ArchivedLogs:DDOS

DDOS
Dramatis Personae Anette, Daken, Dusk, Rasa
In Absentia	May 15, 2020 (Part of the Future Past TP)
Location The Land of Oz - Pennsylvania
Welcome to the Land of Oz. The school that originally showed so much promise as a place for young mutants to hone their skills and become more 'well adjusted' has been converted into an internment center -- albeit a nice one. Classrooms have been gutted and closed off into smaller domiciles, allowing for small groups of four to inhabit bunk beds on either wall. Some house families. Most host roommate sort of in close quarters with tiny dressers for personal effects. The walls are kept clear of decorations and the windows are all barred, with sensors on the doors and individual bars to keep watch for tampering or portals left ajar. Communal bathrooms are available with toilet stalls and translucent shower curtains, though privacy is never something residents expect. The halls are patrolled by generally innocuous Sentinels, small ones, that barely acknowledge the people around them -- until a sensor is triggered or unacceptable behavior is witnessed. The campus is closed off and guarded, the walls contiguous and monitored, with a small headquarters that is quite a bit more extravagant than the rest of the facility. Some say Norman Osborn lives there, but none have actually seen him in a very long time. There is also a science compound that residents are called to for testing. Often it is mundane, with limited shows of powers, scans of biological readings, and basic medical tests, but sometimes -- sometimes people go in and never return. As the sun goes down on the Land of Oz, it is eerily calm for the most part. The slow drudge of mechanical foot steps breaks the silence, whirring machines and quiet beeps mingle quietly with the night life that has grown accustomed to the sound. Cameras record silently and the few human custodians that make up the organic security and organizational structure only come outside to gaze up into the heavens and spark up small fires to light the ends of their cigarettes. A pair has chosen to pace the grounds within as they smoke, chatting quietly in the dimmer light about one of their prisoners giving them a little trouble and whether or not they should move their name up in the list. The second gives a small chuckle and shakes his head. "I don't know. He's not exactly dangerous. What's wrong with having a lively one to push around from time to time? You aren't scared of these fuckers, are you?" Dusk isn't looking particularly lively, tonight. He's entering the compound, not by any particular stealth but simply by its front door, hands evidently shackled and head bowed. There is a heavy mechanical clanging behind him and his companions, a Sentinel escorting them inside. Not at gunpoint, really, though presumably the armed robot has the threat of weaponry always close at hand. Dusk's wings are pressed close to his back, slightly twitchy but staying tucked in. His eyes lift, narrowing on the pair of guards, though they lower again to the ground without any word as he continues past. The last few weeks haven't been any kinder to Anette than the months previously since her child was taken from her. She looks sickly, with her thin, pale face and darkened eyes. Apparently shackled also, she walks in behind Dusk, her own wings tucked quietly in. She walks stiffly, almost robotically, as if all life has escaped her and she's just an empty shell of what she once was. Her mind, though, her mind races enthusiastically, angrily, and passionately as the plan is enacted. Even with her eyes downcast, she puts her ears on overdrive, audibly "seeing" around her. Daken looks awful too, but the look on his face isn't one of fear or anger but something else entirely. His nostrils flare slightly as they pass the guards, who get an unnerving smirk with the barest flash of canine. "Should be." "Were we expecting a new shipment? This time of night?" The first custodian drops his cigarette and stomps it out before crossing toward the entering trio, a wrinkle deep in his brow. "Not that I know of. Sentinel! Report." The second adopts a more huffy attitude, keeping his cigarette out as he lumbers over, scowling deeply at the number. "Who authorized this transfer? Med staff been notified?" He starts reaching for his radio without looking, his eyes narrowed on Daken. "What did you say? You. Mutant. You only speak when spoken to." The first turns his attention to the Sentinel now too. "Sentinel, control your charges." "Medical staff is on alert. All correct clearance has been obtained." The Sentinel's voice is flat, head not turning to make this address, although the robot does stop as it is spoken to. Dusk stops as well; though his muscles are tense and his wings twitching, still, he does not look up. The sentinel prods Daken once in the back, a brief firm jolt of electricity. "Transfers from camp 392, for testing." Anette pauses as they're questioned by the guards and patiently waits, still keeping her eyes down. As Daken is jolt, she tenses and a soft gasp escapes though she otherwise keeps from reacting. Slowly and deeply, she breathes, containing herself. "Kuso!" Daken growls out, shooting the guards a look filled with venom. Surprisingly, he holds his tongue for the moment. "Fine, fine, fine." The first seems pleased by the reprimand, his lips pursing in the dimmer light. Oz seems all but abandoned at this point, the two people here being the only signs of life. The second shakes his head. "I never get over all of this automation," he mutters, mostly to his companion. He looks at Daken with a short bark of laughter playing in the back of his throat. "It's getting to the point where the shitter is going to start wiping our asses when it decides we're done crapping." He turns turns half way toward the science compound, taking a drag off his cigarette and falling silent before smoke stained words slip from his lips. "Follow me. This way to processing. Fuck. That asshole Smith won't let us off shift until we're done. You know we're not getting overtime for this shit." "You and your fucking overtime." The first casts a glance toward his companion's cigarette and then starts moving toward the compound. "Can't you just be happy we've got jobs? Hell, everything's a mess and you want to count your damn pennies?" The Sentinel falls back into brief silence, continuing to usher its charges into the compound. "All camp layouts are stored in memory banks." In monotone it's not really snarky, honestly. Just a reminder. Dusk's lips only twitch very slightly. Moreso when the robot helpfully reminds: "This is a non-smoking area." Anette shuffles along as "ordered" though she finally glances upward just slightly, her eyes glowing bright yellow. "Can we get on with it?" she hisses under her breath to Dusk, finally beginning to lose patience. She flexes her talons slightly though she otherwise keeps submissive and quiet. "We don't have forever." Daken agrees, following along quietly. Though his attention remains glued onto the guard that got him zapped. "He's mine." "Yeah, well, I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, Sentinel, but you robots don't actually fuck, do you?" The tone from the second guard is jovial and utterly uninterested in the Sentinel's words. He just keeps walking. "I'll let you do your job and you let me do mine. I walk people places. It's what they pay me to do." He grumbles and shakes his head. "Told you not to smoke in front of the Sentinels. Your paycheck's going to disappear if you keep getting flags on your record." The first custodian is trudging on when he hears the whispering behind him. He turns and glares at them. "I said zip it. You want another shock? Come on, damn it. I'm hungry." The second custodian grumbles as he reaches out for the door to the medical complex, exposing a white room within, the linoleum on the floor bleached so often, the gray flecks added by the manufacturer for variety are almost dissolved. The lights flicker on when the motion sensor captures them. Chrome railings glow with illumination, white sheets on the thin mattresses. "There's no one here," he notes with frustration. "I'll call them." He reaches for his radio again. He might be reaching for his radio, but Dusk is reaching for it faster; hands that seemed shackled surprisingly quick and strong in crunching the piece of equipment into a useless scrap. The Sentinel that had zapped Daken is moving to tase the guards now, instead. "You kill anyone we don't have to," Dusk says with a small clench of teeth, a faint narrowing of eyes on Daken, "and I'm leaving you right the fuck in this prison and flying. I'm here to help y'all get your kid. Not to go on some goddamn killing spree. Let's fucking /go/. Should be down the hall, hang a right." Once she hears Dusk break free, Anette follows suit, the shackles dropping to the floor with a loud clang. "They imprisoned me, they took my son, and they killed most everyone I know. I will kill who I damned well please," Anette growls. As one of the guards drops to the grounds from the taser, Anette finishes him off with a swift kick to the face. A sickening crack is heard and blood begins pouring from it as it now sits slightly off center to his face. "You never said we couldn't break noses. Now, where are we going?" Daken might not kill the guard, but once the charade is over he delivers a vicious stomp to the custodian's face. "Asshole doesn't tell me when I can talk." A nod is sent Dusk's way, "Sooner we're out of here the better. Place makes my skin crawl." The only warning the rest of the camp receives is a short crackle of static when the radio's button is depressed, but when nothing follows, it is dismissed. The medical compound seems empty now, most of the staff still in the dining hall, but the custodians' relief will be on duty soon. Down the hall and to the right, dim lights flicker on, casting a pale glow across the tiles, triggered by the presence of someone inside. It is a medium sized room with a smaller bed inside, small walls surrounding the padded surface to keep the occupant from rolling out. On top of that is a clear plastic dome, arm holes with gloves attached molded into the surface, allowing the medical technicians access to the being within without contamination. Far from the door, in a corner, there's a figure whose features are hard to make out. Gray skin meets gray hair. Grey lashes surround gray eyes, the color of hir pupils saturating the indistinguishable 'whites.' Ze is hovering on thin limbs between a window and a counter top, a single remaining radio resting on that counter, within reach. Ze waits, watching. Dusk drags the unconscious bodies off behind one of the cots, draping a sheet down over them before heading out. Closes the door behind them. The hijacked Sentinel leads the way, heedless of the downed guards. Out the door and down the hall as mentioned, past a number of closed doors and a few opened ones. Dusk is tense again -- there's a temptation to run that he is resisting. Just follows along behind the Sentinel, as brisk a walk as he can manage without /looking/ like he's running. Down the hall. Around the corner. He pauses when he gets through the door and into the room, wings shifting to half-unfurl and his eyes narrowing on the figure inside. "... I'm looking for a child. Infant. This unit. Wings. Have you seen..." Anette walks behind Dusk, keeping to herself as she wraps her arms across her chest, eyes and ears scanning for any clue of her child. She ignores the gray figure for now, driven to find her child. "This is...this is all wrong. Nothing should be this way..." she murmurs to herself, scanning the dark and dreary halls. "Who'd have thought this place could have gotten worse?" Daken falls into step with Dusk, at least until they turn the corner on the figure. It takes a moment for him to step forward. "Hiro Howlett." he supplies, clearly uneasy. Upon seeing a Sentinel enter the room, ze remains still -- that is until Dusk appears and begins speaking. The figure turns black, the whites of hir eyes now standing out pure and clean. Ze moves as though a shiver moves through hir, turning hir attention to the Sentinel. "You're not one of ours," ze offers with a soft voice, head tilting to one side as ze examines it. "Do you recognize me?" Ze then shifts to stare at Dusk, raising a hand as if ze means to touch him. Then the others speak. The figure seems to ignore Anette as much as she ignores hir, turning next to Daken. "You going to take it out there? It'll die out there. Here... there's food." The basinet in the center of the room does indeed contain the child, sedated and hooked up to IV fluids. Dusk's head tilts slightly to one side. His wings shiver and stretch outward, eyes fixing on the figure as the clours shift. One wing flexes outward towards the outstretched hand. "... won't die. They'll look out for --" His nostrils flare, eyes darting briefly towards the bassinet. One long thumbclaw twitches towards it. "No. Are you -- you can't be." His eyes widen, slightly. "Rasa? You're still -- how long have you -- you could come. With us. If you... you could get out of here. There's food out there, too, if you know where to look. But we gotta go. Like now. Anette, get your kid, let's -- move." Anette 's eyes narrow in on the bassinet and she makes a beeline for the child. As she looks inside, she gasps slightly and chokes, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. "What have they done to you..." she whispers, glancing over the quiet child for a moment before the shock wears off and she begins removing the plastic cover and setting it off to the side, before /carefully/ removing the needles in the child's arm. Daken follows quickly behind Anette. "Shit.. He alright?" There's actual concern in his voice, sharp canine worrying over his bottom lip. He clearly isn't paying anymore attention the other mutant in the room, clearly not considering whoever ze is a threat at the moment. "I've always been here, Dusk," The figure replies, hir attention locking back on the Sentinel, raising a hand and waving it, as if trying to get it to register. Ze squats down to a crouch when Anette gasps, eyes narrowing as she starts taking the child away. "Not everything is harm -- but progress must also be made." Hir head lolls to one side. "Can't leave. Doing important work here. So important -- still so much work to do." Ze stands up straight again and heads to the corner. "I leave -- more will die." Ze snatches up the walkie-talkie ze left in the corner. Ze inhales deeply and looks over hir shoulder at Dusk, studying him for a moment. "I can't save you and all of them." Ze presses the button and holds it down to utter a single word. "Intruders." A moment after the word is communicated to the rest of the compound, alarms start going off and Sentinels are awoken. They're coming. A low growl rumbles up in Dusk's throat. "Real fucking important work. Maybe can't save anyone but you don't have to fucking --" He doesn't finish this thought. One wing whips out hard, thwacking up with one long hard spar aimed to slam into the underside of Rasa's chin. He doesn't look particularly /happy/ about this, tensed, eyes narrowed. He also doesn't wait long for the results of this, turning to his own pet Sentinel as he starts for the door. "Get us out of here. -- You have your kid? We gotta move." The bot is moving ahead of them, out into the hall and towards the nearest exit. Anette looks over the child once she frees him from the bassinet. "I think so, I don't know...he'll be better once we're out of here," she murmurs to Daken as he comes over to inspect the child. Shd snaps out of her thoughts as Rasa mentions 'progress'. Instinctively, she holds the child even closer to her body, glaring with rage as ze betrays them. "You...it's an innocent -child-" she screams, taking a step towards Rasa before she picks up on the sound of Sentinels throughout the building waking up and approaching. "Dusk...get us out of here," she responds quickly, forcing herself to ignore Rasa and focus on getting out. Daken's nostrils flare almost as soon as the walkie-talkie is spoken into, but ends up just nodding at Dusk, following the bot out. "If it comes down to it.. Fly out of here. I can distract some of them." The next words are to Anette, "Don't be a hero in here.. He has a better chance with you raising him than me." Rasa slams against the counter when struck, but stays there, staring off into space as the other occupants of the room start to flee. Ze slumps to the ground and settles into a corner, wrapping hir arms around hir legs as ze falls silent, tossing the radio away. The sounds of the approaching Sentinels grows louder and louder until three of the machines stop outside of the medical compound, waiting, hands pointed toward the exit. "Come out with your hands raise. Any attempts at aggression will be met with force." The mechanical words echo lifelessly in the air, the faces of the machines impassive. The exiting Sentinel is studied and ignored, their systems programmed to take on organic aggressors primarily. "{Come on, buddy. Work your magic.}" Dusk isn't really talking /to/ his Sentinel so much as muttering under his breath as he exits behind it. His hands aren't raised, though he isn't exactly /aggressing/ either, wings spread for takeoff once he is far enough out of the door for them to have /room/ to stretch. His Sentinel has stopped outside the doors, facing back towards the others. Not a lot to be seen externally, really; his machine is quiet, most of its communication silent and internal; the virus it sends out working to hijack the other machines and render them -- albeit temporarily -- allies. Holding her child close to her, Anette sticks close to Daken, even as she begins frantically trying to figure their escape. "I'll do whatever's best for Hiro..." is all she says as anxiously awaits Dusk's Sentinel to do its thing. Daken follows out close behind Dusk, his jaw clinches at Anette's words, but all he does is nod. "I could have sworn I purchased a round-trip ticket for all of us." This is obviously directed at the sentinels. "You guys were supposed to make sure we got out quickly, not delay us." "Objection does not compute. Sentinels do not exist to aid in escape attempts." The lead Sentinel in the center takes another step forward, focusing its hand on Dusk. "Raise your han--" There's a pause in which all three robots stop, the lights flickering where their eyes have been designated. After that, they start jerking forward. One step, then two, finally the one closest to Dusk's Sentinel raises an arm and strikes it viciously in the head. Once the blow has been delivered, the three Oz Sentinels turn their attention back to the organics. "Raise your hands and drop to your knees." "Fffffff." The blow doesn't entirely disable the commandeered Sentinel; it does topple back, though still functional and broadcasting as it starts to pick itself back up. Dusk's eyes have gone a little bit wider, his expression just a little bit paler. His wings still spread, he takes off; though only far enough to come back /down/ on the shoulders of one of the Sentinels, aiming to knock it into its nearest companion. "... Think we'd best take off in a fucking hurry, Daken, you want a lift?" "Dammit Dusk, you promised this would work!" Anette yells, suddenly shifting into soft shushes and coos as the baby, groggy from the drugs, in pain, and very much confused, begins to wake up and whimper out the beginning of a crying session. "Daken, go with Dusk. I'll be right behind you." She attempts to shush the child one last time before spreading her own wings and lifting off in an attempt to quickly evade the sentinels. "Dammit Anette!" Daken echoes, before nodding at Dusk. "With a quickness, if you please!" His hands come up, but he doesn't take a knee. The Sentinels start to crash into each other, but one manages to escape the tumble, charging after the hijacked Sentinel again. It throws another punch, metal fist colliding with the head cage on the commandeered machine. Three more Sentinels stagger onto the grounds, their systems hindered by the broadcast Dusk initiated. They move toward the group at slow speeds, finding it difficult to function. While still attempting to get up off the ground, the other two Sentinels train their hands toward the figures trying to escape. They shoot powers inhibiting darts toward the three of them, peppering them heavily. Dusk ducks his head, lowering it to let Daken hang on -- he slings one arm around the other man though keeps the other one freed up. Not that he's currently using it to waste time on fighting, not with more Sentinels approaching. He spares a quick glance towards Anette to make sure she and the child are taking off and then his own wings are spreading again, beating high into the air to shoot above the shower of darts and high up into the sky. /Possibly/ staying turned to use Daken as a shield if he needs to. POSSIBLY. But it's likely preferable to falling straight out of the sky. Having a head start to the dart shower, Anette is already well above the others though she does remain close by. As Dusk takes off and takes to the air, she joins him, just close enough to keep in sight though she keeps some distances between them. "You hurt him and I hurt you," she warns, out of practice wings frantically beating to keep herself airborne. Peppered? Daken takes more than a few darts. Arms, face, chest, darts /everywhere/. But he stays as large a target as he can, because falling out of the sky now would be a death sentence. One Sentinel works to break open the casing on the bot that Dusk brought in with him, determined to cancel out that signal that is causing all of their systems to function slowly and impairs their processing. The other two are still caught in each other's limbs, half focused on the escaping mutants. The crowds of guards are still trying to crawl their way out off their storage units, moving like they're running DOS. Just as the quartet finally gets some distance off the ground, one Sentinel breaks free from the pile it is stuck in and launches itself off the ground, firing its rockets on full blast. Hands reach out and slam around Anette's body, breaking her wings as they lock on. The rockets then cut out and the heavy, metal figure plummets back to the unforgiving earth. "The Mark 3s only carry /temporary/ darts he'll be -- more fine than any of us will if I can't fly us out of --" Dusk's words are kind of gritted (semi-apologetically) through his teeth as he tries to power them away from the compound, holding securely to Daken. He banks sharply in midair, though, at the hum of incoming rockets. "Oh-fuck-no --" He's veering down towards the bot, though not nearly quick enough. His harsh snarl comes nearly at the same time as the crack of wing-bones. " -- /Anette/! --" He's kind of reaching for her -- kind of reaching to grab for the infant in her arms, only one of his arms free as she is torn fast and far away. His own much more practiced wings beat sure and steady, keeping him and Daken strongly airborne, his low growl rising again as Anette and the bot plummet downward. A loud scream erupts immediately after the snapping sound and Anette suddenly finds herself the flying equivalent of stumbling. Despite the excruciating pain, she gives a final few beats of her mangled wings, desperate to remain airborne. Still, as Dusk flies towards her, she reaches towards him -- and hands him her son. Once the child is secured, Anette does the only thing she can and tucks her wings in and drops to the ground. Although a bit out of it, Daken reaches for Anette regardless. It's a futile effort, a howl of rage and despair ringing out from the worn man as he watches her smash into the ground.