Dis*, Dis*position Options

[JavaLamp]

Squat
11:37 pm

"What can be done? Plan for a trap and potentially waste resources.. or worse, turn a clean handoff into a killzone? No.. too much potential to blow the deal." Harl sits back down on the crate.. and it creaks and strains under him. "No, I'm not walking in blind. If it's a trap, well. How'd that saying go? We'll cross that bridge when we get there? More like burn it if it's a trap. Just try to stay out of fire and don't cut off your escape routes. Unless, that is, you have a better idea." He turns back to face the door.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Squat
11:38 pm

"Alright, fair enough. I'll defer to your experience, thanks." She resumes waiting quietly for 11:45 to arrive.

[JavaLamp]

Squat
11:45 pm

Harl stands at the mark of 11:45, walks out without a word just as a ford americar pulls up and gets in the modified front seat. The passenger seat pops open automatically on the sidewalk side for Mary.

[TakayamaYuuko]

On the street outside the squat
11:45 pm

Go on, sit down, strap in. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. And don't apologize for the upholstery. It'll be OK. Really.

Not dead, above freezing, comfortable seat - what more could you ask for, right? Just a little bit longer and maybe they'll give you a decent room and toilet. Then you can lock yourself up and be sick for three days while your neurotransmitters try to even themselves out. It's all going to be fine. They'll all make it alive, even Joe, and he'll even have an easier time meeting his child support.

And when the breakthrough comes and you can do full-body replacement without a voodoo priest or a humming blood magician, your name will be on the paper in tiny print. Your life will be worth something at last.

Or so Mary keeps trying to tell herself.

[JavaLamp]

A shelled warehouse on the waterfront
11:55 pm

"We're here."
After nearly ten minutes of speeding down the expressway and other roads, Harl's words rattle the silence loose like a wrench in a gearworks as he gets out of the car and walks through a gap in the fence toward a shell of a warehouse, fully open to the overcast night sky.

"Puck and them should be here anytime." Looking around, Harl groans lightly and starts talking to himself, "If we're being ambushed here... " He starts tracing a pointing finger around the warehouse.

"We'll set up there." He points to a particularly abused office, the plasteel sheets have been peeled away in ribbons both to the inside and outside of the warehouse. Harl starts walking toward it.

[TakayamaYuuko]

A shelled warehouse on the waterfront
11:55 pm

Well, it's got the high ground and, apparently, the closest thing to cover to be found here. The remnants of plasteel have to be better than trying to hide behind bare framing. Mary keeps looking around to see if she can see any movement, other vehicles or human-like forms. Lights of various kinds glint off the water, all tinting a sort of green-purple swirl from the perpetual oily film. She's just glad there doesn't seem to be much of anything for anyone to walk on above them on the former roof.

And again, she's glad she's following Harl and not the other way around. She doesn't have to put as much energy into cowering and the like.

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
11:57 pm

You've barely walked into the office area when you hear the sound of an approaching vehicle mixed with another, much less pleasant sound on the rise.. riding on the edge of your perception that same hissing whistle.. it's growing louder but it's still fairly quiet.

"It's Puck, they're pulling in."

You see the light from headlights on the far side of the warehouse from where you entered.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Shelled Warehouse
11:57 pm

Mary goes to crouch behind one of the bits of plasteel. "Is Puck the driver or the other..." She only watches the headlights for a moment before the tug in her ears starts driving her to distraction.

"Do you hear that? That really high-pitched whistle? I heard it back at the compound, too." She cocks her head and starts scanning around, looking between the bits of sheeting and up into the sky for... what exactly? A hoverbird or helicopter? No way it could be a missile; too slow and presumably been in the air too long.

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

Harl looks around, listening intently while the light grows at the entrance. "I don't hear anything but a couple ground vehicles, direction?"

You start listening to try to place a direction for it, It seems to be coming from everywhere.. But now you can clearly hear another... few cars? coming from the side you came in.

The panel van pulls in to the complex, stopping for all the debris lying around.. there's no way a car will be able to navigate it, the plasteel and wreckage would shred any normal tire.. not to mention simply driving over it would highcenter the rest.

As they pull in, 3 black sedans pull in at the opposite end and similarly pull to a stop.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

"It's all around..." It's starting to resolve more now. It's got a steady component and a pulsing one, a cross between a jet engine and a swarm of cicadas. Mary fishes out her earbuds and pushes them in. Probably not much of a sound barrier but better than nothing. The spatial recognizer feature might help too. She also gets her glasses on and switches on the low-light gain, hoping to get a better idea of what's going on over at the sedans. Enough space to make twelve people comfortable, fifteen at capacity - seven, plus the drivers, two more...? Damn that noise, the math's starting to break down.

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

5 men in nondescript suits get out of the front sedan and another 1 each out of the other two, at the same time 7 people get out of the panel van.

Everyone seems to be alright to your great relief. They're walking between the two orks with SMGs and everyone seems relatively relaxed.. or resigned, it's hard to tell. The two parties start walking toward each other.. and after a moment of hesitation, Harl stands and starts to walk. And just then, the sound changes suddenly, it sounds like a distant ghostly scream has been added to it, it grows swiftly and in the space of 2 seconds vanishes with the rest of the noise to leave one whisper as you see the flutter of black cloth and the flash of a blade moving at a sprint toward the interior... it says one word, filled with excitement and anticipation... It says...

"DEATH!"

[TakayamaYuuko]

Shelled Warehouse
11:58 pm

Mary stays right where she is, inside the office. "Everybody, run! Just get out!"

She points wildly at the running black-clothed figure. "Harl, there's an assassin! Shoot him!"

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
11:58 pm

As you point madly to the literally flying mass of whipping cloth and scythe, the semi-transparent form of Death itself, Harl whips his gun out pointing in the direction you are; swiftly scanning back and forth across a small arc several times, his voice elevates-
"Where are they? What are you pointing at-.... What the HELL are you pointing at!?" Harl draws a breath in. "HIT! EVERYONE DOWN!" And with that, he opens fire roughly where you're pointing. Harl barely manages two bullets before the two groups open fire, The black suits toward the van and you, the Van toward the suits... and Harl, continuing to fire towards the phantom.

Automatic gunfire tears open any semblance of quiet that once was to shreds, You hear bullets rattle the sheets of plasteel around you.. you hear screams, no more than 6 seconds later, as you watch Harl wince as blood spurts from a new hole in his gut, and hear and see the whipping of helicopter rotors above... just as they unlease a fusillade of rockets and minigun fire into the open warehouse. All 4 vehicles peel open like tin cans before the withering fire, to say nothing of the rocket that was headed straight for the Professors' huddled group behind the van.. your vision of it was obscured by another explosion directly at the feet of the ork with the fetished SMG.

Harl slips on a loose sheet of plasteel and falls into the remains of a file cabinet, it crumples beneath him and stops him like a makeshift seat.. You still see the chopper above, prowling like an enormous jaguar around it's prey, waiting to see that it's dead for sure perhaps, but for now it appears the hail of death has stopped, and all there remains is the steady whup-whup of the helicopters blades.

[TakayamaYuuko]

Shelled Warehouse/Death's Playground
11:59 pm

There's no time for grief. There's no time for blaming yourself. There's no time to reflect on how your belief in the ultimate rationality of man has been shattered.

Your worthless life is going to meet an equally senseless end. For real this time. Just accept it.

Then act like it's not true.

She sits and listens to the rise and fall of the pitch of the rotors. She watches the angles of the lights turning around their pivots in the gaps in the walls. She smells Harl's blood and tries to figure out how fast he's losing it and if he's still breathing.

"Man, Harl, what a mess I got us all in. But you trusted me *twice*. If there really is a greater power out there besides Death himself, I'll surely be damned if I let you die here. Even if I do hate you." She takes about the lower half of her shirt and starts ripping fabric off, waiting for her chance to get to the troll and stuff the rags in his gut. "I hope your car's still waiting for us."

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
11:59 pm

Harl's eyes don't leave the chopper above as Mary moves to staunch the bleeding, the wound is a clean punch in and the blood flows fairly freely. The rags you're bringing to bear are staining quickly, but you keep at it, knowing that pulling off the pressure will just make things worse.

The chopper finishes another round above your head, and you hear the sharp crack of rifle fire a few times from it

"The car's still there, but with those vultures.." Harl trails off. "We need to get to ground somewhere safe.. Bloody drek-on-a-stick somebody had to bring a damned gunboat to my meet." Harl spits. "We can wait here and hope they don't spot us.. try to sneak our way out.. Unless you've got an RPG or some ace up your sleeve that bird's got us pinned for now."

This close to him and without a shiny handcannon and his towering form to distract you it almost looks like he's a different person. His dirty blonde hair is sprinkled with gray, his eyes show the wrinkles from years of peering... questioning... staying alive by whatever means necessary.

"Guess you're going to be sticking with me for a little longer then."

[TakayamaYuuko]

Shelled Warehouse
January 5, 2060. 12:00 am

"Yeah, looks like. And nope, completely unarmed. I checked my pistol in when I got to work, and I'm sure it got blown up. So yeah, I think we're stuck waiting for them to go away. But you know, apparently Death can fly. Maybe He'll go up there and start eating those guys too. Not that He likes us very much.... Ignore that. I'm just going insane, nothing unusual.

"The round went through, so mostly you need antiseptic and a lot of expert stitching. You just might make it. As long as these rags don't give you some awful disease."

Mary keeps watching, waiting, listening, hoping for a sign the helicopter will back off.

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
12:10

After a tense 5 minutes with the chopper above, and another waiting to make sure it's gone, Harl finally dislodges himself from the file cabinet.

"Let's go. I'm sending the car around to a few different places just in case. We'll get some distance between us and the kill zone."

[TakayamaYuuko]

Shelled warehouse
12:10

As they come down the stairs, Mary scans the interior of the warehouse, watching for movement, listening for the cries of the wounded. She also takes a good look at the van. Maybe if it was peeled open by gunfire and not by rocket, some of the contents might still be salvageable.

[JavaLamp]

Shelled warehouse
12:11

Walking down the stairs you get a good look at the ruptured panel van, it's clear that it would take more than a quick search and grab to salvage anything from it, there's a small blue fire burning just out of sight toward the back of the van, illuminating the rest of it's charred remains coolly, passive and waiting for anyone willing to risk 3rd degree burns.

Harl's up and moving, but he's treating his left side a little tenderly. As he passes you, he says, quietly but urgently, "come on, we'll have time to sort out the dead later." The background hiss of fires makes it easy to misjudge how loud things might actually be, but the crunch and grind of plasteel and plascrete beneath your feet testify to just how quiet it actually is. There is no more hissing whistle, no whipping cloth and scythe, no screams. There is only fire.

Harl leads the way, slowly working through squats, warehouse lots and rubble strewn streets, both ignoring and being ignored by the bulk of the homeless...

[TakayamaYuuko]

Waterfront region
12:15 am

Mary tries to keep up as best she can, not too hard she has to reflect, given that she's now the relatively uninjured one, on the outside. She doesn't know how much Puck and the Totemgun (or Puck might have been the Totemgun, she still doesn't know) meant to Harl, but her professional life, the men she looked up to, her coworkers, the lynchpin of the Kendall deal, are all gone. And her meds will wear off sometime in the next 24.

Nevertheless, she does her utmost to keep the increasingly sopping rags pressed tight against Harl's wound until they can find a doc.

[JavaLamp]

Waterfront District
12:23 am

You haven't heard the helicopter.. still it's tense. Harl has been quiet for his part, and after a few minutes of awkward movement with you holding bloody rags to him at every opportunity, he finally waved you off of it. the wound appears mostly sealed, but it's as good as can be expected with the facilities at hand.

It's been slow moving, but you and Harl stand in front of a corrugated, rusty iron door with no handle set into a plascrete wall like an afterthought more than design.

"I hope they're still here.. " and he knocks. The iron rattles and echoes out through the filthy alley you're standing in and Harl resumes scanning the alley

[TakayamaYuuko]

Waterfront district
12:23 am

Mary finally has to see reason and quits trying to save the life of a man who's clearly not dying. She also gives the space behind, around, and above her a good look. She also listens intently for any of the telltale signs of Death or the helicopter He seemed to have turned into or summoned. She looks back to Harl and waits for his OK to go inside.

[JavaLamp]

Waterfront District, Back alley
12:25 am

Harl grunts in disapproval and knocks strongly again at the door, almost pounding... it rattles and shakes and fills the alley with noise.. but he pulls his hand away finally and turns to walk away, clearly starting to get upset.

As he takes his first step, the rattling of the door suddenly stops with the wrenched crack of rusted hinges breaking, you both turn to look at the door and watch it fall away to the street, revealing the rough cut doorway behind. An old stairway vehicle up against the hole providing entrance down through the rotted and crumbled rooms into a basement. No light is coming from down below, and no sound yet that you can hear over the sound of the fallen door.

A moment passes staring at it, and Harl grabs the door and motions you inside.

"This will have to do." Following behind you, Harls weight causes the mobile stairway to lurch down a foot as he steps fully on it causing an unsteady moment before Harl manages to prop the door back up and follow you deeper into the basement, unlit except for a trickle of street lamps coming in through the ruined building.

Walking carefully across concrete so shattered that in places it's better called gravel, you enter a small room with a few industrial spools and broken stools.

In all of this you finally notice a waiting message on your commlink:
Rusty Jakis
1/4/2060 23:45

[TakayamaYuuko]

Waterfront district, back alley
12:26 am

Okay, when did the commlink come back on? Maybe you bumped the power button back in the truck. Or the discharge of energy from vehicles and rockets blowing up sort of jarred it. Or you, like the dumb, shell-shocked girl you are, left it on.

And speaking of things blowing up, there were secondary explosions back at the office, right? Gas main, other bombs, don't want to leave records behind, don't want anybody competing with Kane's new company, no no no. So wouldn't Rusty, and his stuff, have burnt up with the rest of it?

"Harl," she whispers. "I know I'm in shock. And nuts. Cause I'm just seeing things, right?" She holds the commlink up. "Rusty. The ork shot Rusty first, and the explosions should've got his link. So who's messaging me on his access ID?" She's shaking again now. "Bishop Security, no other explanation. How deep is this hole? Any wire here, anything I can make a Faraday cage out of..." She takes a long, desperate look at the spools.

[JavaLamp]

Abandoned Waterfront Haunt
12:26 am

Harl narrows his eyes. "When'd you get that?" The telling timestamp continues to glow unfailingly while the connection indicator pulses slowly in red. "We should be safe down here. No signals reach without Lane's dialout box, Still, knowing it has been on this whole time..." Harl pulls out his handcannon and sets it on one of the tables as he starts fishing around in the center of the spindle. "Should be safe to at least give it a listen here if you're curious. My nuyen's on a trace program"

Pulling his hand out of the spindle, Harl dumps a Colt Manhunter and 2 spare clips on the spindle you're standing nearest. The sudden sound brings your attention, strangely, to a small shard of your commlink's case sticking out, loose from the rest... it falls out, and the connection indicator flickers out fully, leaving a new, bold, 'No network device detected' in the bottom right of your hud.

Harl pulls his shirt up under his thick, plated jacket, peels up a thick, neoprene like undershirt showing a parade of scars and a fresh new, oozing hole.

"I guess that's as good as that's gonna get until I can get to Akenmann's..."