The Rejects (AKA The Dirty Half-Dozen, The Six Wanderers)

Bob Perce (Herodian)
Colt Riffle (Gigermann)
Dr. J. Turk (CommJunkee)
Lance Bennett (Ronnke)
Lenny Leonardo (Melissa)
Romeo Sylvester (Rigil Kent)

The One Where Lance Uncovered the Conspiracy

30 Jul 2162

A week passed with the Rejects each performing their assigned (or assumed) duties as would seem normal.

Lance finished a handful of audio bugs, and also a bug detector, to sweep their own living spaces for listening devices already planted by “interested parties” in the Tower. He went to place a couple of bugs in the elevator cars, but when he swept them first with his detector, found bugs already there—which meant that potentially-sensitive conversations they had while in the elevators had likely been overheard. Lance placed his own bugs anyway, and hid them well, but recovered one of the pre-existing devices to show the security chief, to gauge his reactions and determine what his part in this conspiracy might be. He fetched Sly to go along to talk to Dashwood; on the way to his office, Lance set his Pip-Boy to receive transmissions on the recovered bug’s frequency, and made sure it was still active. The two of them showed the device to Dashwood, saying Lance had been fixing a faulty LED in the elevator panel. Dashwood reacted with false-surprise, and told them to inform him of any more that were found. As the two left Dashwood’s office, the security chief could be overheard, via the still-active device, telling another in the office that these new guys “might be a problem”; this was recorded for later.

Afterward, Lance went to each of the Rejects’ rooms and swept for bugs, finding none, though he wasn’t entirely convinced he had done it right.

Later, Lance got a work-order for a light fixture in Tenpenny’s office while the boss was out, so he decided to seize the opportunity to sweep/place bugs there as well. Again, he found multiple listening devices already present in the office, and made note of their frequencies to hijack later.

That evening, Lance swept the rooms for bugs again, this time, locating a few; he let the others know. They decided to set up a hidden camera to watch the room in view of one of them, and tamper with the bug, such that it would need to be replaced by its owner. Around the middle of the next day, while everyone was off working, someone did get into the room and change out the bug with a fresh one. The Rejects later identified the guy in the video as one of the security guys.

Now expecting trouble, Lance started a new under-the-table project to reprogram the Mr. Handy maintenance bots with a sleeper kill-mode, keyed to himself, just in case.

That evening, the Rejects went to the Federalist Lounge to confront Dashwood, expecting that they were not actually his target, but Tenpenny was. Sly sidled up next to him at the bar, while the others tried to look inconspicuous nearby, as backup. Dashwood would admit to nothing until he was presented with the evidence—his conversation after Lance and Sly left his office, the video of the bug swap-out—at which point he reluctantly took the conversation to a more-secluded corner, where he spilled the beans: he had long been at odds with Tenpenny’s genocidal plans, but with the boss’ growing paranoia of late, Dashwood feared a confrontation was imminent. With his now-trademark “Let me help you” speech, Sly pledged the Rejects to Dashwood’s side, and he accepted, and they discussed how they might force Tenpenny into action, and how they all might survive the result.