Shadow Box - Part 3
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A RolePlay Log by | |
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Date |
2011 May 17 |
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IC Date |
2528 October 24 |
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Setting |
Shadow |
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Appearing |
Suzi, English, Calira, Stilcho, Rhonwen |
Conclusion of Shadow Box from parts 1 and 2.
Underground Complex - Entry - Shadow
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As you climb down the metal staircase the first thing you notice is the concrete walls here are a simple grey, devoid of any decorations. A simple oak table sits in the middle of this room with four matching chairs, they look rather beat up but sturdy, above them is a hanging light with a soft blue glass shade. Agaist the wall is a simple metal desk with a old desk chair. Ontop of the desk is a cortex machine and a small lamp with matching shade as the hanging one. On the ground next to is a large safe sitting on the grey concrete floors.
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The room at the bottom of the stairs is gray from wall to wall, the concrete walls left unfinished and devoid of decoration. The over head lighting is of the same sort found in the warehouse above, and more of the lights work here than in the other, precisely or probably because they were more protected from the elements than their counterparts. A simple oak table sits in the middle of the room, though there is a body sprawled upon it, another on the floor beside it and the chairs - they probably were a matched set - are broken into shards of wood and scattered around the room. Some of the shards are actually poking OUT of some of the dead bodies. Bodies - plural - are heaped around the room. At first glance the visual estimate could be as low as ten, but from the way the bodies are heaped, strewn about, lumped here and there, it's tough to get the actual read from just a sweeping glance.
"I know," Calira says as she moves down one stair at a time. "And this is way beyond a simple locate - retrieve - return with object mission." She pauses, one hand on the railing as she another slower look around the room now that she can see the entirety of it. "They're dead," she confirms in a grim tone of voice. "If they weren't dead before that door closed, they died before we got here all the same." She pauses on the last step and gently but gingerly nudges the nearest dead body with the toe of her right boot, her balance braced with her left leg as she does this. No response. She crouches - careful and slow in the suit - and rolls the head slightly toward her to see the ice caked eyes that are frozen open. She clears her throat, once, a low sound, before saying: "Dead as a door nail." <English>
Suzi tests her Willpower against a 70 difficulty. The result is successful (9).
Suzi's footsteps are all but silent on the stairs. She's the last in line and, so, the last to have a chance to take in the 'view'. Such that it is. Maybe it's Calira's words of warning that allow her to keep her shit together, but regardless.. she neither turns tail and flees back the way she came nor upchucks into her suit. Both of these are good things. As she gains the bottom of the stairs, she looks around briefly but after that initial terrible glance does her best to look everywhere *but* the bodies. Instead, she scans the walls for other doors leading into other rooms and holds her gun in a two-handed grip, which masks the shaking of her hands quite well actually. The weapon is still trained safely on the floor. <English>
Calira tests her Spot against a 50 difficulty. The result is successful (41).
English tests his Spot against a 50 difficulty. The result is successful (8).
Suzi tests her Spot against a 50 difficulty. The result is successful (3).
English makes it to the last and final step of the case second and at the sight that unravels he would much like not to be down here. He's seen death before and he can stomach it, for what it's worth, but it is still a sight not wished for. He steps deeper into the room, past Calira and towards the main table in looking to the body there sprawled across its surface. The shotgun is held limply in the crook of his right arm if only because it isn't currently necessary to have at the ready but he doesn't want to fully disarm himself. The wooden stake as it is, there lodged in the man's chest, is examined before he takes a half-step back and looks around. "Someone's been busy..." <English>
"Busy is the word we'll stick with," Calira agrees as she uses her right hand to open one of the sealed pockets of her suit and fishes out a palm sized electronic device and crosses to where English is standing and extends it him to show him the device. "I don't know what gear you've worked with before but this device can scan the fingerprint of any hand held to it and will store the print. You can use it for immediate searches to identify someone or you can scan the data and run the analysis later. I'd like to identify all of these bodies before we get out of here." She offers the device now to English as she glances around and realizes that there was a computer on this desk at some point and, as she steps around the side, "Ah. I don't know if we can resurrect this one or not," and eases another body out of the way to see the computer case where it landed on the floor. "Can this be powered up, Suzi?" she asks as she moves out of the way and holsters her gun long enough to grasp the body with both hands and drags it further away from the computer case with obvious effort. <English>
Suzi rolls for a chance. The result is successful (97).
Suzi really doesn't want to go any farther into the room, but seeing as how Calira has so thoughtfully dragged the nearest corpse away from the remnants of the computer she figures she really ought to give it a go. Swallowing, she toggles the safety on her weapon back on and slides it into its holster before starting in the direction indicated. She steps carefully around the edge of the room, skirting the bodies and doing her best not to look at them directly. Her stomach is rolling and churning, warning her that just because it hasn't revolted yet doesn't mean it doesn't reserve the right to do so at any time. At one point she actually has to stop, one gloved hand touching the wall and her eyes squeezing shut as a wave of nausea threatens to overtake her. She seems to win the battle, though, opening her eyes after twenty or thirty seconds and continuing her trek over to the computer case on the floor. Dropping to one knee, she sets to inspecting the device. "Hard to say, taking a fall can dislodge all sorts of things. It doesn't look too badly beaten up on the outside... it might be okay. You want me to take it upstairs and have a look?" She tries not to sound too hopeful about this. <English>
English swallows down something of a comment and dutifully nods his head before reaching out to claim the handheld device. "Never got to personally use the portable kind," offhandedly remarks the dressed-up investigator. He shoulders the shotgun properly and verifies the strap isn't going to release the weapon in the meantime, and with it not he begins to document each and every body that he can without disturbing them too much. In the process, he's checking for vitals as best he can. Though somewhere along the way he's pointing out the second door and looking towards it every few moments. <English>
"We'll take it up with us," Calira decides after a moment of though, wishing she would lift the helmet long enough to wipe at her face but wisely deciding NOT to, all the same. "Set it on the stairs, we'll take it up with us," she adds as she begins to move through the room, dragging the bodies into a more orderly pile - sweaty, gross, heavy work - to make the head count easier when it's all said and done. "Most of these bodies look the same," she says at one point. "The eyes are frozen open, but aside from the ones with the wood sticking out of them, they don't look like.." and she stops talking, sucking a harsh breath as she looks slowly around again, straightening away from the last body she's dragged into the row. "Bloody sodding hell," is said clearly, slowly, precisely. "What Rhonwen said. Look at the bodies. There's no signs of trauma. No struggle. No bullet holes. No strangulation. No odd colors or disfigurations. They're dead. Just dead. They look like they karking froze to death down here." She once again lifts her hands as though to rub at her face and stops with her hands a few inches away from the helmet. "Okay." Another slow exhalation, "Alright. There's another door?" she asks as much confirms and looks toward where English has pointed and, as if it would help, she glares AT the door the far end of the room. "This gets better and better." <English>
Suzi rolls for a chance. The result is failure (14).
Suzi tests her Intelligence against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (39).
Damn. So much for that bright idea. "Roger." Suzi replies, picking up the computer carefully so as to not puncture her suit and standing with it in her hands. Carefully she starts to pick her way back around the edge of the room to the stairs, once again with a concerted effort to NOT look at the bodies. She's almost to the stairs when Calira connects the dots and halts abruptly at the expletives not deleted. Turning, she looks back at Calira, taking in what she has to say with a growing sense of dread. "Someone breached the package." she concludes, though at that point it's just kind of stating the obvious. Grimacing, she completes her trip to the stairs and puts the computer down on the bottom step. Pauses, reconsiders, and moves it to the floor just to one side in case they need to beat a hasty retreat. <English>
English pauses and stands up straighter, looking in the general direction of the computer. He lingers like such for a moment and then returns to the business of taking down every person's fingerprint but once that it does he's tucking the device into a free pouch and turning to the door in the background. "Now I'm not taking my helmet off to scratch my nose," mutters dryly the detective as he steps in the direction of the door. He pauses again and looks to the two, and to Suzi: "Mind staying back in this room this time? Just in case," just in case they accidentally open some consequence of people previously opening what Rhonwen has said to be Pandora's Box. <English>
Calira tests her Listen against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (33).
English tests his Listen against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (37).
Suzi tests her Listen against a 60 difficulty. The result is unsuccessful (-6).
"Yeah, that would be my guess. I'm also betting that these people weren't voluntary test subjects," Calira says in a grim tone of voice. She's crouching beside another of the victims, carefully examining the face, then the hands and the clothing. "Looks malnourished, clothing is rough, cast offs I'm betting, hands are dirty, nails are ragged. They could easily have been homeless people rounded up with the promise of a paying gig. I hope the poor bastards were at least given a hot meal before this happened to them," she says with a sigh as she straightens. "Rhonwen, I need you and your recording device down here," she calls through the suit com's and waits until Rhonwen is coming down the stairs. "We need all of this, the images, the faces, we need it all." She doesn't elaborate as to WHY they need it all, but all information is power. The truth, after all, being the most powerful of all information to have in any pocket. Once Rhonwen is over the initial shock and the pure visceral gripping horror/pity that Calira imagines everyone else to feel, she follows English to the door and studies it. "Solid steel, thick too. And the door opens out, which is good, I don't want to have to push it open the hard way." She tilts her head again, listening intently, "Kark it, what if someone survived? What if the bloody crate is down here instead of up the stairs?" She pulls her favorite gun again, checking the clip - though she knows it's loaded, it's a formality. "Suzi, I hate to ask you to do this, but I'd like English and I to cover the door. I need you to pull it open then take cover behind it. Hold the door open and hold quiet, still. Can you do that?" <English>
Yeah, this does just keep getting better and better. Just when Suzi thinks her stomach can't sink any lower Calira's description has her leaning against the wall and counting again. Poor people, they didn't deserve this. "I have seen the monster and it is us." she murmurs softly, neither aware she's said it aloud nor that she's pressed her comm button and shared it with the rest of the team. At the sound of her name, she opens her eyes and looks toward Calira once more. Grimaces, but nods. "Yeah, okay." After all, if not here then... Rhonwen? She's got KIDS. That's important. Carefully, the geek picks her way around the edge of the room again, approaching the Big Damn Door. She touches it with a gloved hand, examinging the latch for a moment before nodding to herself. "Okay, count of three." she tells the others, "One... two... three!" She tugs the lever down, pulls it toward her and steps behind it as it opens. Really, it makes a nice little hidey hole ther for her. As long as no-one slams into it while she's hiding. <English>
English takes up his sidearm just as well, shotgun and pack of stored gear being laid out on the main table in the process. It frees up his suited body some and he returns to standing next to Calira in a staggered breaching formation, sidearm at the ready and his mind ignoring the tense breathing muffled against his helmet. The mark is given, he has no reason this time to be afraid of being shot in the ass by Suzi, and up goes the handgun as they breach past the heavy, solid door. <English>
Stilcho comes down the stairs when called. Apparently makes a mental note of the bodies but keeps moving as if non-pulsed. He moves to a 'ready low' position by English and Calira with his huge pistola out infront of him. <English>
With Anubis in one hand and her blackened Desert Eagle in the other, Calira is down on one knee alongside English when Stilcho joins the party in the basement. The door that Suzi opens makes that awful grating sound, just like the previous door does. This time, no lights flicker on. In fact, if they hadn't been wearing suits they would've felt the rush of colder air emerging from the cell. Only it isn't a cell, it looks like it was a walk in deep-freezer type structure, which explains the stainless steel door that's almost a six inches thick and then some. "I'm really starting to get a bad -" is almost Calira's last words as the blackness within the cell moves slightly. The blackness takes form, the only sounds made by those wearing the suits, the weird echo of the door being opened and then a growl of sound that's inhuman in the worst possible way. The thing that lurches out of the darkness is covered in blood soaked clothing, it's teeth bared and bloody, it's eyes empty yet feral at the same time, one hand holding a haunch of bloody gnawed upon meat even as it's other hand drips with gibbets and remnants of who knows what, ragged nails torn out of the nail beds, fingers curled into a claw shape. Its eyes do not need to adjust to the light, it does not need to breathe, and the cold has only slowed it down, but there was plenty of it to eat in the freezer but the promise of fresh food makes it lurch forward toward the promise. <English>
What was it Calira had said? Be quiet? Be still? Suzi does alright with that until she hears that inhuman growl. Then it gets harder, but there's something to be said for not having to look the thing that wants to eat you in the eye. No, she can't see it *at all* as it lurches out of the doorway toward the rest of her team. But she can hear it. Dear God, can she hear it. It's a sound that will probably haunt her dreams for a few... years. Suzi cowers behind the door, holding on tightly to the handle and doing her damnest to do as Calira said. Be quiet. Be still. Quiet as a mouse, still as the.. dead? Ooo, bad image. <English>
Calira tests her Firearms:repeating against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (8).
Stilcho tests his Firearms:sidearms against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (26).
English tests his Firearms:sidearms against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (33).
It's only somewhat comforting that another has joined them. It means there are more bodies that can be attacked other than him, but English doesn't want the others to be hurt too. It's a bittersweet moment further heightened by the fact that there seemingly isn't anything beyond this new threshold. It's almost reason enough with the darkness for the detective to reach for a flashlight. Then he doesn't need to, it's something coming out and wielding a bloodied something. English happens to be fresh food and he happens to be an armed bit of fresh food. The man begins to back up in retreat but he doesn't fall without pulling the trigger of his gun first, and then he's on his back roughly, backing up further, "Jesus-fuck!" <English>
Stilcho carefully and calmly lines up on the Reaver and toggles his Jufeng to 12.25mm SemiAutomatic. He unleashes as accurate as a volley of controlled burst fire of two shots center mass. He doesn't back up but curses in a percussive mangled language that might be pidgeon Arabic. He barely controls himself them blurts, "FUCK THE APPLE-EGG! REAVERS!" <English>
Calira's hands don't shake so much as she feels oddly disconnected to the reality of what is happening. With Suzi safely squared away behind the door, English opening fire with an initial round that takes the Reaver square between the eyes and Stilcho making words in a language she doesn't speak while cutting a line of bullets across the mid-section of the Reaver, Calira's own weapons fire is almost dressing on the side. She fires anyway, though, adding more bullets to the center of body mass for emphasis. As English is scuttling backward he ends up running right into the edge of the piled bodies. Rhonwen has, fortunately or not, caught all of this on the recording device. The Reaver lurches forward a few more empty steps, it's own momentum carrying it further into the room. The haunch of bloody meat drops from one clawed hand, the other reaching for the nearest human and being rewarded with more bullets for it's eagerness for dinner. It staggers, though if it weren't already shambling the stagger wouldn't be so noticeable. The spray of bullets cutting across it's body, the one between the eyes, takes out the higher brain function remnants while cutting the spinal cord until it trips over the haunch of meat it was gnawing upon and starts to fall forward. <English>
Calira tests her Firearms:repeating against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (30).
English tests his Firearms:sidearms against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (24).
Stilcho tests his Firearms:sidearms against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (24).
Calira rolls for chance. The result is successful (52).
Stilcho rolls for chance. The result is successful (72).
English rolls for chance. The result is failure (22).
English tests his Willpower against a 72 difficulty. The result is unsuccessful (-31).
When the gunfire starts, Suzi cringes and clings a little harder to the door handle and closes her eyes, her head dipping forward so that her forehead touches the cold metal of the door--through the plastic face shield, anyway. If she makes a sound, no one can hear it. In fact, no one's liable to hear much of anything for a few minutes after the concussive sound of shots fired in an enclosed area. Maybe that's to her advantage. Or maybe she's quiet as a field mouse in a NBC suit, clinging to a door handle and hiding from the unspeakable horror on the other side. <English>
English can only scuttle for so long in retreat now that he has fallen. If only he could get to the shotgun; but, he cannot, and since he cannot he instead continues to fire in the general direction of the Reaver. He isn't a bad shot all things considered and in spite of his freaking out. The thing continues to lurch forwards at them, however. He's also run out of room to crawl to now that he rests against one of the dead bodies. In trying to escape from the walking abomination the body he has pushed against rolls down at a sharp angle and looks to come alive, and so he promptly adjusts his aim and accidentally empties two rounds into the corpse. He begins to sit up and then with a heavy sigh lays back down, right there with the frozen bodies. Then he remembers they're dead people and promptly begins to try and climb back onto his feet. <English>
The body that English empties two rounds into doesn't respond so much as a twitch, in fact the rounds are like firing into clay and the only movement is as a result of English's movements against it. The body moves heavily and with that particular boneless emptiness that only the truly dead are capable of. Calira is aware, at least in a peripheral sense, of where everyone is. She knows that English has retreated and is brought up fast against the stack of bodies. She knows that Suzi is relatively protected behind the sheer width of the door itself that she is holding open. She knows that Stilcho is to her side with his gun still firing away at the Reaver even as it shambles forward. It's nothing more than a quirk of fate really that had her kneeling to fire into the bloody thing, and when it shambles and stumbles and pitches forward it happens to pitch forward toward Calira and the suit makes her reaction time not what it should be and she realizes too late that she's not far enough away from it. She pivots on that knee, turning sideways with the hope of rising to her feet and sprinting to safety. In fact, her mind is so intent about this safety measure that she can feel herself rising to her feet, can feel her boots hitting against the floor, the effort or running to safety singing through every muscle, sinew and tendon, the burst of adrenaline that would leave a cold sheen along her skin beneath the layers of clothing and suit.
The crushing weight of the Reaver hitting her, however, is the reality that jerks her back into place and she fights back the panic that grips her. It takes several breaths, several long moments for enough of her self control to be hammered back into place before she trusts herself enough to speak. "Get - It - Off - of - me," is uttered as plain - as carefully - almost as loudly as she dares. And even with full exercise of her self control her voice is higher pitched than she likes, breathier than she wants to admit possible and she doesn't dare move for fear of the bloody thing tearing the suit or worse. <English>
Stilcho waits stoically to see what other kind of new entertaining hell emerges into his gun sights. He calls out, "No targets ... yet. Everybody OK? Boss? You Green or Shiny?" He mutters something that doesn't sound like he got quite right. "Suzi? How about you?" He backs up a bit then calls to English, "You done back there? I'm pretty sure they aren't getting much deader." <English>
And then all was quiet. Relatively, anyway. The shooting has stopped, as has the inhuman growling and the paniced exclamations over the comm unit. Suzi continues to cling to the door handle, her whole body trembling with fear. The all-clear couldn't be more welcome, and though it takes her a moment Suzi manages, "I'm okay." and forces herself to move, pushing the door ahead of her until it closes with a solid thunk and she can turn, put her back to it, and slide down it into a sitting position on the floor, knees drawn up. She still has her eyes closed. She doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see. But she has to, so she forces her eyes open and looks upon the aftermath. "Can we go now?" she asks, in a very small voice. <English>
English is up and breathing heavily. A thumb's deft touch has slid the safety on with his sidearm and he checks it further, considering the circumstances, before moving to holster it out of relative view. The man turns and finds that most everything is on video but then he's holding up a finger towards Stilcho is preparing to speak up against him. It's not really worth it when English didn't have to shoot an already-dead person in the first place. He looks to the side in checking on Suzi and then lowers his hand while stepping mutely forward in order to lift up the body from Calira. <English>
Stilcho declares, "I think we should consider the freezer clear. I wouldn't mind that door being shut." He looks around carefully his pistol tracking with his vision. "I *think* we'll find a glut of evidence to the south." He looks to Calira, "Your suit integ shiny boss?" <English>
Once the weight of the Reaver is lifted off of Calira enough that she can slide out from beneath it, Calira does so at enough speed that she almost risks tearing the suit - but manages not to, for all of the abrupt and hurried motion involved. Once she's on her feet again she realizes that her suit is coated with a smear of blood and other gross bodily fluids and reholsters her guns with hands that are a shade away from beginning to shake. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. Suzi, grab the computer and take it up the stairs. Rhonwen I need the best close up of this karking thing as we can get, it's evidence. Everyone up the stairs once the footage is secure and we close and lock this place down. The crate isn't here any more," she states in a tone of voice that is resolute. "Who ever had it is here and gone already. They proved it's contents. Now we have to figure out who they are, and we have hopefully enough clues to start work on that. Let's move," she adds as she tries very very hard not to think about the stuff sliming the exterior of her suit or the splotch of black blood that's left a streak along the face of the helmet, streaking her vision. "English, go with Suzi and Rhonwen up the stairs and pull the memory bits out of the computers and bundle them up. Stilcho and I are going to hit the office fast, grab what ever looks useful if there's anything in there. We're leaving here in ten minutes. Signal the ship to let her know we're heading back, to meet us in 20." <English>
"Got it." Suzi replies, though she doesn't move right away. Her eyes have lifted to the ceiling, a more pleasant alternative than the rest of the room. After a little more counting and a deep breath, she starts to pick herself up off the floor. Her feet scramble for purchase a bit, but she steadies herself with a hand on the wall and is soon picking her way back around the edge of the room to the stairs. Once she reaches the computer, she stoops to pick it up but then heads upstairs without looking back, her footsteps a bit heavier than they were on the way down. But faster too. Much faster. <English>
English helps in removing the Reaver from being on top of Calira and then pushes it aside with more help, letting it be captured on film while he steps back and rubs his now grimy gloves against his torso. That's so nasty. "On it," replies English to the orders and he grabs hold of the shotgun before moving to follow after the two of Suzi and Rhonwen. He doesn't want to be stuck down in the basement area for much longer anyway and once at the top of the steps he pauses to regain his bearings and then pushes forward to help with the computers there. <English>
"wait wait," Calira calls out before English can make it up the steps, "Crap," is declared in a loud voice. "Okay, we need to decontaminate ourselves, our suits. The goo on your gloves, yours and Stilcho's," she looks to English first then Stilcho, "the goo smeared on my suit. It can carry the disease. We can't cross contaminate. We're going to have to ditch the suits and burn them. Your guns are going to have to be decontaminated too. Don't touch anything else," she orders in a bleak tone of voice. <English>
Stilcho declares, "On It Boss. If the fuel station still has fuel we can clean off with that then ditch the suits in the airlock ... the fuel will purge our weapons. Sound Shiny?" <English>
Upstairs, Suzi checks on the transfer and disconnects the portable drive from the computers since it is finished. Then she starts lining up computers and removing cases. She doesn't bother trying to boot up the one she brought up from downstairs, just opens it up along with the others and starts pulling out hard drives deassembly-line style. She does her best to work quickly and efficiently, not bothering to put the machines back together when she's done. They're just going to be melted to slag anyway. This will take her a good fifteen minutes or so, giving the others plenty of time to deal with their contamination problem. "I was watching my badge on the way here, it didn't spike at all. As long as we follow our tracks back to the ship you should all be safe. And you've got thermals under your suits so you shouldn't freeze either." she remarks while she works, the act of focusing her brain serving to keep her from thinking about what she saw downstairs. That comes later. <English>
English slows to a crawl and ends up lingering back over to the once-hidden stairwell into the basement bunker, not wanting to further contaminate anything in the long-run or short-term. "I'm not above ditching weapons just so we can get back in one piece." It's just a gun. Those are replaceable. His limbs, they are not; well, they are in this day and age, but that's clearly not the point. For now, he gets to shift back and forth on his boots in wait and rather open to following the leader considering the last door opened led to a Reaver bonanza. <English>
Stilcho states, "Boss, I'm not a demo guy buy if we rig that generator right and keep the vents running we can use about 50 gallons of fuel to make an Improvised Fuel Air Explosive that's easier to set off than popping a balloon. It'd flatten *and* purge this place." <English>
"Good thinking, Stilcho," Calira replies as Rhonwen follows Suzi up the stairs and English waits while the options are being considered. "I'm not keen on the idea of opening another door, but lets get it over with," she says as she grimly walks forward to the door leading to the room marked 'office' by the nicely printed plate affixed to the door. "We'll douse off with the fuel, clean our weapons as well, then we're going to set this place on fire. There has to be a way to use the fuel to make a large enough fire to roast everything down here beyond contagion threat and toast everything upstairs to the same result. Ideas?" she asks, then listens as Stilcho explains the options. "Seriously? Flatten and purge? I'm all for that!" is said in a tone of marked enthusiasm even as she marches up to the door and twists the handle, "ready?" she asks of Stilcho, since he's still near enough to aim at the door, "On three," she clarifies and counts it down and yanks the door open and this time she's standing behind it. Only THIS time the lights flicker on brightly to illuminate a totally empty room. Empty of desk, files, drawers, anything. Most notably empty of bodies OR Reavers. "Clear?" she asks after a few seconds of tense waiting. <English>
Stilcho says in English, "Clear!"
Cavernous Warehouse - Shadow
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This cavernous warehouse is at once sterile and cold. Easily a thousand meters square, drab grey cement runs into walls of reinforced steel. Evenly spaced every 200 square feet is a squat metal beam supporting the ceiling above. Running the length of the far right wall are crates lined up on pallets stacked fifteen feet high. The crates, themselves, are uniform in color and size, any markings identifying the contents not easily visible from below. Situated haphazardly in chunks throughout the rest of the warehouse are additional boxes and crates of cargo, varying in size, color, and shape.
There is a slight chill in the air that is unrelieved by any heating unit, nor stirred by any flow of air. Harsh flourescent lights flicker overhead, casting bright spots of illumination in some sections of the warehouse, and casting pockets of shadow in others. A few sheets of plastic tarp hang near the back of the warehouse, left over remnants of a recent remodeling that suggests this place was once used for something else.
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English dutifully follows after the two. They happen to be more militaristic than him and in the meantime it allows him the opportunity to quietly reload his sidearm. The empty magazine is taken up and stored in a spare pouch. He'll separate clean from contaminated in a moment but at least they are no longer in the basement from Hell. <English>
Emerging from the underground complex, aka 'basement from hell', English Stilcho and Calira find Suzi and Rhonwen hard at work disassembling the computers and storing the memory parts in the hard case of equipment that Suzi had brought along with. "Lets get cleaned off," Calira suggests as she makes a bee-line for the generator, it's stock pile of fuel and continues talking. "How long does it take to make this explosive you have in mind, Stilcho? And how do we set it off?" <English>
Stilcho covers the tactical withdrawl with calm aplomb. He moves into an overwatch position and blurts out, "We've still gotta move fuel and rig vents and wash off then get aboard and get away ... this detonation is likely to ignite the dust in the atmosphere too." <English>
"As much as I love a nice fireball igniting the atmosphere, I vote we just douse everything with gasoline and light it." Suzi offers, as she finishes the last of the computer gutting and stows the hard drives along with the backup battery and portable drive in her backpack. The hard case was left on the ship, being a bit heavy to lug across the frozen wasteland. Next time, she's bringing one with wheels. Zipping up the bag, she turns and leans against the desk, resting her hands on the edge of it to either side of her hips as she looks over at the contaminated trio. "Rhonwen and I can go get gas from the fuel station, or we can use whatever's left in the generator. That's faster, though I don't know how much is in there." <English>
"I'm in favor of not destroying our covers, personally." English points this out belatedly now that he has stopped stripping down from the heavy outer layers of clothing and determined which bits of gear is salvageable and what isn't; thankfully, the important parts are okay. The contaminated gear is left in a pile and he begins digging into his pack for something while listening to the others. He's probably left to sticking to the warmer warehouse here than fetching any fuel." <English>
Stilcho strips carefully and says, "Simple. We just close off the exterior vents. The Fuel and air mixes inside the warehouse and when it explodes it's contained." He starts to drain the generator's fuel on his weapon to clean it then he starts to fill a fuel drum. "We just need to wet *everything* with fuel ... give it ten minutes to evaporate and set the generator to feed back on itself in approxiamately the same time." <English>
Frowning a bit, Suzi opens her mouth to reply but then stops and just shakes her head, deciding to let Calira deal with it. Straightening, she turns and takes up her backpack, slipping her arms through the shoulder straps and settling them on her shoulders. Once finished, she looks around the cavernous room for a moment, noticing the papers Rhonwen had picked up. "Here, put those in my bag with the other stuff.. don't want them to catch." she suggests, turning her back so that Rhonwen can do so. Then she has another thought and looks over at the contaminated trio. "One of you should keep your suit on long enough to go back downstairs with the fuel." <English>
English huffs quietly under his breath but given his rank and station in matters at hand he doesn't bother repeating himself. Instead, he settles for double-checking his things just prior to withdraw a pack of cigarettes and box of matches from the pack before shoveling all of the non-contaminated things within the backpack. He shoulders it upon that and begins heading in the others' direction, pocketing the two items fetched and rubbing at his upper arms. "That's not going to me then... as much as I'd love to." <English>
Stilcho grunts and keeps filling tanks and spreading fuels until the fuel fumes are almost overwhelming. He appears slightly green. It's amazing how dead bodies wouldn't upset his stomach but fuel fumes would. He keeps resolutely plodding away at his task despite being slightly ill. <English>
calira tests her Demolitions against a 60 difficulty. The result is successful (45).
Calira tests her Agility against a 75 difficulty. The result is successful (17).
English tests his Agility against a 70 difficulty. The result is unsuccessful (-7).
English tests his Agility against a 77 difficulty. The result is successful (12).
Stilcho tests his Agility against a 70 difficulty. The result is unsuccessful (-17).
Stilcho tests his Agility against a 87 difficulty. The result is unsuccessful (-9).
Suzi does her best to stay well away from the fuel and the bodies and the dousing, which leaves her pretty much just hanging out by the door waiting for the wet work to be done. Literally and otherwise. She'd twiddle her thumbs, but one is broken. So she just kind of waits and tries not to think about what she's seen today. It's harder now that her thoughts are idle. So she thinks about getting back to the ship, getting out of this gear, having a hot coffee (Irish of course) or three and getting back to civilization. If nothing else, the trip has given her a lot to think about. <English>
Stilcho after the building is rigged to pop like an engorged tick Stilcho streaks out of the building and promptly slips and falls on his rump like a three member tango team. He lets out an deflating oof like the pink elephant in a drunken man's dream farting. <English>
English is no master of demolitions and so his expertise merely lies in ferrying supplies back and forth and allowing the others to set the aforementioned supplies up into the incoming fire. He does some dousing as well. So long as the thing isn't turned into an explosive fireball, he shall be happy. Then there's the point of having to return to the ship without the protective heavy gear and he steadily falls from being happy with a stumble or two in the cold. <English>
Meanwhile, Calira is dousing the bodies in the basement with generous splashes of fuel from the first can, soaking them as best she can but really just splashing fuel everywhere and hoping. She gets most of the bodies well splashed before tossing the empty can aside and taking the second one in hand and getting the rest well splashed before backtracking to the dead-er Reaver and upends the fuel all over it in a rather determined move to make sure that this thing isn't so much a crunchy bone fragment when it's done. There's something else about the Reaver that she doesn't want to think about - resolves not to, in fact - and forces herself to head for the stairs after a few minutes of splashing and muttering. She soaks the stairs with fuel on her way back up, ensuring that they will catch on fire as well and even if the building doesn't go up, no one is going to casually walk DOWN these steps ever again.
Once she emerges she hustles herself across the cement floor for another pair of cans and uncaps both and heaves them down into the pit and turns one last time toward the entrance. The spooky 'there's something bad behind you - don't look back' feeling makes her move faster and she skids to a halt just inside the entrance to the warehouse and HAS to look back long enough to make sure that there isn't anything about to nab her. The coast is clear. She hears Stilcho fall, the sound of the breathing of her other team mates as she drags the helmet off of her head and takes her first lung full of fuel soaked air and wheezes instantly in reply. The rest of the gear is dragged off, kicked out of, wormed free from and she grabs her guns and the rest of the odds and ends she'd fished from the pockets, stuff the guns into deep pockets of her khaki's along with everything else. She slams the door to the warehouse shut and stumbles out into the snow and nearly trips over Stilcho. "not - making - radioactive - snowmen," she gasps out as she helps haul him to his feet and makes sure that English, Suzi and Rhonwen are moving out as well. <English>
Shadow -- Spaceport
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The 'spaceport' here on shadow is nothing more than a flat area of land where the earth has been beaten down and hardened by the ships that land here. Anything that grows has long since withered and died. All is rather ashen gray, and it's very, very cold.
The sky above is darkened, even at high noon, for Shadow suffers from Nuclear Winter. The bombs that the Alliance dropped on the planet that burst at ground level threw a huge amount of dust into the atmosphere, as much as a million tons from the large scale bombs, and that dust darkened the skies. The temperature dropped significantly on the planet, and the ice caps grew. The levels of radiation in some parts of Shadow are so high as to be lethal to all life. It would be wise for anyone on planet to wear a radiation badge.
There are no buildings at all in this area but for one lonely shack that looks as if a good wind might send it sprawling. A dirt road leads off to the north.
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Without an actual clock to be timing this rigged explosion, every trudging step through the snow is just one more foot away from the building and - more importantly - away from the potential radius of the blast zone. Illy does her best to keep Stilcho on his feet while Suzi and Rhonwen, followed by English, lead the way to the spaceport. Any thoughts or plans she'd had to take more time to follow up on the things they'd spotted on the way in are hastily discarded in the wake of shivering in the cold and coughing in the ash filled air. By the time the spaceport is reached she views the presence of the Firefly 'Zang Fu' with all the relief of someone seeing a rescue brigade suddenly arriving on their doorstep. She lets Stilcho go somewhere along the way as he proves capable of staying upright and mobile on his own and falls back to make sure that everyone is accounted for before the hatch opens up. "Alright, cover story back in place. We'll come up with a reason why our gear got left behind," she says through chattering teeth. <English>
Suzi comes trudging along some distance behind the runners, not really in good enough shape to manage more than small spurts of jogging weighted down as she is by the NBC gear and her backpack. No matter how ready she is to leave this godforsaken rock and begin the futile task of trying to forget all that she's seen and heard. "Roger that." she replies, managing to get a little more jogging in once the Firefly is in sight. A more welcome sight she can't think of at the moment. <English>
English only slows down long enough to try and help with the others but it appears that they are doing well enough to keep up with everyone, so he brings up the middle of the party while steeling himself mentally against the chill setting in. Truth be told, it's not that terrible. Truth be told, he wants to get some sort of congratulatory pat on the back at least. Once they're at the space port proper and the Zang Fu, he slows to double-check on the two to the rear before helping them
