Save Them

Participants:

candy_icon.gif claire3_icon.gif don_icon.gif kwasi_icon.gif lang_icon.gif sanderson_icon.gif six_icon.gif

Scene Title Save Them
Synopsis Late at night, Six comes to take Candy and Claire deep into the Muspelheim bunker to reveal more of Rasoul's dark secrets.
Date December 27, 2009

Muspelheim Bunker

Antananarivo, Madagascar


"Wake up."

The buzz and pop of fluorescent lights comes snapping into Candy's senses, soon the same sound os echoed in Claire's ears. "Wake up— Wake up!" Hissed out in sharp breath, the sound comes from the cell across from Candy and Claire's, a cell occupied by Lieutenant Sanderson. Crouched down on her knees at the bars, the marine has her fingers wound around the bars of her cell. As the two young woman opposite of Sanderson's cell start to rouse to wakedness, they begin to realize just how poor-off the marine looks. Cuts and bruises cover Sanderson's face, a cut across her cheek that is still healing, bottom lip split in the middle and one black eye.

"Mnnh…" A tired groan comes from one of the cells next to Candy and Claire's, muffled thorugh the concrete wall, "Lll… Lieutenant?" It's Corporal Dixon, murmuring a grumbled exhalation of words as he tiredly wakes up in the dimly lit prison chamber. "Wh— what the hell's goin' on?" Sanderson looks over to Dixon's cell, then back to Candy and Claire's seperate cells. The marine exhales a sharp breath and wheezes out a quick warning. "Someone's coming."

How does Sanderson know?

More importantly; why does it matter?

Candy shakes her head a little, trying to get the last bit of grogginess out of there as she looks over to Claire in her cell. She shivers a little while she lays there, before she sits up in her bed. She lets the blanket fall around her as she stands up. For now, the Sanderson's words mean nothing to the hydrokinetic, merely the sense of urgency that they impart.

Waking slowly, Claire levers herself up from where she is laying, blinking blearily at the cell across from her. She's never been a heavy sleeper, but with how things have been, the regenerator has spent as much time as she can manage unconscious. She moves to scoot across her floor, till she can rest her back against the bars of her cell. "Who cares?" She murmurs softly to Sanderson, eyes narrowing some. "Not like we can escape…." Yet at least, "Or have you forgot the wiggling behind your eye." Her tone and a touch bland, though she makes sure it's jsut loud enough to let Candy hear her say it.

Claire lets her head rest against the bars of the cell, eyes peering off in one direction and then turning enough to look the other way.

"No, no we don't have to — " The sound of a metal door creaking open prompts Sanderson to cut herself off, shrinking back to the rear of her cell like a whipped dog. Dark eyes search furtively around the entrance of her cell, brows tense and eyes wide as bare footfalls on concrete come down the hall. Dixon is deathly quiet as the sound of a jingling chain comes next, and soon a grotesquely deformed man limps into view, his bald head silhouetted by the glow of fluorescent lights. "G— Gorls…" he murmurs, looking into Sanderson's cell, then to Claire and Candy's. "You… you're awake." Seeming surprised by this, the man known only as Six comes limping closer to Claire's cell, something metal glinting in his hand.

"You… You're not bad people. You no hurt Six." His hairless brows creasse, deep voice groaning out the words as he shakily fumbles keys into the lock of Claire's cell. "S— Six has something to show you, while worm man sleeps." Dark eyes wander to Candy's cell ones Claire's is unlocked, and he limps over to her door next, a key coming into the lock and door slowly rattling open.

"You— You all come with Six. Worm man sleep now; dream. She keep him in dream, keep him busy. Six need to show you something." There's an anxious tone to Six's voice as he says that, looking to Dixon's cell next, then over to Sanderson's. "She not say to free you…"

Candy looks between Sanderson and Dixon as she hears that from Six, and then back to Claire. She takes a deep breath, but stays quiet towards Claire and Six for now. She merely walks over to Sanderson's cell, and begins to look at the lock, and around her. If she can find a crowbar, she figures she'll get Sanderson out. They need someone with some kind of survival skill. More than Claire's automatic regenerative survival skill, and Candy's distinct lack of survival skills.

Six's words, pull Claire out of her lethargy and she sits up. Hands reach up to pull her up the door, as he moves past. Her eyes glances over across the way to Sanderson, with a small frown. "You… need to show me something?" She glances over at Candy's cell, as she opens her own cell, "Why not free them Six? They can help us." She insists softly as she moves across to Sanderson's cell, a hand curling around one of the bars. "Or is this not the right time for running?" She asks curiously keeping her words simple for the man, looking back at him. It doesn't make sense that Etana would have him free them, but not the Marines.

From his cell, Dixon's stare up at Candy is an uneven one, eyes narrowed beneath the dark cast of his brows. Sanderson's look, however, is far more uncertain, watching Candy the way someone might an unfamiliar animal, not quite understanding the motives behind their movements. Six is quick to answer Claire's question though, even as that strangely uneasy feeling comes over both she and Candy, upsetting their stomachs with a queasy feeling and churning nausea, like seasickness.

"Lady say— " Six jerks his head to the side in a spastic twitch, "L— Lady say Six only take two young girls. Take them to see the others. Then back here, back to cells. Six no can take you to the surface, not now, not after dark…" Something about the way he says that is odd, why only not after dark.

A few herky-jerky steps take the bald man past Candy, one of his hands holding the chain of his leash. "Six— Six will take you to see them, to see the others. Do what nice lady say. But— but no escape, no run. Please."

Candy looks at Six as she stands there, before she looks back at Sanderson. "If we're coming back to our cells," Candy says, before she turns her eyes to look at Sanderson, perhaps a glimpse of the inner-feelings in her eyes. Candy does feel a bit responsible for the torture that Sanderson went through from Six, and perhaps she does care a little for the Marine. Though, it's hard to tell under all the repression that Candy has subjected herself to in her stay as a prisoner. Wiping at her cheeks she merely says to Sanderson, "Not leaving without everyone." That said, she turns to watch and follow Six.

There is a firm nod from Claire in understanding, "Okay, Six.. A moment." She turns to Sanderson and gives her a look, "We'll be back. We need to see what it is Etana wants us too." A small smile tugs her lips to one side. "No man left behind." She murmurs in agreement to Candy, before stepping away from the cell, glancing at Dixon. "Hang tight." The words sound ironic considering their position, and she knows they are.

"Alright Six.. Show us." Claire says gently to the man, doing her best to ignore the sick twisting in her stomach, she steps closer and waits for him to guide the way.

"You better be…" Sanderson says with a faint smile to Claire, brows furrowed and head nodding weakly to the blonde. Dixon, for his part, merely lowers his head and wraps his arms around himself, huddled in one dark corner of his concrete cell. Six's shoulders roll awkwardly as he lurches forward, then turns to look over his shoulder, licking at his lips once. "This— this way, Six show you others." There's a hobbling gait to Six's movements, and it becomes clear as Candy and Claire follow him out of their cells that one of his legs is several inches shorter than the other below the knee, adding to his limping hobble of movement.

Out of the doorway and down a concrete hall, Six's movements become more hesitating as he nears Doctor Gregor's laboratory. At the moment the doctor is nowhere to be found, and as Six creeps inside, all that is present are limbless bodies laid out on the paired examination tables, judging from their pallor and the dried quality of their stumps cadavers. Nearby, racks of blood are kept chilled, each containing labeled vials lit by the fluroescent lamps inside, the only real lights within the damp concrete of the laboratory.

"S— Six… Six thinks we should be quiet." He murmurs, hobbling behind a shelf filled with glass jars containing preservative fluids and embalmbed organs. One of them contains a human hand six seven fingers, another contains an entire brain, the another a pulpy looking human head with a horrified expression transfixed on it.

Candy looks into Dr. Gregor's place by mistake, and gets an eye full of the goodies that await in there. She shudders, and nods her head in silent agreement with Six, the young hydrokinetic flexing her fingers a little and wishing for the ten thousandth time that she had her ability, and could just wreck a path of destruction through the prison that Claire and her have found theirselves in.

Watching their guide move, the blonde is quiet and thoughtful, a part of her wondering if that shorter leg is her own. Morbid thoughts, but considering the man that plays in the lab…. it's not far off. A glance inside first, Claire finally creeps in after the simple man, a hand sliding across the door jam, catching it for a moment before she lets go to follow closely behind, staying just slow enough not to run into him. Her gaze touches the jaws, wondering what organs are hers…. again a morbid thought.

Thorugh Gregor's lab, it isn't anywhere that the two young women have been before that Gregor takes them, but towards a concrete stairwell down and to the same floor level where all of Rasoul's mechanized infantry are kept. At the base of the long concrete stairwell, Six pauses at the corner of a massive tank, looking up at the darkened ceiling high overhead, then hobbles behind the vehicle and towards another tank, turning after ducking behind it. "C— come quickly, but stay quiet. Guards down here, S— Six does not want to be punished. Six good— Six good." He waves one hand towards Candy and Claire, then begins making a limping jog towards a doorway across the hangar floor, past assault trucks like the ones team Bravo encountered on the way to Mandritsara, then past a row of armored personnel carriers.

Six comes to a stop in the darkened doorway, waving his hand for Candy and Claire to follow him, and then just disappears into the darkened doorway and the hall beyond it out of sight. Not far away, the wo young prisoners can hear the sound of approaching footsteps somehwere in the hangar, along with distant voices too quiet to make out. Someone's coming.

Candy looks down around at the approaching footsteps, and the young woman doesn't waste time at all trying to get herself away from the hanger and where the mis-shapened man ran into. Her eyes darting around, she has no real desire to be caught and 'punished' either.

Claire boots scuff softly along the steps as she moves down them quickly, coming to a stop in the doorway. She's quick to follow on the misshapen man's heels, coming to crouch behind the tank with him. When he takes off, she hesitates a moment, making sure it's clear first before hurrying after, crouched low to keep vehicles for cover and trying to step light enough so that her boots don't crunch along loudly. With hope she can avoid the guards and duck into that dark doorway.

"…two thousand an' seven 'undred men should do." Claire and Candy can finally hear the voices as they make their way into the darkened doorway. The sound of bootfalls stomp clearer into view, several men walking together. "I estimate tha' after their movement through tha' north communes means tha' 'dey might be 'eaded 'ere. But tha'would be suicide, even if Dunsimi survived Mandritsara. We 'ave th' gas, an' they 'ave nothin'."

Walking alongside several other armed soldiers dressed in the gray uniforms of Rasoul's military force is Kwasi— one of the MLF's operatives from Mandritsara— and at his side is a man Candy and Claire know well.

"If they come down on in here, them folks're gonna get themselves a mighty bit surprise." The Butcher of Mandritsara, Lang, runs both of his hands over his shaved head. "I ain't gonna' let none'a them shit-heels march one foot inside this city. We'll gas 'em and fry 'em before they reach the barricades. Sides, with that old woman we'll know 'em before they hit us."

The pair and their entourage are, fortunately, headed in a different direction. "Yes, but for now we shoul' talk to th' Gen'ral an' see if e'as any orders that…" As their conversation trails off, Candy and Claire are left with Six in the hallway, and the bald man watches Kwasi and Lang pass, before looking back to Candy and Claire.

"Bad men…" he murmurs in a frightened manner, turning hesitantly towards the darkened corridor. "We not far now. Six almost get you there."

Candy listens to the conversation, and her hands twitch and jerk, almost as if she wants to go out there and butcher the Butcher. She shakes her head though, and just continues to move on with Six, keeping tip-lipped.

Still in the darkness, Claire strains to listen to the voices, anger boiling within her veins. Kwasi…. that son of a…. he's one she hopes dies a painful death, but it's the words that keep her in check. It catches her interest and she takes in the news, the others are on their way.. but how far are they. The mention of gas worries her the most, she bites her lip, as she ponders how do they stop the bad guys from negating the others.

"I agree, Six." Claire murmurs moving to follow him, her stomach still queasy from it's uncertain if it's from nerves or being close to the odd man.

Down the long hall, Six passes by several closed doors on the way, each of them sealed with illuminated key pads. The doors look secure, the kind that would be found in a more modern research laboratory or a quarantine ward of a hospital. It's only at the end of one hallway that Six comes to a stop by one of the doors, bringing his fingers up to the pad. Each depression makes a tone, almost like that of an old analogue phone, seven numbers input before the door unlocks and hisses as it opens from a change of air pressure. "Here…" Six murmurs, pushing one gnarled hand towards the door to slide it open.

One his way in, only the hiss-click-hiss of respirators can be heard, it's a sound Claire knows well, but the noise is more symphony than solo, so many of these sounds erupting from the room as the door opens. Six comes to a stop in the doorway, moving out of sight to the right, fumbling with switches. In this darkened silence, only the glow of heart-rate monitors and distant orange lighting silhouettes what look like hospital beds in a burn ward, the kind with pressurized and climate controlled plastic tents. People are behind the crinkled plastic, profiles of faces made silhouette by the orange security lighting.

Then, when the lights come on, the nightmare is revealed.

Dozens upon dozens of these tables fill the room, each with catheter bags, fluid IVs and life-sign monitors next to plastic tented gurneys upon which pregnant women lay in motionless silence. Tubes are inserted into their open mouths, taped in place, tipes coming out of their noses, eyes aided in staying shut with thin strips of scotch tape.

Near the entrance, an examination table rests covered with bloodied blankets and a pair of cast off rubber gloves and stained surgical equipment. Six turns, lsowly, his black eyes staring cow-eyed at Candy and Claire. He says nothing. Nothing can really be said.

Candy blinks as she looks at what is revealed in front of her. "What the hell are they doing here," the young woman murmers softly, her eyes wide as she takes an involunatary step back from the women. Her eyes flash over to Claire and she asks, "Do you know anything about this?"

As the lights go on, Claire's breath catches in her throat in a short gasp. Unlike Candy, Claire slowly moves among the sleeping bodies. "Their… pregnant?" She moves till she's at the end of the row and left staring at the bloody table. "My god…. it's… like a it's a farm." Her voice filled with disgust. "No wonder we haven't seen any women.. Their all here." She turns slowly taking in the beds, her eyes finally drop to the woman closest to her. "I….. " A hand reaches out to touch a tent lightly above the bulging stomach, she's totally speechless. "…. what…." Rasoul's words float through her mind… That she would ensure that the Vanguard will live on. Obviously, he had more then one plan for this.

"These poor women." Claire murmurs softly. "Six?" She glances back at the gentle man, her hand dropping to her side again. "Why did the Lady want us to see this? Did she say?"

Six doesn't so much as answer, not verbally, not above the hissing pops of the respirators and the beeping of heart-rate monitors. He walks over to one of the women, brows furrowed, and lays his hand down atop the plastic. There's a scowl on his face, his black eyes alight towards Claire, since she's the one that addressed him, and finally his relayed message from Etana comes as clearly understood as possible. "Save them," he asks as plainly as he can.

There's nothing they can do for these women, not yet, not now. It's clear that Etana wanted Claire and Candy to see what Rasoul was capable of, what lengths he is going through. "Bad men… no like people like us. They take nice ladies, nice ladies not like us. They make them have babies, babies with the— with the General. They kill the ones like us, like me and you. Ones born broken."

Six ducks his head down, like a dog that knows its doing something wrong. "Nice lady wants you to help them. But not now."

Candy nods her head a little while she hears that, before she looks over at Claire and then back at the Ladies. She shudders a little and says softly, "Best to just kill them all, rather than let them come to with the knowledge that them, and everyone else on this god-forsaken island has been raped by that man."

"Help them?" Claire sounds grim at the thought of trying to save these poor women and the babies they carry. "But… how….." The blonde regenerator trails off, her voice sad. Candy's comment gets a sharp look. "No.. that's not what she meant. These women deserve a chance.. Etana is right. We'll have to try and help them… but not sure now.. getting four of us out will be hard enough.. but.. this.." She spreads her hands out to encompass the room. "How do you escape with all these pregnant women?"

"Were do they keep the babies Six?" Claire asks softly. If they free the women…. do they condemn the helpless as well?

"Six does not know." Which means Etana hasn't told him. "We— " there's a sharp look over Six's shoulder, towards the door, then back to Claire. "We must go now. All these rooms," Six motions towards the hall, "all rooms like this." It's a horrifying prospect, they passed by at least a dozen rooms on their way to this one, which could mean there's hundreds of women in different stages of pregnancy trapped down here in these farms, to breed the new humanity.

"Six— Six take you back now," he murmurs weakly, ducking his head and moving out to the hall. "Worm man wake up soon, lady cannot keep him much longer. We— we go." His cow-black eyed stare up from the gloom of the darkened hall towards Claire and Candy. "I take you back, you see what you need to see."

"Okay.. Yeah… "Claire finally agrees reluctantly, moving back towards the door slowly, "Let's get back.. I need to tell Sanderson before the worm man wakes up." A glance goes to Candy as she passes. "Looks like we have our work cut out for us. We want out.. this has to be done.. we… just have to figure out how." At the door, she turns to look back over her shoulder, silently listening to the various beeps and hisses of the machines.

"This has to be stopped…. "


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