hopefully live to joke about. Hands off her head, knuckles white against the grip of her revolver and all too ready for the smell of gunpowder to fill the air, Delilah couldn't decide between Harry or Kelly to glare at accusingly. She compromised by flitting between the two like a paranoid tweaker, feet scuffing the dirt as she made a little space between herself and the definitely-not-a-Templar. "The hell you do to him?!"

Harry felt the twitching subside a little, and sighed with relief. He began clambering out of the cab, looking at the woman with the clenched teeth and the hand on her pistol. he sighed again, this time with much less relief and more exasperation.

"Right. I have a little script I'm supposed to follow." He says, and points his chainsaw arm dramatically at Delilah. "Know that this vehicle and its contents are protected by the Armed forces of the United States of America." He rolls his eyes. "Not that the USA exists anymore, but tell the damn chip that. Anyhoo, I am to warn you that any attempt to molest, waylay, or confiscate this vehicle or the goods therein will be construed as an act of aggression and will provoke a retaliatory response."

He sighs for a third time. "And I am really sorry about this. I was canned up North, and whoever programmed my chip marked the Texas Rangers as 'hostile military personnel' instead of 'local law enforcement.' It thinks you're trying to illegally seize the Black Dog."

Eldridge Johnson had calmly put his hands over his head as asked, not questioning.  He didn't look afraid, per say, but....concerned.  To be fair, he had many things to be concerned about in this situation.  As the Cyborg stepped down to explain, the old man asked quietly, "So are we good now, son?  I am pretty sure my people behind me are deciding just what to do about this...  And frankly, they don't always make the best decisions..."

Harry shrugs as best he can, posed as he is with his chainsaw arm outstretched. "That depends a great deal on what she does." he says. "She's the one with the badge and a hand on her gun."

The Black Dog's engine rumbled easily.  None of the sputtering or knocking you might get with almost every truck still kicking around these broken highways.  Just like the day it rolled off the lot...

"I'm here to protect your fuckin' truck, not annex it! Now whatever you did to Dean, cut it out!" Delilah, in her infinite wisdom, stepped forward and placed the brim of her hat against the chainsaw. Given she was almost a full two feet smaller than Harry, a chipmunk standing up to a bear might have come to mind.

"And tell your damn control chip I ain't actually a Ranger. My dad was, before, but most law enforcement buddied up and stopped worrying about the borders a long time ago." Her eyes crossed around the chainsaw as she looked up at Harry. "Which... I guess sorta makes me a U.S. Deputy? There's an idea! Hey, if Sword-babe deputizes me with her... 'Peace officer martial law act,' can we stop the pissing contest and you stop whatever it is you're doing to Mitchel?"

"You hear that, chip?" Harry asked.

Processing...
...
...
Impersonating an officer is a federal offence. Directive: Deliver the offender to the nearest peace officer.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Harry grunts. "Now it wants me to arrest you for impersonating an officer!" He looks at Kelly. "Look, it recognizes your authority. Want to try the deputy route? And who's Dean?" He looks over and finally sees the man leaning against the truck in obvious pain. "Um...that isn't my doing. I have no idea..." He frowned. "Ok, maybe I have one idea."

He reached out with his datalink to the Black Dog's systems. Hey! Are you doing that to him? Knock it off!
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Tue 08 Jan 2019.

The engine's tenor changed and smoothed out the moment his hand touched the steel grill but that went completely unnoticed by Dean.  His right hand dropped from his head and matched the left.  His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened on the edge of the hood.  His face broke out in sweat and his jaw clenched tightly as he waged his invisible war.

"...not ...them.  It's... Driver... In anguish.  Loss... Longing... for home... for her," he managed to get out through clenched teeth.  "I said NO," he growled to no one apparently but his strained voice was not giving, not breaking.  He'd been through a few kinds of hell already.  This might be new but he'd never broken before and he was damn sure not going to start today, no matter how new this was.

His body, rigid and taunt, suddenly sagged as if all the pressure suddenly left.  His knees buckled but he caught himself on the hood before he fell.  Pulling himself back up, he patted the hood gently.  "I hear you.  Patience pal.  No more of that shit and I'll help," he said softly, stepping back and breaking contact with the truck.

It was only then he looked around, getting his bearings once more.  He took in the situation and gave a quick nod of assurance to Delilah.  "I'm ok.  Was a bit rough there but we worked it out for now," he assured before wiping the sweat from his face.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:48, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Kelly's only response before speaking again was a sigh and a look that said she knew it all well by now and then a look of frustration that in this situation, the least dangerous thing was the damn gun.  What a messed up life she had sometimes.

She looked at Harry.  It was hard to tell how much he could say sometimes, that damned Chip wasn't even consistent with how much lee way it gave him.  She thought she had the general idea, probably not exactly what Harry was thinking, but she'd try.  Not necessarily to solve the problem but to calm the damn thing down.  Harry was still a strange animal to her owing to the incongruity between his physical power and what she saw as vulnerability in his free will.  It was an abstract thing she had a hard time with, having spent much of her life being taught the hard way that physical power was freedom.

She spoke up again loudly and awkwardly, now obviously for the benefit of a certain party neither living nor dead.  "Look.  Uh, by the... power of... the government vested in me, I order you into my... custody.  So no one in law enforcement should be killing you.  Right."

Kelly feared, without ever having discussed it with Harry for fear the damn thing might take it the wrong way, that if this glitchy digital demon could confuse Kelly for a bona fide United States Official In Charge of Everything (as Kelly could best grasp it), someone else who knew a hell of a lot more about how the world used to work back then could say the right words and "hijack" him using that... that thing.  Or worse, someone much like Kelly who wasn't so lucky and who had no idea how it worked could set him off on an irredeemable killing spree.

That was a pretty horrible thought either way, and not one she could live with, it hit too close to home.  Kelly knew what slavery was first hand, but at least her slavery had been reversible.

But presently more immediate matters focused her attention.  Her first instinct was to wring this woman's neck for provoking The Death Machine.  She wanted to yell, go on a tirade, make threats... No.

Doing something weird, Kelly put herself where both Harry and his miniature antagonist could see her, then gingerly put down the lever action rifle around her shoulder and took a stance.  A horse stance, for the trained eye, and began to do something to make her body flow, resembling Kanku Dai, though that particular form wasn't known to her.  Still, it wasn't dissimilar and it was apparently a slow series of methodical poses, stances and strikes against non-existent opponents.  It was slow, rhythmic, like a well rehearsed dance.

"Not all problems can be solved with pistols, swords, or willfulness.  None of these things will defeat the death warrior standing before you.  If you wish to win, you must do something he cannot do, for the cruel savagery of man has taken it from him."

"Sometimes, you must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Water can drip and it can crash.  Become like water, for your opponent cannot."

She stopped her strange display with a bow and added.

"Because well if you don't... Harry and I do have a deal if someone who doesn't know what they're doing aggravates his chip I'm supposed to do my best to keep him from doing something he really doesn't want to do, but I'm not going to waste that futile one time trick."

Delilah stood there, head cocked, squinting, and all she could really do was blink. And blink again. And a few more times, just in case this was a mirage or she had been drinking much more than she thought the day before.

Her first instinct, all said and done, was not a good one, but there were wills beyond the Law Dog's at work. There was a soft sizzle, she winced in pain, and let go of her revolver.

Bringing her burn-scarred right hand away from the danger zone that was her belt, Del blew on irritated red skin that had a few thin wisps of smoke curling off of it.

"I am so lost right now, y'all," she sighed. "Dean, if you say you're alright... I guess I can play along with this little role-play y'all got for keeping Bigness from sawin' folks, but Mr. Johnson, if she does anymore interpretive dances then I'm gonna have to insist on a bonus."

Del gritted her teeth and shook her head softly at Kelly. "Please, please no more dances."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:27, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Kelly didn't bother with corrections or explanations.  After all the point had been to be vexing to both of them.  It had worked.

"Good.  I accept your surrender, and uh... mitigate your life sentence by deputizing you as my subordinate deputy officer.  You hear that!?"

But she did stop her weirdness for the moment at least.  Being weird was getting to be so common for her she had lost any sense of shame.

"Commute, is how they said it back before. You commute my sentence." Del whispered. If Kelly was going to do this a lot, the least Del felt she could do is help make it convincing. 'Borgs were big on terminology, in her experience.

"Uh, I plead guilty and acknowledge your ruling, Officer. Thank you for the chance to serve this country?" She forced out, stilted and reluctant though it was.

Harry blinked at the interpretive dance bit himself, but felt his chip relenting as Delilah eased off her gun and Kelly pronounced her sentence. He lowered his arm and sagged against the Black Dog.

"Well, that was more than a little embarrassing." He said. He nodded at Dean. "Sounds like you've felt The Driver's touch. Also sounds like you can hear him clearer than any of us can, which could be good. I've been trying to figure out ways I can make it so we can talk to him directly so he doesn't pull that shit on us. I'd really like to have an actual chat with that thing, rather than him trying to leap into our minds or drain us when he wants to chat."

He looks over at Delilah. "See, the Black Dog is haunted. The spirit within draw something out of it's crew, some sort of energy that it uses to keep itself going. That's why it's in such good condition...and if the CSA still existed, it's the sort of thing that both The Agency and the Texas Rangers would have tried to keep a lid on. I don't know if you know about the epic pissing contests that happened between those two. Hell, before I was Canned and turned into an Agency enforcer, I didn't know much about it. But suffice to say, those pissing contests got extra vicious toward the end. Neither side trusted the other." He shrugs. It's much easier now that he's not having to hold his chainsaw arm at the ready. "Since I was Agency property, I was programmed with Agency protocols. One of those directives was to protect Agency assets from seizure by the Rangers. And anyone else, really. So again, I'm sorry. I'm a tin can with prewar paranoia hardwired into the box that keeps the demon inside me from going on a horrible rampage. I didn't mean to spook y'all."

Mr. Johnson lowered his hands and turned to hold up an "All Good" thumbs up to the militia squad...and probably the gun crews on the wall.  Some of the squad lowered their weapons...some hadn't raised them anyway.  The gun crews and guns didn't visibly change anything.  At least they don't seem to be a trigger happy bunch.

Turning back, he settled a long, judgemental look on Harry even as he answered the platinum pistolero's question, "You're /already/ getting hazard pay."  Whatever his thoughts on Wolf and Mitchel's behavior, it was obviously not his main concern.  He didn't look away from Harry, but somehow indicated that his further conversation was to the cyborg, "We all have burdens.  You got stuck with a bad one with no fault of your own, sounds like.  It doesn't do you any favors in the trust department though....nor does this...haunted truck thing...."  He scratched at his chin, looking tired for a moment like he still can't quite believe the world he's living in, "But...  We're in a bind.  Deal's already struck on Turk's vouching for you.  So.  Here we all are.  I hope to hell you folks can get these trucks out to Lockesburg."  He cast his look now from Harry...to Kelly....to the Black Dog...then back again to the two representing the truck, "Tell me something that'll make me feel better when I head back in.  Lie if you have to."

Fletcher slowly, carefully, took this time to stand up.  He brushed himself off quietly, looking around.  He didn't say a word.  Just look embarrassed.  Vainly hopeful that, with everything else going on, no one took too much notice of his dive to the dirt.

The truck continued to rumble idly.  Patiently waiting for the show to get on the road.  As truck's do.

Back Inside The Cab of the Black Dog - Martin and Prudence
<OOC: GM posting on behalf of Martin for now>

Martin had started to elaborate on Harry's terse, if accurate description, "Yeah, literally...  The whole place was burning and it kinda...got in my head and helped me drive us out...  Never drove anything near so big before."  He paused, considering, "Or been driven..."  He trailed off as Harry seemed to start losing his shit.  Being in the small, cramped cab of a truck with a cyborg that suddenly didn't seem as in control of himself was distracting.  Martin decided to, for the moment, shut the heck up so as not to make whatever was going on with the big guy somehow worse...

Once Harry had climbed down from the cab though, Martin relaxed.  A bit.  He leaned forward to watch the scene below but opted not to get out.  To Prudence, he offered, "So...  Yeah.  We're all kinda still gettin' to know one another."  After a beat, he added, defensively on behalf of Harry and in what he hoped was a positive and supporting tone, "He's a really good driver.  The big guy."
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:28, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Harry shrugs. "Think of it this way...you have a crew that you know for a fact will fight to protect your cargo, and a truck that will probably outlast us all hauling it."

Kelly knew better than to make a principled argument at the moment.

"That's the worst I've ever seen him, and it's when he was deliberately provoked."  She stepped closer and talked in a low voice.

"You haven't seen the things he can do."

Dean blinked at the tense situation and Kelly's resolution methods and raised an eyebrow.  It was bizarre, to him anyway, and if he knew her at all, he'd be asking.  Either way, it worked he guessed.  At least there wasn't the threat of any gunfire or other violence.

Still eyeing Kelly as she stood back up, he gave a quick nod to Delilah.  "I'm good," he said, giving himself a mental shake and focusing on the other host of issues they were going to be babysitting.  JOY.

"Haunted truck trying to take over and possess people.  A 'borg who can loose control and start killing innocent people because he sees an image.  Plus the normal hazards we're going to face," he said with a shake of his head.  "Just to be clear, you loose control and kill an innocent, I'm going to mark you as hostile.  Same goes for the rig.  On that front, hopefully he and I came to an arrangement but will have to see," he said with a shrug.  There was no venom or hostility.  But he wasn't going to let that go.  It was like people playing catch with a grenade without the pin solidly secured; a ridiculous risk.  If he was aggressive in his intent or preemptive, he wouldn't have said anything.  Tactically probably was stupid if the situation ever happened.  But he owed them the honesty; unstable or not, they were on the same squad now.  "Maybe.  I've seen worse.  Most of us probably have.  The sucker punch caught me off guard admittedly," he remarked with a twitch of one shoulder.

"Anyway, yeah, we had a connection.  A sort of conversation.  Your 'Driver' is or was trying to get someone to help him.  Take him home, find someone he cared for.  If he stops with the possessing and attacks, I said I'd help," he explained, if someone vaguely, with a little shrug.  "We'll see if he keeps up his end."  He looked to Johnson.  "You hired us.  We'll get it done," he said simply.  Pointless coddling of people's feelings was not in his skill set.

"So, anything else anyone want to explain or try to start a fight with?  Or can we get this job moving?"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 02:06, Thu 10 Jan 2019.

Delilah gave Dean a little bemused smile and, in a regular Christmas miracle, restrained herself from sharing her thoughts on Harry and Kelly's... Reassurances.

"Yeah, no, let's get the trailers hitched and get a move on. By 'let's' I mean y'all," she gestured broadly to Harry and, to a lesser extent, Kelly and Dean. "Those hitches are heavy as shit, and I am not built for heavy as shit - no pun intended, Bigness. Shotgun!"

She wasn't completely clear what that meant, but it's something the older kids she grew up with liked to yell on the way to any mode of transport. Seemed like the thing to yell, although there was rarely an actual shotgun involved back then.

"I wouldn't worry about that." Harry says with a mirthless smile. "I won't be the one starting fights." He drops the smile. "I do finish 'em, though."

He heads over to the trailer to get it ready.