I check the door over, looking first for traps and… okay, yes, it has countermeasures. Specifically there's a pair of gun empcements, which I presume are tied to the scanner.

  “Give me a bit…” Alice chuckles, speaking with her hands as she renews her Divine Insight spell, “I can disarm this….”

  We wait as she works, taking out her tools and digging into things, cutting open a section of the wall to do so. After a few minutes, she frowns, “Okay, so… the guns are out of ammo: They're no big deal. But… they're not tied directly into the scanner. The control lines go much deeper into the facility.”

  I frown, and take a look as well. After a few minutes, I confirm it, “Yes… the door control is the same way. The scanner here is as dumb as they gets… it just takes measurements of the limb and sends it further down. The door mechanism itself is a little more complicated, but amounts to the same basic thing. I can open it, but…”

  “...but there's a computer somewhere responsible for all of this,” Brenna signs, “and it probably knows the guns are down.”

  “And that we're here,” I add through my minion. “Well… fundamentally we want to help it do the job it was built to do. Cameras?”

  Alice points, and I look: Yes, there are cameras. Technically: The lenses are clouded over from too much time in the sun. “Seems odd… I’d expect those to be high priority repairs.”

  “All right…” Alice nods, “I'm opening it….”

  She fiddles with the wires a little, and the door opens… revealing a much better maintained interior room, including two gun empcements that very actively aim at us. Fortunately, they don't fire, yet.

  I consider, “What do you think the odds are that the mainframe can think?”

  “It hasn't fired yet, so pretty fair,” Alice purses her lips, “although it could just be waiting for us to step inside.”

  I switch to the local nguage, “Hello. I understand your administrative users are all dead of old age. We were attempting to get in so that we can get a listing of what materials you need to do your job, in what quantities, and how quickly you go through them, so that we can arrange a pn to keep you supplied.”

  Nothing happens, so I step inside, and the guns immediately shoot my Conjuration Companion. I block, soaking the hit myself, and we dodge back outside. I consider a moment, “Brenna, do you have the base Summon Creature spell?”

  “Yes,” she signs, “But I can only cast it five times before I run dry. What good will a first level Summon do?”

  I grin, “One? Very little. But remember, I recharge people.”

  She smiles back, and we get to work: She summons an Archon, I refill her spell slot, and the archon dies in a hail of gunfire. Then we do it again. And again. And again. We all stand outside where the guns can't target us: Only the disposable summons from Brenna's spells are at risk.

  When the guns finally stop shooting the summoned creatures, I step out… and they aim and click. We keep going like that through the “dungeon” - we open doors, flood the next room with disposable summons until the countermeasures fail, and only then risk one of us. It's slow going, but it works, and all we need to actually disable are some locks… which is important, as anything we break will need repairs.

  At the sixth door, the pattern breaks. Alice disables the lock, “Okay by the numbers: Three, two, one…” and opens the door.

  Brenna casts, sends her Summon into the room… and all is quiet. The Tiny little flying ser ptform that is an Archon from Summon Creature I… gets to simply have the duration expire.

  I recharge Brenna and ask, “So… try again to be sure?”

  She nods, and casts again, sending the temporary minion in.

  It also expires.

  I pull out a Personal Comm Unit, point it around the door, take a picture, and pull it back… because I don't want to get shot, again. Checking the photo, I see… dusty office chairs, desks, powered down workstations, and a big old screen showing a map, with our current positions highlighted in red, plus cameras pointing at us.

  I ugh, “Looks like we're through.” For some reason, I don't immediately step out, however.

  “So who's goes first?” Brenna speaks into our minds.

  “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock?” Alice suggests. It's an expansion on Rock, Paper, Scissors created by Sam Kass with Karen Bry that expands upon the original game to make it suitable for three pyers. The additional notes are: Rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitate lizard, lizard eats Paper, paper disproves Spock, and Spock vaporizes Rock. Basically, each of the five options conquers (and is conquered by) two of the others. The only way to get a tie is if all three participants pick the same option. There's further expansions for four or five pyers, but they all work the same way: There's an odd number of options, each of which beats half of the rest. Two pyers need three options, three pyers need five options, four pyers need seven options, and so on, each additional pyer requiring the addition of two options to the game.

  We do the chant, I go with Scissors, as does Brenna… while Alice goes with Rock. Which means she gets to choose.

  “Okay, David: You're the most durable of us, so you go.”

  Drat. “Okay.” I take a breath, and step into the room.

  …

  …

  “Seems clear,” I shout back, happy to have NOT been disintegrated.

  The room has a dozen workstations, some weapons hung up on a wall, the already-mentioned big screen with a map and red dots showing our location (in real time, based on them moving around as I do), and a really thick yer of dust on everything.

  I get my hacking kit out and get to work. I'm the Computers specialist of the party, so it's my job. Charlene would be almost as good, but she focuses slightly more on Engineering. After connecting my kit (why no, I don't use the provided keyboard or screen) to the machine, I'm in after about a minute, and get to work. Fortunately, the data I'm immediately after isn't heavily secured: Inventory and ordering are standard reports for anything that needs supplies, as are vendor instructions for delivery. It's still a full minute before I find what I'm after, however (especially as I need a few consecutive reports from before they ran all the way out to get usage rates). Thinking, I also go about creating an account for myself for ter, figuring that will save me a bit of time eventually… and it goes well, although it does take a bit to figure out how to get my summoned companion's biometrics into the system. I do the same for Brenna and Alice, and watch as the map goes from red to green on our dots.

  We transmit the data to Charlene electronically, who gives us the verdict, “We can keep them supplied for about a week… less than that, really, as the bots will end up using all of the supplies immediately on backlogged repairs.”

  “Barely worth the bother,” Alice frowns, “how does it look if we build prospecting, mining, and refining gear for them?”

  “Give me a moment…” Charlene runs the numbers on our inventory, “...we could outfit two or three groups, who would need to start by setting up more groups. A decade or two and they could get and keep everything up to spec, I think.”

  I nod, as Brenna types into the group chat, “and if we go with refining equipment only, and they manage trade with the other branch of their race to handle the actual mining?”

  “Things look better…” Charlene pauses, “...a few years to stability. Keep in mind, however, that all of these numbers are making assumptions about the ore nearby.”

  “Their mileage may vary, huh?” I consider, “Hmm… they have some old moon bases, I wonder…” I turn back to the computer and start digging through reports. After a good ten minutes, I transmit some reports over to Charlene. “What if we cannibalise a few of the old broken moon bases for them and deliver that?”

  “This…” she pauses as she goes over things, “...this could get them running for decades, depending on how many trips we want to make and what state these pces are in now.”

  “So we have a solid pn, then,” Alice nods slowly, “Any objections to selling the council on it?”

  “None at all,” Brenna types.

  “Makes sense to me,” Charlene sends back through the Comm.

  “It was my idea to begin with, so…” I shrug, “Let's do it.”

  We pack up and head out, taking roinds from the weapons in the walls, and reloading the countermeasures as we go, in addition to taking the time to repair each door as we pass (we don't want to leave the pce defenseless, after all). When we exit to the city at rge, the guard that led us here is waiting. “So what did you find?” he asks.

  “A better option than we pnned,” Alice smiles, “but we should discuss that with the council. Please let them know we would like to speak with them at their earliest convenience.”

  “Will do. For now, I should take you back to your rooms.” We follow the red marked guard, presumably someone of rank, back to our ‘hotel’ where the contingent of guards waits… and then the red guard heads elsewhere, presumably to report to the council.

  We spend more time exploring the city; the guards following us, always outnumbering us two to one (as far as they know), and keeping a close watch on us. Clearly they don't trust us… and that's fine. Charlene sends us detailed reports on a data stick by way of a summoned courier.

  About a day after the excursion, we receive the expected summons (handled by the high ranked guard), and head back to the reachable meeting room.

  “So,” the transtor who's done all the speaking so far begins, “What did you find?”

  Alice smiles, handing the transtor a data stick, “This has the details of what materials your city uses, including some approximations on how much and how often, plus details on how to feed the stuff to the machines.” She takes a breath, “mixed news, the supplies we brought with us are good for about a week… less than that, really, as the city will just use them up immediately to handle backlogged repairs. But!” Alice pauses dramatically, one finger held up as she smirks slightly, “We found some storehouses. Before the nuclear war that burned your world, you had stations on the moon. We can take a trip up there, raid them, and bring the material back down, as much as our ship can carry… for a suitable delivery fee. That should buy you decades… enough time to create the supply lines you need to keep it going forever.”

  The transtor who speaks for the council chitters a bit, then asks the obvious question, “So what shipping fee do you think is fair, for delivering our goods back to us, hmm?”

  I just watch as the two of them haggle in earnest. I wouldn't think cash would work for this, but Alice is absolutely using numbers in the local currency, and setting rates based on that. When she's done, the council seems happy enough, and after we take our leave, I ask her about it: “How are we going to spend their currency? We can't exactly convert it to UPBs or credsticks.”

  “Oh, that's easy,” Alice shrugs, “We spend it here.”

  I frown, and Brenna fills me in via sign nguage, “We get their cash from them in exchange for the materials brought down from the moon bases. We buy stuff we need from them, using up the cash. We then have the stuff we bought, and can use it just fine.”

  Alice picks up the thought, “No, we can't spend it elsewhere… but we really don't need to do so. It's fine. I was looking at pricing and listening to people haggle while we were out and about. I know the value of their money. We're good as gold.”

  I nod as we reach the barrier, “All right then.”

  I spend a short time shuffling everyone past via the Warp sphere while our guards look on with interest. Sure, they can create openings to get stuff through… but teleporting rocks, and they already know I can do it.

  Now to see if we can make good on our deal….