Highway Hooligans & Team Shift Happens
Stage 8
Cody looks around at the camp in the dark, quiet hours just before sunrise. The big furry fellows were definitely asleep, as was most of the camp. He pulls out a roll of electrical tape and starts covering cameras on the bus, giggling quietly as he wanders around. As a last act of defiance, he scribbles “Ha Ha” on a sticky note and adheres it over one of the front mounted cameras. His seeds of chaos now sown, Cody sneaks back over to the Ishu, chuckling quietly the whole time.
Kivenaal sighs as the alarms go off, announcing it was time to get up and start the long, tedious process of preparing to leave camp. Breakfast, pack Jayde’s tent into the Cargo-Trailer-of-Holding, get everyone onboard the bus and buckled in, inevitably have to wait an extra 10 minutes for Lauren to get off the bus and go pee, get out of the camp and onto a road, then enable the self-driving AI.
Like most days, things went pretty much exactly to plan, with the exception that it was Malavera who needed the toilet break instead of Lauren. The solution, crude and disgusting as it was, that Mal took to remedy the problem was simply to stand in the rear doorway, unzip, and let fly into the grass before straightening up his clothes and getting into his seat.
Things went great up until Kivenaal hit the switch to let the AI take over, and within 2 seconds, it piled on the brakes with enough force to nearly unseat everyone, as well as causing things in the rear shelving unit to crash around.
“Mal, Tak, your AI is being stupid again,” Kivenaal calls out.
Takaraya wanders forward and takes a look at the debug screen.
Sensor_Conflict_Resolution - Too Close to Vehicle Ahead.
“Seems to think there’s a vehicle in front of us,” Takaraya replies with a shrug. “Come on, everyone, let’s go see if there’s leaves on the sensors again.”
Most of the crew leave the bus, though Kiva, Jayde, Kasiya, and Inaelus stay on.
Mal peels the sticky note off of the front of the bus and holds it up for Kiva to see. “Someone’s fuckin’ with us.”
“May their whole fuckin’ team have an interesting night, then,” Jayde grumbles.
Five hours later, they’d found all of the little pieces of tape stuck all over various cameras and sensors, peeled them up, and disposed of them in the wastebasket by the front door. The bus makes a mostly-trouble-free trip into the latest camp, spotting a grinning set of Hooligans grabbing some beers out of the back of their Ishu Astrion with a trailer bodged onto it.
“Heard you guys had an unscheduled stop,” Cody says with a smirk.
“Laugh it up, Stay-Puft,” Kayden grumbles, looking over as Kaylie helps Jayde set up his tent.
Jake laughs, Trevor smirks, and Cody groans. “Ouch. That’s really the best insult you could come up with?”
Kayden gives a wicked, full-fangs-showing grin. “Oh, I don’t need to insult you properly, Cody. You already earned a surprise from Jayde.”
To Be Continued…