Participants:
also featuring…
| Scene Title | Little Rabbit |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A scavenging team gets a Plus One. And a Minus Two. |
| Date | December 22, 2011 |
The Ruins of New York
The ruins of New York are as quiet as ever today. It would be eerie, if at this point Aislinn Graves wasn't used to it. "Where are we headed?" she asks, looking over to one of the hazmat suited people next to her. "Please tell me we're not going spelunking."
A man walks to one side of her, a woman to the other. The man seems nervous, looking around almost frantically. "Should we… really be out here? With everything that's been going on lately?" He seems a bit jittery, like he's had to omuch coffee that day
"Do we have a choice?" The woman on her other side of her pipes up, hsaking her head. "Just… stay watchful, yeah? I mean… who knows what kind of a hornet's nest has been kicked out here lately."
The skies are clear, for once. The grey overhang of winter doesn't loom above them, though the cold air does.
"Alright… you sure about being out here, Aislinn?" This question from the man. She gives him a sharp look, eyes narrows.
"Little late to be asking that, don't y' think?"
He doesn't respond, eyes widening as he quickly looks away.
It's true that they have little choice. Supplies are always running low and food lower. The ruins hold both danger and promise, and the Hub residents have to brave the former to take advantage of the latter.
The trio passes by several structures they know they've cleaned out on previous trips— they themselves or one of the other teams. But there is a lot of New York they haven't covered. The man with them seems less and less comfortable the further their steps take them from the hub. And he's the most relieved when the woman stops in front of a former apartment complex, on corner having collapsed in to expose a couple floors to the elements. Still, she looks over at Aislinn, nodding toward the building in question.
Aislinn's expression flattens a bit. "I hate going int' these sorts of places," she grumbles, clutching the bag she has to transport whatever she finds in tightly. "It feels wrong. Like you're invadin' someone's like." She shivers. "Like they should… be there."
"Aw, come on." The man turns to look at her, frowning. "Don't say things like that. It's hard enough to do this sometimes, Aislinn. Why you gotta be like that?"
"Why did you even come?" Aislinn asks back to the man, an annoyed tone in her voice as she she starts towards the front door. "Come on. We'll see how it looks inside. I don't want t' have t' climb if we don't have t'." Because that just meant all the more chance to get hurt. Or worse.
The man doesn't answer, as such, just cuts a look over to the other woman with them.
She doesn't notice, since she's falling in step with Aislinn to head for the door.
"At least, if we take what's left, it isn't just sitting here waiting to rot," she says, perhaps trying to help Aislinn come to terms with what what they're doing. Even if it is something akin to graverobbing. Neither of them are calling it that.
Inside, the tiled floor is covered in fallen plaster broken off from the ceiling above them. In spots, they can see up to the next floor, which might imply that going up wouldn't be the safest choice. Their companion moves ahead, pulling a crowbar off his belt to work on prying the first apartment door open.
"I guess I just don't get why they don't send Cardinal and Chao out for this stuff all the time, you know?" The man falls in step behind the other woman, letting out a long sigh. "I don't mind being out here, depressing as it is. It's just- I dunno. Seems better havin'g him wander about and her haunting the damn place."
"How would you feel if everyone relied on you all the time?" Aislinn stops, turning to look past the woman, and at their third compatriot. "If all you got asked to do was the one thing you could do because you're special." There's a bit of bitterness in the European woman's voice. "We all have to do more. Do what we can."
The woman glances back, before making her way past Aislinn.
"Ah, yeah," the man offers back. "Good point. I mean, that's why I decided to come along. To do more."
The door cracks open. Inside, the apartment has faired a little better than the lobby. Parts of the ceiling have broken off, but most of it is intact. The furniture inside is nice, family photos hang on the walls and are propped up on the mantle. Mom, Dad, Daughter. A trio smiling out at them from a different time. A better time. Everything is covered in years of dust and debris, but otherwise it seems untouched.
The man steps in first and hurries off toward the kitchen. Perhaps they got lucky.
The first thing that happens is the first thing Aislinn always does when left to inspect former living spaces. She examines the first picture she sees. Families, of course. She looks over faces, to make sure that there is no one she knows - living or dead - in any of them. They had picked clean most of places residents of the Hub used to live in long ago, but every now and then…
Not recognising the family in the picture, she lets out a heavy sigh - and lowers the picture on the mantle face down, before moving to other family pictures she can see and repeating the same process. It makes her feel better, more comfortable, about what has to happen next.
And what will have to happen if they find anyone who once lived here.
"Find anything good?" It's a call back to anyone who can hear her, setting about tossing around the living room and any cabinets or closets she can find - food is the primary goal, but you never know who might have some handy medical supplies… or a gun and some ammo.
Aislinn asks her question, but before anyone can answer— and before she can properly turn away from the picture in front of her— she sees a flash of movement in the reflection of the glass. Nothing was there, and then something was. A gas-mask covered face. The impression of a grin.
"Some canned food," the man answers from the kitchen, unaware of the extra body in the next room, "might get a pretty good haul if we check enough of the apartments."
From further back, in the bedrooms, the woman calls out, "Clothes. Some new stuff for the kids that isn't entirely eaten away." Her tone is less optimistic.
The reflection in the glass disappears again, only for Aislinn to hear a voice far too close to her side.
"Hello, little rabbit."
It's not a voice Aislinn recognises.
It's not a voice she recognises.
Immediately panic sets in - the people she goes out with, they know better than to sneak up on her. So instead she swallows, and abruptly ducks down, before diving out to the side she didn't hear the voice, beside a couch that she almost dives head first into. She jostles a small side table, sending a lamp shattering to the ground.
She looks back up at where she was, eyes wide, as a voice comes from the kitchen.
"Hey, Aislinn, everything okay in there."
The movement is well timed. She ducks just as a knife slices through the air above her. And the woman holding it refocuses on Aislinn, meeting her eyes. Grinning. Vör takes a step toward her, knife twirling in her hand like it were some child's toy. Her figure is tall and thin, limbs and movements giving the impression of a spider.
The man's voice gets her attention and she looks up toward the kitchen. He starts to step out to check on Aislinn and Vör disappears from in front of Aislinn and reappears behind her companion. She doesn't attack right away, although she certainly could, instead, she grabs his crowbar out of his hand at taps him on the shoulder with it. He spins around, but she's already gone. The teleporter lands in the entrance to the little hallway. Between them and their third.
"We got a-" Aislinn starts to scream, cut off when the woman suddenly disappears from in front of her, eyes widening, She swallows, scrambling up to her feet. This is what they give us guns for, she tells herself, pulling from the holster at her belt. But then, the teleporter is gone. "Psycho teleporter!" Finishing her only shout seems to come to slow as she runs to join her compatriots, realising that she is very likely to olate.
Skidding up to join one, she stares down the hallway, pistol raised. She doesn't fire yet, but she doesn't give any warning. Edward, Eve, Liza, so many people warned her about teleporters. You can't give them warning.
So she just pulls the trigger.
The psycho teleporter laughs at that particular designation and she pops down the hallway toward the bedroom door. She looks into the room, then back at Aislinn as she pulls the trigger.
And then it's a game of timing. Of choice. Vör might be playing chicken with a bullet, but she doesn't blink away. Instead, Aislinn's friend tucked away in the bedroom appears in front of her, the bullet striking true in the entirely wrong person.
"Oopsie," she says, her voice singsonging as she lets the body fall and disappears. For a moment it might seem like she's gone. But that's only because she moved herself into the kitchen, a better position to stalk up on the other two. Her knife comes out and thrusts into the man's back. Aislinn can hear his breath catch when the blade finds purchase.
"Run."
It's all he can get out before blood seeps through his lips.
Aislinn never liked horror movies growing up. Somehow, that had always been more Elspeth's thing, whereas they just filled her with anxiety, fear, and doubt. They made her feel like the world was closing in around her They made her feel..
Exactly how she feels right now.
If there wasn't a hazmat suit in her way her hand would be other her mouth, speechless as she somehow manages to put a bllet into the woman she came out here with. Her heart plummets, pulse quickening, and that moment seems to last forever as she watches the other woman tumble backwards, knowing that even if she survives, her suit has a hole in it.
And that even if she lived, she was as good as dead.
She spins around, not about to make the same mistake, but she's already too late. Her knees lock. She stares at their attacker for a moment longer, before she decides to take the advice given to her.
And she bolts, sack still empty. Nothing to show for this trip, except the death of two more partners. Assuming she can make it back before this psycho catches up with her.
Vör watches her go, then makes to follow with a stride that might be called prancing. She makes it as far as the door, leaning out to look after her.
"Yes, run, Little Rabbit," she calls after her. Instead of coming after her like she certainly could. Maybe the idea of her having to live with what just happened pleases her in some fashion.
But no. She moves to the stairs leading to the second floor and picks up a radio. "Got one running home," she says, her voice more serious there, "try not to lose this one."
The radio crackles for a moment, before a voice on the other end answers back. "Negative, Vör." The voice on the other end, is familiar and as firm as ever. There's another crackle, a moment of silence. "She's in my sights now."
Aislinn runs, panting. She doesn't bother to look back over her shoulder. She knows that that would only slow her down, only increase the chances of her being caught. But then, if that woman had ben a teleporter…
It doesn't occur to her that she's being let go.
"In due time. Patience."
The wind howls, but no shot rings out, no followup to Vör's expert setup.
"Dolukhanov out."