ArchivedLogs:Anatomy & Physiology

Anatomy & Physiology
Warning: blood n gore.
Dramatis Personae Jax, Joshua, Steve
In Absentia	2015-11-06 "{History buff. I guess you could say that.}" (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <NYC> Staten Island
Seriously? Who the hell goes to Staten Island? The building was a sailcloth factory once. Some time in the last few decades, an ambitious developer began to turn it into an apartment complex, but for whatever reason never finished the job. Now, the grubby maroon brickface and tall dusty windows in their crumbling frames houses a homeless shelter and soup kitchen, though no obvious signage advertises it as such. A peeling, faded plastic plaque on the door simply reads St. Anthony House, with the hours listed below along with a phone number. According to the sign, the kitchen should be open right now, but though the smell of chili and rice lingers around the entrance, the door is locked. Two elderly nuns in black habits stand at the bottom of the steps, conversing with a very tall Latina whose careworn face is pale with fear. A few other men and women linger around, occasionally drifting up to the these three to consult before wandering away again. Every so often, a loud thumping can be heard: someone banging on the inside of the sturdy double doors. A shiny new, jet black Dodge Sprinter pulls up to the curb. Its side door opens, briefly affording a view of many computer monitors and three passengers. Two wear plain black suits and big noise-cancelling headsets as they hunch over their terminals. The third is dressed in a close-fitting outfit, mostly blue with white accents, most noticeably a white five-pointed star in the center of the chest, and vertial stripes of red and white along the abdomen. His gauntlets and boots are red, and his headgear (which looks like something between a helmet and a half-face mask) is blue with a white A on the forehead and stylized white wings along the temples. He has a large, round shield strapped to his back, with a white star on a blue field at its center surrounded by alternating concentric bands of red and white. He hops down from the van and straightens up to his full height, strides up to the three women and gives them a polite nod. He opens his mouth to speak, but then stops himself salutes them instead. One gloved hand points at the building behind them, and even wearing the half-mask the inquisitive lift of his eyebrows is pretty unambiguous. There's no vehicle that announces Jax's arrival. Somewhere around the side of the building, just a sudden appearance of a very frazzled-looking paramedic there with him. He jogs around the corner, dressed, himself, far less jazzily than the other newcomer. Black cargo pants, a grey tee, a heavy black canvas jacket with X-shaped detailing on its front and an oddly cheerful smiling yellow sun beadazzled onto its back. Purple Doc Martens, large mirrored sunglasses shading his eyes. Joshua is trailing behind, FDNY Paramedic uniform looking kind of rumpled already. All /he/ wants to know of the women is: "{Is there anyone still alive in there?}" Telepathic senses are already reaching out, feeling what minds he can feel, inside. It's only after a delay that he does kind of a double-take. Looking over the other uniformed man. Looking at Jax. Eyebrows hiking way up. Jax looks back at the Patriotic Outfit helplessly. Shrugs. "Ah --" His hands (scarred, mangled where one finger is missing on the right; nails neatly manicured and polished in metallic turquoise and purple) turn up and outward. The older of the two nuns blinks at Captain America, peers at his shield, and squints up to see his face better. The younger one is also gazing at him, though somewhat less quizzically. The tall woman looks over her shoulder as another loud thump resonates against it. "{Youre...not who I was expecting. Are you with Joshua?}" she asks, her Spanish quick and fluid with a Columbian accent. She looks visibly relieved when Joshua and Jax show up. "{Thank God. Yes, we had the sick separated out--we didnt know it was /this/ sickness--but then}" She crosses herself, then shakes her head sharply as if to cast off whatever she started to remember. "{We got everyone out we could, but couldnt get back in to check on the sick ones, if some of them have survived. Also, the kitchen volunteers were cut off. They locked themselves in the walk-in pantry and have been texting us.}" As the shelter director indicated, five minds are clustered together deep inside the building--frightened, confused, but very much alive. Less unambiguously, four other minds are drifting in and out of consciousness some distance away--presumably in the sick ward mentioned. One of them is fading quite rapidly. Aside from them, the only mental signatures inside the building are twelve streams of incoherent static, almost--but never quite--comprehensible, like muffled, overlapping, ravenous whispers. The star-spangled man glances from Jax to Joshua, eyes taking in the patches on his uniform, though the thump at the door draws his attention briefly. He examines the windows, frowns, looks back at the tall woman as she speaks. Eyes narrow slightly. Then, at last, he says, in French, "{I'm afraid I didn't understand...most of that. I want to help if I can, but I wouldn't want to get in the fire department's way.}" He nods at Joshua and Jax, then repeats what he just said in somewhat less fluent Italian. Joshua closes his eyes, his posture stiffening as his senses stretch out through the building. "{... oh God.}" Very quietly, underneath his breath. He takes a step towards the door, grimacing deeply as he rests a hand against it. "{... Jax.}" And to the women: "{When he's ready, can you unlock the door? And then -- go. Farther. Away.}" His eyes drift back to Steve with a small hitch of brows. "{I'm just a paramedic.}" It's in easy French -- or at least it seems to Steve like it is. "{You dressed /up/ for this?}" Sliiightly incredulous. Jax takes a step back, lingering a few steps away from the door. His face tips up towards the sky, if only for a moment. And then -- -- well, nothing, really. Nothing that can be seen out here. Inside the doors, a shimmering wall of shield has spread its way across the door, providing an extra layer of barrier for the dead to pound against. "{You can unlock.}" His Spanish is not glib. But it's intelligible. The French and Italian just draw blank looks. "{Looks like you just came off a --}" He frowns, here, /thinking/ of a vintage World War 2 Era propaganda poster, a STRIKINGLY SIMILAR man in patriotic costume, holding a red white and blue shield (not round) as he towers over a shadowy field of German soldiers: 'FIGHT!!! Join the battle FOR VICTORY!!! Captain AMERICA' << {Maybe help him. Be brave?} >> Now he's thinking of Horus. Donning his hats. "{Dangerous in there. Tell him. Stay back.}" "{Should stay back,}" Joshua helpfully repeats to the other man. "{Gonna be dangerous in there.}" The shelter director looks at Captain America a little doubtfully. "{You look like you're a week late for Halloween,}" she mutters as she fishes out a ridiculously heavy ring of keys and miraculously isolates the correct one on the first try, "{but if you can help get those people out alive, I don't care if you dress like Batman.} She lifts the door handle, leans on it slightly--the door is quite old, and the lock, as well--then turns the key. Inside, the groans and thumping pick up a notch. She gives the door a push to ensure it will move, then hurries down the steps to the waiting arms of the terrified nuns. "{God go with you,}" she call over her shoulders as she shepherds people away from the steps. In the narrow mudroom, five corpses push up against Jax's shield. Their eyes stare, vacant and glassy, their mouths open and close like beached fish, their hands swipe uselessly toward the living, unable to comprehend why they remain out of reach. They are dressed in shabby clothes, some in far too many layers for this weather and others not nearly enough--one erstwhile brown teenaged boy wears only a pair of boxers and a silver crucifix. Two of them have had chunks of flesh torn from their arms and faces by teeth not nearly sharp enough to do the job neatly. Steve relaxes just a fraction when Joshua speaks again, nodding. "{You are here to evacuate the injured, then.}" He looks around expectantly. Frown. "{But you have no backup, which I can provide.}" He follows the two other men up the steps, pulling the shield from his back and fitting it to the gauntlet on his left arm. To Joshua's incredulous question, he replies, simply, "{I'm Captain America. And I have been briefed; I'm not /only/ speaking French because it's such a lovely language.}" Whatever briefing he got, it clearly didn't prepare him fully for what waited beyond the doors, for his pale blue eyes grow huge and his mouth drops open just a little. << My God, but they look just like...people! >> But he just lowers his stance and braces with his shield forward. "{The way is narrow, I can clear a path, if you stay behind me.}" "{I've got backup.}" Joshua flicks a hand towards the peacock-haired young man along with him. He doesn't exactly argue, though he does grimace again as the doors open. "{Just don't die.}" His lips press together, thin. "{Whatever they might look like, they're not -- people. Anymore. All that's left in there wants to kill you.}" Jax swallows. He turns his head over his shoulder, glancing towards the woman herding the nuns away. "{Stay here,}" he tells Joshua. "{If we miss any, get them. I'll clear it for you.}" The look he gives the other man is puzzled. 'Captain...' It's just mouthed. "{Think he picked up on that part,}" Joshua mutters. "{Outfit gave it away. History buff?}" He moves back behind Jax, now. Not particularly /happily/. But his face is already exhausted; he doesn't look eager to surge into the zombie-infested building. << {I'll be watching out.} >> Jax doesn't stay behind Steve. He moves up nearer the door, for a long moment just staring through the nearly translucent barrier. His shoulders have tensed, his head bowing. With a hard clench of his jaw and tightening of his fists, the shield pushes back, one foot and then another -- not far, just clearing a small bubble of protected space in the doorway that Jax steps into. His head turns, just a tick, sweeping the figures that thump up against the nearly-invisible shield. What happens next happens swiftly enough to be difficult, entirely, to mark. The shield vanishes -- though it's been hard to see its existence at all, it's easy to tell once it's /gone/ and the zombies have free reign to lunge. In the very next instant, however, five piercing bolts of bright-white light press outward, neatly targeting in an upward-and-back slant through each corpse's left eye. Even as the light flashes, Jax is shifting his weight back onto his rear foot, one hand lifting outward as though bracing -- nothing. His face has gone a couple shades paler, though. The zombies do not so much lunge as /fall/ forward as the barrier they threw themselves against ceases to exist. Some of them (certainly now all) may have even caught themselves on the next step or two, but the holes neatly seared through their skulls destroy whatever was left of their coordination. They collapse, perfectly synchronized like dancers, into a row of bloody, malodorous corpses. This opens up the beyond the mudroom: what was once intended as a lobby for the would-be apartment building has been turning into a social room. Several card tables and folding chairs are scattered around, some of them overturned. The receptionist's desk at the far end seems to have retained its function, at least--it holds a computer monitor, a row of ratty three-ring binders, some knick-knacks, and a coffe-stained mug. Through wide doorway on the right side of the room, the cafeteria can be seen, and just a small wedge of the kitchen. Beyond that lies the five clear and alert minds Joshua had sensed--the volunteers in the pantry--as well as five dead ones. A narrower door on the left is helpfully labeled "Offices" and stands wide open; one of the rooms half-way down that hallway must been the sick ward, for the fading minds are concentrated there. The staircase and elevator that bracket the receptionist's desk at the back presumably lead up to the residential section, quite abandoned to Joshua's senses. "{History buff,}" Steve repeats. He doesn't laugh so much as breath out very rapidly, shaking his head. But, "{I guess you could say that.}" He steps forward into the gap alongside Jax when the shield pushes the zombies back. He lifts his shield when the beams of light lance through the zombies' heads, then stares wide-eyed and slack-jawed as they collapse. << What in the name of-- >> But he interrupts his gawking with a will and springs over the fleshy threshold and into the hall beyond. Tilting his head, he listens for movement. Jax watches the bodies fall to the ground, straightening sliiightly more shakily than before to turn and close the door behind them once Steve has entered. He tests it, once, making sure it still /opens/ after it's closed before proceeding further into the building. He pauses, stopping in the center of the room. There's a small bow of his head as he -- focuses? Listens? It's hard to tell, for a moment he's just still. When he lifts his head again it's with a lift of his hand, a very brief moment taken to cross himself before he indicates the way through the cafeteria to the kitchen. The cafeteria was abandoned toward the tail end of a meal, and smells powerfully of chili. There's still a pot of it simmering on low heat in the industrial kitchen, the water all but cooked off from it. Five bodies shuffle back and forth in front of a door in the very back of the kitchen groaning and clawing to get inside. Then one of them turns around, its brown eyes cloudy and its mouth bloody, and starts toward the living intruders. Back out in the main hall, two more shambling bodies are following Jax and Steve. Steve doesn't look very put off by the sight of the zombies this time. He breaks into an easy (fast!) run and, yanking the shield from his arm, hurls it like an oversized discus at the one who just turned to face them. Jax spares a glance for Steve. Just long enough to confirm the man isn't yet being eaten. His own hand braces on the desk, hand pressing down hard against it. His other hand lifts; the outward press of his palm comes with a blast of light, zinging towards the zombie from the kitchen that had just turned around. The shield sails through the air and slices into the zombie's face, kicking out a spray of stagnant blood behind it as it deflects off the skull and to ricochet off an adjacent wall. Though its head has been cut nearly open, the zombie does not actually fall; it staggers around, trying to regain its balance. The one behind it keeps coming, slow and steady and with gnashing teeth. The most alert of the kitchen zombies, blasted by Jax, falls dead without a fuss. Perhaps alerted by the fall of its body, its four fellows turn one by one and start shambling toward the newcomers. Steve vaults over a table and, reaching up, snatches the shield out of the air. He brings his heel down toward the reeling zombie in an ax kick and follows it with the edge of the shield, slicing at the zombie's neck. "{Head,}" Jax calls back over his shoulder, "{Destroy the head.}" The oncoming zombies he doesn't yet attack, brows pulling together as he scrutinizes them closely. Staring first at their gaits and then the rest of their bodies, faces, his jaw setting harder the closer they come. The zombie who had already taken a shield to the face crumples under Steve's kick, still reaching up to grab at the man's leg all the while. The edge of the shield cuts through the soft tissues of the zombie's neck, and blood gurgles out in lazy spurts, disturbingly dark. Its ruined head flops back, still held on by the partly exposed spine but lacking the muscles that keep it upright. The one behind it, who had been an older white woman in life, stretches out its filthy hands to grasp at Steve. The four zombies make their way through the kitchen, parting around the large steel island counter, three to one side and one to the other. The loner is the biggest of the group, solid and heavy-set and dark-skinned, wearing a Mets jersey. Of the other three, one was a scrawny teenager with head shaved clean for a relatively recent skull tattoo; another, middle-aged, has auburn hair down to her waist; the last stooped with age, eagerly opening and closing its jaw despite having only a few remaining teeth. Their hands lift up, fingernails split and fractured and bloody, to grab at Jax. Steve stomps down the exposed spine of the zombie flopping on the floor beside him and slams the other one in the face with his shield, aiming to knock it down at least. "{Destroy the /what/?}" Steve calls back in Italian. Turning to see the four zombies closing in on Jax, he hurls his shield at the head of the largest one. Jax lifts his hand, tapping a finger at his temple. The hiss he lets out when the nearest zombie grabs at him is more irritable than pained; a faint shimmer of barrier wraps itself around his forearm, providing protection against the ragged nails that claw at him for the moment before he sends another searing bolt through the woman's skull. He vaults backwards, over the desk he's been leaning against, putting it between himself and the others. There's a moment where his brows hike -- kind of impressed at the damage Steve's previously kind of comical shield is managing to inflict -- but this expression soon passes in favour of just a saddened one as he looks at the teenager and the stooped zombie beside them. The shudder that goes through him comes with an external shudder of light, as well -- this time, nowhere near as neat and clean as his previous shots. These explosions originate inside the skulls of the oncoming zombies, shivering outward in a small popping blast. "{... sorry.}" This is kind of whispered. Maybe to the dead. Maybe to the sky. The fallen zombie's spine cracks and comes apart under the heel of Steve's boot. Its jaw continues working, but can only succeed in rotating itself slowly, an inch at a time. The other corpse advancing on Steve belonged to a short, balding, middle-aged man whose head snaps back from the shield bash. It does not look very damaged, but loses its balance and falls backward. The auburn-haired zombie releases Jax as the light pierces its skull, slumping over on the desk and upsetting the coffee, long since gone cold. The shield cuts diagonally into the large zombie's head, not hard enough to destroy it from a distance but enough to stagger it, then ricochets off a beam in the ceiling, sending off a shower of sparks. Then the zombies' heads explode in rapid succession, spraying blood and brains and bone fragments outward in three quick surges of heat and light. "{That's--}" Steve pauses long enough to catch the shield out of the air again and bring it down with both hands onto the head of the last zombie before it has a chance to rise. "{--you. The light.}" These last few words, at least, are close enough in the respective languages they're speaking to leave little doubt as to his meaning. He fits the shield, bloody as it is around the edges, back on his gauntlet. "{The survivors, you know where they are?}" "{Faster than knives.}" Jax's brow furrows a long time; he slumps forward against the desk, biting down on his lip before he reluctantly climbs back over it. He picks his way carefully through the bloodied remains on the floor. It takes a considerable delay before he nods in answer to Steve's question, holding up five fingers -- and gesturing towards the door in the kitchen. "{You get them.}" Pointing towards the kitchen.There's another pause here, though, stopped in the middle of the blood and bone spread across the floor, where he looks down at one of the ruined faces, fist pressing lightly to his lips. After a pause, a shake of his head, he tears his gaze away to gesture to the sick room. "{I'll get others.}" Steve's helmet doesn't fully hide his frown, but he nods and crosses to Jax's side of the room, heading toward the kitchen. He slows as he passes the remains of the last, rather messy barrage. "{The 'mutants' they want me to fight...is it these?}" He nods at the now-motionless corpses on the floor, then slowly lifts his eyes back up to the photokinetic. "{...or you?}"