August 21st-23rd, 2025 – New York City, Detroit

Teddy explains to Emily that he’s a construct attempting to live on past his death at the hands of the Technocracy. He needed “some of Emily’s compute power” to finish “deploying himself” and any inconvenience will be temporary.

After Emily calms, Lydia goes on to describe how much of a mess the party has caused and the potential for it to become so much worse since now the victims of the bombing are now walking around again. “Your fake IDs will need fake IDs.” She informs the party that she’s going to “pay them to go away”. Lydia will be arranging for travel to Chicago, new identities, and funds in order to take the heat off of NYC. She warns the party pretty sternly not to abuse the credit she’s extending to them. “If you’re spending enough that I notice, you’ll get cut off.”

The party is transported by limo to a rail yard where they board a pair of very posh passenger rail cars outfitted with food, changes of clothes, and even smartphones and some light weapons. After a time, they are attached to a train and set off. The first day of travel is generally one of rest and recuperation. The cars are left on a siding near Detroit overnight with a twelve hour layover waiting for the next train to come by.

During the evening’s discussion, Emma senses a presence outside the train, and Cole goes out to investigate. He catches sight of a large puma or panther watching them from the woods, who bolts when he calls out to it with a “here kitty kitty”. He searches the copse where it was hiding and finds it had been there for some time, maybe an hour, before being discovered.

When returning to the train, Margaret spooks Cole and gets decked.

The party beds down for the night and sets watches. During Cole’s watch, he hears a woman’s voice coming from the woods, “here puppy puppy”. He looks out the window and sees the woman from Afghanistan waiting in the dark.