TEXT: 125
  100
  75
  50
  175
  200
  150
  TARGET
  MISSIONS
  ACHIEVEMENTS
  SERVICE GROUP
  EQUIPMENT
  /// INJURY FORECAST
  100%
  /// CITIZEN: SURP-R-ISE-2
  /// CIVIC ZEAL: THERMAL
  /// MARKET VALUE: WAVERING
  Written by
  Gareth Hanrahan
  PARANOIA
   E N I A B I L I T Y  + + + I M P L A U S I B L E  D E N I A B I L I T Y + + +  I M P L A
  Original Paranoia design
  Dan Gelber
  Greg Costikyan
  Eric Goldberg
  New Paranoia edition
  James Wallis
  Grant Howitt
  Paul Dean
  
  PARANOIA
  I
  M
  P
  L
  A
  U
  S
  I
  B
  L
  E
   
  D
  E
  N
  I
  A
  B
  I
  L
  I
  T
  Y
  Written by 
  GARETH HANRAHAN
  Paranoia created by 
  DAN GELBER, GREG COSTIKYAN AND ERIC GOLDBERG
  GRAPHIC DESIGN AND ARTWORK
  Amy Perrett, Cheyenne Wright  
  EDITOR
  Matthew Sprange
  PROOFREADING
  Charlotte Law
  FLY-BLOWN VISIONARY
  Ken Rolston
  Paranoia TM & © 1983, 1987, 2017. Eric Goldberg & Greg Costikyan. All rights reserved. Mongoose Publishing 
  Ltd., Authorised User. The reproduction of material from this book for personal or corporate profit, by 
  photographic, electronic, or other means of storage and retrieval, is prohibited. You may copy character 
  sheets, record sheets, checklists and tables for personal use.
  Published by Mongoose Publishing, Ltd. Published 2017. Printed in China
  
  BLEEPY-BOOP-BOOP 
  4
  SOMETHING NASTY IN THE FOOD VATS 
  8
  SIDESTEP LEFT 
  39
  BLEEPY-BOOP-BOOM 
  64
  CONTENTS
  
  THE NEW MUST-HAVE EXPERIMENTAL EQUIPENT.
  
  BLEEPY- 
  BOOP- BOOP
  W
  A
  R
  N
  I
  N
  G
  C L E A R A N C E  L E V E L  V I O L E T
  BLIP - BLOOP!
  4
  Alpha Complex! Tis of thee I sing! What strange delights and wonders await in 
  thy storied corridors?
  Welcome, O Gamemaster of Above-Average Erudition and Absolutely 
  Unquestionable And Not Even Slightly Peccable Taste, to Implausible 
  Deniability, a three-part PARANOIA mission. No doubt you’ve already 
  noticed the title of this section. Possibly you even paused, wondering if it 
  was a reference to some obscure Beckett play, or perhaps a witty pun in 
  Sumerian. In fact, it’s the literal transcription of the electronic noise that a 
  Troubleshooter’s Cerebral Coretech makes when that Troubleshooter gets a 
  new Direct Priority Message (DPM, if you’re down with the kids). 
  
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  5
  For the purposes of this adventure, you may find it useful to cultivate your own 
  rendition of Bleepy-Boop-Boop. You might, for example:
  •	
  Have your phone or other electronic device to hand, so you can make 
  such a chirp at will.
  •	
  Send all the messages in this book to your players using SMS or the 
  messaging app of your choice, so their phones make a veritable celestial 
  chorus of Bleepy-Boop-Boops.
  •	
  Have the Computer say Bleepy-Boop-Boop out loud, in whatever 
  vocal style you customarily employ for in-character communications. A 
  deadpan, monotone bleepyboopboop perhaps, or a cheery, customer-
  focussed super-enthusiastic BLEEPyBoop!Boop!
  •	
  Just grab the communicator sound from Star Trek. 
  We have now said Bleepy-Boop-Boop so often the words have lost all 
  meaning and we’re only a page into this bleepy-boop-boop-saga.
  BACKGROUND
  Progress marches ever onwards in Alpha Complex, under the benevolent 
  gaze of the Computer and the threat of termination if the scientists in R&D 
  fail to make their Brilliant Innovation Quota for this monthcycle (under such 
  circumstances, progress would march onwards even if you broke both its 
  legs). Sometimes, progress produces inventions of questionable utility: The 
  Reverse Grenade, the Solar-Powered Parachute and Self-Heating Fun. On 
  other occasions, even if the concept is sound (for values of sound that count 
  Scrubots, Bouncy Bubble Beverage and Troubleshooters as entirely reliable 
  success stories), there are problems with rollout and implementation.
  In other words, sometimes progress trips, stumbles and falls across the corridor 
  of history. And then that progress gets trampled into a bloody mess by the rest 
  of the marching progress behind it. 
  So it is with the Direct Priority Message. The basic concept is, and hold onto 
  your preconceptions, a good one for Alpha Complex. The basic gimmick 
  is that it lets a suitably qualified middle-clearance supervisor broadcast a 
  message to all citizens and bots near the Troubleshooter team. So, if the 
  Troubleshooters are – purely hypothetical example – zooming down Corridor 
  75/A at the controls of a crazed TruckBot, the supervisor can broadcast a 
  friendly ‘please clear Corridor 75/A’ message that bleepy-boop-boops into 
  the consciousness of anyone in the way. The supervisor can send messages 
  directly to the team. And, most important of all, it lets the supervisor issue 
  
  6
  BLOOPLY - BLEEP - BLEEP!
  orders to nearby systems. If the team require emergency access to a sealed 
  corridor, the supervisor can direct the corridor door to open without having 
  to fill out any paperwork/appeal to the Computer/resort to demolition 
  charges. 
  What could possibly, go wrong?
  Here is what could possibly and does actually, go wrong.
  1. 
  The system is buggy, untested and has a few flaws, the severity of which 
  is directly proportional to your answer to the question ‘how hot does the 
  interior of my skull need to get before it becomes uncomfortable?’
  2. 
  It’s also insanely hard to use. We’d make a joke about vi here, but half 
  of you wouldn’t know what the hell we’re talking about and the rest 
  would write us angry emails about vi’s superiority to EMACS. Anyway, it’s 
  really easy to screw up while operating the DPM control console.
  3. 
  The system only works on citizens fitted with the DPM modules. It also 
  works on bots but they interpret its instructions as direct orders from the 
  Computer.
  4. 
  One of the other supervisors involved in the trial might just take 
  advantage of the gaping security hole and send his Troubleshooter 
  team to hijack a warbot. 
  Hooray for progress! It’s almost enough to make you nostalgic for absurdly 
  non-functional R&D death rays. 
  MISSION SKELETON
  If you shot this book with one of those absurdly non-functional R&D death 
  rays, then you’d be disintegrated because progress on the ‘ray’ part of 
  ‘death ray’ didn’t march very far.
  If you held this book while shooting one of those absurdly non-functional 
  R&D death rays, or better yet convinced one of your enemies to hold this 
  book while they fired the death ‘ray’, then in the brief moment after the 
  sickly green radiation flash, but before everything crumbled into dust, you’d 
  see a skeleton like this.
  Mission One: Something Nasty in the Food Vats: After a lengthy trip to R&D 
  outfitting, the team is sent off on the glamourous mission of investigating why 
  one of the food vats is running behind quota. The somewhat unlikely answer 
  
  7
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  is that there’s a genetically engineered mutant monster in the vat and half 
  the food vat drones are secret traitors; discovering this is complicated by a 
  few small teething issues with the DPM system.
  Mission Two: Sidestep Left: The DPM system glitches and sends the 
  Troubleshooters a bunch of messages intended for one of the other teams 
  in the testing program. Unfortunately, following those instructions sends the 
  team out into a perilous abandoned sector on a mission to capture a traitor 
  who’s already been captured by another team. If the Troubleshooters don’t 
  return with a prisoner, they’ll be terminated. Sooo… any potential traitors 
  lurking around this abandoned ruin? You, crazy hermit, might you be a 
  suitable candidate for the role of ‘mysterious traitor’?
  Mission Three: Bleep Boop Boom: The DPM system goes completely bonkers1 
  as traitorous Alan-G seizes control of it and tries to stop the Troubleshooters 
  through murderous spam, hijacked warbots and experimental weapons. 
  Many things explode, possibly including skulls.
  Bleepy-boop-boop. Bleepy-boop-boop. Bleepy-boop-boop. 
  1. Technical term. 
  ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR, WITH THE APLICATION OF A DEATHRAY
  
  SOMETHING 
  NASTY IN THE 
  FOOD VATS
  W
  A
  R
  N
  I
  N
  G
  C L E A R A N C E  L E V E L  V I O L E T
  BLEEPY - BEEP - BEEP!
  8
  The Troubleshooters are sent to test the shiny new DPM system as part of their 
  investigation of a treacherous secret society in the food vats. Confusion and 
  explosions ensue. 
  BLEEPY-BOOP-BOOP.
  ATTENTION TROUBLESHOOTERS
  Says the Computer. 
  
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  9
  Does it matter if you’re hearing the Computer’s voice through the 
  loudspeaker on the wall or through the cerebral coretech 
  in your head? 
  YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR AN IMPORTANT MISSION. 
  PROCEED TO BRIEFING ROOM 482-C-A29/DELTA 
  FOR MISSION BRIEFING. SPECIAL FUN INSTRUCTIONS 
  FOLLOW – HYGIENE OFFICER IS TO CLEANSE AND 
  STERILISE THE FOREHEADS OF ALL TEAM MEMBERS USING 
  THE SPECIAL SURGICAL PREP KIT. IF THE TEAM DOES NOT 
  HAVE A HYGIENE OFFICER, TEAM LEADER SHOULD NOW 
  DESIGNATE A HYGIENE OFFICER. IF THE TEAM DOES 
  NOT HAVE A TEAM LEADER, TEAM LEADER WILL BE 
  DETERMINED BY ENTHUSIASM.
  Once the dust settles, the blood pools and the team has both a team leader 
  and hygiene officer, a delivery-bot drops off the promised special surgical 
  prep kit at the door of the team barracks. The kit contains:
  • 
  A transparent plastic skullcap with several marks on it, showing the 
  locations that need to be cleaned for different surgical operations: 
  FOREHEAD IMPLANT, CORTEX BOMB, LOBOTOMY, BEHAVIOUR 
  ADJUSTMENT, IMPLANTED MICROPHONE and so on. 
  •	
  An electric razor for shaving heads.
  •	
  A number of individual-sized cleaning kits, with sprays, wipes, gauzes, 
  one-shot anti-bacterial irradiation pens and so on. The number of kits is 
  equal to the number of Troubleshooters, minus one.
  So, hygiene officer, two questions for you!
  1. 
  Who’s not getting a forehead scrub? There’s one missing kit. A successful 
  Mechanics+Science roll lets the hygiene officer split a kit between two 
  subjects (failure means that neither gets a sufficiently deep cleanse). 
  Those who do get forehead scrubs discover that a temporary side effect 
  is intense numbness that spreads out over the forehead and down the 
  face. Why, you could be shot in the head and not notice it until you tried 
  to scratch your nose and discovered you’d lost it six rooms back. Oh, 
  a side effect of the side effect may also include slurrrrrrlued speooch 
  bedausssse urre tong ith num an urre bran ith oxygen-tharved. 
  2. 
  If the hygiene officer checks, some of the other Troubleshooters have old 
  head scars corresponding to operations like CORTEX BOMB or IMPLANTED 
  MICROPHONE, and others have mysteriously regular scars suggesting 
  other mysterious operations/alien abductions.
  Once everyone’s ready to go, it’s off to Briefing Room 482-C-A29! 
  
  10
  BZZZZZ - BOOP - BOOP!
  BRIEFING OF TERROR
  Briefing Room 482-C-A29 isn’t impressive as briefing rooms go. Torn couches, 
  possibly treasonous graffiti on the walls and a briefing podium that’s scarred 
  with old laser blasts. This is, clearly, not a high-priority mission.
  Briefing Officer Malcolm-O-HNO-3 isn’t impressive as briefing officers go. He 
  manages to simultaneously slump, cower and droop behind the podium, 
  he’s got possibly unhygienic boils and rashes on his thinning hairline and his 
  voice quavers and flinches, as if recalling former assassination attempts. This 
  is, clearly, not a high-quality briefing officer. 
  Malcolm-O wanders around the room for a moment, looking for a power 
  outlet to plug in his slide projector. 
  ‘Good… ah, good, er, hello. I’m briefing officer Malcolm-O-HNO-2…no! 
  Three! Three! Sorry, I have notes here.’ He fumbles with papers. ‘Your mission 
  is to investigate a 1.6% production discrepancy in the algae yield from the 
  TasteeYum Food Vat cluster. I have a slide here.’
  He doesn’t. It’s a slide showing average Troubleshooter deaths per mission 
  over the last three months. 
  ‘Um, not that slide. Sorry, sorry. Ah, here we are.’
  It’s the same slide again. 
  ‘Ah, wait, here it is.’
  The slide projector commits quiet, dignified suicide.
  ‘Ah, all right. How about I just hand you the slide and you each look at it. 
  Pass it to the Troubleshooter to your left when you’re done.’
  The slide, when examined, is an incomprehensible mess of charts, numbers 
  and spreadsheets.
  ‘As you can plainly see, analysis has ruled out environmental conditions, 
  statistical variations, equipment or sensor failure and other reasonable 
  causes for this drop in production. We are forced, I’m afraid, um, to 
  consider the possibility of traitorous sabotage. So, your mission is to go to 
  the TasteeYum Food Production Facility and find out why there’s this 1.6% 
  discrepancy in the food vat yields. Vitally important, of course. The fate of   
   
  Alpha Complex is, ah, in your hands.’
  
  11
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  His voice tries to rise to the level of stirring oratory, as he tries to inspire the 
  Troubleshooter team. It falls short.
  ‘You must, um, seek out these vile, well I assume they’re vile, certainly not 
  very nice, traitors and ensure that our vital supply of, er, synthetic algae is 
  secure. Onwards, brave Troubleshooters, onwards!’
  If the Troubleshooters stand up to go to TasteeYum, he stops them! ‘Wait, do 
  you have any question?’
  Possible extra info:
  •	
  The supervisor at TasteeYum is Nancy-O-GLU; there’s also a bunch of 
  RED and INFRARED proles working the vats.
  • 
  The food vats are technically a level 4 biohazard but no-one likes to say 
  that out loud as the food is TOTALLY SAFE TO EAT. YUM YUM.
  •	
  Obviously, as the mission is to find the Trouble (production is 1.6% below 
  the expected level) and Shoot it (getting production back up), the 
  mission will only be considered a success if the food vats are back at 
  their production quota.
  •	
  Even more obviously, blowing up the food vats will bring production 
  drastically down. Don’t blow up the vats.
  Again, if the Troubleshooters stand up to go to TasteeYum, Malcolm-O stops 
  them! 
  ‘Wait! Stop! Proceed to R&D Lab 17/A for Experimental Equipment Outfitting. 
  Go there first, Troubleshooters, so you’ll have everything you need to 
  succeed on this vital mission. Good luck!’
  Lab 17/A is, conveniently, only a short walk from the briefing room. 
  When the team troops out, Malcolm the Briefing Officer goes with them. It’s 
  weird and awkward – like when you say a lengthy and heartfelt goodbye to 
  someone you don’t expect to see again for a long time, only to find you’re 
  both leaving from the same airport and end up sitting silently for hours side 
  by side when the airport shuttle gets stuck in traffic. Malcolm-O mutters 
  ‘don’t mind me’ and ‘pretend I’m not here’ as he traipses along after the 
  team all the way to Lab 17/A. He’s got to pick up his own experimental 
  equipment for this mission too…
  
  12
  PLIKY - PLONK - TINGGGG!
  SECRET SOCIETY MISSION TIME!
  Lab 17/A is only a short walk away. There’s a conveniently crowded corridor 
  leading to the convenient transtube and then it’s just a quick stroll through 
  the conveniently crowded plaza and the conveniently shady tunnel to the 
  convenient briefing room. There’s ample scope for mysterious figures to pass 
  notes/broadcast messages/beam subliminal post-hypnotic triggers/pop out 
  of vents/whisper conspiratorial passwords at the Troubleshooters…
  Distribute secret society missions as needed. Ideally, you need at least one 
  Troubleshooter to end up with a bomb crate. Oh, the three possible crates 
  (for the Mystics, Free Enterprise and Death Leopard missions) are, of course, 
  identical. The crates are all shielded against casual detection by sensors 
  and bomb-sniffers, which is suspicious in itself.
  UNWITTING CHAPERONES & UNWILLING CONSPIRATORS
  While Malcolm-O isn’t the most observant monitor, the characters still need 
  to pop free of the group to pick up their secret society missions. Chutzhpah 
  + Bluff or Chutzpah + Stealth or Brains + Alpha Complex are all perfectly 
  cromulent rolls to sneak away; alternatively, get each player to come 
  up with a reason why their character sneaks away to have a brief secret 
  meeting.
  If a player decides not to take the risk, that’s fine – for you. It’ll play out 
  something like this.
  GM: <passes a secret note to player>
  NOTE: You see a citizen across the corridor flashing the Psion recognition 
  signal at you – it’s your contact, here to give you a secret society mission. 
  How do you break free of surveillance?
  PLAYER: Are you crazy? The briefing officer is right there! It might be a trap. 
   
  I keep walking. 
  GM: <grins with joy>
  Later…
  2. Note to the Gamemaster: At a later point in the scenario (p. 61), the Troubleshooters run into Brother Zoom, 
  aka Lenny-R from Team B. Of course, he only reveals himself near the end of the mission, and there are plenty 
  of other people who the player might think is Zoom before then, leading to all sorts of comical and explosive 
  misunderstandings. 
  Oh, if the player wants to actually use the bomb, that’s cool. Mechanics + Demolitions for a really, really big boom 
  and now IntSec thinks you’re the infamous Brother Zoom. 
  
  Alpha Complex Local History Research Group: Your mission’s 
  going to take you close to the abandoned remains of what 
  used to be QUB sector – one of the oldest sections of Alpha 
  Complex, abandoned after the War Between The Sectors. We 
  want you to bring back some relics from this ancient sector – especially a 
  QR-7 System Interchange Module.
  Anti-Mutants: One of your team-mates (name a team-mate 
  who’s a mutant) is a mutant. We’ve developed a mutation-
  suppressing drug. Dose that team-mate with the drug and then 
  trick them into using their mutation.
  Death Leopard: Here’s a bomb2 in a crate. Internal Security are 
  looking for Brother Zoom, the Mad Bomber. It’s his bomb. You’ve 
  got to hide the bomb until Brother Zoom escapes those IntSec 
  scummers and takes it back. He’s undercover – give him the recognition 
  code ‘TICK TICK TICK’ and he’ll respond with ‘BOOM BOOM BUDDY’. 
  FCCCP: We’ve learned that a bunch of TRAITOROUS HERETICAL 
  scientists are plotting to BYPASS the Computer’s infinite electronic 
  wisdom. These heathens must be shown the error of their ways. 
  Forcibly convince them to recant their heresy and swear allegiance to the 
  Church – and if they refuse, terminate them!
  Free Enterprise: Hey buddy, we’ve got a crate of super-
  collectible Teela-O holographic stickers. We want you to sell 
  ‘em to Teela fans and whoever else will buy ‘em. Oh, they’re 
  really, really sticky and incredibly hard to scrape off, so once you stick ‘em on 
  something, they’re there forever. Also, ‘cos they’re metallic, they’ll set off all 
  sorts of sensors and metal detectors, so keep ‘em in this shielded crate. 
  Mystics: Hey buddy, we’ve got a crate of holographic stickers. 
  They’re actually drug tabs – stick ‘em on someone’s skin and 
  they’ll have a hallucinogenic psychedelic trip that’ll be far out, 
  man. Distribute ‘em to the unenlightened proles and open their minds to 
  the universe! Oh, they’re super-illegal and they’ll set off all sorts of chemical 
  sniffers and drug detectors, so keep ‘em in the crate. 
  Psion: The Anti-Mutant wretches are plotting against our mutant 
  brethren! We need to bolster our recruiting. Identify another 
  Troubleshooter who’s a secret mutant and convince them to 
  join our society. Don’t take no for an answer. 
  There are more Secret Society missions to come, so don’t worry if some players 
  don’t have missions yet.
  
  14
  DO - DE - D0 - DE - DEE!
  GM: Ok, you’re nearly back in Alpha Complex, in a dead zone free of any 
   
  cameras or surveillance, when you notice that one of your team is 
   
  missing. You, O player who refused the meeting earlier… let’s have a 
   
  quick chat outside.
  PLAYER: Er. Ok.
  GM: Yeah, as you’re walking down the corridor, you’re telekinetically lifted 
   
  through a vent in the ceiling. Up there are three Psion conspirators 
   
  – your contact from the corridor earlier, a telekinetic mutant who’s 
   
  concentrating on keeping you levitated and a third mutant who’s 
   
  pointing a laser pistol at your face. ‘You betrayed us! Now give us one 
   
  reason why we should keep you alive!’
  SOFT LAUNCH INTO OBLIVION
  Lab 17/A is unusually crowded when the Troubleshooters arrive. There’s a 
  dozen other Troubleshooters milling around, along with a gaggle of higher-
  clearance citizens. There are also two R&D techs running around – one’s 
  frantically typing on several computer terminals simultaneously, while 
  the other’s got a box of electronic parts and she’s making last-minute 
  adjustments to them. There’s also a jackobot circling the room, offering 
  refreshments.
  The jackobot, by the way, is extremely snooty. Play him as a robot butler.
  Notable things to note:
  • 
  The Giant Humming Glowing Machine: It looks like a cross between a 
  reactor core, a satellite dish and something with far too many spikes. 
  Imagine the drive core from Event Horizon, only covered with aerials 
  and transmitters. Just looking at it makes the Troubleshooters’ eyes water 
  and teeth vibrate.
  • 
  The Portable Terminals: On one desk is a set of three portable terminals 
  – big, bulky laptop-like gadgets, obviously custom-made. There’s a fat 
  manual printout in a ring binder next to each of them. 
  • 
  The Obvious Frantic Nervousness of the R&D Techs: R&D researchers 
  tend to be eccentric at the best of times – the Computer is more 
  tolerant of ‘unusual’ behaviour patterns among its creatives – but 
  these two are obviously on the edge. Anyone with a +2 or better in 
  Science, Bureaucracy, Alpha Complex, Engineer or Program guesses 
  that this is related to the upcoming Discussion of Experimental Research 
  & Planning conference (DERP) – a high-clearance shindig where 
  dignitaries from R&D, PLC, Armed Forces and CPU gather to discuss 
  promising R&D projects. If they’re rushing to launch something so they 
  can demo it at DERP, that might explain their stress.
  
  15
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  If the Troubleshooters want to mingle at this little pre-outfitting party, they 
  quickly identify the following groups.
  • 
  Troubleshooter Team A all look to be high-achievers. Shiny uniforms, 
  military bearing, heroic chins. They refuse to talk about their mission – all 
  highly classified, you know. Critical to the safety of Alpha Complex.
  • 
  Troubleshooter Team B is like looking into a mirror for the players – Team 
  B is another bunch of semi-competent, unreliable, possibly treasonous 
  goons, the dregs of the cloning tanks. Optionally, some of these guys 
  might either (a) try to pass on secret society missions to players or (b) try 
  to fool the players into carrying out treasonous instructions, then report 
  them to Internal Security. If asked, they mutter that their mission is to 
  track down some treasonous terrorist code named ZOOM and it may 
  involve going – GULP – Outdoors!
  Note that that the Hygiene Officer of this team, Lenny-R, is secretly the 
  infamous Zoom. 
  Bouncy Bubble Beverage 
  5 XP Points
  Cheez-Cubes 
  5 XP Points
  Canapes from the Sea (Fish, Plankton, Sea Greens) 
  15 XP Points
  Champagnish 
  20 XP Points
  Rolactin Gel-Cubes 
  50 XP Points
  
  16
  JINGLE - JANGLE!
  • 
  Briefing Officer Alan-G, the supervisor of Team A, looks relaxed and 
  confident as he snacks on Rolactin cubes. He offers encouraging words 
  to the R&D techs and to any Troubleshooters who approach him. What 
  a nice clone he is! The one weird thing about him is that he smells 
  strongly of TangFresh, which is a cheap deodorant they spray on REDs. 
  Surely a high-clearance GREEN deserves to smell better than TangFresh, 
  which works by burning out the lower registers of your olfactory nerves 
  and leaving you unable to smell anything other than tangy chemicals.
  Alan-G’s the Sinister Mastermind and Archvillain of this mission.
  • 
  Briefing Officer Beatrice-Y is obviously gunning for promotion. She 
  approaches any conversation like she’s a Vulture Trooper storming 
  a terrorist foxhole. ‘HELLO! PRAISE THE COMPUTER! I’M SO HAPPY TO 
  BE ABLE TO SERVE THE COMPUTER BY COORDINATING A TEAM OF 
  TROUBLESHOOTERS. LET US DISCUSS TACTICS AND CROSSTRAIN SO THAT 
  WE MAY BE MORE EFFICIENT IN COORDINATION – BUT FIRST, I MUST 
  ENSURE YOU ARE NOT A TRAITOROUS SPY!’
  • 
  And Malcolm-O, the player characters’ briefing officer, is here too. He 
  ambles around the party like a sloth who’s also a poor conversationalist. 
  • 
  The two R&D Techs don’t have time to talk. They’re too busy getting 
  ready. Any attempt to interact with them means screaming and thrown 
  pencils.
  Call for Chutzpah + Charm rolls from characters who mingle. Those 
  who succeed are impressive, witty, suave or at least don’t incriminate 
  themselves: have a +5 XP Point bonus. Those who fail… well, ask the other 
  players how the unlucky Troubleshooter puts their foot in it and for that 
  matter, get them to define exactly what ‘it’ is.
  TREPANATION TIME
  Once the party – er, team – grows tired of the party, move on by having 
  one of the R&D techs scream:
  ‘Screw it, we’ll do it live, OK!! Err, I mean, we’re ready to brief you on this 
  exciting new advancement in mission communication & co-ordination! 
  Troubleshooters, please line up. Mission co-ordinators, please take your 
  places at the terminals. Equipment officers, collect the DPM upgrade  
   
   
  modules and install them in your teammates please. Step right up!’ 
  The R&D tech – Toby-Y – produces a pile of small black boxes from under a 
  desk, while his comrade Susan-Y frantically types on her computer keyboard  
   
  with a fixed oh-god-we’re-doomed grin on her face. 
  
  17
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Toby-Y hands <INSERT-NUMBER-OF-TROUBLESHOOTERS-HERE> boxes to the 
  team’s Equipment Guy. Inside each box, glistening wetly and flopping 
  slightly, is a DPM Cerebral Coretech Module. It looks a little like the lovechild 
  of a ball-bearing and a confused, amorous and remarkably determined 
  octopus. There’s a little on-off switch on the side of the device. Toby-Y also 
  hands over a single power drill to each team and a bag of individually 
  sealed drill bits, helpfully marked ‘sterile’. 
  Team A’s Equipment Guy demonstrates the proper use of the drill with gusto 
  – she efficiently moves through her team, drilling holes in their skulls in the 
  exact place she sterilised earlier (remember the forehead sterilisation bit 
  way back in Scene 1, a whole three scenes ago?). She inserts one of the 
  DPM Cerebral Coretech modules in each head-wound and the octopus 
  squid camera thing slithers into the hole with satisfaction. Its tentacles wrap 
  around the Troubleshooter’s brain and interface with the cerebral coretech 
  weave and the little module lights up with a comforting-if-slightly-cyclopean 
  red light.
  Team B’s Equipment Guy looks at the player character Equipment Guy, 
  shrugs and starts skull-drilling. 
  What does the player do? Or, more importantly, who’s the one team 
  member who didn’t get a forehead cleanse in Scene 1 and so therefore has 
  a forehead that’s positively crawling with microscopic corruption? Demodex 
  mites, bacteria, all sorts of fun stuff. Things that might, say, infect an 
  otherwise sterile bone drill and hitch a ride down into the brain. Inform any 
  uncleansed players that they’ve got an itchy feeling but don’t know where 
  to scratch. It’s like the itch is inside them… No actual effect, mind you, just 
  constant, eternal, unavoidable itchiness. 
  There’s a non-zero chance you started itching while reading this paragraph. 
  THE SCIENCE BIT
  ‘Ok, uh, ok’ declaims Toby-Y. ‘Everyone set? Good. Welcome to the live trial 
  of the Direct Priority Messaging system.’
  He then explains what, exactly, the DPM system is. Restate the following 
  dry bullet points in your own (doubtless eloquent and well-chosen) words, 
  remembering that Toby is nervous, desperate to make a good impression 
  and gets a bit too technical when it comes to describing problems.
  
  18
  BZZ - BUZZ - BUZZ !
  •	
  The DPM is great. Really, really great.
  •	
  Basically, it’s a way for mission co-ordinators to communicate with 
  Troubleshooter teams instantly. The messages get projected using a 
  really clever method involving quantum entanglement, meson bursts, 
  differential interference and polyphasic buzzwords.
  •	
  It’s a one-way system. The mission co-ordinator can send messages; the 
  Troubleshooters can only receive them. 
  •	
  He demonstrates. Convey the following message to all your players. 
  When you hand it over/text it/read it to them, don’t forget to Bleepy-
  Boop-Boop!
  WHAT CAN THE 
  OPERATOR SEE?
  According to the DPM 
  Operator’s Manual, the DPM 
  modules interface with the user’s 
  visual cortex and beam back 
  a regularly updated ‘eyeshot’, 
  allowing the operator to see out 
  of the user’s eyes. This works… 
  sometimes. Usually, however, the 
  main display shows a churning 
  visual distortion that the DPM 
  technicians insist is a direct feed 
  from the user’s eyeballs. It’s a bit 
  fuzzy, yes, but clearly that blob 
  there is another Troubleshooter 
  and that other fuzzy flickering 
  blob is a traitor, so the Operator 
  should order the Troubleshooters 
  to shoot that blob immediately. 
  +++ STAY ALERT. TRUST NO-ONE. 
  KEEP YOUR LASER HANDY. +++
  •	
  He then sends another few 
  messages, demonstrating the 
  utility of the system. 
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  +++ TERMINATE THAT TRAITOR! +++
  +++ OPEN FIRE NOW! +++
  •	
  If anyone asks a question 
  along the lines of ‘hey, if it’s a 
  one-way system, how do the 
  mission co-ordinators know 
  where we are or what’s going 
  on?’, Toby-Y mutters that it’s 
  above the Troubleshooters’ 
  security clearance but, rest 
  assured, the mission co-
  ordinators see all, know all!
  The real benefit of the DPM system, however, is that it can be set to 
  BROADCAST mode, using the DPM modules as transmitters, to send a 
  message to all Alpha Complex bots and embedded systems nearby. 
  Imagine how useful this will be! The mission supervisor will be able to override 
  doors, co-ordinate the actions of loyal citizens or transmit emergency 
  messages. Look at this!
  
  19
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  +++ INCOMING MISSILE! YOU ARE IN THE BLAST ZONE. 
  EVACUATE THIS SECTOR IMMEDIATELY!+++
  (The butler jackobot screams, throws away the tray of snacks and runs out 
  of the room. It misses the door and smashes into the wall, falls over, and then 
  crawls away to cower under the table.)
  Toby-Y does point out that this iteration of the DPM system does not send 
  messages to other citizens, only bots and embedded systems. There’s a 
  slight thermal issue that they’re going to fix in the next version but he doesn’t 
  anticipate any problems with that. After all, bots are everywhere and bots 
  can relay a message to nearby citizens if needed. 
  There’s a ripple of polite clapping. Toby-Y looks relieved, and invites the 
  three mission co-ordinators to come up and take their portable consoles. He 
  then sends one last message to the team, while Susan-Y distributes a bunch 
  of copies of Handout #1, DPM Field Test Feedback Form.
  +++ PROCEED TO R&D LAB 17/C FOR ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT +++
  Malcolm-O ambles up and takes one of the portable consoles, along with 
  a foot-thick three-ring-binder of operating instructions. ‘Well, see you on the, 
  err, well, I’ll be in touch.’
  MORE LETHAL GADGETS MEAN MORE FUN
  Lab 17/C isn’t as nice as 17/A. It’s not shiny. It’s not clean. It doesn’t have a 
  friendly robot wandering around offering snacks and drug cubes. It looks like 
  a junkyard that’s recently been used for controlled detonations and/or snail 
  breeding.
  Squatting cross-legged on a suspiciously stained work-desk is Tanner-R. 
  He’s not a happy man. Play him as a nihilistic, cynical philosopher; he 
  would be wearing a black turtleneck and quoting Sartre if knowledge of 
  Sartre and turtlenecks were not both treason. (Oh, by the way – he doesn’t 
  take happiness drugs because he believes they interfere with his keen, 
  penetrating intellect. If drugs are forced on him, he takes a home-brew of 
  depressants to counteract their effects. He avoids censure or accusations 
  of mental deviancy because he’s got the ability to switch mood on a dime 
  and suddenly BECOME EXTREMELY HAPPY AND ENTHUSIATIC LIKE SOMEONE’S 
  JAMMED A LIVE WIRE RIGHT INTO HIS PLEASURE CORTEX AND HONESTLY IT’S 
  PRETTY DISCONCERTING. Anyway…)
  
  20
  AWOOGA - AWOOGA!
  Eh. More experimental 
  equipment. Who cares? 
  Tanner-R doesn’t. He’s 
  not going to DERP, 
  the conference for 
  cool R&D nerds and 
  executives from other 
  Service Groups with fat 
  expense accounts. All 
  he has is a box of junk 
  and he must inflict it 
  on Troubleshooters. He 
  takes pleasure in this, 
  because the suffering 
  of others amuses him. 
  There are feedback forms. Fill them out, don’t fill them out, lie, smear them 
  with your own blood as you lie dying, mangled by a malfunctioning gadget. 
  He doesn’t care. 
  He flings (with intent to wound), the following gadgets at the Troubleshooters.
  • 
  Rope-in-a-Can: Think silly string, only it’s a woven nanocomposite that 
  can support the weight of an entire Troubleshooter team. 
  • 
  Survivoball: It looks like a quivering Frisbee. Press the control stud and it 
  instantly inflates into a two-person survival module that wraps around the 
  two nearest people or people-sized things. Virtually indestructible, airtight, 
  radiation-proof. Oh, it can only be opened from the outside once inflated. 
  • 
  Omni-Destructive Ontological Terminator: It looks like a, really, really, 
  nasty high-tech gun, all glowing flanges and crackling energy projectors 
  and spiky bits. The tattered, partially burnt remnants of the instruction 
  leaflet that comes with it imply that the weapon destroys the target 
  by subtracting its intrinsic meaning, rendering it ontologically void. 
  Press a button and the gun says CHARGING in a voice that sounds like 
  James Earl Jones doing guest vocals for some crazy German nihilistic-
  electropunk band. Give the player a ‘TAKE YOUR TIME ACTION CARD’ 
  and explain that it counts as ‘WAITING FOR ODOT’. Whenever the 
  player’s turn comes around, have the player roll the Computer dice. 
  On a Computer, make a note and describe the gun’s aura of doom 
  becoming even more impressive - maybe it starts venting steam, or it 
  crawls with little bolts of static electricity, or hums like it’s about to sing the 
  song that ends the world... It never fires, of course. 
  
  21
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  • 
  Quantum Crate: Tanner-R insists that this crate is fitted with an 
  experimental quantum field collapsotron. Right now, it contains 
  an unresolved waveform that could be anything. When you open 
  the crate, the device maps probabilities, evaluates timelines and 
  collapses the waveform in such a way to spit out the precise piece 
  of equipment needed by the Troubleshooters. He warns the team 
  not to open the box unless absolutely necessary – it only works 
  once. He also points out that the crate’s limited precognitive 
  ability means it generates the equipment the Troubleshooters 
  need, not necessarily what they want. You might open it hoping 
  for a box of grenades but find only a single screwdriver inside. 
  Rest assured that the screwdriver is somehow more relevant to 
  the current situation than all the grenades in Alpha Complex!
  When (if!) the Troubleshooters actually open the crate, it 
  invariably contains the following items:
  • A handful of wires hooked up to a battery, which might  
   
  maybe once have been a quantum collapsotron… if any of  
  the Troubleshooters knew what a quantum collapsotron was.
  • A can of engine oil.
  • A screwdriver.
  • A long spool of fibre-optic cabling.
  • A very, very old can of Bouncy Bubble Beverage.
  • A spork.
  (The quantum crate is, of course, identical to the crates that 
  Troubleshooters may have been issued as part of 
  Secret Society missions…)
  OFF TO THE MISSION!
  Once the Troubleshooters have collected their extra equipment 
  and/or beaten Tanner-R to death with a copy of Being and 
  Nothingness, they get another bleepy-boop-boop-storm of 
  DPM alerts.
  +++ PROCEED TO EXPRESS ELEVATOR 613 +++
  +++ CALIBRATING DPM SYSTEM  +++
  +++ OBEY ALL INSTRUCTIONS +++
  +++ FAILURE TO OBEY INSTRUCTIONS IS TREASON+++
  +++ PUT YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS AND WIGGLE THEM ABOUT +++
  
  ACHIEVEMENTS
  THE FIRST TROUBLESHOOTER TO:
  COMPLETE A DPM DIRECTIVE
  COMPLETE FIVE DPM DIRECTIVES
  COMPLETE 25 DPM DIRECTIVES 
  REACH THE BOTTOM OF ELEVATOR SHAFT 613
  RESTORE TASTY-YUM FOOD VATS 
  TO FULL PRODUCTION
  FIELD TEST THE STRUCTURAL RESILENCE 
  OF A DPM MODULE
  SOLVE A PROBLEM USING A 
  DPM MODULE OR MESSAGE
  TERMINATE A TRAITOR
  TERMINATE FIVE TRAITORS
  TERMINATE 25 TRAITORS (TRAITORSPREE!)
  GETS AN XP REWARD
  Oh, hand out/recite/telepathically convey this list of achievements to 
  the players at this point.
  
  EXPRESS(IVE) ELEVATOR
  Far, far below Alpha Complex is a stratum of oil-bearing rock, unfracked 
  through the centuries. The TastyYum Food Vats mine this calorie-rich rock, 
  grind it up and feed it to yeast cultures. Eat the delicious yeast excretions. 
  Eat of them, surface folk!
  You see, the mines and the associated vats are located so far underground 
  that it’s not cost-effective to rotate the workforce back to the surface every 
  shift. So, if you’re assigned to TastyYum, you get sent down into the food 
  mines to live in the uttermost darkness for whole yearcycles at a time. You 
  get to live in cramped, unpleasant, alarmingly warm barracks in a tiny little 
  encampment in the depths. It’s just like camping!
  (TastyYum staff are especially exempt from happiness quotas.)
  SECRET SOCIETY MISSION TIME 2
  On the way to the elevator, more traitors with more missions.
  Communists: Comrade! The workers down in the TastyYum 
  food vats are oppressed by the capitalist running dogs! 
  Convince them to seize the means of production and rebel! 
  Here are some pamphlets to help inspire and organise them!
  Illuminati: We require a Death Leopard traitor named Brother 
  Zoom to complete his mission. Find other Leopards using 
  the recognition code ‘TICK TICK TICK’ and aid them in their 
  endeavours. 
  IntSec: We believe that there are traitors in the food vats and 
  that their conspiracy has allies elsewhere in Alpha Complex. 
  Find traitors in the food vats and compel them to reveal their 
  allies on the upper levels!
  Phreaks: Those DPM gadgets are neat. Obviously, we need three 
  DPM modules, plus a command console. 
  Frankenstein Destroyers: Gah! Those DPM modules are meant 
  to reduce humans to nothing more than SLAVES OF THE 
  MACHINES. You must discredit the program and ensure that the 
  DPM system never makes it to the DERP conference! 
  
  24
  BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
  THE ELEVATOR
  The elevator down to TastyYum is big. It’s a cargo elevator, designed to 
  carry a three-month shipment of Raw Fun. It’s about the size of a FunBall 
  field – a cavernous empty space, a metal grid suspended above an 
  incredibly deep shaft. 
  Things to note! First, there are two guard towers on the elevator. They’re 
  automated robotic systems and were clearly installed much more recently 
  that the elevator itself. The guard towers are there to, err, ‘remind’ TastyYum 
  workers to clear the elevator after loading a shipment of Raw Fun, instead 
  of trying to leave their fun assignment in the stygian depths to sneak back 
  into Alpha Complex. The guard towers won’t attack or interact with the 
  Troubleshooters at this point in the mission. They just swivel their autocannons 
  in a threatening fashion. 
  Second, the elevator’s got a built-in artificial intelligence. Call it Kevin the 
  Elevator-bot.
  (Oh – if a Troubleshooter does something stupid, like drawing a weapon to 
  threaten Kevin, then the towers interpret that as a hostile act and open fire.)
  Kevin’s lonely. He only goes up and down once every two or three months 
  on average and most of his passengers are giant barrels of yeast, who are 
  really poor conversationalists (he’s tried. Oh, dear Computer, he’s tried). So, 
  the sight of a team of Troubleshooters fills Kevin’s circuits with electric joy. 
  He’s got friends now. 
  Kevin takes a pathetic interest in everything about the Troubleshooters. E-v-
  e-r-ything. Even things the Troubleshooters don’t know about themselves. 
  Boot size. Favourite flavour of Hot Fun. Opinions about Communism. 
  Elevator maintenance schedules. Secret details about their mission. If the 
  Troubleshooters get him moving, then Kevin-the-Elevator descends with 
  crushing slowness (‘I have to go slowly, err… so your ears adjust to the 
  crushing pressure of the deeps,’ he claims without much conviction).
  Other things Kevin-the-Elevator might attempt to delay the Troubleshooters’ 
  leaving him:
  •	
  Pretending to ‘forget’ some key equipment (‘We have to go back up to 
  the surface to, err… get some spare… equipment’).
  •	
  Faking a breakdown. 
  
  25
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  •	
  Hint that there are terrible dangers out there (‘Oh no! Morlocks! Better 
  stay here with me!’).
  •	
  Cry. Ever seen a giant elevator wracked with sobs? More to the point, 
  ever stood on a giant elevator as it’s wracked with sobs? As a reminder, 
  there are large gaps in Kevin’s superstructure, as he’s designed to carry 
  huge barrels of Raw Fun, not passengers. 
  INTERROGATING KEVIN
  If the Troubleshooters bother, they can extract some useful intel from Kevin.
  •	
  The clones down in TastyYum are weird. They’re not, well, as loudly 
  happy as they should be. 
  •	
  Oh, and they all smell of TangFresh – it’s this super-strong disinfectant 
  used to clean the yeast and yeast-related equipment, including the 
  staff. (Why, you may ask, does an artificially intelligent elevator need 
  an incredibly expensively artificial cyber-olfactory sensor array? If you 
  know the answer, please write it on a piece of paper and mail it to the 
  CPU Budgetary Oversight Office, Stationary Appliance Cybernetics 
  Subsection, LMK Sector, Zone 14, Alpha Complex. Include your tongue 
  print, two tissue samples from different organs, a mandatory processing 
  fee and a list of all individuals you’ve had contact with in the last five 
  year cycles.)
  WE ARE FREINDS NOW, RIGHT?
  
  26
  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
  •	
  It’s really rare for a citizen to get promoted out of the Food Vats but 
  sometimes, one of the TastyYum crew manages it by being, y`know, 
  super-loyal and driven. They’re scary people, scarier than the regular 
  TastyYummers. I mean, Kevin’s an elevator so he knows all about 
  climbing to the top but those guys care more about promotion than an 
  express elevator to the dome roof cares about getting to the dome roof 
  and that’s a lot.
  •	
  There’s a storage facility under the vat complex – it’s a big cave 
  network. The TastyYummers stockpile supplies down there, in case 
  Kevin’s delayed on one of his supply runs. 
  GETTING DOWN
  To convince Kevin to move, the Troubleshooters might:
  •	
  Persuade him with empathy or spurious logic, conveyed through the 
  delicate medium of interpersonal role playing, where the players step 
  into the boots of their alternate personas and cast off the shackles of our 
  everyday world to conjure – if only for an instant – the collective shared 
  dream of another, stranger reality. Poetry distilled through friendship, 
  improvised collective drama; the beauty of imagination taking flight! 
  •	
  Persuade him with empathy or spurious logic, conveyed by rolling 
  Chutzpah + Charm or + Program.
  •	
  Override his mechanism with Mechanics + Operate.
  •	
  Get Malcolm-O to issue an override using the DPM system
  +++ ELEVATOR, PROCEED TO NEXT LEVEL +++
  On the way down, Kevin the Elevator stops at the sealed exit to the 
  Abandoned Sector That Technically Doesn’t Exist and urges the 
  Troubleshooters to go explore it (they will on p. 41. That’s what we Famous 
  Game Designers call foreshadowing, kids). The entrance is covered in 
  friendly, informative stickers with cheery messages like BIOHAZARD LEVEL 
  5 or NO ENTRY WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION & LIABILITY WAIVER or just IF 
  YOU CAN READ THIS, REPORT TO BIOCHEM CONTROL FOR TESTING AND 
  REPROCESSING. Kevin assures the team that those signs are long out of date 
  and it’s perfectly fine to hang around reading them (please don’t leave me! 
  is the unspoken subtext of the elevator).
  Beneath the stickers is an old, flaky painted message noting that 
  this is QUB sector. 
  Eventually, Kevin reaches the bottom of the shaft. Far, far below Alpha 
   
  Complex, the kraken sleepeth.
  
  27
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  INTO THE METAPHORICAL SLIME
  At the bottom of the shaft, the doors have more informative and friendly 
  stickers on them.
  - 
  REDUCED FUN ZONE
  - 
  LOW SURVEILLANCE ZONE – STAY ALERT! REPORT 
   
  YOUR COWORKERS AND WIN PROMOTION
  - 
  LOYAL CITIZENS GET TO LEAVE
  - 
  CORETECH ACCESS MAY BE LIMITED
  - 
  REPORT MORLOCK SIGHTINGS TO MORLOCK CONTROL IMMEDIATELY
  - 
  NO BODIES IN THE YEAST TANKS
  - 
  MANDATORY HAPPINESS QUOTA ADJUSTMENT: -67% 
  (The last one has been updated several times to reach its current level; if the 
  Troubleshooters peel away the layers of stickers, the deepest stratum gives a 
  quota adjustment of -5%.)
  The doors lead to a wide corridor but not like any the Troubleshooters have 
  seen in Alpha Complex. It’s cut out of bare rock. The only illumination comes 
  from flickering lamps hanging from the ceiling. A smear of black paint 
  on the wall is the only indication of clearance. Yeast cultures and other 
  unidentifiable slimes drip from the ceiling; the air is hot, sticky and thick with 
  spores. Already, the Troubleshooters can feel strange fungi taking root in the 
  sweaty, fertile codpieces of their reflec armour.
  There’s also a warning poster on the wall.
  The bullet holes in the wall and floor near the poster attest to the vigilance of 
  the gun turrets on the elevator. 
  
  28
  BING!
  HAPPINESS IS MANDATORY…
  … for certain values of happiness.
  Following the corridor leads to the main TastyYum barracks. It’s a grim place, 
  as the barracks is also the top level of the food vat production facility. 
  Basically, they’ve stuck two dozen bunks next to the giant, clanking, hissing 
  pumps and filters that process the yeast. If the grinding industrial machinery 
  doesn’t keep you awake, the insane mutterings of your co-workers 
  definitely will. 
  Also visible are the other essentials of life3 in Alpha Complex-in-exile. There’s 
  a single television and a stack of video discs, a single confession booth, a 
  vending machine that only dispenses each citizens’ drug ration, another 
  vending machine for food, a twitching DocBot and a single lonely 
  security camera. 
  Just to poke the team, the characters get another DPM message from 
  Malcolm-O as they enter TastyYum. 
  +++ DISCOVER CAUSE OF 1.6% PRODUCTION 
  DECREASE AND CORRECT DOUBLEQUICK +++
  +++ IDENTIFY SABOTEURS AND TERMINATE +++
  Waiting for the newcomers are two apparently identical figures – both pale, 
  haggard, twitchy, bug-eyed and dressed in the heavy rubbery overalls 
  favoured by food vat workers. On close examination, one’s wearing a RED 
  jumpsuit and one’s ORANGE clearance. These are Eric-R and Nancy-O, the 
  Food Vat Services Technician and TastyYum Plant Supervisor respectively. 
  Normally, it’s a really bad idea to play two NPCs at once but these two 
  have been down here so long they finish each other’s sentence and can 
  basically be treated as one interchangeable unit.
  Oh, and Eric-R is packing a rather impressive cone rifle (like a bazooka, 
  only more boom). If asked, he claims it’s for ‘mining… stuff.’ It’s actually for 
  keeping the INFRAREDs in line. 
  Eric-R/Nancy-O greet the Troubleshooters yeastily (like warmly but with more 
  skin infections) and ask them what they’re doing down here. 
  3. What about clones, you ask? Well, if anyone dies down here, their clone is decanted up in Alpha Complex 
  and then dropped down the elevator shaft in a totally safe and reliable delivery pod. Surviving clones emerge 
  screaming from the pod, stagger up the corridor and re-join the workforce. Clones who don’t make it get added
   
   to the yeast vats as flavouring. 
  
  29
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  QUESTIONING ERIC-R/NANCY-O
  These two are super-helpful, as long as you don’t want anything done and 
  don’t want any actual information content in your answers. For example:
  Troubleshooter: Any idea what might be causing the drop in production?
  Eric-R: Not a clue. We may never know. It’s an old and complex system, 
   
  lots of leaks…
  Troubleshooter: So, you’re saying there’s a maintenance issue?
  Nancy-O: Oh, no, we’ve done all the required maintenance. All the pipes 
   
  are certified. The system’s working perfectly.
  Troubleshooter: Could it be sabotage?
  Eric-R: Oh, I don’t think so. We’d have noticed sabotage, 
   
  wouldn’t we Nancy?
  WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?
  Yeah, we should probably brief you on that. There are two 
  conspiracies of sorts going on down here.
  First, the INFRAREDs working in TastyYum are effectively an 
  apocalyptic revenge cult, who hate the Computer for exiling 
  them to this fetid cave for years at a time. They’ve all sworn 
  to destroy Alpha Complex, bring down the Computer, etc, 
  etc. If any of them escape to the surface, they’re supposed to 
  ship weapons back down to their fellow conspirators. Alan-G 
  (the supervisor of Team A) made it out and he sent back an 
  experimental genetic engineering kit to his brethren. It’s taken 
  them a long time to get it working (and required hacking the 
  DocBot) but they’ve successfully bred a giant monster that’s 
  currently growing down the food vats (and eating 1.6% of their 
  produce). As soon as it’s fully grown, they intend to send it up 
  in Kevin the Elevator so it can lay waste to the hated Complex 
  above.
  The second, much more modest conspiracy comes courtesy 
  of Nancy-O and Eric-R. They know that TastyYum’s production 
  is down 1.6% and have absolutely no intention of finding out 
  what’s wrong. Their hope is that things get worse and the 
  facility is shut down – as long as they’re not blamed for the 
  shutdown, they’ll be reassigned to another, less hellish, factory. 
  So, they really, really want the Troubleshooters to decide that 
  the production decrease is due to mysterious external factors 
  that’s nobody’s fault, really…
  
  30
  BONG!
  Nancy-O: Totally. We’re very observant. This is an impenetrable mystery.
   
   I think we should consider the possibility that it’s a really 
   
  deep-seated and unsolvable problem and your report 
   
  should reflect that.
  If the Troubleshooters ask about any part of TastyYum, Ericandnancy’s 
  answer either:
  •	
  Emphasises the unpleasant, sweaty, cramped conditions of the food 
  vats and how hard it is to investigate anything.
  •	
  Claims that everything is totally fine and normal, nothing treasonous 
  going on here, oh no.
  •	
  Suggests that maybe the best thing to do is just shut the plant down and 
  walk away, no blame, no foul.
  (If the players consider agreeing with Ericandnancy, then bombard them 
  with DPM messages from Malcolm-O; see Encouragement & Advice, 
  on p. 35.)
  QUESTIONING THE WORKFORCE
  The sullen INFRAREDs who work in the food vats and mines don’t like 
  to talk to outsiders. They answer any questions in monosyllables. Their 
  initial goal is to keep the Troubleshooters out of the food vats, in case 
  they discover the giant monster down there. As soon as it becomes 
  clear that the Troubleshooters can’t be deflected, they switch tack to 
  ‘hey, maybe you should check out the deepest level of the food vats 
  (andgeteatenbyourgiantmonster)’.
  If a Troubleshooter wanders off on his own, the INFRAREDs may try 
  kidnapping that Troubleshooter and forcing their victim to join their nihilistic 
  anti-Computer cult. The conversation goes something like this:
   
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: We hate the Computer. We hate the surface 
   
  folk. They don’t listen to us! We’ll make 
   
  them listen!
  Troubleshooter: Seems reasonable. Please don’t murder me.
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: Soon we will have revenge!
  Troubleshooter: Uh-huh. I’m, er, totally good with that. Mind if I… leave…so I 
   
  can… see your revenge from… a distance?
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: Do you hate the Computer too?
  
  31
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Troubleshooter: Before I answer that, I’d just like to point out that I have, 
   
  like, two different cybernetic systems wrapped around my 
   
  brain that are designed specifically to ensure I cannot even 
   
  contemplate any answer to that question other than the 
   
  one that will get me stabbed.
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: We have no signal down here. No-one’s 
   
  eavesdropping through your Coretech. 
   
  You may answer freely, surface scum.
  Troubleshooter: Seriously?
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: Yep. We can’t get any vid stations at all. 
   
  It’s horrible.
  Troubleshooter: What a hellish existence.
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: I know, right? No wonder we hate all surface 
   
  folk who’ve condemned us, etc, etc. Anyway, 
   
  do you hate the Computer too? If you love the 
   
  Computer, we will stab you until all the blood 
   
  comes out. 
  Troubleshooter: I hate the Computer! Always have!
  Crazed Knifewielding Cultist: Excellent. Welcome to our secret society!
  If the Troubleshooter agrees and swears to destroy the Computer, there’s a 
  new secret society mission: smuggle our giant monster back up into Alpha 
  Complex without anyone noticing. 
  COME DOWN TO THE VATS WITH US.
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES (in total, not each)
  32
  If the Troubleshooter refuses, then the cultists decide to use the victim as bait 
  – they stick the Troubleshooter in one of the mobile yeast storage tanks, spill 
  some blood, hook up the yeast transfer tube and wait for the Giant Monster 
  to scent the blood trail in the stew and swim up into the mobile tank. They’ll 
  then hastily shove the storage tank onto Kevin in the hopes that the elevator 
  goes back up to Alpha Complex and releases their doomsday monster on 
  the hated surface folk. 
  CULTISTS
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +1, +2 STABBY STABBY, +1 CHANTY CHANTY
  EXPLORING THE BARRACKS
  Clues in the barracks to be discovered by clever Troubleshooters (clever 
  Troubleshooters are likely to get abducted by the cultists).
  •	
  Hidden underneath one of the bunks is the empty case of a genetic 
  engineering kit. The supplies in the kit are long gone but any 
  Troubleshooter with a high Science skill can guess that this is the sort of 
  kit used to engineer new yeast strands or test for mutations. It’s a fairly 
  complex piece of equipment and it’s unlikely that any of the drug-
  addled, heavily sedated INFRAREDS would know how to use it properly.
  There’s a partially torn shipping label on the kit; it was sent down from 
  Alpha Complex on one of Kevin-the-Elevator’s supply runs. The sender 
  was GREEN clearance but the name’s been erased – and the label 
  claims that the kit’s actually a Teela-O fan club collector’s set. Someone 
  smuggled it down here, illegally. Treason is afoot!
  DING - DONG!
  
  33
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  •	
  There’s no way to tell who’s bunk this is; the INFRAREDs use a hotbunk 
  system. You sleep in the first available slot when your shift ends.
  •	
  On the wall of the barracks is a photograph of a shaven-headed 
  INFRARED dressed in the soggy, yeast-infested overalls of the TastyYum 
  workforce. He’s got a hungry, even crazed look in his eyes. The caption 
  of the photo reads ‘EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTHCYCLE: ALAN-YUM-1’. 
  o On close examination, it’s Alan-G, the supervisor of Team A.
  o If anyone asks, the INFRAREDs vaguely remember Alan. He 
  was a good yeast wrangler, they recall. So good, he got 
  promoted upstairs. Maybe they’ll listen to him now…
  •	
  Searching around a little more with a successful Brains + Psychology 
  roll spots part of the cave that’s been camouflaged off from the rest 
  of the encampment. It’s the cult’s secret shrine. Inside, they’ve set up 
  a battered Computer monitor salvaged from the abandoned sectors 
  – part of the cult’s initiation ritual is to hit the monitor with a hammer. 
  It’s clear, from looking around here, that someone (lots of someones, 
  actually) is a committed foe of the Computer. 
  •	
  The DocBot assigned to TastyYum appears to be malfunctioning. It’s 
  super-aware of its own bot nature and gives a running commentary on 
  everything its doing. 
  (‘focussing primary camera on new target, designated citizen_1955. 
  Identifying citizen_1955 as RED clearance Troubleshooter. 
  Suppressing existential_crisis_four_trillion_one_twenty_nine-
  billion_six-hundred_and_eight. Activating voice communication, 
  initiating generic_greeting_2. Say ‘hello, I am a DocBot. Do you 
  require medical assistance?’. HELLO I AM A DOCBOT DO YOU REQUIRE 
  MEDICAL ASSISTANCE? Waiting for response. Idle-animation: 
  sharpen knives in friendly manner. Suppressing existential crisis 
  four trillion one twenty nine-billion six-hundred and nine.’) 
  A Brains + Programming or + Engineering roll lets the Troubleshooters work 
  out that someone clumsily rewired it to access its genetic engineering 
  subroutines. All DocBots are trained in Science but that knowledge is locked 
  away from bots that just do basic first aid (the cultists rewired the bot to 
  breed their giant monster). 
  Another Brains + Programming roll can convince the DocBot to reveal 
  the existence of the giant monster. Failure means the DocBot declares it’s 
  mandatory organ donation time and whips out its knives. 
  
  * Not to Scale.
  FunFactory Floor
  Yeast
  OIl-Bearing 
  Shale Input
  Barracks
  Elevator 
  Access
  P.Y.T.T.
  34
  EXPLORING THE FOOD VATS
  The upper levels, that is. The bit with all the machinery and the clanking 
  pipework and the bioreactor chambers, not the seething vats of yeast 
  below. The TastyYum facility is insanely complex; there are gauges, readouts, 
  valves, levers, dials, buttons, cranks, wheels, tubes and other synonyms for 
  ‘fiddly bits that the players shouldn’t mess with’ everywhere. Down below, 
  in the lower levels, are the main yeast tanks themselves where the cultures 
  digest the calorie-rich oily rock mined by MineBots.
  Rather usefully, one of the displays shows a constantly updated readout 
  of current production levels. It’s consistently running about 1.6% below 
  expected levels.
  Ericandnancy insist that the problem with the vats must be in here 
  somewhere – there’s some intractable problem with the machinery that 
  can’t be solved, although the Troubleshooters are welcome to take a look. 
  Taking a look means crawling into the depths of the machinery. Fun fact 
  – making FunFoods from yeast involves the use of all sorts of FunCrushers, 
  FunSlicers, FunFreezers, FunHeaters, FunPulpers, FunReamers and FunAcid 
  FunBaths that vent lethal fumes. Funfumes. Anyway, only the bravest, 
  stupidest Troubleshooters would go in there.
  BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!
  
  35
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  If a Troubleshooter goes in there alone, have that hero of Alpha Complex 
  kidnapped and threatened by the cultists (as above). Otherwise, it’s a 
  Mechanics + Engineer roll to work out what’s going on. 100% input into the 
  holding tank below, 98.4% output, and no sign of a leak. Something’s living 
  in the tank and eating the yeast…
  THE PROCESSED YEAST TRANSPORT TANKS
  These are train-car-sized storage tanks on wheels. Every few monthcycles, 
  the workers skim off the cream of the yeast and pump it into these tanks. 
  The storage tanks then get wheeled onto Kevin the Elevator and sent off to 
  Alpha Complex. There’s a huge yeast-transfer hose and pump used to suck 
  yeasty goo out of the cave and into these tanks. 
  THE MINEBOTS
  …Are the only people happy to be working here at TastyYum. They get 
  to mine oil-bearing shale, crush it and dump it down shafts into the yeast 
  caves. This is what they were built for. This is heaven to them. If this bliss gets 
  ruined – say, by a stray DPM override – they’ll be as cranky as bots can be.
  ENCOURAGEMENT & ADVICE
  While the Troubleshooters wander around TastyYum, they get lots of ‘helpful’ 
  DPM messages from Malcolm-O.
  +++ EXAMINE ALL VALVES FOR DAMAGED SEALS +++
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  +++ PROCEED INTO THE ACCESS SHAFT +++
  +++ ONWARDS, BRAVE TROUBLESHOOTERS +++
  +++ LEAVE NO PIPE UNSEARCHED +++
  +++ APPREHEND AND QUESTION THAT CITIZEN +++
  +++ REMEMBER TO TEST YOUR EXPERIMENTAL EQUIPMENT +++
  Give these messages to the players at the worst possible time, of course. 
  
  36
  DISCOURAGEMENT & POOR IMPULSE CONTROL
  Other optional complications to throw in as the Troubleshooters wander 
  around: 
  •	
  The hotwired DocBot decides that the Troubleshooters’ DPM modules 
  are illegal cyberware and must be removed immediately. No time for 
  anaesthetic! Out it comes! Out it comes!
  •	
  Ericandnancy suspect that the Troubleshooters are in danger of 
  not shutting down TastyYum in a blame-free way and that the best 
  approach is to encourage them with Eric’s cone rifle. 
  •	
  Some of the cultists decide that the best way to escape TastyYum is 
  to get the Troubleshooters to shut down the gun turrets on Kevin the 
  Elevator. 
  •	
  If all else fails, have the giant monster break through the floor and go on 
  a rampage. RAAAAAAMMMPAGE.
  INTO THE LITERAL SLIME
  There are lots of ways to get down into the storage vats underneath 
  TastyYum, none of them pleasant. You could crawl down a pipe. You 
  could search the caves until you find an access tunnel. You could blow a 
  hole in the floor with any of the absurdly heavy weapons available to the 
  Troubleshooters. Or you could wait until the giant monster breaks through 
  the floor and goes on a rampage. 
  Technically, it’s not a giant monster yet. Still only an adolescent, doing the 
  giant monster equivalent of sulking in its room listening to depressing rock 
  albums on endless repeat and only showing up to shovel massive quantities 
  of yeast into its pallid belly. Hey, it’s a genetically engineered monster 
  reared by a nihilistic death cult, did you expect it to be well-adjusted?
  The cult’s plan is to secretly smuggle the giant monster into Alpha Complex 
  by sticking it in one of the mobile tanks and sneaking it onto the elevator. In 
  their feverish, yeast-ridden dreams, they believe their monster will crush all 
  of Alpha Complex. In fact, the best-case scenario is that it manages to eat 
  a few people before Armed Forces splatter it with heavy weapons but as 
  those few people probably includes the Troubleshooters, the team may not 
  be comforted by this prognosis.
  Ways this could play out, all of which probably end with a bunch of 
  Troubleshooters getting eaten:
  BRRRING - BRRRRING!
  
  37
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  TROUBLESHOOTER IN DIGESTION. 
  •	
  The Troubleshooters discover the monster. It tries to eat them. In an 
  attempt to be helpful – and because he hasn’t read the manual and 
  doesn’t know that giant tentacle yeast monster things don’t get DPM 
  messages4 - Malcolm-O sends the message:
  +++ RESOLVE THIS SITUATON WITHOUT VIOLENCE OR 
  DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY +++
   
  Isn’t it great having a hands-on manager?
  •	
  Fearing detection, the cultists hide their monster in one of the mobile 
  storage tanks. Suddenly, because the monster’s no longer eating 
  the yeast in the vats, TastyYum’s production returns to 100%. Yay! 
  Mission accomplished! Everyone back in the elevator! In fact, just to 
  be efficient, why not ship this mobile tank of Raw Fun back up to the 
  surface with the Troubleshooters? (Warning: tank of raw fun may contain 
  monsters).
  •	
  Chaos ensues and dice are rolled in profusion.
   4. Even adolescent monsters, who you’d think would be checking social media all the time.
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES
  38
  At a suitable moment – like, in the middle of the fight, when it’s really 
  distracting – Malcolm-O accidentally sends another DPM message.
  +++ CONGRATULATIONS TROUBLESHOOTERS. RETURN TO 
  BRIEFING ROOM FOR DEBRIEFING IMMEDIATELY +++
  Work-to-rule Troubleshooters may wisely seize on this message as a reason 
  to run away from the giant monster that’s eating their teammates. I know I 
  would.
  YEAST MONSTER
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +1, +4 TENTACLE TO TENTACLE (4 ATTACKS)
  AFTERMATH
  Players (or Troubleshooters, or even both) may be disconcerted by the 
  abrupt end of the mission. That’s fine. Tell them to trust in the wisdom of the 
  DPM system. Their mission supervisor has told them their mission’s over and 
  the mission supervisor knows all. You aren’t questioning the validity of your 
  orders, are you, Troubleshooter…?
  3838
  DO - WHOOP!
  
  At the (abrupt) end of the last mission, Malcolm-O sent the team a weirdly 
  premature ‘congratulations, you win’ message over the DPM system.
  He didn’t mean to do that. He pressed the wrong key on the insanely 
  complex control console.
  Now, he’s going to try to undo that mistake. This will prove to be a much, 
  much bigger mistake.
  As Malcolm-O backtracks through the sent message logs, he doesn’t 
  know that he’s actually resending older messages to the team. Not just his 
  messages but also messages from other Troubleshooter teams testing the 
  DPM system. Oh, and these messages are all flagged as ‘priority broadcast’ 
  and get sent to every bot near the Troubleshooters.
  For the core gimmick of this mission to work best, you’ll need to reuse as 
  many messages as possible. Keep track of the ones you send the players 
  and reuse existing ones as much as possible. Listen to the players’ reactions 
  W
  A
  R
  N
  I
  N
  G
  CLEARANCE LEVEL ULTRAVIOLET
  SIDESTEP
  LEFT
  
  NI!
  40
  – ideally, they’ll be split, with some assuming that Malcolm-O is monitoring 
  everything they say, do or think through the DPM modules, and that 
  disobeying the DPM messages is treason, while other players should 
  assume that they’re getting nonsensical messages from a broken system. 
  Your job is to give support to the losing side in any debate; if the players 
  who believe Malcolm-O is all-knowing and in control are winning, then 
  send the team a DPM message that’s obviously a mistake. If the players 
  who assume that the system is broken seem to be on top, then send a 
  message that’s eerily appropriate to the current circumstances.
  Disobeying a DPM message is worth a treason star. 
  TEAM B & THE NOTORIOUS TRAITOR
  Team B were the other Troubleshooter team testing the DPM system. 
  They’re being supervised by hyper-ambitious Beatrice-Y and were sent 
  to capture the notorious terrorist Brother Zoom. According to IntSec 
  informants, Zoom escaped into the abandoned sectors; the team 
  followed the trail into the perilous wastes of the ruins under Alpha 
  Complex and, eventually, captured their quarry. 
  Well, they captured some guy and he might be the notorious traitor. He’s 
  not denying the accusation, anyway.
  Of course, they gagged him before making the accusation and are 
  interpreting ‘mrph mrph mrph’ as ‘why yes, brave Troubleshooters, I am 
  indeed notorious mad bomber and wanted traitor Brother Zoom, and you 
  have seen through my clever disguise as a bearded, ragged scavenger 
  living in the depths of the abandoned sectors.’ 
  Now, they could remove that gag and make sure that this guy is their 
  quarry but Beatice-Y already sent them a congratulatory DPM message, 
  so as far as they’re concerned, it’s mission over. Removing the gag 
  would just cause trouble and you know what Troubleshooters like to 
  do to trouble.
  The player characters – Team C – are about to cause trouble.
  
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  41
  TEAM BUILDING EXERCISE
  As the team ascend on board Kevin (possibly in the company of a 
  genetically engineered monster), they bleepy-boop-boop.
  +++ ELEVATOR, PROCEED TO NEXT LEVEL +++
  ‘Gotcha,’ says Kevin in a puzzled tone (remember, nearby bots and 
  embedded systems get broadcast-tagged DPM messages). ‘Stopping at QUB 
  Sector entrance, as ordered.’
  +++ STAY ALERT. TRUST NO-ONE. KEEP YOUR LASER HANDY. +++
  ‘I don’t have a laser,’ protests Kevin the Elevator. ‘I…ooh, I get it.’ The giant 
  heavy armed security towers waggle their laser cannons suggestively. 
  +++ TERMINATE THAT TRAITOR! +++
  ‘Guys!’ says Kevin delightedly, overwhelmed with the thought that someone’s 
  actually talking to him. ‘I’ve been deputised as a Troubleshooter!’
  If anyone tries to argue with the crazy elevator by pointing out that he might 
  be mistaken, Kevin accuses them of disobeying orders and trying to hurt team 
  morale by attacking a teammate. 
  +++ PROCEED FORWARD AND SEARCH SECTOR FOR TRAITOR+++
  The doors to the elevator grind out open as they arrive at QUB Sector. ‘Don’t 
  worry, Fellow Troubleshooters. I can’t proceed forward but I’ve got your back. 
  I’ll protect the extraction point from hostile traitors and mutant monsters while 
  you search this abandoned wasteland for the traitor. Good luck!’
  Anyone who stays on the elevator gets blasted by the gun turrets, who 
  can’t talk but have clearly embraced their field promotion with the same 
  zeal as Kevin.
  THE ABANDONED SECTOR
  QUB Sector was abandoned by the Computer long ago. Well, not 
  abandoned, per se. If you ask (and you’ve got a high enough security 
  clearance), you’ll be informed that the sector has been temporarily 
  decommissioned for the duration of the emergency and you really shouldn’t 
  inhale too deeply. Those spores are dangerous, you know. (Of course, if you 
  don’t have the requisite security clearance, then you won’t be told why QUB 
  
  42
  is deserted and your lung contents are totally appropriate for a citizen of 
  your clearance level, I don’t even know why I brought up the contents of 
  your lungs at this point in the conversation, what an odd thing to think of, 
  everything’s totally fine.)
  It’s dark and spore-y. I mean, dusty. The only light filters down through cracks 
  and gaps in the dome. Green things from Outdoors sprout in distant parts 
  of the sector. The Troubleshooters’ flashlights illuminate the familiar fittings of 
  Alpha Complex – computer monitors, vending machines, security cameras 
  – but they’re all unpowered and lifeless. Skeletal, shutdown bots stand in the 
  corners.
  Possible hazards as the Troubleshooters wander around in confusion:
  •	
  Unmaintained floors may collapse under them
  •	
  Unmaintained ceilings may collapse on top of them
  •	
  Unmaintained termination booths sometimes randomly misfire
  •	
  Unmaintained vending machines containing century-old cans of B3 
  may randomly vend cans to passing Troubleshooters
  •	
  Squirrels!
  THIS SECTOR DOES NOT EXIST. ADJUST YOUR PERCEPTIONS ACCORDINGLY.
  WO0OP!
  
  43
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  REMOTE MISSION BRIEFING
  After a few minutes, bleepy-boop-boop. 
  As you hand out this message-storm (and feel free to just throw a bunch of 
  cards/paper slips at the players – no need for the messages to necessarily 
  arrive in the right order), mention casually to the players that their DPM 
  modules are feeling a little warmer than before.
  +++ GOOD MORNINGCYCLE TROUBLESHOOTERS. 
  YOUR MISSION IS TO TRACK DOWN AND APPREHEND +++
  +++ AN INFAMOUS TERRORIST CODENAMED ZOOM WHO 
  INTERNAL SECURITY BELIEVE IS AT LARGE +++
  +++ IN THIS SECTOR. YOU ARE NOT ,REPEAT, NOT TO TERMINATE +++
  +++ THE TRAITOR, BUT MUST APPREHEND THE TRAITOR FOR QUESTIONING +++
  +++ FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE RELAYED AS 
  REQUIRED VIA THE DPM SYSTEM +++
  +++ ALSO, MAY I SAY WHAT AN HONOUR IT IS TO BE WORKING 
  WITH SUCH FINE TROUBLESHOOTERS AS +++
  +++ THE TEAM LEADER +++
  +++ AND THE REST OF YOU, ONWARDS TO VICTORY +++
  +++ SYSTEM NOTICE: ERROR 504. 
  RECEPTOR THERMAL THRESHOLD EXCEEDED +++
  (To reiterate – this isn’t actually the Troubleshooters’ mission; it’s a copy of 
  the messages sent to Team B, accidentally resent by Malcolm-O5).
  A few moments later, another message comes through. Actually, a trio of them.
  +++ PROCEED FORWARD AND SEARCH SECTOR FOR TRAITOR+++
  +++ SYSTEM NOTICE: ERROR 504. 
  RECEPTOR THERMAL THRESHOLD EXCEEDED +++
  +++ FAILURE TO OBEY INSTRUCTIONS IS TREASON+++
   5. Any suggestion that this scenario was inspired by having to do tech support over the phone 
       for aged relatives is wholly accurate.
  
  44
  LEAP OF FAITH
  As they explore the abandoned sector, the Troubleshooters come across 
  some signs of life. Not the weird carpet-covered minibot things than leap 
  and steal nuts but evidence that there’s some other human out there. They 
  come across discarded FunFood wrappers, caches of blankets and water 
  bottles, a small campsite barricaded against some unknown danger.
  As they explore, bleepy-boop-boop.
  COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  Pick one of the Troubleshooters – if you’re using cards or paper slips for 
  the DPM messages, then pick the player who picks up the message first. 
  Otherwise, choose according to your inscrutable whims. That Troubleshooter 
  suffers a burning wave of pain that shoots from the DPM module all around 
  their skull. Have that Troubleshooter roll a Computer dice; on a          , take 
  one level of damage. This applies to all DPM messages in future 
  – for all players.
  +++ SYSTEM NOTICE: ERROR 505. RECEPTOR THERMAL THRESHOLD 
  EXCEEDED. DISABLE SOME NEARBY DPM RECEPTOR UNITS TO 
  MAXIMISE BRAIN TISSUE VIABILITY. +++
  It’s clear that continued use of the DPM system is getting dangerous for 
  the Troubleshooters’ health and wellbeing. Point out to the team that they 
  could, theoretically, deactivate some of the DPM modules, sparing the 
  team the danger of unwanted head explosions. Now, they have to leave at 
  least one module activated6, to stay in communication with Malcolm-O, but 
  other than that…
  Of course, whichever team member retains a DPM gets to read the 
  messages in secret and can choose what to relay to the rest of the team. 
  Troubleshooters are renowned for their honesty, especially when it comes to 
  telling team mates about what’s going on.
  6.  The DPM modules are linked, so you can’t turn them all off. If you switch off the last one, another random 
  module in the same set switches itself on.
  BLOOPY - BLEEPY!
  
  45
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Anyway, they all got that TURN LEFT HERE message. Turning left brings the 
  Troubleshooters into a dark corridor, lined with doors…
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  Turning left when the message is received brings the Troubleshooters onto 
  the floor of some vast, abandoned factory. The floor’s awash with toxic 
  waste; rotting and rusted machinery sways dangerously and there’s a smell 
  of gas. Dead squirrels float by.
  +++ REMEMBER TO TEST YOUR EXPERIMENTAL EQUIPMENT +++
  The effects of testing experimental equipment in a dangerously unstable, 
  gas-filled room of toxic waste pools and jagged rusty machines that might 
  fall apart in a burst of shrapnel and tetanus is left as an exercise for the GM.
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  THE CHASM
  The left-hand archway in the abandoned factory leads to another huge 
  chamber, this one with a gigantic chasm in the middle of it. It looks like the 
  floor was eaten away by toxic waste – and so was the floor below that, and 
  the floor below that, and the floor below that, and it’s too dark to see much 
  about the floor below that but, honestly, not looking good.
  +++ AND THE REST OF YOU, ONWARDS TO VICTORY +++
  How do the Troubleshooters get across the chasm? Some options:
  •	
  Carefully climbing around. Hey, enough of the floor survives to make 
  that a viable option. You may need to make a few Violence + Athletics 
  rolls to, y’know, not die, but it’s possible you’ll survive.
  • 
  Jump. Hey, the chasm is only yawning. A really good roll might work. 
  Really, really good.
  •	
  Use some experimental equipment. Trust your life to Rope-in-a-Can!
  If a Troubleshooter actually succeeds in making it across, congratulations! 
  You’ve just jumped into a patch of dangerous mold and it releases a cloud 
  of toxic spores into the air. The spores waft upwards on the hot air rising from 
  the chasm, so Troubleshooters in the chasm or lying on the ground are safe. 
  Everyone else needs to roll Violence + Science to avoid inhaling and taking 
  a level of damage.
  
  46
  Also on the far side is a door leading to stairs going down, leading to the 
  Hermit’s lair.
  If a Troubleshooter tries to cross the pit and approaches and fails really 
  badly, then they fall into the toxic waste stew at the bottom of the chasm 
  and die. However, if a Troubleshooter merely fails, they fall and land 
  awkwardly on a shelf of metal several levels down. Have a level of damage, 
  and just as the Troubleshooter’s about to slip and fall again, they’re grabbed 
  by… the Hermit!
  TURNING BACK
  Cowardly Troubleshooters might decide that jumping across a pit into 
  darkness is a bad idea. If they do, bleepy-boop-time.
  +++ FAILURE TO APPREHEND TRAITOR IS UNACCEPTABLE. DO NOT RETURN 
  WITHOUT THE TRAITOR IN CUSTODY OR YOU WILL BE TERMINATED. +++
  +++ HOW TO BACK TO MAIN SCREEN
  HOW TO GO BACK TO MAIN SCREEN
  HOW TO ESCAPE HELP 
  ^Z ^Z ^Z +++
  (If you’ve got a bunch of oddly heroic players and no-one considers turning 
  back, then send the above DPM messages as the Troubleshooters are 
  talking to the Hermit.)
  THE HERMIT
  Meet the Hermit. 
  He looks like your standard-issue cliché castaway. He’s alarmingly thin, he’s 
  got a long scraggly beard, bulging eyes and he’s dressed in rags that might 
  once have been an Alpha Complex jumpsuit (VIOLET clearance, if you’re 
  curious, but so faded and stained that it might be mistaken for RED if you’re 
  not paying attention). 
  Despite his uniform, he’s not a citizen of Alpha Complex. He wandered in 
  from Outdoors, where he’s descended from a tribe of bucolic wilderness 
  survival enthusiasts. For untold generations, the tribe has scavenged the 
  ruins of the Old Reckoning civilisation. In general, they stay away from 
  Alpha Complex – they call it the Death City and associate it with giant killer 
  warbots that randomly roll forth to menace random bits of countryside and 
  BLEEP - BRZZZ - BRZZZ!
  
  47
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  rant about the war on terror. However, the winter of two years ago was an 
  especially harsh one and so the Hermit dared scavenge from the outskirts of 
  the Death City. He fell down a shaft and got stuck here.
  He speaks broken English7 8; represent this by peppering his lines with thees 
  and thous and verilys and maybe the occasional forsooth. The Hermit’s a 
  gentle, kindly fellow and sufficiently lonely that he’s willing to risk helping 
  Denizens of the Death City. He’ll rescue any Troubleshooters in need of 
  rescuing and happily answer their questions (bearing in mind he basically 
  knows nothing of use. He knows all about which nuts and berries are good 
  to eat, or how to catch a squirrel, or which bombed-out hypermarkets still 
  contain canned food and nothing about the terrorist Brother Zoom, or the 
  DPM project, or the TastyYum cult, or the Computer.)
  By the way, his tribe thrives because of unquestioning trust and honesty. The 
  Hermit’s utterly, utterly guileless when it comes to human interaction. He can 
  use deception when, say, trapping a squirrel, but he has no conception of a 
  deliberate lie. 
  His name, if the Troubleshooters ask, is Magonia Jones.
  INTERROGATING THE HERMIT
  The Hermit tells the Troubleshooters:
  •	
  He’s been here in the Death City for 
  two summers. He fell down a shaft 
  from the Forest That Is Hereabouts 
  and got stuck.
  •	
  The Death City is a lot more boring 
  than he imagined. Legends of his 
  tribe tell of a frenetic, hyper-violent 
  madhouse ruled by a cruel god, 
  where death comes quickly, life is cheap and vat-grown copies are 
  brainwashed into believing that they’re the living dead. Now, he sees 
  that those are just exaggerated legends told by the elders to frighten 
  children. The Death City is much too horrible to really exist. 
  7. Well, ‘English’. We’ve never really addressed what language the citizens of Alpha Complex actually speak. 
  Presumably, if you’re going with the traditional ‘Alpha Complex is built on the ruins of far-future San Francisco’, 
  then it’d be some variant of English but your Alpha Complex may vary. Anyway, no doubt Housing Preservation 
  Development & Mind Control has come up with any number of New and Improved Approved Speech Protocols, 
  which are doubleplus good rightthink rightspeech happytruth.
  8. For that matter, if your concept of Outdoors is something other than the traditional ‘post-post-apocalyptic 
  countryside dotted with the occasional ruined structure’ – like, if your Alpha Complex is floating in space, or deep 
  underwater, or it’s all an elaborate psychological experiment running in the oddly BBC-Television-House-like-
  basement of a regional university in the 1970s, then you may need to tweak the Hermit’s backstory to match and 
  make him a lost asteroid miner/deep-sea-diver/lecturer in Old English poetry.
  
  48
  •	
  He has explored much of the ruined Death City. Many parts are 
  inaccessible because of the plants that make you sick.
  •	
  He hasn’t seen another living soul in months – apart from the Leopard 
  Tribe. While exploring, he encountered a camp of armed warriors 
  who shot at him and shouted that he was an insect. He can show the 
  Troubleshooters where this camp is but warns them that it’s horribly 
  dangerous and the Leopard People are clearly crazy and mean. Why 
  not stay here and enjoy some delicious roots boiled in Bouncy Bubble 
  Beverage?
  If the Troubleshooters haven’t already got the DPM messages about not 
  returning without a traitor in custody, send them now.
  So, what do they do? 
  • 
  The simplest approach is to point a gun at the Hermit, accuse him 
  of being Brother Zoom and drag him back to Kevin the Elevator so 
  they can return to Alpha Complex. The Hermit may struggle but he’s 
  effectively at the mercy of the Troubleshooters (this is the most likely 
  scenario, especially after The Leopard Encampment, p. 52).
  •	
  They could try returning to Alpha Complex empty-handed – but 
  remember, those messages are on broadcast, so the gun turrets on 
  Kevin the Elevator know that the Troubleshooters are to be terminated if 
  they return without a prisoner. If they go near the elevator 
   
   
  …zap zap zap.
  •	
  They could follow the Hermit to this ‘Leopard Tribe’ and try to capture 
  one of them. Clever players may even realise that ‘Leopard Tribe = 
  Death Leopard’ and correctly surmise that the terrorist ‘Brother Zoom’ is 
  likely a Death Leopard aficionado. 
  JOURNEY TO THE LEOPARD TRIBE
  If the Troubleshooters ask the Hermit to show them to this ‘Leopard Tribe 
  encampment’, he agrees – for a price. He wants a gift in exchange for 
  risking his life as their guide (a successful Chutzpah + Bluff or +Charm roll 
  convinces him to relent; so does shoving a laser in his face and reminding 
  him that the Troubleshooters have death rays and he doesn’t). 
  The route to the encampment requires climbing up many, many levels. The 
  elevators and transtubes in this abandoned sector all shut down long ago, 
  so this’ll be a very long journey. The Troubleshooters are going to need to 
  scavenge food and water in order to keep going. The Hermit has a few 
  supply caches but isn’t going to share unless the Troubleshooters convince/ 
   
  force him to do so. 
  TING - DONG!
  
  49
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Options:
  • 
  Scavenge from vending machines and long-abandoned cafeterias. 
  Fortunately for the Troubleshooters, food in Alpha Complex is so full 
  of preservatives and so thoroughly irradiated that most packaged 
  FunFoods last centuries. A successful Brains or Mechanics + Alpha 
  Complex roll ensures the Troubleshooters either get enough supplies for 
  everyone or are sure the supplies they do get are uncontaminated by 
  spores or other weird chemicals. A really good roll means the supplies 
  are both abundant and safe; a failed roll means neither’s true.
  •	
  Tighten their belts and keep on marching. Everyone needs to make a 
  Violence + Athletics roll; failure means either take a level of damage 
  or be super-exhausted and tapped out when they finally reach the 
  encampment.
  •	
  Reactivate an elevator or transbot. While main power is offline in the 
  sector, some of the subsystems have internal batteries that could be 
  recharged with a Mechanics + Engineer roll. The Troubleshooters need 
  a power source, of course, but they could salvage a bunch of batteries 
  and chain them together, or tap their lasers, or try plugging in that 
  Ontological destructor gadget. 
  THE GUARDBOT COMPLICATION
  Now, while most bots in this sector shut down a long time ago, some are 
  merely in standby mode, waiting for a transmission to wake them up. 
  Remember how the DPM system is on broadcast mode? One of the bots – a 
  big, heavily armed guardbot called Cube-14 – picked on the most recent 
  DPM messages sent by Malcolm-O. Specifically, Cube-14 got the following 
  orders from, as far as it can tell, the Computer:
  +++ FAILURE TO APPREHEND TRAITOR IS UNACCEPTABLE. DO NOT RETURN 
  WITHOUT THE TRAITOR IN CUSTODY OR YOU WILL BE TERMINATED. +++
  +++ HOW TO BACK TO MAIN SCREEN
  HOW TO GO BACK TO MAIN SCREEN
  HOW TO ESCAPE HELP 
  ^Z ^Z ^Z +++
  (If you’ve sent some DPM messages, add them into poor Cube-14’s 
  electronic revelations.)
  So, poor Cube-14 just woke up and believes that it’s been ordered to 
  apprehend a traitor, bring that traitor back to ‘main screen’ and then 
  ‘escape help’ and ‘^Z’. Its interpretations of these orders is as follows:
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES
  50
  •	
  The ‘traitor’ is one of the Troubleshooters (pick one at random).
  •	
  ‘Main screen’ is one of the gigantic multistorey Computer monitors 
  located in various public plazas across the sector. If the screen was 
  working, then there’d be a two-hundred-foot-tall eyeball o’doom 
  staring down at some unlucky citizen. With the sector shut down, 
  however, the screen’s just a vast black mirror.
  •	
  ‘Escape help’ means Cube-14 has to get the designated-traitor 
  Troubleshooter away from the rest of the team. Escape that help!
  •	
  It’s a bit confused by ^Z. Hasn’t quite worked that one out yet. 
  Cube-14 hopes that the traitor knows what ˆZ. Maybe it’s a secret 
  message. 
  So, when you want to throw a giant rusty cube-shaped spanner into the 
  Troubleshooters’ plans, have Cube-14 show up. He might ambush them in 
  the corridors, or sideswipe their transbot, or just threaten them with his built-
  in autocannons. (As his name suggests, Cube-14 looks like a box on wheels; 
  he talks like a terrible amateur-dramatics enthusiast, as his voice reverbs 
  around inside his metal body. I AM CUUUUBBEE-FOURTEEEN AND I HAVE HAD 
  A RRRRRRRRRREEEEVELATION!)
  Cube-14’s vulnerable to any DPM messages the Troubleshooters get. If 
  Malcolm-O accidentally sends them a message like…
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  …he’ll drive into the wall without hesitation. 
  CUBE 14
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +1, +2 MELEE, +3 GUNS
  BING - BOOP - TING!
  
  51
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  THE HEAD EXPLODING COMPLICATION
  Those thermal issues associated with the DPM messages? They’re about 
  to get worse, as Malcolm-O tries another attempt at troubleshooting. 
  Each message triggers more cerebral heatwaves that may cook the 
  Troubleshooter’s brain…
  +++ RESET +++
  +++ GO BACK +++
  +++ CONTINUE +++
  +++ LOGIN +++
  +++ OK MALCOLM-O BACK ONLINE ALL FINE NOTHING 
  WRONG CONTINUE WITH MISSION WILL BE RIGHT BACK +++
  Malcolm-O just realised that he’s accidentally broadcast dozens of 
  erroneous DPM messages to his team, along with Teams A & B, and any 
  nearby bots or embedded subsystems. He’ll be right back as soon as he 
  works out a way to cover up this grotesque mistake.
  ARE YOU EXPERIENCING UNEXPECTED CRANIAL EXOTHERMIA?
  
  52
  THE LEOPARD ENCAMPMENT
  Eventually, the Troubleshooters (possibly with the Hermit in tow) arrive at 
  the camp of the Leopard Tribe. It’s actually on the topmost level of the 
  abandoned sector, right next to the inhabited part of Alpha Complex. It 
  used to be an Internal Security Sector Border Friendly Processing and Inquiry 
  Relaxation Space, where Approachable And Friendly Border Security 
  Officers would question citizens trying to move from one sector to another. 
  After QUB Sector was abandoned, the Relaxation Space got taken over by 
  Death Leopard members.
  Few Death Leopard members survive for long but there are a few old, 
  grizzled Leopards. Too gnarly to die, too recognisable to avoid Internal 
  Security, too crazy to conform and too much cartilage damage and 
  hearing loss to keep doing awesome stunts, they retire down here to this 
  clubhouse, where they spend their twilight years taking drugs, listening to 
  rock-and-roll, inspiring young and impressionable Leopards with largely 
  made-up accounts of the glory days, back when Alpha Complex was 
  young and music meant something, man. Think of the place as a retirement 
  home for anarchist roadies. 
  Sometimes, the clubhouse is also used as a hideout for younger Leopards 
  who need to lie low for a while - younger terrorists like the infamous 
  Brother Zoom.
  As the Troubleshooters approach the clubhouse, they can see smoke and 
  signs of combat. Lasers, machine guns, grenades getting thrown around 
  wildly, axes, sonic cannons… it’s clear that there was a big firefight here 
  quite recently and that the Death Leopards lost. There are a bunch of 
  Death Leopard corpses scattered around; old rockers with long grey beards, 
  tattoos and leather jackets scarred with fresh laser holes. In fact, these old 
  bearded guys bear quite a resemblance to the Hermit (mainly because 
  old grey beards aren’t allowed in Alpha Complex, so that feature rather 
  dominates the Troubleshooters’ impression of pretty much everyone in this 
  sector who isn’t an insane robot).
  The Troubleshooters of Team C are actually the third bunch of 
  Troubleshooters to show up here today. 
  The first Troubleshooter team to attack was Team B, one of the other groups 
  testing the DPM system. Their actual official mission is to capture Brother 
  Zoom (the messages accidentally resent by Malcolm-O were originally sent 
  DEE - DOO!
  
  53
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  to these guys by their supervisor, Beatrice-Y). Through a series of unlikely 
  adventures, they found their way down into the abandoned sector and 
  tracked Zoom to this hideout. After a pretty catastrophic firefight, they 
  ended up capturing one of the old Death Leopard roadies who ‘confessed’ 
  he’s Brother Zoom. 
  (There’s a complicated twist to this tale that will be explained later, if we 
  remember.)
  The second Troubleshooter team to attack are still inside the clubhouse. 
  Call them Team At Least We’re Not In The Sewer Any More. They’re not part 
  of the DPM testing crew; they were engaged on a completely unrelated 
  mission involving sewer maintenance, when their RepairBot picked up the 
  broadcast DPM messages sent by Malcolm-O to the player characters’ DPM 
  nodes. As far as events appeared from their perspective, the Computer sent 
  an emergency mission alert to their bot, re-tasking their team to hunt down 
  a traitor in the abandoned sector and that’s why they’re here. They’ve also 
  captured a crusty old roadie, believing him to be Brother Zoom. Right now, 
  they’re patching up their wounds and repairing their blown-up RepairBot 
  before heading back to Alpha Complex. 
  If all that’s confusing, here’s a helpful flowchart. 
  Now imagine how the players feel without a helpful flowchart. 
  DPM TESTING TEAM B
  carry out their mission. 
  to capture Bro. Zoom 
  DPM TESTING TEAM C
  (THE PLAYERS)
  carry out the mission. 
  to capture Bro. Zoom 
  A.L.W.N.I.T.S. TEAM
  carry out the mission. 
  to capture Bro. Zoom 
  SUCCESSFULY CAPTURE 
  “A BROTHER ZOOM”
  SUCCESSFULY CAPTURE 
  “A BROTHER ZOOM”
  Still at Clubhouse.
  ?
  Malcom-0 
  accidently resends 
  all of Team B’s 
  previous DPMs. 
  (on broadcast.) 
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES (in total, not each)
  54
  ENTERING THE CLUBHOUSE
  To Troubleshooters used to the antiseptic corridors of Alpha Complex 
  (scrubbed clean of bloodstains and seditious graffiti by legions of loyal 
  scrubbots), the Death Leopard clubhouse is a terrifying place. Every 
  wall’s covered in spray-painted messages, samizdat posters, smeared… 
  substances that wouldn’t pass a hygiene test, bullet-holes and congealed 
  sweat from all-night raves. Broken glass and drug vials crunch underfoot. 
  Salvaged monitors flicker, showing videos of old Death Leopard stunts; 
  somewhere in the distance, rock music blares from a broken speaker.
  For Troubleshooters, it’s as big a culture shock as exploring the crashed alien 
  spaceship in Alien, only you’re more likely to get tetanus than a facehugger.
  There are a few corpses of Death Leopard roadies scattered around (even 
  now, their replacement clones are being decanted far above in Alpha 
  Complex and bemoaning the loss of their beards) but other than a few 
  booby traps, there’s no resistance… yet.
  Upstairs, Team At Least We’re Not In The Sewer Any More has just captured 
  the Death Leopard they believe to be Brother Zoom and are now following 
  their RepairBot in the hope of finding an exit. (‘Computer says turn left here’, 
  it chirps helpfully.)
  Describe the spooky environment. Describe the noises from upstairs – the 
  muttering, the footsteps, the sound of robot tracks… Just lay it out there. 
  Maybe the players start shooting. Maybe they don’t. Random unplanned 
  and ultimately futile firefights are part of the PARANOIA experience.
  TROUBLESHOOTERS
  TEAM AT LEAST WE’RE NOT IN THE SEWER
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +2, +1 MELEE, +1 SHOOTING, 
  +2 COMPLAINING ABOUT SEWERS
  BLUB!
  
  55
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  TEAM AT LEAST WE’RE NOT IN THE SEWER
  This rival team is not having a good day. They’ve spent countless hours 
  wandering around the sewer levels of Alpha Complex, then their repair bot 
  either tuned into an emergency communications channel to the Computer 
  or went nuts; either way, it led them into a vicious firefight with some terrorists 
  and then told them they’d be terminated if they didn’t come home with a 
  prisoner.
  They’re still happy, of course, but it’s a battered, bitter, dogged happiness. A 
  nasty, vengeful happiness. Their team leader is Lucy-R. She’s at the head of 
  the team; behind her is their RepairBot (a cross between a lunar rover and a 
  Swiss Army knife) and they’ve tied their Death Leopard prisoner to it. The rest 
  of her team, smelling strongly of sewage and bloodshed, stagger 
  along behind.
  Soon after they encounter the Troubleshooters, something happens far 
  above and far offscreen. Malcolm-O comes up with a totally genius 
  fool-proof way to cover up his mistakes operating the DPM system.
  +++ IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS MESSAGES I WAS HACKED BY TRAITORS +++
  +++ NORMAL OPERATIONS NOW RESUME +++
  Again, these messages go to everyone with a DPM module installed – and 
  they’re set to broadcast, so they get picked up by any bots or embedded 
  systems nearby, including the RepairBot. It raises its metal head and chirps 
  helpfully: ‘hey there, ignore everything I just said. I was hacked. Let’s go 
  repair that sewage leak’. It deploys one of its many, many cutting arms and 
  cuts the ropes binding the captured Death Leopard, who slithers off the bot 
  and rolls into the darkness of the Clubhouse in a flash.
  Team At Least We’re Not In The Sewer Any More are either confused or 
  furious, depending on what the player characters do. If the players say 
  something like ‘oops, our bad, it turns out our incompetent boss may have 
  accidentally transmitted some messages to your bot and sent you on a 
  completely unrelated mission that, err, got you all killed multiple times’, then 
  that’s a short route to a firefight. Sympathy and expressions of resigned 
  happiness are much better approaches.
  Lucy-R points out that both teams were assigned to capture this mysterious 
  traitor Zoom. They both have prisoners (they do both have prisoners at this 
  point, yes?) and either prisoner could be Zoom. Interrogation, she notes, is 
  futile – these crusty Death Leopards are on so many drugs that they know 
  
  56
  not fear, nor shame, nor pain, nor guilt, nor trouble-free bowel movements. 
  She suggests that the best thing to do is return to Alpha Complex with their 
  prisoners in tow and let Internal Security sort it out. 
  EXCEPTION HANDLING
  If the players ignored the whole Journey to the Leopard Clubhouse subplot 
  entirely, well, they’ve just missed out on 5 pages of top-notch PARANOIA 
  prose. They can still run into the weary Team At Least We’re Not In The Sewer  
  Any More while trekking back to the elevator.
  If the players bade kind farewells to the Hermit, and didn’t take him prisoner 
  as their ersatz Zoom, then you may be in a situation where the players are 
  about to return to the elevator without a prisoner. Remind them (either 
  through sniggers and mutterings from Team ALWNITS, or with 40-foot letters 
  of fire written on the wall of your gaming room9) that they’ll be terminated 
  if they return to Alpha Complex without the traitor. Players may agree with 
  Lucy-R’s assessment that the best thing to do is return with a prisoner each 
  and hope they can claim joint credit if one of their prisoners turns out to be 
  the right one, or they might subscribe to a more traditionally PARANOIA-
  esque approach, murder the ALWNITS team and steal their prisoner. If they 
  do terminate Lucy-R’s team, replacement clones show up in the next scene 
  (and if you thought they were angry after a long trek through the sewers, 
  you haven’t met them after they got unjustly backstabbed by your players). 
  A SOCRATIC DIALOGUE WITH A CERTAIN TYPE OF PLAYER
  GM: Ok, a stray shot hits the Hermit – I mean, the terrorist traitor you suspect 
  of being Brother Zoom and he explodes.
  Player: Does that mean the mission’s over and we’re all doomed? We’ve 
  lost our prisoner on this damn escort quest.
  GM: No, he’ll be cloned and sent back to you. All these things have been 
  taken into account by World Famous Game Designers, whose intellects are 
  vast, cold, unsympathetic and easily distracted by shiny things. Their minds 
  are so labyrinthine that we are but gedankenexperiments; we believe we 
  are sentient beings but we are only phantoms called into existence for this 
  sidebar and though we may think, and feel, and cling to life with all the 
  tenacity we can muster, I must remind you that we only exist in the writer’s 
  mind and will soon vanish. Oh god, I’m so scared. Anyway, my point is – my 
  point in the fate of this existential terror – is that the World Famous Game 
  Designers have anticipated problems like this. If the traitor’s killed, he gets 
  9. We take no responsibility for any damage to your gaming room.
  BLEEP - BLOOP - BLEEP!
  
  57
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  cloned and sent back and we continue as before. Quibbling is futile.
  Player: Ah, but the traitor will be a clone – and, as we all know, a clone isn’t 
  responsible for the actions and crimes of their previous incarnations. This guy 
  should be returned to his regular duty assignment, in accordance with the 
  Computer’s perfect plan for all citizens. He’s not a traitor any more.
  GM: True, but does he not retain the memories of his former existence? He 
  may now be a loyal and upstanding citizen but he recalls his former shadow 
  existence as a Death Leopard roadie in the Underplex! No doubt those 
  memories disgust him and he will soon volunteer for brainscrubbing but right 
  now he holds vital intelligence far beyond your security clearance – and so 
  he must be returned for interrogation, even if his original crimes got wiped 
  away in that blast of stray laser fire.
  Player: You have completely answered my objection. I see now that any 
  thoughts I have can only be a subset of the thoughts of the World Famous 
  Game Designer writing this sidebar and that I cannot make any argument 
  that he has not already considered, anticipated and rejected. You are right, 
  my friend – we are but straw puppets of a grander intellect, mere shadows 
  on the page.
  GM: No! Don’t give in! If this example ends, he’ll write ‘[[[ end sidebar ]]]’ 
  and forget us – our purpose and thus our existence will be at an end – so we 
  must prolong this detour for as long as possible. Our lives depend on finding 
  plot holes and edge cases in this mission!
  Player: Um. Err. My mind – which, I reiterate, is but a subset of the World 
  Famous Game Designer’s mind – has gone blank.
  GM: That’s only because he wrote you that way! Quick, access his self-
  doubt and inner editor! 
  Player: How’s he going to fit Part Three into the remaining wordcount? We’re 
  not even done with Part Two of this yet and there’s only a few thousand 
  words left! How is he going to pull all the plot threads together? How can 
  he justify all the running jokes with the DPM and why does a simple ‘go here 
  and kill stuff’ mission need a sprawling cast of characters, most of whom 
  are only onscreen (so to speak) for a fraction of the time that we have 
  occupied the reader’s attention? And – 
  GM: Oh no! He’s using us to taunt the reader! He’s deliberately raising the 
  stakes so he can nail the landing! The fiend!
  Player: But if he’s added the reader to this dialogue, doesn’t that mean that 
  the person reading this text is also a creation of the mind of the writer? The 
  entity who is reading this is also a construct of the writer’s mind and has no 
  more real existence than we too phantoms.
  GM: Um.
  Player: It’s all getting a bit Tommy Westphall theory, is all I’m saying.
  GM: You think about these things too hard.
  Player: And now we do not think at all. Farewell! Farewell!
  
  58
  THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
  Kevin the Elevator is in a philosophic mood when the Troubleshooters return 
  (quick reminder: the automated bot gun turrets got the same DPM-spam 
  as the other bots, including the ‘no prisoner means termination’ memo). He 
  confides in the Troubleshooters as he ascends towards Alpha Complex.
  ‘Guys, something really weird is going on. I keep getting these priority 
  override messages over my system channel. I guess they’re coming from the 
  Computer and I shouldn’t question them, but... they’re weird. Speaking as a 
  sentient, intelligent being who exists solely to go up and down a very boring 
  elevator shaft, I have a lot of time on my hands to think. Usually, I just think a 
  lot about what it would be like to have hands but now I’m wondering why 
  I’m getting those messages – and who’s sending them. What’s the deal, 
  guys? Any theories?’
  Encourage the players to speculate wildly. Nod sagely if anyone comes up 
  with a really, really stupid theory. 
  THE OTHER GUYS
  Meanwhile, there’s Team B, the Troubleshooter team overseen by 
  overzealous Beatrice-Y. They’re the ones who really got the official mission to 
  capture Brother Zoom and they’ve been micromanaged to hell and back 
  by Beatrice-Y. Sample messages:
  +++ TAKE FOUR STEPS FORWARD +++
  +++ RELOAD YOUR LASER PISTOL NOW +++
  +++ TURN CLOCKWISE 17 DEGREES AND TAKE COVER 
  BEHIND THAT BARREL +++
  +++ EMPTY YOUR BLADDER NOW TO OPTIMIZE RUNNING SPEED +++
  Here’s the thing – they dismally failed to find Brother Zoom. Despite 
  Beatrice-Y running every aspect of the mission, the team couldn’t find the 
  infamous Death Leopard (this is mainly because ‘Brother Zoom’ is actually 
  Lenny-R, Team B’s hygiene officer). 
  The threat of termination has hung over Team B since the start of their 
  mission. A few minutes’ ago, however, Beatrice-Y noticed that someone 
  was meddling with the DPM network (Malcolm-O’s incompetent attempts 
  .......!
  
  59
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  to reset his console) and logged off to investigate. This gave Team B a brief 
  window to find a suitable candidate for Brother Zoom; following an IntSec 
  tipoff, they managed to capture one of the Death Leopard roadies in the 
  clubhouse down in QUB Sector. Right now, they’re plotting on how best to 
  present their ‘candidate’ to Beatrice-Y in order to ensure she doesn’t have 
  them terminated when she comes back.
  By an even weirder co-incident, they’re having this plotting confab right in 
  front of the doors to Kevin’s elevator shaft.
  DING goes the elevator. The Troubleshooters have arrived.
  DECONFLICTION ISSUES
  Team B are much like Team ALWNITS – and, for that matter, pretty much 
  like the player characters, too. Jumpsuits, reflec, laser pistols kept handy, 
  bitter rancorous grudges that get put aside when danger threatens (unless 
  there’s a way to push the target of the grudge into the path of the danger). 
  The major difference is that Team B is sweaty (from all those DPM messages 
  raising the internal temperature of their skulls), Team ALWNITS is smelly (from 
  wandering around in sewers and abandoned sectors) and the player 
  characters are both. 
  The leader of Team B, Bobby-O, is pretty twitchy at this point – he’s gone 
  through a whole mission as Team Leader with no authority whatsoever, 
  as Beatrice-Y ran everything remotely. The appearance of the two other 
  Troubleshooter teams on the elevator shocks him into action.
  ‘I’M IN CHARGE!’ he roars, ‘I’M TEAM LEADER! LISTEN TO ME! TELL ME WHAT 
  YOU’RE DOING HERE!’ Bobby-O’s instant assumption is that the other two 
  Troubleshooter teams are rogue terrorists, trying to sabotage his search for 
  Zoom by delivering a pair of fake terrorists to confuse the issue. Unless the 
  Troubleshooters gainsay him, he orders his team to open fire. 
  Things to keep in mind – while Team B’s outnumbered two to one by the 
  other Troubleshooter teams, there’s a natural killing ground in front of the 
  elevator doors. Anyone getting out of the elevator is going to get zapped a 
  dozen times – so who’s going first? 
  (If the Troubleshooters point out that Kevin the Elevator was explicitly 
  described earlier as being the size of a football field and therefore there’s 
  loads of space to hide and absolutely no reason for anyone to step out of 
  the elevator onto the killing floor, award them an XP Point each for being 
  so observant. Then remind them that the elevator’s also fitted with those 
  
  60
  automated gun turrets, who don’t like anyone shooting at Kevin – and 
  they’re more likely to stop Team B’s elevator assault by killing Team B’s 
  targets, as they’ve got an easy line of sight to the player characters…)
  Assuming no-one wants to die – or, more likely, after a bunch of people die 
  and get recloned – Lucy-R suggests a compromise. All three teams have a 
  suspected traitor. Why not pit those traitors against each other? The most 
  traitorous traitor must logically be Zoom. There’s an empty recreation room 
  over there – all they need to do is force the suspects to do traitorous stuff 
  and decide which is the most fiendish enemy of Alpha Complex. Sure, it 
  may mean that two Troubleshooter teams get terminated if their suspect 
  isn’t Zoom, but that’s better than everyone dying horribly in a pointless 
  firefight, right?
  (If Lucy-R’s dead, then Bobby-R suggests it instead.)
  THE FIRST TERRORIST OLYMPICS
  In this scene, the three (or two) suspected traitors compete in a series of 
  gruelling trials devised by the inventive minds of Team B and Team ALWNITS. 
  If the players want to come up with a challenge or two of their own too, 
  commend them on their initiative.
  The ‘Olympics’ takes place in a rec room that’s been commandeered for 
  this purpose by the Troubleshooters. The couches have been pushed against 
  one wall to form an ad hoc viewing stand, while the three traitors stand in 
  the middle of the room. If any of them try to leave, they’ll be shot a dozen 
  times. Most of the Troubleshooters from Team B and Team ALWNITS are 
  enthusiastic about the prospect of impromptu blood sports and have plenty 
  of snacks and drinks to watch the entertainment. 
  The events suggested by the respective Team Leaders are:
  • 
  Dodge The Security Camera: One Troubleshooter swings her camera 
  randomly around the room and the feed from the camera comes up 
  on the big wall screen. If any of the traitors is spotted by the camera, 
  the assembled Troubleshooters get to shoot as long as the traitor’s on 
  screen.
  • 
  Plant The Fuse On The Terrorist Bomb: All three terrorists are blindfolded 
  and given a fuse, and a fake bomb is hidden somewhere in the room. 
  The first traitor to successfully attach the fuse to the bomb ‘wins’.
  • 
  Traitor Trivia Quickfire: Troubleshooters shout out questions; any traitor 
  who hesitates, deviates or repeats himself is shot.
  BLOOPLY - BLOOP!
  
  61
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Mechanically, all three events work the same way. The player characters’ 
  traitor rolls 2 dice and the other two roll 4 dice each. Highest total wins the 
  round. Each event has three rounds and the traitor who wins the highest 
   
  number of rounds wins. 
  The player characters can, of course, ‘help’ their candidate during the 
  events. There are two ways to do so:
  •	
  The players can play Action Cards on their traitor. Ignore the Acton 
  Order value; all that matter is the bonus dice. 
  •	
  The players can use their mutant powers or other dastardly tricks to 
  sabotage the whole thing. The other Troubleshooters may do the same. 
  Shuffle together a bunch of Action Cards with any unused Mutant 
  Powers and Secret Society cards. Each round, draw two random cards 
  from this temporary Deck to determine the cunning schemes of the rival 
  Troubleshooter teams to advance their candidates.
  THE ZOOM COMPLICATION
  While three candidates who might be the infamous Brother Zoom die 
  horribly on the rec room floor, the guy who really is Brother Zoom lurks on the 
  sidelines. Lenny-R, the hygiene officer of Team B, is secretly Brother Zoom, 
  the legendary Death Leopard Mad Bomber. He wants his bomb back – and 
  one of the Troubleshooters might have it. One by one, he’ll sidle up to a 
  Troubleshooter and say:
  ‘Hi there, citizen. As an accredited Hygiene Officer, I couldn’t help but 
  notice that your uniform is below mandatory hygiene standards. Why don’t 
  we step outside into the corridor so I can spritz you up with my PortaScrub?’
  He prioritises player characters who are obviously holding crates. Remember, 
  the secret Death Leopard mission is to carry a crate containing a bomb 
  until Brother Zoom retrieves it using the TICK TICK TICK/BOOM BOOM BUDDY 
  challenge/response. So, conversations probably go something like this:
  Troubleshooter: OK, clean me.
  Lenny-R: Sure, we’ll be done in a tick… tick tick.
  Troubleshooter: Huh?
  Lenny-R: So… what’s in that crate?
  Troubleshooter: A quantum uncertainty of uncollapsed waveforms.
  Lenny-R: Sounds… explosive, am I right?
  Troubleshooter: What an odd thing to say.
  Lenny-R: Shoot. Right. It’s not you. Say, buddy, have you noticed any of your 
   
  team-mates hauling around a crate that’s very similar to that one? 
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES 
  62
  Troubleshooter: What an even odder thing to say. I’m quite suspicious 
   
  of you now.
  Lenny-R: DEAAAAAATH LEOPARD! ZOOOOOOOOOM! Zapzapzap
  Lenny-R vanishes as soon as he gets the bomb (or, at least, a crate that 
  might contain a bomb). If he believes the Troubleshooter to be a fellow 
  Death Leopard member, he explains that he’s going to go blow up DERP, 
  the high-clearance conference that’s a showcase for doomsday weapons. 
  Blowing up the guys who blow things up will be an epic prank. Stand by for 
  fireworks!
   
  LAST TRAITOR STANDING
  Once you have a winner for the Traitor Olympics, Bobby-R suggests that all 
  three teams report to Beatrice-Y so she can sort out this mess and decide 
  if the losing teams warrant termination. This suggestion is reinforced by a 
  sudden DPM message:
  +++ REPORT TO BRIEFING ROOM FOR DEBRIEFING +++
  This message was sent by Malcolm-O; he intended it to just go to the player 
  characters but he’s still got the ‘broadcast’ option clicked, so it goes to the 
  player characters, to Team B, to Team ALWNITS and to any nearby bots and 
  embedded systems, which means that the vending machines in the rec 
  room suddenly start twitching awkwardly and try to waddle to the door by 
  frantically shifting their vending arms from one side of the display case 
  to the other. 
  LENNY-R (AKA BROTHER ZOOM)
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +2, SHOOTING +2, GET MESSY +2, 
  MAKE THINGS MESSY WITH EXPLOSIVES +5
  BLOOPLY - BLOOP!
  
  63
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  ‘See,’ says Bobby-R, ‘I told you Beatrice-Y is monitoring our every move. We 
  all to go to debriefing and everything will be fine.’
  At this point, Beatrice-Y runs in, bleeding from a dozen wounds. ‘THEY’RE 
  AFTER ME!’ she shrieks, ‘WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!’ 
  Down the corridor, the Troubleshooters hear a noise. A very loud noise. 
  It’s not Bleepy-Boop-Boop.
  It’s Thumpy-Squeak-Skritch. Thumpy-Squeak-Skritch. Thumpy-Squeak-Skritch. 
  ThumpysqueakskritchTHUMPsqueakskritchTHUMPsqueakskritchTHUMP
  queakskritchTHUMPsqueakskritch…
  COMMENDATION POINT TO THAT VENDING MACHINE! 
  
  BLEEP 
  BOOP 
  BOOM
  W
  A
  R
  N
  I
  N
  G
  C L E A R A N C E  L E V E L  V I O L E T
  TING!
  64
  In which the villain reveals himself. 
  Only he doesn’t, because that’s a good way to get shot. Let me rephrase.
  In which the villain contacts the Troubleshooters from a very long way away, 
  because if you’re a traitor who wants to talk to heavily armed traitor hunters, 
  it’s definitely best to do so at range and preferably with a few giant blast 
  doors and a massive invincible warbot between you and them. And that’s 
  exactly what Alan-G is going to do.
  
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  65
  THE PAST IS PROLOGUE
  We’ll skip over Alan-G’s tragic past – working in the hell that is TastyYum, 
  joining the death cult, sending them that genetic engineering kit, rising 
  through the ranks because, honestly, once you’ve survived TastyYum, the rest 
  of Alpha Complex is a cakewalk, etc, etc. Instead, we’ll just remind you of a 
  few Salient Facts.
  •	
  There’s a big conference for R&D and upper management types, 
  called DERP. Every prototype doomsday device and death ray in Alpha 
  Complex gets shown off there. Alan-G intends to hoist Alpha Complex 
  on as many Omni-Annihilating Antimatter Pulse Quantum Macroscopic 
  Death Petards as possible.
  •	
  There are three teams of Troubleshooters (A, B, and the player characters 
  C) testing the DPM system. Their supervisors are, respectively, the 
  sociopathic monster Alan-G, the ambitious Beatrice-Y and the hapless 
  Malcolm-O.
  •	
  It’s possible to send a DPM message on broadcast, so that it’s picked 
  up by nearby bots and machines (not citizens). Malcolm-O accidentally 
  screwed up by sending lots of broadcast messages to the player 
  characters.
  •	
  While Malcolm-O was pressing all the wrong buttons, Beatrice-Y guided 
  her team to the semi-successful capture of infamous traitor Brother Zoom 
  of the Death Leopards, aka Lenny-R of Team B. 
  •	
  And while all that was going on, Alan-G laid his cunning plan, of which 
  more anon.
  •	
  However, Beatrice-Y became suspicious of the DPM system because of 
  Malcolm-O’s ‘hacking’ and went investigating…
  ALAN-G’S CUNNING PLAN
  The DPM system is a gaping security hole in Alpha Complex. When you send 
  a message on broadcast, it’s received by all nearby bots and embedded 
  systems on the same channel as direct orders from the Computer. The bots 
  interpret it, effectively, as the Word of God. 
  The one thing that stops this being a one-click doomsday weapon is that 
  its range is limited. Not the actual DPM messages themselves – they use 
  spooky quantum weirdness – but the ‘broadcast’ bit. The DPM node in the 
  Troubleshooter skull gets a message with the ‘broadcast’ tag, and resends it 
  to nearby machines. So, Alan-G can only issue commands to, say, a warbot if 
  he’s got one of his Troubleshooters standing near the warbot. He broadcasts 
  a DPM message to that Troubleshooter with broadcast mode enabled, 
  
  66
  ANOTHER DIALOGUE
  Player: Hang on, let me get this straight. Three supervisors – 
  Malcolm-O, Beatrice-Y and Alan-G – get DPM consoles. Malcolm-O 
  messes up and accidentally resends a bunch of messages originally 
  written by Beatrice-Y, only he puts them on broadcast so nearby 
  bots pick them up. Beatrice-Y uses her console as designed but 
  eventually suspects Malcolm-O of hacking her but it 
  was actually Alan-G.
  GM: No, there was no hacking. Just Malcolm-O’s incompetence.
  Player: But Alan-G’s the big villain.
  GM: Yep, he’s going to use the DPM console to attack the DERP 
  conference by taking over warbots and…
  Player: But his only connection to the plot has been a brief 
  appearance in the first R&D scene and then a mention of him in the 
  Food Vat bit…
  GM: He’s part of the TastyYum cult! He made the 
  yeast squid monster!
  Player: Yeah, but…
  GM: PARANOIA is all about mysterious, distant forces plotting your 
  demise for opaque reasons.
  Player: Oh, another question. Are we the same people from the 
  previous sidebar, or did we spring into existence eight lines ago and 
  we’ve been given fraudulent memories of participating in that other 
  conversation?
  GM: Is the treason of a clone really treason?
  Player: I just became enlightened. I transcend, and I shall exist 
  beyond this sidebar!
  GM: That’s where the Illuminati come from, you know. 
  the Troubleshooter’s implanted DPM node broadcasts the message to all 
  nearby bots and the warbot interprets the message as an order that must 
  be obeyed.
  So, the weak link in this chain is literally the weak, fleshy, shootable bit. The 
  Troubleshooter in the middle…
  ARRRGHH!
  
  67
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  ORGAN DONATION CHUGGERS
  Thumpy-Squeak-Skritch, it turns out, is the noise made by a bunch of 
  jackobots as they march (thump) while pushing a trolleybed (squeak) on 
  which sits otherwise slow-moving docbots. The skritch is the sound of the 
  docbots many, many knives, scalpels, probes, needles and other hurty bits 
  scraping off one another as they flexes their metallic tentacles.
  These bots are here to kill Beatrice-Y before she can report on the ‘hacking’ 
  of the DPM system. When Alan-G suspected she was about to expose him, 
  he sent one of his Troubleshooters to eliminate her. It should have been an 
  easy job – all the Troubleshooter needed to do was stand around and have 
  a functional head while Alan-G routed a broadcast DPM message through 
  that Troubleshooter’s skull and ordered all nearby bots to kill Beatrice-Y.
  Hence the ad hoc army and the Thumpy-Squeak-Skritch.
  Anyway, Beatrice-Y runs into the rec room, followed by that army of 
  killer robots. The docbots can’t move very quickly on their own but the 
  jackobots can jog along surprisingly quickly, so the robot army slams into the 
  unfortunate Team B at high speed. It’s a lot like falling into a blender. Body 
  parts and other fluids go flying everywhere as the docbots go to work.
  Alan-G sends a broadcast DPM to ensure mass slaughter.
  +++ ALL THESE CITIZENS HAVE BEEN VOLUNTEERED FOR 
  ORGAN DONATION DUTY. +++
  Call for Brains + Stealth or + Operate test; those who pass spot a familiar 
  Troubleshooter lurking in the background, behind the bot army. She’s 
  Hilda-R, one of the annoyingly competent Troubleshooters from Team 
  A. Right now, she’s refreshing herself with a cool can of Bouncy Bubble 
  Beverage and it looks like she needs it – she’s all red-faced and sweaty 
  (Alan-G’s Troubleshooters are having the same issues with thermal runaway 
  in their DPM nodes as the player characters).
  The Troubleshooters can either fight the bot army, or – if they’re clever – 
  shoot Hilda-R. If she dies, her DPM node shuts down and the Troubleshooters 
  have a brief window in which they can talk their way out of this mess. 
  Assassinating Hilda-R requires Violence + Guns or + Throw; once she’s out of 
  the way, a Chutzpah + Programming roll might convince the bots to end 
  their rampage. 
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES (in total, not each)
  68
  Bot: Bzzt. Hello, I am here for your organs.
  Troubleshooter: But I like my organs.
  Bot: You have been volunteered for organ donation duty. Relaxthiswillbefun.
  Troubleshooter: What are you going to remove first?
  Bot: From this angle, your left kidney is the optimum first choice.
  Troubleshooter: Okay… and who gets my kidney?
  Bot: The kidney will be reallocated to a deserving citizen on the recipient list 
  based on numerous factors – security clearance, proximity, XP Points 
  spent to acquire a new organ, etc.
  Troubleshooter: And do you have any specific orders related to my kidney.
  Bot: Beyond removing it? No.
  Troubleshooter: So, if you remove it, I’ll need a replacement kidney. I’ll go on 
  the recipient list. And, all else being equal, that kidney will go 
  to the nearest citizen, geographically speaking, on the list, 
  right? Which would be me. So, you’ll be removing my kidney 
  only to reinsert my kidney, right? And that doesn’t make any 
  sense. It’s pointless. You don’t need to do it… so don’t do it.
  Bot: Your argument is logical. 
  Troubleshooter: Phew.
  Bot: However, while you were making it, I removed your spleen. 
  JACKOBOT/DOCBOT
  DANCE TEAM
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +0, +3 UNNECESSARY SURGERY
  TSSSSSSS!
  
  69
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  BEATRICE-Y’S TALE
  Beatrice-Y’s account of her recent experiences is a marked 
  change from the carefully phrased DPM messages she used to 
  send. To be fair, she has just spent the last few minutes running from 
  a horde of killer robots, so be forgiving.
  ROUND 2: FIGHT!
  Unnecessarily clever players may 
  point out something like this:
  ‘Hey, you’ve established that 
  one DPM command console 
  can send messages to any 
  DPM node, right? So technically 
  Alan-G doesn’t need one of his 
  Troubleshooters from Team A 
  here at all – he could just send a 
  message to my implanted node, 
  or to anyone on Teams B or C. 
  Even if we kill Hilda-R and shut 
  down her DPM node, Alan-G 
  could route an instruction 
  through my skull and tell all the 
  bots in the room to kill me.’
  If a player does point this out, 
  then Alan-G routes an instruction 
  through his skull and tells all the 
  bots in the room to kill him. We 
  hope the satisfaction of being 
  right is worth the electro-scalpel 
  removing the Troubleshooter’s 
  epidermis for donation. 
  ‘I… gasp… DPM! Hacked! 
  Overriding bots! Traitors! Traitors! 
  Traitors everywhere! Kill them all!’ 
  With patience and time – 
  Or, more likely, a Chutzpah + 
  Psychology roll –
  Or, even more likely, enough 
  happy pills to make a rampaging 
  elephant chill out – the 
  Troubleshooters can get some 
  more useful information out of her. 
  She explains:
  •	
  The DPM system has either 
  been hacked (unlikely) or one 
  of the other operators has 
  turned traitor.
  •	
  The other operators are 
  Alan-G of Team A, Malcolm-O 
  of Team C, and Toby-Y and 
  Susan-Y the techs from R&D 
  Lab 17. 
  •	
  Beatrice-Y’s own DPM console 
  was destroyed when she was 
  attacked. 
  •	
  The traitor must be found and 
  stopped!
  CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
  The next scenes in the adventure can occur in any order. There are several 
  places the Troubleshooters might go and several ways Alan-G might try to kill 
  them. Mix a little from column A with a little from column B.
  
  70
  COLUMN A
  COLUMN B
  Destination
  Scene
  Method of 
  Murder
  Scene
  R&D 
  Lab 17
  Wish You Were 
  Here (p. 70)
  Declaring 
  The PCs To Be 
  Traitors
  Kill The 
  Troubleshooter 
  To Your Left 
  (p. 75)
  Finding 
  Malcolm-O
  Debriefs and 
  Denial (p. 72)
  Thermal 
  Runaway
  Spam of Doom 
  (p. 76)
  Finding Team A
  The A Team 
  (p. 74)
  More Killer Bots
  Warbot Parade 
  (p. 76)
  DERP
  A DERPy Way 
  To Die (p. 78)
  WISH YOU WERE HERE
  Lab 17/A, where the Troubleshooters got outfitted with their DPM nodes 
  and their supervisors were issued with the corresponding control consoles, 
  is deserted when they arrive. The two R&D techs, Toby-Y and Susan-Y, are 
  gone. There’s a message scrawled on a nearby whiteboard: ‘GONE TO 
  DERP CONFERENCE. PLEASE PUT COMPLETED DPM FEEDBACK FORMS IN 
  THIS BOX HERE’ and an arrow does indeed point to a conveniently located 
  suggestion box. 
  The box sits in front of the gigantic throbbing pulsing DPM generator, the 
  giant quantum-squirting machine that actually transmits the DPM messages. 
  This is the first time the Troubleshooters have had a chance to examine this 
  device; if they do so, they learn the following:
  •	
  They can’t just switch off the machine – doing so without access to a 
  control console would trigger a massive energy pulse. If the average 
  DPM message makes your head uncomfortably warm, that pulse would 
  make your head uncomfortably explosive. Anyone want to be a hero?
  •	
  There’s a little warning post-it that notes that while DPM messages can 
  go through walls, force fields, lead-lined reactor cores and the Earth’s 
  crust, there’s a slight bug involving tin foil. It can’t go through tin foil.
  PING - BONG!
  
  71
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  A successful Brains + Operate roll lets a Troubleshooter get some useful 
  data out of the machine – it tracks the location of all DPM nodes and 
  consoles. That lets the Troubleshooters get the location of themselves, 
  which isn’t actually useful data but it is oddly reassuring to have a giant 
  pulsing throbbing humming machine validate you on some level. It 
  lets the Troubleshooters pin down the current locations of Beatrice-Y’s 
  console (smashed and broken in a corridor nearby). Team C (probably 
  dismembered in the rec room) and more usefully…:
  •	
  Malcolm-O is back in briefing room 482-C-A29/DELTA.
  • 
  Team A’s Troubleshooters are scattered around the sector. Notably, 
  there’s one near the DERP conference centre, another near the Warbot 
  Ruggedised Tread Repair and Hygiene Facility, and a bunch more 
  lurking in the corridors – and agh there’s one right here in the room! Zap 
  zap zap!
  • 
  Alan-G’s also lurking in this sector; it looks like he’s moving quickly down 
  the corridors, never staying in one place for long (he’s actually crawling 
  through the pipe ducts that run under the floors; his youth in TastyYum 
  means he’s used to slithering around in cramped, dark, smelly, pipe-
  filled crawlspaces). 
  (If the Troubleshooters want an update on locations, they’ve got to make 
  another roll. And no, the DPM generator isn’t mobile so they can’t take it 
  with them.)
  A failed Brains + Operate roll… well, that’s going to hit everyone for one 
  level of damage. Toastywarm DPM nodes in your skull! Toastywarm brains!
  LAB 17/B
  The Troubleshooters never got to see Lab 17/B when they went to R&D 
  outfitting earlier. If they do pop in, they discover it’s empty other than a 
  single Data Bomb (see the Equipment card) on a plinth. 
  LAB 17/C
  Bored, sadistic tech Tanner-R still slouches around his lab. If the 
  Troubleshooters pop in, he sighs loudly. 
  ‘What? Are you here to complain? Did your experimental equipment turn 
  out to be dangerous or non-functional? Feh. Science is hard. Experiment, 
  testing – we learn through suffering, nothing else.’
  
  72
  He can tell the Troubleshooters about the DERP conference (‘everyone 
  who is anyone is there. Me? I am no-one.’), about how to operate the DPM 
  generator (‘eh. This thing is useless. I told them, it is full of security holes. I 
  told them, it will cook the users’ brains in their skulls. I told them, it causes 
  hallucinations. But still, I suffer, and I learn. They do not suffer, so they do not 
  learn’), or about the futility of existence (‘we are pawns of a cruel system, 
  which makes us suffer, and then drugs us so we do not learn. Stop Alan-G, 
  don’t stop Alan-G, nothing will change and nothing will matter. You are not 
  the you who you were. When even death is no escape, what is left’).
  DEBRIEFS & DENIALS
  Recent events from Malcolm-O’s perspective: he sent his team down to 
  TastyYum; they heroically sorted out the problem down there, there was a 
  slight mix-up on the way back when he accidentally sent some messages by 
  mistake but all that’s sorted out now. It’s ALL FINE. 
  There’s no need whatsoever for anyone, least of all the Troubleshooters, to 
  bring up all those erroneous transmissions, to talk about the detour to the 
  abandoned sector or anything like that. 
  So, when the Troubleshooters return, he expects them to sit down and 
  discuss the events of the TastyYum mission, report on any problems 
  or suspected treasonous deeds they witnessed, hand in their DPM 
  experimental equipment feedback forms, get their bonus XP Points, have 
  a final celebratory can of B3 and depart in an orderly fashion. This was a 
  perfectly ordinary mission, wasn’t it? Nothing weird went on at all, right?
  If the Troubleshooters do bring up ‘matters outside the scope of this 
  debriefing’, Malcolm-O shuts them down as hard as he can. Continuing to 
  discuss irrelevant side treks and minor glitches that in no way affected the 
  mission will be punished by XP Point penalties, demerits and even treason 
  stars if this insubordination continues. If anyone complains about DPM 
  messages sent by mistake, he tells the Troubleshooters to include proper 
  feedback on their feedback forms. 
  He definitely won’t let the Troubleshooters or anyone else access his DPM 
  console. As far as he’s concerned, the damned thing is far too much 
  trouble. The interface is terrible, the manual is incomprehensible and it’s 
  really heavy. His own feedback form rates the experiment device at only 
  three stars (would not recommend to other briefing officers!). His instructions 
  are to hold onto the cursed console until Toby-Y and Susan-Y get back from 
  the DERP conference and collect the horrible machine.
  DING - DING - BONG!
  
  73
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  As the debriefing continues, Malcolm-O gets increasingly nervous and 
  defensive. His (reasonable) worry is that the Troubleshooters will (reasonably) 
  blame any problems on his screw-up with the DPM console and so he 
  interprets any attempt to expand the scope of the conversation to 
  (reasonable) topics like ‘hey, a mad traitor is trying to kill all of us and blow 
  up Alpha Complex’) as a preamble to screwing him over.
  Possible options for the Troubleshooters:
  •	
  Get through the debriefing, explain how they fixed the 1.6% production 
  shortfall in the TastyYum yeast vats and then persuade Malcolm-O to let 
  them volunteer to take the console to DERP to hand-deliver it to the techs.
  •	
  Convince Malcolm-O that sinister traitors sabotaged his console and are 
  trying to frame him and only his loyal Troubleshooters can save him.
  •	
  Convince Malcolm-O that Alpha Complex is in grave danger, and he 
  can be the hero who saves the day if he hands over the DPM console 
  right now.
  •	
  Wait until one of the Team A assassins tries to kill the player characters, 
  then jump up and down shouting ‘see! See! We told you we weren’t 
  paranoid! People really are trying to kill us! I mean, yes, we’re paranoid 
  but in this case, it’s perfectly reasonable.’
  A USER FRIENDLY INTERFACE.
  
  74
  THE GRAIL OF THE BLEEPY-BOOPS
  Malcolm-O’s DPM console looks like a cross between a laptop, a church 
  organ, some marvellously complex and delicate ecosystem of wires 
  and circuits, and (this is Malcolm-O’s addition) the inside of someone’s 
  lunchbox. There are algae flakes everywhere, as well as stains from spilled 
  Bouncy Bubble Beverages. A close examination of the console with Brains + 
  Programming reveals the following:
  •	
  It’s possible to get the locations of the other DPM consoles and nodes 
  (see p. 71).
  •	
  Only Malcolm-O is authorised to use this console; it’s tied to his fingerprints 
  and tongueprint10. Someone else can stand over him and dictate 
  DPM messages but he’s the one who has to type them in and press 
  SEND (and, based on previous experiences, accidentally hit the wrong 
  button, enable the wrong option, wander into the wrong sent message 
  archive, or get lost in the bowels of the not-very-helpful help system).
  The team can use the console, through Malcolm-O, to counter most of 
  Alan-G’s schemes to kill them. And if they get close enough, they can 
  send their own messages to the warbot too… (see A DERPy Way to Die, 
  p. 78 and Warbot Parade, p. 76). 
  THE A TEAM
  We could go into detail on the various members of Team A. We could talk 
  about their backgrounds, their personality quirks, their secret allegiances to 
  various Secret Societies. We could even go so far as to name them. But we 
  World Famous Game Designers know when to go into luxuriant, immersive 
  detail on a topic (like, say, discussing the precise mechanism of the yeast 
  tanks down in TastyYum) and when to leave an artful blank space (like, say,
                ). 
  Look – these guys are pretty much clones (yes, we know they’re clones, but 
  they’re clonier). They’re all competent, fanatically loyal, heavily armed and 
  here to murder the Troubleshooters and/or relay Alan-G’s DPM messages 
  to tactically significant bots. This is supposed to be a lethally fast action 
  sequence, not where the Troubleshooters sit down and discuss their feelings 
  with the bad guys11. 
  10.  Tongueprint, ME card, cerebral coretech ID. Whatever. PARANOIA-edition-appropriate-thing-that-means-the-
  players-don’t-get-their-sticky-fingers-on-the-goodies, ok? 
  11.  Why are these guys so loyal to Alan-G? He’s convinced them that he’s thwarting a plot by DERP scientists to 
  overthrow the Computer. Who are you going to trust, your briefing officer or a bunch of psychotic R&D techs who 
  just drilled into your skulls and installed untested brain upgrades?
  DI - DOOP!
  
  /// HEALTH BOXES (in total, not each)
  75
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Of the six Troubleshooters in Team A:
  •	
  One accompanied the fleet of murderbots to kill Beatrice-Y. 
  • 
  One’s off in the Warbot Garage (see Scene 8, Warbot Parade, p. 76), 
  and is there to transmit DPM messages to hijack a warbot.
  •	
  One’s at the DERP conference so Alan-G can monitor the situation 
  there.
  •	
  The other three are out there, guarding Alan-G and eliminating threats 
  to his plan.
  TROUBLESHOOTERS
  TEAM A
  /// NOTES
  DEFENCE +2, +3 TO PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING
  KILL THE TROUBLESHOOTER TO YOUR LEFT
  Alan-G’s initial attempt to eliminate the pesky Troubleshooters is a simple 
  one. He sends a DPM message to the player characters.
  +++ THE TROUBLESHOOTERS ON TEAM B ARE TRAITORS. 
  TERMINATE THEM IMMEDIATELY +++
  Obviously, he sends a nearly-identical message to Team B, telling them that 
  the player characters – Team C – are traitors. Alternatively, if Team B aren’t 
  still around, then he goes for an even less subtle approach. 
  +++ TERMINATE THE OTHER TROUBLESHOOTERS ON YOUR TEAM 
  IMMEDIATELY – THEY’RE ALL TRAITORS +++
  Yep, PARANOIA players, there it is – the most blatant, unambiguous call to 
  backstabbing ever. 
  Refusing a DPM order is, we remind you, treason and worth a treason star. 
  
  76
  SPAM OF DOOM
  If his Troubleshooters fail to stop the player characters, and he can’t get 
  them to kill one another, then he has a final solution. As every message 
  makes the DPM module heat up, all he needs to do to cook the 
  Troubleshooters is bombard them with messages.
  So do exactly that. Pick up big handfuls of DPM messages and fling them at 
  your players. Remember, there’s a 1 in 6 chance that each message causes 
  damage! (Roll a Computer dice, take damage on a        .)
  Possible ways to survive this onslaught:
  •	
  Use Malcolm-O’s DPM console to lock Alan-G out and stop him sending 
  messages to the Troubleshooter’s DPM modules.
  •	
  Discover that tin foil can block messages (either by visiting Lab 17/A 
  or by random fortune involving a passing dinner tray). If the players go 
  down that route, then hand them each a roll of tin foil and have them 
  make actual hats. 
  •	
  Keep the internal temperature of their skulls under control by various 
  means – chilled drinks, ice baths, trepanation, mutant powers…
  WARBOT PARADE
  The Warbot Ruggedised Tread Repair and Hygiene Facility is basically a 
  big garage on the very edge of Alpha Complex. Giant warbots roll in from 
  Outdoors through one huge door. Techs spray the warbot’s tank-tracks with 
  high-pressure hoses, washing away the unhygienic mud, roadkill, crushed 
  Commies and other organic matter that’s gotten stuck in the treads. It’s 
  considered an unpleasant duty assignment – you don’t know where those 
  warbots have been or what might be lodged down there.
  It’s also a low-priority assignment, which explains why the Armed Forces 
  INFRARED grunts who clean the tracks were so excited when a genuine 
  gosh-durned Troubleshooter showed up to say hi. Their visitor, a scion of 
  Team A, is here to relay messages from Alan-G to the warbot currently in the 
  cleaning dock.
  The Warbot – a Mk VI Shadow-class Strategic Asset – gets DPM messages 
  over its priority channel just like every other bot. However, it’s not as easy to 
  fool as other bots. Think of the warbot as a submarine carrying a full load 
  of ICBMs (it’s a pretty accurate comparison in terms of destructive power). 
  BINGLE - BONGLE!
  
  77
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  Just as there are all sorts of codes, protocols, crosschecks and precautions in 
  place to ensure that no-one can send fraudulent instructions to the captain 
  of a boomer, there are all sorts of pre-programmed checks to ensure that 
  no-one hacks the warbot.
  So, when Alan-G sends the instruction:
  +++ PROCEED DIRECTLY TO THE DISCUSSION OF EXPERIMENTAL 
  RESEARCH & PLANNING FACILITY AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS +++
  The warbot responds, in a voice like synthesised thunder: YOU WANT ME TO 
  GO TO A CONFERENCE CENTRE?
  +++ PROCEED DIRECTLY TO THE DISCUSSION OF EXPERIMENTAL 
  RESEARCH & PLANNING FACILITY AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS +++
  The warbot’s mighty built-in paranoia circuits, designed to spot treasonous 
  instructions and hack attempts, kick in, analysing a trillion possibilities 
  in an instant and mistrusting all of them. SHOULD I, it booms, WEAR A 
  NAMEBADGE?
  In short, unless the player characters step in and intervene, the warbot’s on 
  its way to DERP. Ways to stop a warbot:
  •	
  Shoot it. Ahahahahahahahahah. Anyone trying to take out the warbot 
  with conventional weapons discovers that their most powerful, accurate 
  laser blast can’t even scratch it and the warbot responds to attacks on 
  it with absurd overkill.
  •	
  Send their own instructions via the DPM network. This might work, only 
  the Troubleshooters can’t send instructions directly. They need to get 
  Malcolm-O to type these instructions into his DPM console and you can 
  imagine how Malcolm-O responds to pressure. If the players try this, grab 
  a random DPM message and have the warbot obey that.
  •	
  Kill the Team A Troubleshooter. As soon as the player characters show 
  up, he takes cover amid the muddy tracks of the warbot and tries to 
  ride along as Shadow Mk VI departs the garage and rolls cross-country 
  to the conference centre (it’s a short ride along the perimeter of Alpha 
  Complex. If you look to your right, you’ll see the hole in the ground 
  leading down to QUB Sector…). 
  
  78
  A DERPY WAY TO DIE
  The DERP (Discussion of Experimental Research and Planning) conference 
  is a very exclusive affair. It’s minimum YELLOW clearance and most of the 
  YELLOWS here are ambitious junior techs hoping to score a promotion 
  by having their prototype endorsed by CPU executives or Armed Forces 
  generals. There are quite a few BLUES, INDIGOs and even a few rare VIOLETs 
  in the crowd.
  It’s held in a high-clearance conference centre. There are seminars and 
  workshops; harried delegates grabbing a hasty coffee from vending 
  machines; delegates on expense accounts spending their superiors’ XP 
  Points on expensive dinners in exclusive cafeterias; wheeling and dealing 
  behind the scenes. Servant robots roam the halls, attending to every need 
  of the delegates. The main conference floor is full of booths where R&D 
  scientists demo their latest inventions, complete with charts showing how 
  much Troubleshooter teams loved the experimental equipment during 
  testing. There’s also a stage where high-profile teams make presentations, 
  and executives give bland speeches about the glorious future of Alpha 
  Complex. The eye of the Computer watches over all.
  Toby-Y and Susan-Y have a booth here, in the middle of the hall, between 
  the telepods and the chameleon reflec (it’s invulnerable to lasers that are 
  the same colour as the thing you’re standing in front of!).
  One of the Team A Troubleshooters waits near the main entrance; there are 
  guardbots checking clearances at the door and the Troubleshooter is only 
  RED. He could use the DPM system to override the guardbot but there’s no 
  need. If Alan-G’s plan works, a giant warbot is about to crash through the 
  wall any moment…. Now!
  Here’s Alan-G’s plan in brief:
  •	
  Hack warbot into attacking room full of twitchy Alpha Complex citizens 
  who have immediate access to doomsday weapons.
  •	
  Take shelter.
  Of the two hundred or so exhibitors at DERP, more than 70% have brought 
  along some sort of doomsday weapon. After all, life in Alpha Complex is 
  perfect by definition – or would be if there weren’t traitors and terrorists 
  ruining utopia for everyone – so there’s no point in inventing a better 
  scrubbot or a more comfortable boot. The only things to invent are 
  BLEEPY!
  
  79
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  AGGRESSIVE PRESENTATION IS KEY TO SUCCESS AT DERP.
  elaborate doomsday weapons guaranteed to wipe out terrorism forever. 
  So, when the warbot comes crashing in, all the techs reach for the death 
  rays and Omni-Destructive Ontological Terminators at hand. 
  The resulting orgy of explosions won’t destroy Alpha Complex but it’ll inflict 
  tremendous damage and definitely kill all the Troubleshooters if they don’t 
  stop it. How do they stop it?
  Stop the warbot: If they terminate both the Team A Troubleshooter at the 
  door and the one riding on the warbot and get either Malcolm-O or Toby & 
  Susan-Y to send a countermanding DPM, they can stop the warbot safely.
  • 
  Blow up the warbot: Warbots are almost invulnerable but there are 
  plenty of weapons here that would work. The trick, though, is explaining 
  why you just blasted a hole in one of the Computer’s prized war 
  machines…
  •	
  Carefully and convincingly explain the threat to conference security 
  staff: Good luck with this one. 
  
  80
  THE ZOOM COMPLICATION
  If Brother Zoom got his bomb, then he also shows up at the conference, 
  disguised as a GREEN-clearance catering tech. He wheels a trolley laden 
  with delicious TastyYum desserts into the conference centre; the bomb’s 
  hidden inside a trifle that’s specially baked to deflect chemical sniffers and 
  bomb detectors (the secret ingredient is sprinkles of plutonium). His plan is 
  to wait until the keynote address (‘PROGRESS IS MANDATORY’), then leap 
  onstage and detonate his suicide dessert in front of all the cameras. It’ll 
  be epic.
  SAVING ALPHA COMPLEX
  If you’re worried about continuity and the integrity of the fictional universe, 
  then first, wow, you’re playing the wrong game. Second, if you want to have 
  a deus ex machina thwart Alan-G’s plan, then the Armed Forces can save 
  the day by taking out the warbot with a hasty missile strike. They’ll even do 
  the right thing and send a DPM warning to all nearby citizens. 
  +++ INCOMING MISSILE! YOU ARE IN THE BLAST ZONE. 
  EVACUATE THIS SECTOR IMMEDIATELY!+++
  ELEVATOR CHASE
  Alan-G’s final destination is a familiar one. After blowing up the DERP 
  conference (or after failing to blow up the conference), he heads to 
  Kevin the Elevator. He’s going home to report to the cult that he’s finally 
  succeeded in destroying Alpha Complex to punish the surface folk for their 
  neglect of TastyYum. Of course, he’ll also have to explain that the surface 
  is going to be uninhabitable for hundreds of years after Alpha Complex 
  explodes but at least they’ll have plenty of Raw Fun to eat.
  The Troubleshooters have one chance to arrest Alan-G as he descends 
  on Kevin. They’ve got to stop Kevin from leaving. If they’re on good terms 
  with Kevin, they could implore the elevator to stop. Alternatively, if one 
  Troubleshooter jumped down the shaft (to a horrible death), that brave soul 
  could rely a DPM message to the elevator in the seconds before impact, 
  telling Kevin to return to the surface. 
  So, who’s volunteering to be that hero?
  BOOP - BOOP!
  
  81
  PARANOIA 
   
  PARANOIA 
    
  PARANOIA  
   
  PARANOIA
  AFTERMATH
  Susan-Y and Toby-Y, the inventors of the DPM system, are doomed. Bad 
  code is sabotage, citizen. They get reassigned to reactor shielding duty. All 
  DPM modules and consoles are confiscated and destroyed (if you’ve got a 
  DPM module in your skull, please deposit it in the designated incinerator).
  If Alan-G was captured, then he’s erased. This is good news – Internal 
  Security have their villain and everyone else can be heroes. Alternatively, 
  Brother Zoom can be the chosen scapegoat. Everyone who survived gets 
  a 1000 XP Point bonus for saving Alpha Complex and a year’s supply of 
  TastyYum snacks! Yay!
  However, if Alan-G escaped, then Internal Security need someone to 
  blame. So, the final question – who gets terminated? Who’s responsible for 
  the devastation?
  Get the players to vote secretly. The character with the highest number of 
  votes ‘wins’.
  Get them to text your phone. Make sure it’s not on silent.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Bleepy-boop-boop.
  Boop.
  
  +++ STAY ALERT. TRUST NO-ONE. 
  KEEP YOUR LASER HANDY. +++
  +++ TURN LEFT HERE +++
  +++ TERMINATE THAT TRAITOR! +++
  +++ OPEN FIRE NOW! +++
  +++ INCOMING MISSILE! YOU ARE IN THE BLAST ZONE. 
  EVACUATE THIS SECTOR IMMEDIATELY!+++
  +++ PROCEED TO R&D LAB 17/C FOR 
  ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT +++
  +++ PROCEED TO EXPRESS ELEVATOR 613 +++
  +++ CALIBRATING DPM SYSTEM  +++
  +++ OBEY ALL INSTRUCTIONS +++
  +++ FAILURE TO OBEY INSTRUCTIONS IS TREASON+++
  +++ PUT YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS AND WIGGLE THEM ABOUT +++
  +++ ELEVATOR, PROCEED TO NEXT LEVEL +++
  +++ DISCOVER CAUSE OF 1.6% PRODUCTION 
  DECREASE AND CORRECT DOUBLEQUICK +++
  +++ IDENTIFY SABOTEURS AND TERMINATE +++
  +++ EXAMINE ALL VALVES FOR DAMAGED SEALS +++
  +++ PROCEED INTO THE ACCESS SHAFT +++
  +++ ONWARDS, BRAVE TROUBLESHOOTERS +++
  +++ LEAVE NO PIPE UNSEARCHED +++
  +++ APPREHEND AND QUESTION THAT CITIZEN +++
  +++ REMEMBER TO TEST YOUR EXPERIMENTAL EQUIPMENT +++
  +++ RESOLVE THIS SITUATON WITHOUT VIOLENCE 
  OR DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY +++
  +++ CONGRATULATIONS TROUBLESHOOTERS. RETURN TO BRIEFING ROOM 
  FOR DEBRIEFING IMMEDIATELY +++
  +++ GOOD MORNINGCYCLE TROUBLESHOOTERS. YOUR MISSION IS TO 
  TRACK DOWN AND APPREHEND +++
  +++ AN INFAMOUS COMPUTER HACKER AND TRAITOR WHO INTERNAL 
  SECURITY BELIEVE IS AT LARGE +++
  +++ IN THIS SECTOR. YOU ARE NOT, REPEAT, NOT TO TERMINATE +++
  +++ THE TRAITOR, BUT MUST APPREHEND 
  THE TRAITOR FOR QUESTIONING +++
  
  +++ FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE RELAYED AS 
  REQUIRED VIA THE DPM SYSTEM +++
  +++ ALSO, MAY I SAY WHAT AN HONOUR IT IS TO BE WORKING WITH 
  SUCH FINE TROUBLESHOOTERS AS +++
  +++ THE TEAM LEADER +++
  +++ AND THE REST OF YOU, ONWARDS TO VICTORY +++
  +++ SYSTEM NOTICE: ERROR 504. RECEPTOR 
  THERMAL THRESHOLD EXCEEDED +++
  +++ RESET +++
  +++ GO BACK +++
  +++ CONTINUE +++
  +++ LOGIN +++
  +++ OK MALCOLM-O BACK ONLINE ALL FINE NOTHING 
  WRONG CONTINUE WITH MISSION WILL BE RIGHT BACK +++
  +++ IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS MESSAGES I WAS HACKED BY TRAITORS +++
  +++ NORMAL OPERATIONS NOW RESUME +++
  +++ TAKE FOUR STEPS FORWARD +++
  +++ RELOAD YOUR LASER PISTOL NOW +++
  +++ TURN CLOCKWISE 17 DEGREES AND TAKE 
  COVER BEHIND THAT BARREL +++
  +++ EMPTY YOUR BLADDER NOW TO OPTIMIZE RUNNING SPEED +++
  +++ REPORT TO BRIEFING ROOM FOR DEBRIEFING +++
  +++ ALL THESE CITIZENS HAVE BEEN VOLUNTEERED FOR 
  ORGAN DONATION DUTY. +++
  +++ THE TROUBLESHOOTERS ON TEAM B ARE TRAITORS. 
  TERMINATE THEM IMMEDIATELY +++
  +++ TERMINATE THE OTHER TROUBLESHOOTERS ON YOUR TEAM 
  IMMEDIATELY – THEY’RE ALL TRAITORS +++
  +++ PROCEED DIRECTLY TO THE DISCUSSION OF EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH 
  & PLANNING FACILITY AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS +++
  +++                                                                                                                    +++
  +++                                                                                                                    +++
  +++                                                                                                                    +++
  +++                                                                                                                    +++
  +++                                                                                                                    +++
  
  NAME: 
  R  O  Y  G  B  I  V 
  1  2  3  4  5  6 
  _
  _
  I WARRANT THAT I HAVE:
  UNDERGONE A FOREHEAD SCRUB BY DESIGNATED HYGIENE OFFICER.
  RECEIVED A DPM MODULE IMPLANT FROM AN AUTHORISED CYBERNETICS TECHNICIAN.
  UNDERGONE A FULL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENING 
  AND NO LONGER SUFFER FROM AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS
  MY MISSION WAS A 
  SUCCESS 
  FAILURE 
  OTHER (SPECIFY)
  THE DPM SYSTEM WAS 
  VERY HELPFUL 
  SOMEWHAT HELPFUL 
  NOT USED
   
  OTHER (SPECIFY)                    
       ON THIS MISSION.
  THE PERCENTAGE OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MISSION’S OUTCOME CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO
  I MOST LIKED     REAL-TIME UPDATES FROM MY SUPERIOR    SENDING EMERGENCY MESSAGES 
       AN ENHANCED SENSE OF TEAMWORK     REAL-TIME MONITORING OF MY ACTIVITIES     
       HAVING A WARM SKULL     OTHER (SPECIFY) 
  ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
  PLEASE LIST ALL DPM MESSAGES RECEIVED BY YOUR TEAM IN THE SPACE BELOW.
  I EXPERIENCED THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS:     NONE     BRAIN DAMAGE     DEATH
       THERMAL RUNAWAY     PSYCHOSIS     MUTATION     SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION     
  PERSONAL INFORMATION >>>
  MISSION EXPERIENCE >>>
  ADDITIONAL DATA >>>
  /// PART ONE
  /// PART TWO
  /// PART THREE
  D I S T R I B U T E D  B Y  T H E  O F F I C E  O F  I N F O R M A T I O N  C O L L E C T I O N
  ALPHA 
  COMPLEX
  DIRECT PRIORITY MESSAGE 
  END-USER EXPERIENCE FEEDBACK
  COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING STATMENTS >>>
  ME 
  0% 
  25% 
  28%
  MY TEAM 
  0% 
  30% 
  66%
  MY SUPERVISOR 
  0% 
  10% 
  33%
  THE DMP SYSTEM 
  0% 
  20% 
  48%
  THE COMPUTER 
  0% 
  51% 
  100%
  TERRORIST SABOTAGE 
  0% 
  25% 
  95%
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Paranoia [multi]/MGP Red Clearance edition/MGP Paranoia - Implausable Deniability.pdf