PLATFORM 6 by gamekeeper

SLA Industries and all characters, settings, images and other intellectual properties pertaining thereto are (c) 1993-2000 Nightfall Games Limited, 

and are used without permission. No challenge to those copyrights is intended or implied. This is an unofficial SLA Industries fanzine.

This guy is right up my street, no literally, he lives close by and I have connived my way into his notebook for a few measly flirts. The result of which is that I am proud to host his designs for a SLA Industries location called Platform 6 on Mort that first appeared on the www.nightfall.me website where he was running it as a BPN adventure, where I kyfed it from. If we are lucky he might even do some artwork to show us how he thinks it should look. 

Sadly this adventure was never completed because one of the admin Jarhead started being a total arsehole and started banning people including myself from the forum for no legitimate reason. 

For copyright reasons I have not copy/pasted the other players  characters, squaddies all,  so the story here might appear a little disjointed. You'll have to read between the lines a bit to figure what's going on. I will finish up with gamekeepers notes on how he planned the rest of the scenario to develop after the firefight.

Turf Surf

A peace-keeping presence is required to curb the recent increase in gangland activity on Platform 6. It is a civilian zone and you will have media attention so look sharp and avoid unecessary casualties. 

Platform 6 is an elevated plateau of chem-reprocessing facilities and houses a thousand families of light-industrial workers in compact multi-rise estates replete with gantry walkways, malls, family oriented leisure centres such as sport and concert halls, pools, and bio-domes. It also has an atmospheric reprocessor.  Operatives will be deployed by air-scuttle to the Shiver outpost. 

SCL Requirement: 10+
Departmental Authorisation: Enquiries
Training Package Recommended: Any
Colour Code: Blue - Street Maintenance
Consolidated Bonus Scheme: 75c per Operative per day plus lucrative bonus for valid information about gang structure and identification of ringleaders.
Overseeing Media: Third Eye News

The bus will run every 24 hours between the Flyport and the landing pad on the roof of the Shiver building on Platform 6, until further notice. The journey is 1 hour. Operatives enlisting for this mission will receive a Flyport Security Pass and Platform 6 recreational center passes. Overnight facilities and a mess-hall are available courtesy of Shiver. Operatives are requested to minimize unnecessary civilian contact while off-duty. Shiver Seargent Crimes will fill you in on the situation when you arrive. Report to him. We are working through Crimes and some of his unit are available as backup if you require. From what I heard they are understaffed.







At the Flyport you enjoy your SLA op privilages as you are taken briskly through a side door directly onto the landing bays, avoiding the standard dehumanising and somewhat unsanitary security procedures. 

The scuttle, an old troop transport. rattles and has clearly seen a lot of use. The driver Russ is the same. He plays offworld dubstep on big bassy speakers which at least sets the rattling to a rhythm. "What do youz make of Hyoomahn myoosak, mon?" he asks in a heavy accent while chainsmoking Doc Feelgoods Spacial Blend. He gives each of you a BubbleBar, helium-type gas in a cheap oily candy. 

Platform 6 looms out of a dark fog. Since switching to gas-plas and chemrock as building materials of choice, rust and metal fatigue has been kept at a minimum on Mort. Instead the substance attracts rain loving lichems and sporous ferns, and these are evidently thriving in the fresh oxygen pumped out by the Hydra facility. Its rain catchment and oxygation funnels spout up in organic designs. 

Sgt Crimes is there to meet you from the lander opposite a gun tower on the Station roof. Other than yourselves he is the only person in the building. 

"I'll make this brief" he says while walking you through the small outpost. "The platform gangs used to be easy to deal with, nothing more than kids with spraycans coming up from the Hangs and putting their 'art' on the walls. We even gave them somewhere to do it, a Skatepark. Most of them are on Cyber or Void or both, we don't get so many of what we colloquials call 'city drugs' up here. Or at least we didn't until recently. Some fucker has been arming them and hyping them up."

Crimes sneers. "There are two factions, they call themselves 6siders and the Hangmen. The war is escalating. We know that at least one of the factions is running protection rackets in some of the re-chem facilities and businesses here, its a hard ball to break. My troops keep turning up dead wherever I send them to investigate. As far as I am concerned you have autonomy over the platform to do whatever it takes to solve this thing. But watch out for Shnell, she's the Third Eye bitch who has been hassling me and there's only so many times I can give her the same spiel without seeming like an idiot. And stay out of the Hangs. That place is dangerous and technically it is not part of my units jurisdiction so I don't know what technicalities you guys deal with but you don't go down there on my shift. I'm scheduled to meet with Shnell in an hour after mess. Our canteen is beneath the barracks and above the holding cells, opposite my office, next to the stairs and lift shafts, through that door. As you can see my squad is out on patrol right now. Any questions before lunch?"

"I do not know how many gang members there are. At an estimate I'd say there are probably a few hundred people living in the Hangs, of whom only a handful are involved in the recent gangland violence. My troops have been utterly ineffective at information gathering. The gangs now have rapid fire guns, thats all I have been able to ascertain. We have not yet been able to retrieve any bodies of our fallen soldiers, nor of the innocents.
There is a media library one of our staff usually puts together debriefings. You will have to speak about that subject with Shnell when she arrives. It will take the steam off me." He mops his sweating forehead with a handkerchief. "Of course you have full access to the stations computer database record, the office is on the fourth floor.


The garrison can cater for thirty soldiers but has a storehouse prepared for a more full scale emergency, we call it the Bunker. Holding cells for up to fifty max although prisoners are usually dealt with by shipping them off platform. I have a regular staff of twenty full time and ten part time soldiers, most of whom live on the platform. We also have five desk and office staff but they are all absent today. This morning only four of my patrol turned up for work. We are down to eleven soldiers. I do have to admit that we don't run a particularly tight ship here. It has not been necessary until the recent troubles. Coffee, anybody?" Crimes pours himself a large coffee from a machine in the mess hall. 

Razhel, you are the first to notice an unusually high number of what can only be described as slugs and leeches are crawling around the place. Considering that on Mort the usual number of these creatures is approximately zero, the half a dozen or so that you have seen since arriving does quantify an unusually large amount. What really brings it to your attention is when a rather large green leech about the size of your finger drops from the ceiling and lands on the table next to you. 

A buzzer goes off. "Excuse me." says Crimes. "Thats the front desk on the ground floor beneath us. Its probably that Shnell woman arriving early. I'll be right back." He leaves.

The computer gives you a map of Platform 6 and all the reports about the gang shootings that will take a few hours to read in detail. In the last week Shiver units were sent to investigate 3 locations that had been targeted by violent gang activity. Two of these areas are marked 'Hangs Entrance"; a hi-rise apartment block and a street near to the Bio-dome. The third is close to the Hydra Atmospherics factory. Shiver were attacked in all 3 investigations and retreated. 





Crimes returns with Miss Shnell. She has wavy blond hair and sharp features. She holds a Slugger multimedia recorder. "Crimes has explained that you are here to solve our little problems" she announces. She seems pleased. 

Outside: the streets are quiet and there is hardly anybody around. Its a ghost town. There are slug-leech creatures everywhere. There are also exotic plants growing on many walls, rippling their feathery leafs as though they are conscious. Patches of plate lichem is also growing everywhere. As always; it is raining. There are no sign-posts indicating where the skate park is from here. There is a graffiti logo spraypainted directly opposite the Shiver building; "6siders ROOL"

Platform 6 has several levels of public access walkway interconnecting around and through the multi-rise towers; and Floor level. There are many open access lift-shafts and stair columns for public use and private ones inside most buildings. 

The platform is split in half, marked Factories and Hab, separated by Recreational facilities and the Hydra lab in the center. Floor level is overshadowed by the towers. A canopy sheltered commercial zone called Mall cuts through the mid-level walkway. It terminates at one end with Sales, the industrial retail office which also has its own landing pad. At the opposite end is another lander marked Bus. 

Platform 6 is pedestrian, the only ground transport is courier bikes. Flyers can be seen in the Factory zone delivering chemical products. There is a wide grill mesh public path and a cycle track running around the perimeter ring and a great view out over the city below. There are also pedestrian and industrial width lift-shafts, stairs and supply pipes within the support pillars for the platform, connecting down to ground level. Access passes are required for these. 

The Hangs are beneath the platform, literally hanging from it like stalactites. There are several Floor level gantries sticking out from the platform from where you can probably get a look back at the edge of the Hangs. All of the recent trouble occurred on Floor level. Most platform can get by quite well without leaving the walkways.



CONAPTS (condo apartments) - the Housing Estate

The buildings are taller than they are wide. There are ten different Towers on the platform each housing a hundred families. The walkways connect the towers at various levels to each other and to other areas, but they all lead onto the elevated central retail plaza between airbus depot and chem-product Sales department. 

The towers have balconies, some private some footpath, so the doors are sheltered. The conapts are more spacious and expensive as they get higher up the tower. Floor level homes are tiny and low rent, mostly occupied by twenty-somethings. It is easy to determine the income bracket, social class and lifestyle choices of the inhabitants. Most people living here are factory workers although for young people raised here it is easy to slip through the gaps and end down on the Floor, in a gang, with a cyber addiction or worse. Frystration and angst is taking its toll and making its mark here, which summarizes youth culture and begat gang culture. 

There is gangland graffiti all over Floor level of the conapts. They are built on a grid and although there are garden and playground squares between buildings these have been vandalized more times than the platform council can be bothered or afford to repair. Wide leafed ferns, scorchids and tentacle-plants grow everywhere they can so that the humid Floor level feels like a jungle, and the air tastes of fruit albeit a chemical flavoring version of fruit rather than the real thing, if any of you have ever experienced that. It is dark here in the shadow of the towers, since most of the street-lights which are built into the buildings have been smashed. It is also humid. Condensation runs down the walls and adds its own texture to the paintings.

You find the door you are looking for easily by following the most recent neon-gloffiti paint which is sprayed over the old gang logo's; "6Siders ROOL!" The door in question no longer has an actual door; the wall around it is painted up to look like a monstrous red mouth and fangs dripping with saliva, or perhaps there is a more crude interpretation. On this street the "Hangmen" logo is painted on top of the 6siders logo along with images of feet dangling down from below the lowest balcony all the way along the street. 

There is a man sitting in the doorway skillfully making a cats cradle in his hands with an elastic cord. He stands up and disappears into the doorway as you approach. There are bullet holes in the walls here, lots of them. And fat leeches, lots of them too.

The light above your head flickers. Possibly the moisture here has shorted it. There is no response from the doorway. 

Its a one room bedsit that has been totally ripped out, it is empty. Grotesque glofitti imagery casts a dim light. From a corner, what used to be a toilet cubicle, spreads a big hole that has been cut into the floor. The hole goes down into another cube that is similar to this one; covered in sick gloffiti. 

You can feel slugs squishing under foot. You are standing on a ledge that goes around to the left of the room, where a ladder sticks up over the lip and descends into the pit. A feeling of menace hangs in the room. 

There is a naked body hanging by one foot from the ceiling in the middle of the room above the pit. As it slowly rotates you can see some of the leeches have found their way to it and even in this dim light, that some of them are sprouting what can only be described as small waxy feathers, uncoiling into leafs. The room stinks of death, but not of rotting meat. It smells more acrid; chemical.

A tiny red spot of light is dancing on the ceiling.

It is a female Human. The leeches feeding on it are bloated. Their fronds are a different color to the vibrant greens and deep blue-green tones of the fauna outside. It appears slightly withered and stinks of chemical. You cannot reach it from the ledge. 

The red dot of light is now gone from the ceiling.
It's on your chest.
I hope you're wearing armor dude.
The sound of a rapid burst of gunfire echoes through the street.
A second round of gunfire crackles like a broken motor purring out death.


MALL

The shopping precinct is a wide central walkway that runs the whole diameter of the platform between a sky Bus port and the Sales department of the platforms chemical factories. There are a lot of shops all on this level and a few other features. Near the center is the main public way into the Hydra building and this part of the walkway has 4 wide transplas cylinders stretching up into the sky and trumpet out like flowers high above. As rain is caught by these it waterfalls down into the Hydra building, where it is processed. Standing here feels like you are inside a waterfall, it is serenely relaxing. 

The lift shaft you arrive on the suspended mall by is between one of these water cones and a coffee house, the tables of which are outside on the walkway. The mall is sheltered from rain by an awning the underside of which is a digital fabric displaying many tv stations, news bulletins and commercial adverts. There is a clothes shop opposite.

The mall is quiet today, probably because everybody is frightened by the recent gang activity. A group of young teenagers are discreetly sharing a feelgood and hanging out. Give or take, they are mid-teen, wearing what many would describe as 'emo' style, mostly from the trendy shops on this street such as the one near you. Its a branch of a renowned chain retail outlet that you recognize. When they see you the oldest girl says; "Hey there's that SLA girl we saw on tv last night!" One of the lads replies; "No Way!" They converse amongst themselves for a moment with their heads together, taking in turns to turn and stare at you in astonishment. Finally the girl shouts; "My boyfriend wants to XXXX you!" to which the guy responds by going red and grinning like an idiot, then hiding his face by turning his head around ninety degrees. His hair flops down over one eye. One of the younger kids says; "Yeah she does too!" and the older girl chases her around shouting "I do not!" and trying to hit her with a handbag before grabbing the lad by the sleeve and approaching you directly. Then she says "Yeah I do actually." While the younger kid runs over and asks for your autograph because "Mom will never believe this otherwise!" The other kids walk away toward the bus depot. 

A man sitting at a coffee shop table reading a homeopape looks up and shakes his head, goes back to reading his paper. There are some more people walking toward you, a couple with a young kid between them, holding both their hands.


Razhel's headset crackles to life. Her comrades are in trouble. 


"Whats that? I thought I heard fireworks. Sorry kids, duty calls. Shout me sometime. Hey you owe me a sushi. Ok Puk you'll have to direct me. I'm running through a mall, I think I have to take a left soon. I cant believe what I've just turned down. This had better be worth it. Those were nice clothes too. Hey those fuckin kids are following me."