ArchivedLogs:Drive (Prometheus Raid, Getaway Team)

Drive (Prometheus Raid, Getaway Team)
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Hive, Jim, Tag
In Absentia	2013-10-16 (Concurrent with chaos and Vector.) (Part of Prometheus TP.)
Location Prometheus Facility, Virginia
Here we are. Doot doot doot. It's the backwoods of Virginia somewhere, far and away from /civilization/ (if any part of Virginia can be called that.) Not literal backwoods; trees are in sparse supply; here it's a large compound, fenced-in, wide sweeps of grass leading up to the large -- /office/ building, it might as well be for all it looks unassumingly boring. Parking lot. Windows. There's even a small patio-seating area, presumably for people to take their lunches in good weather. The parking lot's near empty, only a few cars scattered around it. Getting the gates open, getting the team inside; with Hive's brain-eaten guards it was almost too easy. Now? Maybe now there's nothing to do but sit with the vehicles and wait. Sit and wait is what Hive is doing. It's not the most exciting sitting and waiting; there's not much to /see/. He's a little slumped, a little glassy-eyed; he seems for all appearances to be completely oblivious to the world around him at the moment. His fingers twitch at intervals. He doesn't even blink. He has on tan cargo pants, a vest over his t-shirt, a green knit cap pulled down over his floppy hair. His head thunks up against the window of the bus. He's a terribly exciting companion, honest. Off an on, Jim is out there. Lurking. Prowling. Not all that far, actually, but he does seem to be making a circuit of it, wearing very little in the way of clothes; just a kilt and a worn out faded gray-green t-shirt with something that looks like a turtle on the front. A floppy tan fisherman's hat. A pair of shoulder holsters. A rifle held loose at hip level, though he's not really /wearing/ that. The rest is bare treebark flesh that creaks and crunches softly, small clusters of leaves collected at an elbow, a shoulder, one side of his head. He'd found a decent spot off a dirt road to back up into a cover of trees and shrubs - which he's coaxed into a thicker cover since. Circling up from the back of the truck, he raps a knuckle against the glass where Hive's HEAD is. NOK. And says through the glass, "Stay with us, Hivey." Tag has tied his--black?!--hair back quite securely, several bobby pins keeping the rebellious fringes out of his face. Wearing a pair of black goggles on his head, a loose black canvas jacket over a bulky vest, fraying blue jeans, and hiking boots, he could be any scrawny, ambiguously gendered asian kid out for some paint ball fun in the boonies. Though reluctant to stray far from Hive, his eyes sweep their surroundings constantly. When Jim knocks on the window, he starts, sucking in a sharp breath and fighting down a spike of anxiety. << How long does it take, usually? >> He is trying /very/ hard not to say, 'I have a bad feeling about this.' Hive looks up, if only briefly; at least, his head lifts, though his eyes are no less focused. << Bubonic plague, >> is the puzzled answer that drifts out to Jim and Tag -- together with a sudden squeezing /press/ of mental power that should not be nearly this potent with Hive's mind spread as thin as it is. << Fuck sorry I -- >> He sounds confused, now. There's another mental squeeze, and then nothing at all. His head thuds back against the window. The klaxon sounds off at the compound, search lights sparking to life and several points of light launching from the roof top start spreading out along the cardinal and ordinal directions in groups of three. As these forms come closer, the identification light begins to show the form of not quite spherical drones zipping their way across the expansive grounds, light green laser bars projected beneath them, mapping the terrain for changes. As they approach, the whirring of their motors can be heard in the air. "Sss." Jim's mind digs in to stand against Hive on flat reflex, clenching in and growing hard and stupid and slow, plant like, until the pressure fades. It's less rejecting that it is... solid. << Keep it- >> "-together, buddy." He's pointedly /not/ communicating with Hive mentally, head turned toward the rising distant sound with narrowed eyes. He walks sideways and backwards around the side of the truck to keep the small glinting spheres within his line of sight. Heading towards the driver's side door, left open for easy /leaping/ into. "So. Tyedye." PROBABLY he's meaning Tag; hard to really say since he's not looking at either people in the vehicle, tone lazy-casual. Eyes unblinking towards the horizon. "During a, uh. Military training exercises, a lieutenant's driving down a muddy back road and he encounters another car, a /jeep/, all stuck in the mud, right." While he's speaking, he's ducking under the strap of his rifle. Checking that the keys are in the ignition. Making sure all the windows are up. "S'got a /colonel/ at the god damn wheel. There's mud tossed up everywhere, where he'd been gunning the engine, right?" "Where are they?" Tag's voice has climbed an octave, at least. He creeps to the front and crouches behind the instrument panel, squinting into the darkness. Either he finds Jim's story is exceedingly comforting, or he finds the droids he was looking for, because he is suddenly calm again. "Yeah? Why's it officers driving don't they have NCOs for that?" A pause. "Should I paint those drones? Not hard to tell where the laser's comin' out." << Woman. Woman -- fucking with powers. >> This comes to everyone around; it's likely Hive didn't really /intend/ it for his present company but it sounds unfocused; it comes in a sharp snap of kind of /panicked/-sounding mental voice. << -- ngh Josh -- /stop her/. >> His fingers have tightened against his leg, though his eyes are no more focused. A shudder passes through him, though, teeth baring for a moment in a pained grimace. The oncoming drones don't seem to bother /him/ at all; he's registered them no more than he is registering Jim and Tag, at the moment. His mind squeezes down tight against theirs once more, uncomfortable before it withdraws. The whirring of the drone motors becomes louder still, finally distinguishable from the noise of the alarms behind them. They keep zipping along, anterior cameras opening out of the front, scanning for movement. They stay on course, steadily driving toward them. The one on the right twitches toward Jim, camera zooming in to lock on him, new doors opening on one side of the machine. Awaiting confirmation Ohho. Tag has made Jim smile. Slightly. It's a ghastly amongst the scars and bark, full of gritted bared teeth that look absurdly pearly against his skin, aimed at the drone, "Blind 'em." Something briefly constricts at the side of his temple, along his hairline, when Hive conveys his fragment-messages. But his movements remains - casual, as he slides up into the driver's side seat. And continues right on again, dropping his mangled hand on top of Hive's and giving his knee an absent /jostle/, "And hey. Even officers wanna drive sometimes, yeah? Anyway. The lieutenant pulls up alongside, right? Says 'Your jeep stuck, sir?' The colonel grins at him - 'Nope,' he says, hopping out of his vehicle. '/Yours/ is.' Hive's mind bears down again, at that jostle, an unhappy /crush/ of pressure against Jim's. << -- a joke? >> he doesn't sound too certain. And then: << /Fuck you/. >> It's entirely unclear who this is to, but it's -- /furious/. Tag emits a stifled whimper when Hive's mental presence squeezes down. He is frightened, but not of the drones on hand. He doesn't even so much as narrow his eyes at those, just /looks/ at them hard. A coat of ghostly matte whiteness spreads over each machine in rapid succession, smothering lasers and covering cameras as it goes. "So uh, the moral of the story is...you wanna boost one of /their/ vehicles?" Dark brown eyes flick to Hive, then back to Jim, helpless. "We're s'posed to stay put, but--something's gone terribly wrong hasn't it?" << Ffff -- >> is the last thing that comes from Hive. And then quiet. He slumps against his window, eyes still open but nothing from him. No twitching, no talking; he's still /breathing/, on closer inspection, but if there's anything happening in his mind it's -- not currently showing. The complicated mesh of shielding (comprised of latin, of deep roots, of fluttering leaves in a breeze) in Jim's mind aimed to keep mostly from being /distracting/ than anything /creaks/ ominously under the hard pressure slamming down on it. "S'not a moral, kiddo," he sounds /forlorn/, at Tag's literal interpretation, eyes still fixed on the drone, "It's a joke - shit." Not a yell. Not a whisper. Just a word, as Hive slumps off. He leans over, smacks at the telepath's face, "Hivey. You there? Hivez. Dickhole, hey." The angle makes him look kind of like he's awkwardly choking Hive for a moment to feel for a pulse, getting a hand under the side of his bony jaw. It requires that hand to slide back to human flesh to find it. The lights from the tops of the drones turn from green to red - even if they cannot be seen anymore under the sheen of white. They stop all forward motion. The center and left drones orient on the camera reading of the right drone's last picture and begin firing bullets at the target in rapid succession. The lights on all of the drones turn red and veer off their course, heading for the location of the now white drones, closing with their cameras only, the mapping lasers off. The gun ports open, preparing to fire as soon as they are in range. "I think don't get it, but that colonel sure seems like a jerk." Tag sucks in a sharp breath when Hive's presence just drops out. He does not go to the telepath's side, though. His eyes are tracking the drones' movement. "Um, Jim I think they're...still gonna...shoot we gotta move /now!/" He looks out over the parking lot. "Wait where are the other--oh /frak!/" His head whips back around to the drones he painted, darting, searching for something. "Frak what, what's /frak/." Jim only begins to turn his head in the direction of his own vehicle when the hood of the truck THUMPS under the impact of a series of bullets. "Fuck- OKAY!" He abruptly throws himself out of the vehicle to free of Tag's seat and, hunkered low, with an arm thrown up over his head, he pelts towards the second vehicle, screaming back, "GO GO GO!" -- but out only after giving Hive's seatbelt a hard YANK to make sure it's locked. Driver coordination is a bitch without telepaths. He's keying the ignition and REVVING the engine to life even before he's got the door closed. There's a flap of wings from above, a dark shape making its way out of the building with a few others in his wake. Dusk takes to the sky as soon as he's able, directing the evacuees towards the distant vehicles as his huge wings eat up the air. And then dives down, /grabbing/ one of the drones out of the sky to throw it wholesale at a second, the muscles in his arms flexing strong with this. "Jie di, jie di, bo luo jie di..." Heart Sutra notwithstanding Tag is /definitely/ terrified now, but his hand mechnically turns key and shifts gear and his foot SLAMS down on the accelerator. "...sen jie di, pou ti suo po he. Jie di jie di..." More drones go white as he spots them, but his attention is occupied with driving while oriental. He swerves wildly to avoid the other drones, but is generally angling /toward/ the facility and not away from it. "...bo luo sen jie di--" The underside of Jim's truck makes an absurd underground hail-fall sound as the wheels kick up dirt and gravel, squealing a sharp little 'erk!' of tortured rubber when the wheels hit pavement again up the way, BUCKING and leaning top-heavy. Sharp pwings and pwangs sing out as more bullets slam across the side of the truck - somewhere inside the back, bright spears of sunlight pour through new holes. Without question, he is also angling back towards the facility. Something has gone wrong. He doesn't see Dusk's arrival, sadly - he's too busy DUCKING down behind the wheel when his front windshield explodes in, something solid and hard thumping through. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon... just a little longer guys, hang in there..." It's Flicker who finally appears, leading the evacuees out of one door -- there's bleeding coming from a hole torn in his shirt, through the shoulder, but he's on his feet and directing labrats out. Liam is coming around from the other side, with Jane and their own crowd of people. Flicker is directing them all towards the van and the bus, as the drones whir overhead. One drone flies from Dusk's hands with enough force to undermine its propellors and sail toward its target with a resounding clang. The drones arc toward the ground and hit heavily. The scraping thunk of the two bodies colliding with the asphalt resounds over and over again as not two, but three, four, ten, twenty - in fact all of the drones fall from the sky simultaneously. A couple continue to fire off shots, but their guns are angled toward the ground. A few others try to shoot glue packets at Flicker when he appears, but there is no pressure in the cannon and the pellets simply ooze out messily around the drones. The whine of propeller motors diminish over time, but the sound is definitely that of the machines using up diminished batteries until there is nothing left and all of the activity lights grow dim and turn off, one by one. Dusk freezes, with a dying drone in his hands. He slowly lowers himself to the ground amidst the graveyard of drone-corpses, looking -- honestly rather /baffled/. His mouth opens. Closes again. Opens again. He examines one bicep with a note of puzzlement. Screeching to a stop, the back doors of Jim's truck are thrust open, both his arms cast out like a freaking rockstar - except for the face, which is only snapping down to whatever refugee reaches the truck first to reach down and HAUL them up into the back, hand over fist. One grabbed by an elbow and hauled up inside, another dragged in by the back collar of their scrubs. His eyes are scanning rapidly along the dropped shapes of the drones, the strangeness alone giving him little comfort. It's rapid and inelegant, as a refugee run is wont to be, springing, shambling. Some silent, some not, some grasping to each other or dragging along the loose bodies of the wounded - and some that come alone. Some that cleave to none. There's always a few of these, too. Almost as soon as they'd stopped, wind rushing across the open black top and ruffling fresh outdoor smells through hair and fur and fluttering scrubs, rubber screams once more and the vehicles jerk to life, pouring off the compound, drones crumpling beneath their wheels.