ArchivedLogs:Pit Stop, Van-side

Pit Stop, Van-side
Dramatis Personae Hive, Parley, Tatters, Joshua, Kay
In Absentia	2013-03-07 The ex-labrats stop for supplies. (Part of Prometheus TP.)
Location A VAN
The drive felt long. Dead winter landscape rushing past beneath weak flurries of dry snowflakes. A sky slowly growing gray. The box truck is not new, and has clearly been used for moving furniture from all the scuffs to the walls. The floor is covered by a blue tarp and, illuminated by a jimmy-rigged single lightbulb industrial-stapled to the ceiling, the aftermath can be seen amongst the refugees. There have been /some/ supplies stocked up in preparation; first aid gear, bandages, gauze, a hotel-raid's supply of towels and a stack of clothes that... aren't much of a step up from scrubs, in the form of bulk-bought black t-shirts (all size Large) and pullstring sweatpants. There's also a small supply of canned food in a box: peaches, string beans and Vienna sausages in equal numbers. It smells in the van; human body and sweat and blood and piss and human terror. So... not much different from anything else pulling into a Walmart parking lot. Jim parks at the far side of the lot, overlooking a garbage-strewn bank where a little stream trickles under broken ice. The door is shoved up and open, casting in a little more light, and Jim surveys the grubby acid-burned and charred faces within. "So. What do we need." He'll then begin his trek across the lot, with a few others. Whoever can still walk, really. And seems sane enough not cause a Scene. Hive doesn't trek anywhere. He's staying in the van, leaning against the passenger-side window with his eyes closed. He might be sleeping. Except he's been checking in with his team, and now that mental presence expands. A quiet nudge, against each mind in turn, not intruding but simply -- looking. Tatters doesn't respond to Jim's query. She'd doubtly start rattling of a list if she had, but the sounds of the outside have been reduced to an echoey, muted rumble, far away and deep underwater. Because ears are delicate and complicated and not necessary for keeping her alive, and she has more important things to do. Like squeeze shrapnel out of her lungs, and make sure she hasn't forgotten to restore circulation to anything important. So, she sits in a lump in the corner of the van, single remaining eye closed, her body shifting and adjusting beneath her (scorched and perforated, but surprisingly intact!) quilted gambeson. Her face is a mess and her arms are still sort of shapeless, oddly boned tentacles, but those can wait too. To Hive's sense her thoughts are still a bit sluggish and disoriented, consistent with having taken a blow or two to the head -- lots of rechecking the same zones over and over after the first examination fails to register, lots of changing things /very carefully/ and then getting distracted and going to do something else. But overall there's a remarkable lack of distress, or even emotion in general: she's just...putting things back together, mechanically and dispassionately. There'll be time to be human again later. A lot of the labrats are poorly; drugged, taxed, worn out and trembling, those from the higher security lower floors are possibly not surprising in their worse shape. Keeping dangerous mutants in prime fighting condition wouldn't be general lab policy, and all the activity and running around is reacting to meds - a five gallon bucket is pushed around and draped over for more than one technicolor yawn and, against the pain and terror of the room, a few have nodded off in exhausted piles. Some haven't even changed out of their scrubs. Their minds are sluggish - some twitch at Hive's touch, others just ignore it. The lanky fire mutant is sitting up and eating meat from a can. He says, abruptly, around a cheekful, "...so." Swallow. He has to clear his throat. "I'm Kay." One of the ex-labrats, sluggish and tired and sort of hacking from smoke inhalation though he is, is shifting through the back of the van, triaging, reporting back to the team on silent mental waves as though he never /stopped/ being part of the team to begin with. Joshua has, to aid him in this, a not insignificant healing ability; he is using it not to bring anyone back to full health but to stop the imminent death of those worst off. He's currently crouched by a kid with a pair of bullets in her, expression blandly calm as his hands rest against the girl's shoulders. "Tweezers. A lot more gloves. Ice packs." He's kind of muttering this half to himself, and only a moment later mentally /relaying/ it to those who have departed the van. Only then does he look up. "Joshua." << Hive, >> comes kind of mentally /grunted/ from the front seat. It sounds like a chorus of voices rather than just one. Parley is quiet, but doesn't seem particularly shy. He's been helping a few of the wounded escapees out of their scrubs, following the example of anyone that... /knows/ what they're doing for the injuries that display themselves. Where Hive finger-walks along the minds in the cab, his own will be a floorboard that dissolves on first contact into an Free Space on the mind map. He prods back, a light nose-nudge and a mash up of << they knew/thought/expected you would come (implied length of time) you came anyway >>. He listens to introductions with a tracking of eyes, and then returns to his own slowcreep through the mini warzone. He reaches Tatters, trying to figure out /what part/ to talk to. Or if they can hear. He opts: << help you? >> It's less words than it is cobbled-together concept. Wait, now there are voices. Not /actual/ voices -- the spoken introductions fall on literally deafened ears, save for Hive's apparent telepathic non-sequitor. But people are thinking about buying things. << uh, things. food? meat, probablyraw is easiest but ugh, uh, nonessential. can wait. waterwould be nice i had a bottle but it got smashed oh no i think i borrowed it from apartment they'll be mad :( OH CRAP DAMNIT i left my sword in the basement, can we go back? >> And then someone's 'talking' to /her,/ and Tatters' lone, amber eye opens and swivels up to blink blearily at Parley. << oh, uh thanks but i'm fine. are people talking to me? I can't -- ears, voice (yet) (i'll get around to it) (apologize for me please if i've been being rude) >> Jane is sitting quietly in one corner of the back of the van, ignoring the other people around her quite pointedly. One of her camoflague legs of her uniform is tattered and singed, and fingers delicately probe at the skin underneath. She frowns, pulling the leg up closer to her, letting out a low hiss as her fingers probe at a sensitive spot. Her frown deepens. FROWN. Kay finishes eating his /snausages/ and then tosses the can into the bucket, reaching casually around the head of a young woman currently dry-heaving into it. He does pat her back mildly after that and pull her hair back from her face. "So. You all uh," his manic grins from earlier are more haggard, but he manages one again, "you all come here /often/?" He coughs. Most people from the high security area have been coughing. The air down there had not been fantastic. The grin fades as his eyes scan the heaps and shapes of people strewn around the truckbed. "...this everyone?" He doesn't bother adding the second half << -everyone still alive. >> << There's a couple gone for supplies, >> Hive says, apparently finding it easier to talk in minds than out loud, at the moment. << More bangages. More food. Water. Meat. Fuck you, Tatters, I'll have Flicker dump YOU back there. >> There's a pause. Then. << All the time. Upstate's pretty this time of year. Sometimes you just gotta get out of the fucking city. >> His voice still sounds a little dissonant. A little too-many-people. << no one cares (mixed with mental image of everyone strewn around and bleeding and eating and puking and sleeping and getting triaged). >> Parley's mindvoice to Tatters is a neutral-even offering, more laid out just outside the mind than inserted into it. << there is meat(kindofmeat, sort of /hooves/) in a can. and peaches. want? >> He settles down slowly, crosslegged beside Tatters, a hand idly resting over the gunshot wound in his shoulder -- it's not actively killing him. He can wait. << can relay; you speak, I speak for you. does it hurt? >> Tatters weird sort-of-a-face shifts as she manifests an eye-ridge for the express purpose of squinting towards the front of the truck, in Hive's general direction. << fine, i'll just need bus money / legs / whatever >> Grump grump, countergrump. It then swivels back to glance at Parley, and her body ripples in a sort-of-shrug. << thanks but i'll pass, other people need it more probably. and: hurts a little, but -- decoupled, just information not fear/panic/reflex. everything's fixable but the concussion (? feels like, symptoms) just need time. maybe stimulants eventually. how're the others? >> Kay has settled against the far wall, one lanky leg drawn up, the other draped out in front of him, and he's popping the tabs off other cans of food. As other names are spoken up amongst those in the truck, he hands along these cans, letting hand-by-hand-by-hand distribute them along the ranks. He, personally, is watching the melting heap of Tatters trying to fix itself. "Hey," he grunts, lifting up a can of peaches, "well done on the /dragon/ back there." He then drinks the peach syrup and then hands the can on. To someone that FROWNS at him. The syrup is gone! Parley leans down and whispers Kay's words, word for word, "--on the /dragon/ back there." His personal voice is sort of bland and soft, but it resonates with the color and identity of Kay's sentiments, rippling into Tatter's awareness as easily as if she did have current and functioning earballs. It's rote habit to do as much, and he doesn't seem entirely aware he's even doing it. Rather, as slowly the state of injury in the truck begins to ease gradually out of 'probable casualties to come' by virtue of Joshua's efforts, he takes his own stock of the damage not so physical. A cool, numbing touch of palm rests against Hive's mind. << ...hurt also. (...?) >> << Hurt. There'll be medical care waiting. >> This is Joshua, moving on from one bullet-riddled body to one acid-pitted. Hive's mind is chaotic, under that cool touch, not one mind but many, and many of those scared and hurt and confused; they kind of blend together into one jumbled /entity/. It reacts to that touch with grasping mental fingers, reaching to try and /absorb/ Parley's touch into itself. But then withdrawing. << Tired, >> is gruff, but under that there is more. Sick. Hurt. Trying hard not to think of the bodies left behind. Tatters' eye rolls over to glance at Kay, followed by a noncommittal shrug of her slightly-better-defined shoulders as she settles back against the wall of the van. << Jax did the most -- lasers, plugging its breath. The AOE-guys -- were you? Sorry, it was dark and now everything's blurry -- helped a lot too. I just kind of ran around getting bashed into the ceiling while it acided everyone else. >> There's a definite note of uncertainty to this analysis, as she's still in the 'fixing things' stage - the bulk of the 'obsessively replaying events in her head' stage will come later. But she's visibly pulling her mind together for the sake of conversation, at least, and seems to be mustering a modicum of clarity. With food handed out, Kay folds hands over his abdomen and stretches out his legs, crossed at the ankles. Though Tatter's words are spoken through Parley's mouth - like an EXTERNAL temporary FACE UNIT -, it sounds very much in tune with her own that Kay is actually making eye contact with her as though she /were/ the one speaking. "Hey, say it how you wanna. Hand to hand against a dragon," he holds up one hand, as though this statement were a physical thing he could /shake/, "equals /awesome/." This part is held up in his /other/ hand. Argument made. "Who /are/ you people? - guh, hang on." His face, though viciously casual, is growing green, and he takes his turn now to drape over the bucket and make his contribution. "-ohgod-" he croaks in the midst of this. The clutch of fingers against Parley's mind find a curious lack of pain or flinching. Just a thin warm membrane of mind that sags under it like a hammock. Taking the pressure and softening it. When it pulls back, he follows slightly, like slipping his own hand in an offering to grip onto. ...Or a bite-guard to bear teeth down on. << Focus here. >> It's a delicate nestbowl of offering, albeit flavored so slightly with scents of Kay and Tatters as they channel across his tongue. << Shit, >> Hive says, << we don't have a superhero team name. We should get on that. >> His mind bears down on that offered one, something curling in to wrap around Parley, not /controlling/ so much as tethering. He brings a flood of sensation with him, other minds joined to his, quiet murmurs in the background. Joshua is a little more forthcoming, somewhat. "We've been there. In the cages. Most of us, anyway." He's leaning back against a wall, now. There are so many more in need of healing but none immediately in danger of bleeding out, and so he is catching his breath, a little worn, a little trembling, where he sits. << AOE? >> He's a little sluggish-minded. << Um! >> Tatters raises a limb in response, asking for a moment to respond, and then looks quickly around, quickly pulling her singed, squashed backpack onto her lap and clumsily fumbling through an exterior pocket with improvised appendages. Eventually she produces the smashed remains of a pair of sunglasses, and carefully balances them on her bony facelump so the most intact lense sits over her eye, the frames resting on the broken remnants of her war-spikes. << We're just...one-liner. Um. What they said. >> Pause. << Oh, Area Of Effect. The...fire and rocks and stuff. Video games, surprisingly applicable. >> "Hulf. Was that a CSI: Miami reference? -urg--g-/geeks/," Kay muffles into the bucket and then drags his arm across his mouth. Then just hangs out his tongue and licks on his sleeve to rid it of taste. It makes a rasp-rasp-rasp sound. He jerks a chin at Joshua, "I think you uh. Fixed some frostbite I had a few weeks ago." Probably not acquired from skiing in Aspen. Though he /says/ it like he did. Parley's eyes close, soaking Hive in - like pressing a hand through a layer of mist, it is a difficult grip to tether, but he folds to accommodate. The roughest edges of Hive's mind, where they touch his, are smoothed down and polished in a light grooming as it pours through his. It's quieter in here. All the multiple voices are traced over, a certain curious-clinical scientific tinting burbling up. << what is? >> What is these other voices? What is it you do? What is it you need? The inquiry is multi-function, and attentive. Joshua keeps his eyes closed, one side of his mouth curling up. << Might be fixing more if we don't get out of here soon. Not a warm night. >> He's shivering, at least. But he pulls himself upright after a moment to keep working. There's a lot of cuts. A lot of burns. A lot of holes in people. << Video games. Shit. I'll be able to play video games again. >> << Flicker's still gonna kick your ass in Soul Calibur, though, >> Hive says. And, aloud, for once, "You're hopelessly surrounded by geeks. You might as well just give up and head back, now." << People, >> he answers Parley, tired. Flicker. Dragonboy. Thor. A scattered few other rescuees too hurt or dazed to have been functioning well on their own. << I -- make them me. Make me them. >> << No. A CSI'd involve more dead body and more The Who. Like...ugh no I'm too concussed to be witty. >> Also probably too soon to make wisecracks about all the dead people. Tatters sinks back into her seat and closes her eye, sighing a rumbly, croaking sigh, imagining a training montage wherein she attempts to deliver one-liners while engaged in a variety of tests of dexterity and resilience. As a daydream it's fairly vague and unrealized, with only general images of city parks and mountain temples -- apparently she took a hard blow to her imagination as well. But that'll heal. She leaves the matter of video-games uncommented upon for the moment, looking inwards and focusing on troubleshooting a blood pressure imbalance that had started to grow worse while she wasn't paying attention. Kay makes a weak 'snrk', scrubbing at one eye, "Man. The Who. That fucking shit." However, Parley's dutiful translating rolls off when Tatter's mind goes from linear dialogue to fantasy, and the bleary drift back to concentration is indication enough that perhaps she needs a minute to... fix that... Whole health thing a little. He runs a hand through his hair, closing his eyes and grinning hard, "I'm gonna be able to /ride/ again." Parley's multitasking limits his specific filtering, so 'ride' comes with a specification of /motorcycling/ hovering in the air between the lines. Parley himself sits serenely with his legs crossed, a hip fetched up against Tatter's shifting, warping side. Closed eyes and one hand against his shoulder, his other is loosely set on a knee with his personal identifiable presence too dispersed in multiple ways to have substance. Inwardly, the sense of hurt minds and necessary suppression through Hive are slowly sorted, neatening and clarifying the longer it is exposed to his. After a long moment, he dissolves, then reforms from a thing tethered to a thing culverting. The eye of a needle to pour through. << help? >> << Gonna be able to do a lot of shit again, >> Hive agrees, bland and tired. He is slumping heavier against the window, watching the doors of the store with a dull gaze for a while, then closing his eyes. His response to Parley isn't so much in words as a sense of sinking into that offer, his own thoughts kind of diffusing into the other man's. Sleepily. He is probably not good for much more at the moment. None of them are, really. The wait for the coming supplies stretches on.