Logs:Off the Rails

Off the Rails
Dramatis Personae Matt, Rasheed, Iron Man
In Absentia	2020-10-01 "You wanna see an unauthorized impoundment?"
Location <NYC> High Line - Chelsea
Built on a freight rail, the High Line once was a railroad and has been reclaimed as green space in the middle of the city. A park situated high above Manhattan, what was once a rusty industrial wasteland is now a stretch of peaceful space to lounge and relax among grass and flowers and plant life. There are restaurants, ice cream sandwich stands, a beer garden, and the view all along the elevated parkland is unbeatable. It's a mild and sunny first of Halloween and much of the park is appropriately festive, pumpkin drinks and pumpkin snacks and newly refreshed decorations. Rasheed is not, particularly, black slacks and a light blue dress shirt that, despite being carefully and classically tailored, the perpetual slouch in his posture manage to make look ill-worn. He has an ice cream cone, ginger-apple, and is just licking a drip off the backs of his fingers as he leans against the back of his bench, looking out toward the water. "The film overall I could take or leave, but Selena was not fooling around. A top contender, I think." The wheelchair hovering beside the bench appears to be constructed of, or at least decorated, with animal bones. Matt is slouched in the chair, sharply dressed in a pale seafoam shirt and forest green vest and a silver tie beneath a light gray jacket and plainfront slacks. Though he looks ashen, thin, and exhausted he's evidently taking some pleasure in his own pumpkin spice ice cream (with orange and black jimmies!) in a little paper tub. "Oh no!" his voice is soft but high with delight. "Oh, I think it's got to be Dana, from Cabin in the Woods, for me. Though I'm not sure, maybe I just like the whole ending overall for how it went off the rails." He gazes off toward the river, his faint smile looking perhaps just a touch ghastly. "I'm so excited for tonight, but honestly it feels a bit like horrorfest 2020 has been going all year." "I thought you just said you liked off the rails." Rasheed crosses his legs at their ankles, stretching them out in front of him to the edge of the safety guard. "But it is nice, now and then, to have a kind of -- threat you can address. Manage. Attack. Some sort of rules to it." Matt's laughter is breathy and bright. "You'll note I picked one where the heroine decided ending the world was the way to address it. No more 'necessary evil'." His smile skews crooked. "I do think that is part of the appeal, though. Maybe so is watching the characters screw it all up even when they have the means to manage and attack the threat." Two of the oncoming figures amid the passing drifts of pedestrians loom somewhat over the rest. Oscorp's Guardians have not been patrolling the streets long enough to be a particularly familiar sight in the wake of the Sentinel recall. These are a shiny black, glowing green eyes, NYPD insignia stamped in silver on front and back. Heavy clang to their footfalls. The pair veer off the path as they near Matt and Rasheed, stopping by the hovering chair. "No parking," one of the robots informs Matt, a flat clipped tone to its generated voice. "This vehicle will be towed." "Gone are the days of imagining that if we --" Rasheed stops here, sitting just a little straighter as the Osbots arrive. At first only a slow-blink follows their words, slightly incredulous in the dart of his eyes between the robots and Matt. "That -- is. A wheelchair," he manages after, starting to stand and starting just as soon to sit back down. Matt looks up, up, up at the robot that addressed him. "I'm afraid there's been a mistake, officers," he says, calmly. "This isn't a vehicle. It's classified as a medical assistive device." His bright green eyes search the Guardians' featureless face plates. "If that is still a problem, I can just move it, no?" "This vehicle will be towed," The robot reiterates, in the same flat tone as before. "Private vehicles are not allowed in city parks without authorization." The second bot just clang-clangs its way in front of Matt's chair, reaching down to clamp both hands below one of its arms and heft it further off the ground, tipping it at a very unsteady forty five degree angle from where Matt had been sitting. "Manhattan Impound," the first robot adds to Rasheed, "can be reached six days a week at 212-971-0771." "It's a wheelchair," Rasheed echoes, as if, perhaps, the second time this information will register. His eyes grow still wider when the robots start to just heft Matt's chair off the ground. His initial stunned reaction is to stand, to reach a steadying hand -- for the little tub of pumpkin ice cream suddenly in danger of falling at a precarious angle. The next, as the robot instructs him where "his" vehicle can be found, is to pat at his pockets reflexively -- though shortly after he's just looking from the robots to Matt, aghast. "Wait, what? What -- you can't -- this is. 'What'?" Matt looses a startled yip as the Guardian seizes his chair and lifts his up. He desperately tries to compensate for the abrupt shift in equilibrium, clinging to the opposite arm of the chair in an effort to stop himself falling out of it and onto the Osbot. "Put me down, please," he says, managing to hold on, for now. No such luck for his ice cream, which splatters onto the robot's shiny new carapace. "Rasheed?" His voice sounds clipped and strained, but a lot more controlled in its incredulity than his companion. "Perhaps you should record this." "This vehicle will be towed," is becoming a bit of a refrain. This time, it has a new addition: "Through a partnership with the New York City Police Department, Oscorp is proud to deploy over a thousand Guardians to enhance the quality of life in New York City by working to enforce the law, preserve peace, protect the people, reduce fear, and maintain order." A beat of delay. "This is an authorized impoundment." It turns. Its compatriot, still holding Matt's chair high and awkward off the ground, turns sharply with it. Their heavy steps tromp in unison -- not toward the path but toward the guardrail. Nothing that has occurred has, as a matter of objective fact, rumpled Rasheed's clothing any more than it already was, but somewhere between the bench and dropping his ice cream cone (safely on the grass) he is certainly starting to look a bit more ruffled around the edges. "Where are -- oh. Oh dear oh --" He is pulling his phone out of his pocket, at least, training it on Matt as the bot continues to speak. "Please set that back down. There's -- still a person in it! Wh --" Now the robots are starting to move. Rasheed instinctively starts to move toward the path before his brain apparently catches up with what his eyes are seeing, darting toward the rail instead and holding up -- the hand with the phone in it as if that will stop them. "Matt. You might -- need to jump." Over the side of the railing there's a bright gleam of red and gold. The figure rising just in front of the Osbots is pretty robotic looking, itself, tall and humanoid and shiny-chrome-metal, glowing eyes and glow coming, too, from the bottoms of its hovering boots and flat-down palms. The voice that comes from it has some distortion to it, but doesn't sound quite so artificial as the Guardians. "See now. What these low-bid contracts will get you." Matt turns in the direction of the Guardians' travel, his eyes going huge. He tries to shove himself up out of the chair, but the movement of the robots jostles him such that he collapses back. "Help," the first time he says this there's an almost inquisitive lift to his tone. Then, more frantically, "Help!" He shoves himself up again, hard, but freezes half-tangled in one of the bots' arms as the third metal humanoid figure comes into view. "Oh my gods how any kinds are there?" "This vehicle is being towed." If the Guardians are concerned that a robo-person is floating in midair, it doesn't show. One of them clanks onto the railing, then off it, louder in its thrum where it hangs a little shakily in the air beside the newcomer. The other hefts the chair a little bit higher. Heedless of the cry for help coming from its cargo, tosses it straight toward its companion before climbing up-on-off the fence as well. There's just a very faint hiss of a noise from the red and gold figure. It swoops in rapidly, considerably more careful than the Guardians when it grabs the chair out of the air, levels it to stabilize Matt in it before returning it to the solid ground on the other side of the safety rail. "Nice ride." The gleaming figure takes off again almost as quickly, hovering just past the rail between Matt and the Guardians. "You wanna see an unauthorized impoundment?" Its motion is much faster and smoother than the Osbots, flying straight at the knees of the nearer one in a tackle that does not stop after making contact, one arm curling around to drag the robot with it as it streaks off through the sky. "Oscorp Guardians are licensed for use to the New York City Police Department," the remaining bot can be heard saying, as it starts to give a slower chase. "Any damage to --" The voice fades into the distance. "Oh subhan'Allah," Rasheed is muttering under his breath, his camera lowering as he darts back to Matt's side. "Please tell me you aren't hurt?" Hyperventilating, Matt has maintained a convulsive grip on the arms of his chair through the brief harrowing exchange. Even after the chair is returned to (more or less) solid ground he's still shaking hard. "Thanks!" he calls out, well after his rescuer is likely out of earshot. His hand reaches up and grips Rasheed's with all his (admittedly very limited) strength. His eyes are very, very wide when he looks back at his friend, and there's a giddy, almost hysterical quality to his voice when he speaks again, "Now, where we were, before we got derailed?"