ArchivedLogs:Razing

Razing
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Eric, Kay
In Absentia	2014-03-13 '
Location <NYC> Midtown East
A dense, skyscraper packed neighborhood, Midtown is the busiest commercial district in the United States, and one of the busiest pieces of land in the world. Day and night, Midtown is filled with people going to and from work, enjoying the nightlife, and walking quickly through the streets. Very few live in Midtown proper - only the most wealthy and work-obsessed - but many who live in and around the City work here. In many ways, Midtown is the heart that beats in the city that never sleeps. Evening time in Midtown East is a quiet one, the chilly night sending most of the inhabitants out into the warmth of the buildings and away from the streets. The cold has managed to even deter most of the tourists - an event that might even be significant to make Wikipedia. The mutant affairs office is closed for the night, guarded by a member of the Federal Protective Service. Armed, of course, and watching a hockey game. In preparation for their evening excursion, Eric has outfitted both Dusk and Kay in dress shirts and NYPD ID that he made up at the local Kinko's. Surprisingly, they look just as good as his real one - probably more a statement of the cheap government ID than any talent at forgery. In uniform himself, badge shined to a glow and pinned to his chest, Eric pauses at the bottom of the steps. "You both ready? Keep close and calm, yeah? And remember, you're computer techs with the NYPD. I'll get you in, but you gotta sell it." Dusk has paired his uniform with a long coat -- not unusual, really, given the bitted cold that's descended back onto the city. It covers his wings in odd uncomfortable hump over his shoulders, but at least it is passable. "I am," he informs Eric with a crooked smile, "the techiest. What, am I supposed to /nerd/ at them because I can nerd with the /best/ of them." "I'm gonna be the stoic," Kay strolls along the rear, a palm out and gesturing like there's a smooth countertop surface he's running a hand over, "/surly/ one with a heart'a gold." His normally overgrown hair has been cut to something more business appropriate. Eric looks back and forth between the two men and lets out a long, slow breath. He glances towards the door, then nods once, twice. "Alrigh'. Let's get goin'." With that, Eric turns and heads up the stairs to knock on the door once, twice, a heavy rap of his knuckles. He looks expectantly inside at the guard, and a few moments later, the door buzzes. Eric pulls it open, gesturing the two men in before him. "Christ, it's fuckin' freezin' out there." Eric says, stepping in after Dusk and Kay have gone in. "My fingers are fuckin' numb." He grins at the federal agent, giving him a wave. "Thanks, man. Did Officer Delancy get here yet?" Eric gets a blank look from the security officer, and Dusk and Kay get a long look. "What are you here for, Sergeant?" "Didn't you get the paperwork? My Lieutenant told me to escort these guys to the servers to start hookin' in the NYPD systems or some shit." Eric replies, giving the security officer a puzzled look. Dusk is rubbing his fingers together rapidly as he enters, head bobbing in a nod to the security guard. "Mine too, kinda. Except I actually /need/ mine," he says with a flick of fingers towards the shiny NERD i.d. that hangs clipped from his belt, "from what I hear the systems up there are /kind/ of a mess." With fists crammed in jacket pockets and shoulders hunched up against the final blast of wind through the door before it closes, Kay mutters, "S'a mess everywhere." He swivels his hips and shifts his jacket to show his own NERD i.d. as well with a bored-glazed look deeper into the building. Where it's warm. "We forgot coffee." Woe. The guard shakes his head. "I didn't get the paperwork. I'm sorry, you're going to have to come back in the morning and talk to my boss." Eric sighs and leans over the counter. "Look, man. I don't want'a make this a big thing. It's gotta happen either way, and if I gotta call back my Lieutenant, he's going to call the division chief, whose gonna call your boss. It makes all'a us look like idiots, and we're just going'ta get shit on a lot by more'a the brass." Eric looks at the other officer with a sad look, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Alri'. Procedure is procedure, though. Let me call'i in. Might as well do the paperwork while I'm sittin' and waitin' for these guys to finish whatever, ya know?" There is a soft blare of a horn and the security guard's attention snaps to the hockey game on the monitor next to him as Eric pulls out his cell phone. "What? How the fuck did he score--- hey, wait." The security guard waves his hand and unclips an ID from his waist. "Let's just skip the paperwork. I'm busy here, right?" He smiles, and Eric's smile is bright in answer as he reaches and takes the ID from the other man. "I'll leave'ya to it. Come on guys, time for'ya to earn your shitty paycheck." "One day," Dusk agrees with Eric, "I'll be a /real/ boy and work in the private sector for the big bucks. Until then --" He tips his head to the guard at the desk, flashing a small (closed-lipped!) smile. His hands keep rubbing together as he heads after Eric -- it is /quite/ cold outside, tonight. Kay makes wistful lean of his head to get a glance at the television, body already walking along with Dusk and Eric, and then corrects his spine to fall into a loose procession with a twitch of his brows in faint 'thanks' at the guard as well. "Least we're not working outside t'night." And, when they're further a long, he adds, "God bless the Canadians, huh? - fuck, did Canadians invent hockey?" Eric follows along, leading them down the corridors. "Just make sure you clear the video footage, yeah?" He mutters as he looks sideways to Dusk. "And let's hope that the game stays close and the Canadian's don't beat whoever they're playin' too easy, or else that guard might get bored and decide ta follow the rules after all." He presses the card to a pad next to a thick steel door, and a loud rush of air blows past them. The room beyond is filled with six racks of servers, fans screaming as they struggle to keep the systems cool. "Let's go." "I'll scrub us clean, don't worry." Dusk inhales a quietly happy breath as he slips into the server room, pulling out a tiny netbook from the inner folds of his coat, unclipping a very tiny USB key from his keychain. "You all," he informs the others as he sets himself up by the server racks, "might want to rummage up that goddamn coffee. I might be a while. Just -- keep the hockey fans out of here, I don't know /shit/ about talking /sportsball/." And after this he falls into quiet -- nerding is, apparently, rather absorbing work. Especially when doing it in a /time/ crunch. "Yeah, I got'chu." Kay looks around the room once with apparently zero capacity to know or love a server room, and falls in alongside Eric. In the assumption that Eric knows where coffee comes from. "So when I'm told 'contained' destruction," with eyes set forward and roving the ceiling, his voice is casual even at a low whisper, hips loosely swinging, making his i.d. sway, "how much of this place do I getta raze to the fucking ground?" "All of it." Eric says, voice dark. "Level the fuckin' place. We'll get the guard out, and then take the building ta pieces." He looks around and shakes his head. "This ain't justice, man. This ain't what bein' a police officer should be about. This place deserves nothin' less than bein' turned into sand." He growls, softly. Down floors below them, another goal is scored, and the security guard swears loudly. He glances over the array of camera monitors for a moment before turning back to the game. Kay grins toothily, his own tone a blithe-light counterpart to Eric's darkness, "Shoot man." He thumps a hand on the back of Eric's shoulder, "I coulda told you that years ago." Excuse the very quick little SKIP! his step acquires before falling back into normal stride. Time passes in that quick-excruciating way that somehow takes forever and not enough time in one. Kay delivers coffee to Dusk, patrols the halls with a cell phone in hand; in case he needs to pretend to be chewing out someone at another location. Or a wife to put the dog out. Stands around amiably with Eric. Reheats any coffee that grows cold with a curling of his palms around the paper cups, otherwise just doing his best to keep the infernal thermals of his core temperature in check as the minutes count down. It's probably veering on more towards the excruciating end of the spectrum by the time Dusk finally packs his netbook away and stands. /He/, at least, looks just faintly paler than when he came. "OK. Okay, guys, /I'm/ golden. And I scrubbed the surveillance for the whole day but that means it's offline now, they're -- probably going to notice that it's not just their monitors soon." The back of his coat is twitching restlessly where his wings are confined below it. Eric, for his part, pretty much spends the entire time on his phone, playing random little games on it. His crops are growing very well, thank you very much. It is quiet, as Dusk continues to work. Downstairs, though, the game has finished - Canada, of course, taking the win - and the security guard is beginning to get restless. Commentary on the hockey game is less interesting than the game itself, it seems, and he glances towards the bank of monitors, before returning back to the TV. Only for a second, though, as the dark screens register in his mind, and his attention snaps back to the monitors. His hand snaps to the phone on his desk and he dials. "Sir, this is Officer Reynolds over at headquarters. Was the maintenance work that the City was doing supposed to affect the security monitors?" There is a pause. "What do you mean, what maintenance?" "Hmmmm," standing in the center of the room, Kay rolls his head back around his shoulders, long angular arms shaking out at his sides to loosen up all the rangy muscles encasing them - and then for a moment, knits his fingers behind his head, "S'my cue, then. Hey. Copper." This is said leaning back his spine to look at Eric from a strange angle, "You got two minutes to get your boy downstairs outta here before he's kindling." So bright and mild, he is also dead serious. "He's only alive right now 'cause you want him that way." Then turns to Dusk, and REALLY bares his teeth, "Let's do it to it." And a very sudden /thick wall/ of dry heat ripples through their clothes and hair like a lazy wind - with Kay standing at it's hurricane epicenter. The air nearest him shimmers like a hot grill in the summer time. As the heat washes over him, Eric looks back at the two men for a second and then bursts into a grin. With a wink, Eric gives them a little salute. "A pleasure workin' with ya, my friends. See ya on the other side." Turning, he heads for the stairs. It takes him a little bit to reach the bottom, and he pauses, with a few steps remaining. Eric takes a few deep breaths, and then breaks into a run as he bursts out of the stairwell. Yelling to the other guard, he dashes across the room. "Hey! Hey! Call for backup! Some freaks just appeared on the floor and they fuckin' torched Mike and Ken! Come on, let's get the fuck outt'a here!" Dusk pats at the vest inside his coat at where he's stashed his tiny-computer, teeth baring in a grin. "Brother, I /did/ it. Those machines are --" He shakes his head quickly, but there's a small look of pride in his expression. "It's your show, now." He's backing up towards a window, shedding his long overcoat and flexing his wings slowly. He wraps his coat over a fist, smashing through the window and then just /yanking/ the whole thing, frame and all, out of its setting to provide a convenient wide /escape/ hatch. "Got your exit. Make it /pretty/, yeah?" "You know it." Kay turns his back to Dusk, and the hands folded behind his head are thrown forward. And the sterile clean light of the facility are joined with a thick orange glow. Rushing out and away from Kay, flames spring up fro the floor and rush away in sheets and sashes as though the room were doused in gasoline. When it passes out the door, the hall beyond is still for a breathless moment - and then erupts in a spiraling tornado of fire. Lights explode, wood surfaces squeal and burst where the moisture in them boils; paint peels back, exposing drywall that blackens and crumples in. The bigger the fire, the more fuel it leaps for, the more fuel eaten, the larger it grows, snowballing until the heat is powerful enough to feel like sunburn against the skin. The ceiling collapses, and all is spears and snarls of bright light and black char. Kay throws a final punch - and a forcewave throws down a far wall in an explosive blast and a blizzard of bright fairy embers. And Kay turns, cackling, and leaps for Dusk's arms with a coyote "YI YI!" Dusk's grin is sharp-bright-fangy. His night-adapted eyes have /closed/ against the glow of the flames, the growing brightness, but his face is turned towards the warmth, wings spreading as far as they /can/ in the hallway. It's Kay's yip that gets him to finally open his eyes again, reaching to snatch up the other man without any seeming effort to the catch. He clambers up into the window, looking one last time behind him before leaping. His wings spread, snapping out wide to catch the air -- just a black silhouette against the blazing backdrop of flames, and then he rises higher off into the dark.