Participants:
| Scene Title | Near Dark |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A joint NYPD/SESA operation seeks to bring Ames Burgess-Tracy home. |
| Date | July 8, 2021 |
For several days, there was nothing in terms of news. Nothing actionable.
The glimpses gained from afar weren't enough to easily identify where exactly that Ames Burgess-Tracy had been kidnapped to, but they were enough to get glimpses at times into just how Ames herself was feeling about the matter. Enough, as well, to glean that she was secreting away things that might be good for her to have for later…
Her planned escape was set into motion perhaps earlier than expected when Ames had come across maps spread across the dining room table earlier this afternoon, ones that detailed plans to leave their current location. Concerns had arisen several days ago when Peyton's remote viewing ability was used at a time when the adults around her had mentioned 'Ohio' as a nearby location that several had already moved onto and through. The map she glimpsed had indicated the kidnappers hadn't taken Ames near to the Pennsylvania border, however…
Rather, they were in State Forest still very much in New York, northeast of Utica, nearby a small town sharing the same name.
Ames' study of the materials had been interrupted when Gregory Tracy and the safehouse runner returned from their conversation in the adjacent room– at which point Ames had scurried up to her room, grabbed her bag, and exited the house via a window rather than risk being caught bolting out of the door. Her escape was heard when her feet hit the roofing over the first floor, and seen through the window– perhaps beyond it, judging by the shouting after her that sounded. But she ran, for all she was worth, into the trees and didn't look back.
Heading North on NY-8
Herkimer County, New York
July 8, 2021
7:15 pm
That was several hours ago– several precious hours spent mobilizing the task force monitoring the kidnapping case out to this part of New York. Nearby State Patrol who had arrived first were combing the roads, looking for the cabin based on the descriptions gathered from those who'd seen it through Ames' eyes, and were yet to find it or a young girl near the roads.
The sun is getting low now as the agents near the town of Ohio, waiting for another check-in on Ames' location to come through by secure phone. They don't know if she's heading toward any of the small, some-abandoned towns in the area… or if she's headed deeper into the wilderness which stretches for dozens of miles, with very few roads serving as connective tissue between them.
«As soon as we know what direction to send them, I've got the drones online and ready to go. The SPOTs will take about three minutes to be ready to go wherever we stop.» Hart's voice comes across the radio, nerves bringing tension to her voice. «Still waiting for the call,» she adds before the radio goes silent again.
The wait to get enough information to move on and get her team moving has been excruciating to the police lieutenant geared up in the seat of the car. For a woman who was never in the US military, Elisabeth has been in more combat zones than she cares to remember. This time, at least, is one of the few that she feels adequately armed and prepped for. Body armor, radios, helmets. Weapons – sonic, ballistic, and SLC-E alike. Drones. SPOTs.
It doesn't mean there is no disquiet in her mind. Her Captain wasn't thrilled she was taking point out here beyond the Zone, though the State Police were happy to have her team. Elisabeth herself is uneasy not because she doesn't have faith in the team that's out here but because… it is only the second live deployment she's taken a group of young Lighthouse-raised and -trained operatives into on the field along with her more experienced officers, and the first time did NOT go well on that bridge. She is worried about not only the safety and acquisition of Ames Burgess-Tracy but also the safety of her officers and agents.
«"Acknowledged,"» Liz replies into the radio. «"Everyone be locked and loaded just in case we run into trouble. Assuming they're making any attempt to find her, we could run into resistance from Pure Earth."» That map did not indicate what exactly that group might be actually doing in this town of Ohio, New York. She doesn't feel the need to warn any of them not to shoot the child they're seeking – they're all trained professionals out here. Theoretically.
A glance goes sideways to the extremely tall woman next to her. Huruma's presence is actually a calming one for the blonde, her tracking and other skills well suited to the task at hand once they have some kind of starting point, whether the cabin or a sign of Ames in the wild. But her range is also not unlimited, so Elisabeth is not expecting miracles out of Huruma. "She won't freeze out here overnight," it's July after all, "but I'm worried if she holes up – which is the smart move – we might not get a good bead on her tonight."
The strain in her voice is subtle, but the anxiety, worry, and determination coming off the peacekeeper is perfectly clear to the empath.
Erin Gordon, in the left back seat of the vehicle, is quiet. The riot gear, indeed, has been well-lived-in recently. Vaguely, she thinks it could use a bit more of a clean than it had been given, the cursory brush-off of smoke and carrion and a quick rinse (relative to the situation, anyway) of the under fabric to kill lingering bacteria. Nobody wants giardia, nobody wants cholera, nobody wants a weird and yeasty skin rash. But clearly an amount of bacteria is still there, somewhere, because she can smell her own nervous sweat coming up through the stiff neck of her vest. Maybe it will help in the woods. The scents of fabric softener named vaguely for concepts rather than proper nouns, things like cotton rain or fresh something or another … that would be a dead giveaway in this wettish forest terrain, would stand out among the savory sweetness of soft, rotten bark and the discarded leftovers of those who hunt for trophy and sport rather than sustenance. It’s big in this area, she understands. Have the hunters been warned to stay away? Deer or trout season be damned by the calendar, there still might be bystanders in these woods.
She feels eerie, unsettled, but not for her own body odor – no, it’s for the extraordinarily odd sense of deja vu Erin perceives. All people have, at some time, experienced the sensation of having lived or dreamed or seen a place before, but relatively few have lived actually, certifiably, provably seeing it through someone else’s eyes. It is hope to know that they may be on the right track, but the sugar maples and balsam spruces tend to blur together after a while.
Meanwhile, over in the back of the vehicle ferrying the SESA contingent, Junior Agent Geneva Stevenson is having difficulty containing her slowly-mounting impatience. The weight of her AEGIS combat armor sits uncomfortably on her stout frame, the fitted, high-tech plating abrading the curves of her shoulders and neck mostly from her own excessive tension.
As the ride goes on, and on, the armor is turning into the world's most state-of-the-art sweat locker - and inside, Gene is busily marinating a fine brine of sweat, pessimism, and increasingly-virulent thoughts. A faint aura of sour heat shimmers off of her from her Expressive ability - subtle enough that it isn't overt, but eventually, it is pervasive enough to raise the temperature inside the vehicle by a whole degree or two.
Gene has never been any good whatsoever at concealing her stress of her emotions, even when she isn't even saying anything.
Maybe especially when she isn't saying anything.
«"Ha. The kinda scum we're dealing with? There's no way we won't run into trouble. Calling it,"» Gene finally growls quietly into the radio, scanning the darkness of the treeline through the window right beside her. It's a prediction which she honestly isn't sure whether she wants to come true or not.
For the fifteenth time that day, Lance considered pulling off the helmet he was wearing; it was stifling and heavy just like the rest of the AEGIS gear he was wearing, but the comm gear was built into it and he’d been threatened with worse than death if Nicole heard a report that he wasn’t wearing every inch of the kit that he’d been assigned for the operation.
Something something something just got out of the hospital after getting shot.
«”We’re lucky she doesn’t have the sort of training we did at her age,”» Lance quips over the radio, «”We’d never find her out there. I’d lay odds that she’d head for a population center, but not the closest to where she was. If I were her, I’d suspect that the nearest town was rac– Pure Earth-friendly. That’s just my bet, though.”»
He shoots a sympathetic look over to Geneva, flashing her a smile that he tries to make reassuring. ”Don’t worry,” he offers in the vehicle,”We got the better of these guys back in the day and they’re no better than they were then. We are.”
Huruma isn't the one who wants to say that Ames is in more danger out of enemy hands; at least there, they knew she was safely in one location, with people who would be unlikely to hurt her. Now, however, she's a risk to them, and who knows who will find her first. Then again, this is a child she knows. A hound pup, so to speak. Not your average little one, that much is for certain. These and other errant thoughts some back around as Huruma hears Elisabeth's voice at her side, the world outside of the AEGIS helm coming back into fuller focus, empathic sensing drawing somewhat back. The Hound sits straight, hands on her thighs and eyes ahead, a soft sound of affirmation for Liz.
As long as Ames sticks to what she knows to do in bad situations, the smoothness of this quest won't be quite as relative.
«"Lance."» Huruma's tone is familiar, that faint admonishment, «"Please reconsider your jinxes. These people have destroyed just as much with just as little– it is better to believe that they are not quite as ill-prepared.» There is a lack of scorn here, instead coming along as a lesson might. Always overkill, kiddo.
«"How much further?"»
Hailey’s been relatively silent through the ride, solemn and concentrating on the job ahead. Her two dogs stoic and at attention due to her concentration, haven’t laid down on the floor at all this entire trip. “She’ll be fine,” she answers the LT with an uncommon strength of belief in her tone. ”CHiPs and PeePee will find her, they’re the best dogs in the entire force.”
She did take her helmet off, thinking it useless while they were riding. Knowing which one of the armored agents is her brother, she gives him a slight upticked nod and says, “Do you think they got this stuff at a batman sale? I mean… except for the missing nipples, we all look pretty spot on, don’t you think?”
The waiting. That has always been the worst part of it all. The waiting. Sitting and doing what feels like nothing, just being ready to move. It is agony when you’re a person of action. Joseph Winters is not a person who sits idly by very well, despite how much of his life has been spent doing just that. Waiting for the danger and the chaos. To lose people. Not today though. Not if they can help it. Joe isn’t talkative. He’s not chattering away, smiling or joking. Joe is in action mode. Focused, quiet and alert. Balanced on that knife’s edge that life has made so familiar to him. When Liz tells them to be locked and loaded he doesn’t need to check his firearm. Weapons are second nature. He knows the exact condition of his sidearm. As well as the other weapons he has tucked away on his person.
«”We have the best chance of finding her out of anyone else out here.”» Joe’s voice is level, though the tension is unmistakable beneath the forced calm.His shoulders roll a little bit under his armor, the weight of it still not entirely familiar to him. He’s not used to wearing armor of any kind really. «”We know how to fend for ourselves in the deep woods though. We’d know they represent safety until you can find a small population center well away from where you were.”» He speaks up again, acknowledging Lance’s comments on their training. Huruma’s voice brings a bit of an ease to the underlying tension for Joe. Aunt Stork and Aunt Liz are both there.The kids are not kids anymore. They’re trained professionals. Well. Mostly. Hailey’s bat nipple comments breaks Joe’s stoicness for a few moments, a snort of a laugh escaping him despite the direness of the situation.
The moment of levity fades though and Joe lets out a slow and tired sigh. «”The waiting is always the worst.”»
The road has been long to this point. There's been hours of waiting up until this point. Buildings begin to zip past as the cars roll through and past the little town of Ohio. The tech van is the only one that pulls off to meet with the state troopers who were on scene first, who have been trying to pry potential information out of the locals over the last hour or so.
Their local radios don't come to life when Hart makes the call back to the Safe Zone to let them know they've arrived in the area, when Peyton Whitney focuses her ability to give them critical hints that might give them the upper hand in the search…
Meanwhile
It's getting darker, dark enough it's hard to see through the density of the trees. For this reason alone– and the lack of flashlight she was able to grab in her haste– Ames doesn't immediately turn tail back into the woods when the twilight brightens owing to coming up on a road.
Hunched down in the woods not quite as low as she thinks she is, she looks up and down the road, then across it. Doesn't see any cars, so maybe it's safe, and she inches a bit closer toward the steep decline down toward the roadside.
She's come up very close to an intersection with a bridge that goes over water… but she looks beyond the trees by the intersection, sees a house hidden among them, and reconsiders. Her head turns at the sound of something like shouting in the distance.
Meanwhile
«She's near a road right now,» Hart's voice comes over the radio almost excitedly despite her tempered calm to make sure she speaks clearly. «It's by a bridge over a creek. There's a house on the corner by the bridge. She took off back into the woods, appeared to be heading north. Almost positive this puts her north out of town. Sending you pins as soon as I take a closer look at the map to confirm possibles.»
«Be advised, we overheard sounds of others calling out for her when we checked in.»
Elisabeth glances at their location on GPS, pulling off to the side of the road to double check things. Their location is pretty well wooded and the road twists, traveling next to and over the creek for a bit of distance. Her father has a cabin a ways even further north than this and for good reason – this region is a good place to hide. With the report of voices that Ames can hear chasing her, the urgency to locate the girl is ratcheting up even higher.
"We're here. If she's along the creek, that's here. If she's near a bridge, the road crossings here, here, and here are where we start. I'll get out with a team here at this bridge, and you take a team up to the farthest one at the trailhead?" she suggests to Huruma. "Gerk–" Damn it. She has two of them. "Officers Gerken, Winters, and Gordon are with me – we'll get out here," she points, "and take the dogs to keep moving north along the creek. Huruma, you take Agents Gerken and Stevenson, start from the northernmost crossing near the Ledge Mountain trailhead and we'll work our way toward one another?"
She is mentally taking inventory of what abilities are at play in this group and trying to make sure there's at least one person Ames will be familiar with in each group. Not to mention at least one fully trained LEO with the newer official operatives in the vehicle. As she starts the car back into motion to carry them up to the next overpass of the creek, she asks, "«Hart, is the drone going to be able to pick her up in the dark?»"
«We might get some false positives with the IR, but we'll be able to sort that out pretty quick,» Hart sounds confident. «We're leaving the tavern now, heading up that way to deploy closer. There's a good chance if a group is looking for her already, we'll see at least them.»
Knowing Ames was near, it could be a matter of minutes to catch up to her or lose her all over again in the forests north of the creek.
Splitting up to cover more ground could give them the edge they need.
Once they're on the ground and the other team has pulled away, Elisabeth looks at her team with a strained expression. "Hailey, give the dogs the scent and let's see if they can bring us to her, okay? Spread out but stay within eyeshot. I'm going to seek as far out from us as I can to see if I can hear the others in the woods. If we can find the ones she can hear, we'll know we're close. Erin, Joe, do this like we would do for a potentially injured hiker – check beneath shrubs, inside hidey holes, watch for small crevices where she might scoot in to be invisible. She's scared, and if she thinks they're getting too close, her instinct will be to hide."
God knows, Elisabeth has enough experience with a terrified six-year-old and what they do to try to evade monsters.
“10-4,” Erin affirms. “I just hope we have the right creek. This place is all creek. I think they actually call it ‘crick’ here.”
She gets out of the vehicle, holster unlatched but weapon still within - she wants ease of access, but also not to scare a child by putting a barrel in its face - and proceeds to the ditch on the side of the road, kneeling on one knee within to get a better vantage from the wet trench into the moss and mushrooms at closer to eye level.
Back on the radio, as the group begins to fan out, she asks generally, «Do we have anything on where Pure Earthers might be right now? Last knowns? Specifics?»
And off the radio again, before Liz leaves earshot, “Lieutenant, I just realized, you might want to instruct them to check the ledger at the trailhead. We don’t know how many people might still be camping out here who might be in danger if Pure Earth does something crazy.”
The noise Hailey makes as she puts her helmet on is nothing short of derisive when the mention of drones picking Ames up is mentioned. “Alright boys, it’s competition time,” she says to her dogs as she pulls her helmet on. Taking a knee in front of them, she places a hand on each of their necks as she pulls them into a huddle. The two dogs lean their foreheads on her helmet as she speaks to them. “This is going to be tough,” she says, in her best coach voice. “We’ve got a drone and a whole team of bad guys to beat to the prize. I know you can beat a drone, no matter what kind of fancy equipment it has, your noses are better. When you find her, you’re going to have to be in full guard because that other team will not hesitate to try to take us out.” Pulling a well loved stuffed animal from her backpack, she brings it to the noses of her canine team and utters the commands, “Find her, guard her.”
The German Shepherds' noses hover over every bit of the toy, sometimes even smooshing into it as they take in the scent. When the huddle breaks, CHiPs trains his head downward, sniffing the ground, then lets off two short barks before they both take off at a run with Hailey not far behind them. «They didn’t find anything here, we’re going up ahead,» it’s almost as if Hailey didn’t hear the command to stay in eyesight… or she can’t, because the dogs are on task.
When the call to action comes Joe is ready. He's been ready. He stands, coiled tight as Liz lays out their plan and who is with who. Once they're moving though the tension eases quite a bit from him, training setting in and forcing him to relax for looser movement, head settling on an alert swivel, taking in every bit of detail he can about their surroundings. He looks over as the other group pulls away. "I almost feel sorry for whoever we find in these woods." His voice is soft, not much more than a murmur. Both groups are filled with incredibly deadly people. Incredibly angry, deadly people.
Liz's instructions on how to look for scared children earns a soft snort of a laugh from him. He couldn't help himself. Despite the situation there is at least that moment of surprised amusement from him. He grew up rounding up and wrangling children. Should Liz happen to look back at him she will see a raised eyebrow and a smirk on his lips, though the amusement fades within a moment or two, his features settling back into neutrality as his attention focuses fully back on their search. Minus the couple of sidelong glances towards the German Shepherds until they get a bit of distance between him and them. He knows they're safe. They're Hailey's. Still.
"We also need to be worried about them taking hostages if they realize we're close and on the hunt. Scum like that won't hesitate to use innocent lives to protect themselves. Plus anything else they might try." Joe has no hesitation about getting down and moving through the muck and the underbrush, checking under any thicker bushes before he'll move past. Every nook and cranny, especially the low ones, the small ones. The ones adults don't think to look. The little hiding places that you learn when you're small and live in constant danger.
Meanwhile
There is something sentimental about an excursion into the wilderness, however much wild it is. It goes back long before the younger ones she is with were even twinkles. It's a bitter sentimentality.
But when it comes to it, an incredibly useful one time after time- - and something tells her that the quarry today has at least some inkling of getting around.
"If she knows better she will stay away from the road." Huruma slides from the truck with the lightest step manageable, mind elsewhere as she pauses to go over her field of influence. The tide doesn't bring anything back for now, though it keeps a fair reach as the empath turns to her companions. "And if we find Hum- - Earthers," She even corrects herself, but of course she still says it as if about to spit- - "Do what you feel is necessary."
“Acknowledged.” Lance shifts the weight of the armor he’s wearing, the vest re-settling as he hops down from the truck. His ability flickers to unseen life for just long enough to silence the rattle of impact.
“I can keep a one-way silence field up around us, we’ll be able to hear in but nobody’ll be able to hear us, except over the radio - let me know if you need me to drop it, codeword is yelp. They reported hearing people shouting for her, which means that if we find the people searching for her – we’ll be getting close to her. Suggest we move along the creek, keeping on the north side until we find that bridge that was spotted.”
He double-checks his pistol, ensures the safety’s on and magazine is secure, then slides it into the underarm holster. His ‘aunt’ is flashed a quick smile, eyebrows lifting, “Don’t worry, we won’t kill anyone unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Absolutely necessary may have a different definition for child soldiers than most people. Let’s hope that they’re using the SESA definition.
One last swirl of unnatural heat chaperones Geneva's exit from the truck, flowing from her limbs as though desperate for escape from the vehicle's confines before dissipating into the cooler air of the evening. She breathes that air in deeply, both her booted feet dropping down onto the grass at the same time.
"Got it, and yeah. Just, careful 'round the creek bed. Footing can be a real bitch even when it's bright." The last thing Ames needs is one of them slipping on damp rocks and tumbling in. Gene pats her own holstered pistol without looking at it, a mental reminder that it's been double-checked and secured before sliding her hands away to keep them free. Huruma also receives a split-second easy smile— it's much the same expression as Lance's, in a way that is either unsettling or endearing.
"Only necessary measures for the Earthers. No arguments here.”
Meanwhile
"Ames!" Gregory Tracy calls through the forest, his voice hoarse from how much he's done this now. He walks with a rifle by his side, a camouflaged vest shrugged over his working shirt, sleeves of which are rolled to his elbow. He continues to scan the horizon in all directions. "Come on, sunshine, it's dinnertime. Let's go home, all right?"
Still no answer. His eyes flicker closed as he tries to summon patience. At his side, his wife looks just as worried. Barb pulls out the flashlight attached to her pack she has with her, having been intent on bringing a first aid kit in the event it was needed, among some other things.
Gregory aims his steps to cross with one of the others out here searching, someone who has a radio. "Anyone see her?" he asks, an edge of tense hope in his voice.
The bearded, husky man shakes his head. "No… and I'm not sure how much longer we should keep looking. On top of the sun going down, the cabin radio'd and said there were staties down at the Tavern earlier, asking people if they've seen the girl. Depending who says what, we might just need to go, period."
Barb's eyes widen and dart to her husband, whose emotions are less immediately apparent on hearing this news.
Meanwhile
A reply to Erin's question doesn't take long, at least. «We haven't been able to find the cabin yet, believe the drive for it might be hidden. Probably on purpose. I took off from the tavern before getting a full report from Patrol, let me doublecheck their interviews didn't have any gems we can dig into.»
They know from what's been told that it's unlikely Ames went toward town. The SCOUT officers accordingly are able to angle themselves away from the houses along Route 8 and head north into the trees anyway. With scent from Ames' stuffed toy to help guide them, Hailey's dogs set about scenting. There's nothing for them to find yet, but their journey into the treeline has only just begun. They move ahead quickly and eagerly, hardly lifting their heads.
With her ability, Elisabeth is able to hear that it doesn't yet sound like there's much out here other than them. There certainly are the occasional movements in the brush– wisps in the air as much as the scattering of branches– but they sound as though they belong to animals disturbed by the voices heading their way, from them maneuvering away from the sounds. There's an alertness Hailey is able to pick up on from any she happens to be near before they relocate, but nothing like danger– nothing like fleeing.
Joe's search yields plenty of places that Ames could be hiding, but none with signs of her. Though he gradually begins to lag behind the group in his more thorough search, he does see with clarity something no one else in the group does: a lack of distinct prints or dust-up that indicates Ames has been through here. That might not be the case for long, though, depending on how fast they move.
Hailey runs along behind the dogs, keeping an easy visual on them due to the bright white NYPD on the dark bullet proof vests they wear. Every once in a while she pauses, concentrating on the outer limit of her sensory radius for animals on high alert, not because of her or her dogs. She doesn’t bother calling the dogs to heel, they’re doing their jobs and don’t need the hindrance of staying with the pack.
«Nothing yet,» she radios back, «I’ll check in every couple of minutes unless we find something.»
No sense in panicking the Lieutenant too much. Breaking into a run, Hailey zips ahead to catch her dogs. Not that she could lose them, but she would rather have her eyes on them than off.
She cuts the radio until…
«Hey Gene, Lance, and Joe! Last one to find her has to do dishes for a week.»
Elisabeth wishes there were some better landmarks in all this, but she holds on to her calm. They are close. They have to be. And once they get a bit close and can pinpoint her, Ames will be home safe with her mother.
Tuning out the sound of the radio, the sound of voices, the sound of the water tumbling… eliminating from her own perception the noise from within 10 yards of herself like the noise of the dogs and their own footsteps, Liz works on narrowing in on the natural sounds of the woods. Hopefully from there extrapolating up ahead of them what sounds don't belong. It takes some focus; she's trying to keep her attention on specific directions and types of sounds while trying to winnow out the others.
It's a lot. And there are a lot of sounds. She can only hope that she won't miss something important. C'mon, Ames… you got this far, baby. Help us find you.
Satisfied with a lack of Ames at eye level from the ditch, Erin climbs out and starts heading northwest. She can’t be sure what she is looking for with regards to the missing child, but she has a good sense that she’ll be able to tell when an overturned rock is just a rock - although, just in case, she also turns on her ability at a low level. She can feel the rocks, can feel the trees, can feel the brush, by their density; anything as complicated as an animal stands out like a mess of bright orange balled-up yarn in a knitting bag full of blacks and blues, in that it is a void in her understanding. She cannot tell what they are, only that they are, and right now, it seems like a lot of dirt and a lot of minerals and a lot of skittering groundhogs.
For Joe the Wilderness once held nothing but danger and fear. There were not any fond memories of the wilds before Canada and safety. Now it's a second home. Their time in Canada was well spent. Joe picks his way through the foliage and terrain with quick sure movements, ducking down low to check all the little hollows and spaces he would have thought to hide when he was little. It takes him a bit to realize the oddity with the lack of prints as he picks through the undergrowth. «She's been here. I think. That or someone else that knows to cover their tracks has been through here.»
«Hey! That wasn't an agreed upon bet. Not sure I want to take that one with the dogs on your side.» Joe's attention is not on the conversation so it took him a few moments after hearing it to process. "Hoping this is you and you're covering your tracks." He looks around at the underbrush around them before he slips through the woods in pursuit of the rest of the group, trying to catch up with them without missing too much in his search. «We remember being small. Think small again. Think of the places we would have hid. All the nooks and crannies we didn't think the adults would look.» To his credit the kids got REALLY good at hiding from the adults for one reason or another.
Farther down the road, the bridge that goes over the water appears almost abruptly in the corner of Huruma's vision, but it's right where it should be– and so is the house jutting up right against the crossing. Those still in the NYPD vehicle can immediately turn left to see the small ridge out of the woods where Ames must have been perching only minutes ago.
They were on the right path for sure. Just a matter of closing the loop now, not just to find Ames, but the others searching for her, too.
The truck has barely slowed before Huruma is already sliding out, preemptive with her hunt. Adjusting and setting the armor's helm is habitual, a memorized set of tweaks to keep it firmly in place and shift the contrast of her vision. The impression of a mechanical soldier may be unsettling to some— but never the ones at her heels.
"I will be on the ground from here," Huruma turns her head back to today's comrades, chin jerking towards the scene ahead on the road and voice smooth. "Radio from the truck or boots down, your choice if you have no other order."
Gene, who has already been on the ground for some minutes now, only shrugs very briefly in response when Huruma looks back at them. Others might choose to turn back and wait in the vehicle, but she harbors no such intentions. She is sure that least Lance doesn't, either.
"Nah, think we're all with you, Big H. I ain't doing no dishes tonight, fuck that."
“She’d be avoiding vehicles, probably,” Lance observes, right behind Huruma; to the ground, steadying himself a moment before following at a quick stride. He’s mostly recovered, enough to be in the field, but he’s probably not absolutely 100 percent yet.
“Might be worth a quick check around the bridge,” he notes, “She may not have crossed the bridge itself, so if she tore any clothes or left any traces…”
The aforementioned silence field whispers into existence, unseen and unheard, the only sign of its presence the lack of any noise from the three from the viewpoint of those outside its protection. “Silence screen up, by the way. We could scream all day and nobody’d hear us. Let me know if you need me to drop it.”
The other group to the west doesn't have that tight-knit presence to have a similar benefit. Hailey's dogs, well-trained and determined, wander and sniff, letting their nose guide them as they angle their way north. Hailey on their heels can feel when one of them takes on excitement, and the rest of the western half of the search party can hear it as the hound bellows once to announce his find and then begins to veer toward the left.
Joe's search in the smaller places finds nature mostly, and an unfortunate abandonment of old beer cans below a tree with a precariously-placed hunting blind halfway up it. Wooden slats nailed to the tree serve as the ladder to rise up to the metal driven into it to serve as a perch. Behind the youths who've charged ahead, Erin and Elisabeth provide eyes and ears from the rear, able to get a wider view of the scene as it unfolds.
In the direction the dogs are veering, Erin can see a sudden shock of birds that have taken flight, visible through the gaps in the trees– heading their way and past. Hailey picks up on the feeling carried in them as they fly: alarm, startlement. Elisabeth's head is turned by the faint sound of shouting, coming from a different direction– north and east.
Into her comms so that both teams can hear her, Elisabeth reports to both teams, «I’m picking up the sound of someone shouting north and perhaps slightly east of my position. Hailey, redirect the dogs that direction unless they’ve picked up a scent. Keep your heads on a swivel, though! If her grandparents and their friends are out here looking, they may shoot first and ask questions later.»
Altering her own footsteps to angle more toward the voices she’s picking up, she requests, «Hart, if we can get one more check-in on Ames and perhaps get a determination of how far she is from the voices, that might help too. I don’t know if the ones I’m detecting are actually the people looking for her, but all other things being equal it seems a reasonable assumption to make unless or until the dogs get a scent or one of us trips over her.»
«We have something to the West, going to check it out,» Hailey answers before mentally tuning out the rest of the human population in the area. The dogs are headed toward the flight of birds and as she gets closer, her anxiety deepens.
Slowly, she reaches to her side and removes the firearm from its holster, flicked the safety off. Flitting her attention to the sky, she watches the avian creatures swirl through the air before they disappear from view. Whatever it is that frightened them, whatever it is the dogs picked up, it's not a child.
Everything happening quickly, all at once, Erin notes that Joe seems to be as a hunting dog on the trail, one step shy of a pointer with nose and foot, and the rustle of birds heading away from the direction in which they head. That’s definitely a sign of something, even if it is unclear exactly what; the voices are not audible from her vantage.
«Winters, you got something there? Do you need backup?»
Joe isn't an animal person. He never really has been, but even he can recognize the bellow of pursuit that Hailey's hound gives off, his head turning to regard that direction for a moment, his hand busy sifting through the detritus under the tree, looking for any sign that the youngster may have found the same set of stuff to look through. After just a couple of moments though Joe instead resolves to climb up the tree, booted feet taking the slats probably a bit too quickly considering their haphazard construction. «Climbing up into this hunter's blind to see if I can spot anything of note.» He would have climbed up to the blind to get a good look around himself when he was younger, maybe she did too. Maybe she saw something that could help him in their search, a location or something.
The explosion of birds snags his attention as he finishes his climb, eyes flickering out through the trees towards the source of the disturbance. Joe's hands twitch a little bit, itching to go for one of the weapons secreted around his person, or one of the more visible and obvious ones. Weapons are never far from hand. Ever. When Hailey mentions that she's going west to check out a disturbance over there he turns his head around, trying to get an idea for his field of vision from up here. «I don't think I have anything here.» His voice isn't frustrated or impatient. He knows that hunts take time. Whether you're searching for a friend to rescue, or an enemy to deal with, hunting takes time. «I'll call the moment I think I do have anything. She's one of us. She's coming home safe.» Or the people that took her will regret every second they have left with the combined wrath that will come down on them from the hunting parties.
From his perch, Joe can hear the call of crows as they speed overhead and away. His new vantage doesn't grant immediate sight, but it does allow him to keep a view of both fragments of their party as they seem to split— Elisabeth in one direction, Hailey and the dogs in the other. From here, he can see what's to come.
For better or worse.
Meanwhile
The instincts of the former Lighthouse Children in the other half of the search party likewise drive them to places they're better in luck to find an elusive child. Lance's bubble keeps them from being overheard by anyone outside its radius, leaving him, Geneva, and Huruma to move quickly into the forest north of the road, climbing over an embankment and then heading north. First up over it in her eagerness to not catch dish duty, Geneva is the first to be able to spot disturbed surfaces of softened sod where footsteps— small— came, settled, then moved on again in a slightly different direction.
Ames had been here, and they had her trail.
From there, the three of them are able to press on. Huruma's senses don't ping anything other than those she came with for a while yet. But then—
"—mes!" Faintly, they can hear a call that quickly becomes clearer. Feminine, worried. "Ames, honey, it's time to head on back."
There's an additional voice that calls out for the missing child, too, by name only and without as much sweetness to the tone. Masculine, deeper, almost sounding like a warning.
Huruma feels nothing on her proverbial radar as far as those two voices and anyone potentially with them. But she does pick up something ahead and to the right, a little east more than north. Tiredness, irritatedness, steadfast certainty. It doesn't feel like righteous indignation or otherwise feel like one of the searchers. There's a ripple in the signature's emotional state, wobbling for a moment after a spike of not-quite-panic. Along with it comes the sound of shifting detritus on a slope— traces of last year's leaves not entirely decomposed making for a slick foothold. Afterward comes the scuffle of feet on harder ground, more distant than before.
To hear it, they had to be within hundreds of feet. Ahead lies the crest of the plateau they're on, and the slope below it, likely to have someone on it.
Huruma is more keen on letting the younger duo get ahead of her, allowing her the seconds for keeping an ear to the landscape around them. It keeps her out of the way for those who have arguably more in common with the runaway to be able to first find those little clues that kids like them leave behind. Huruma will give it a cursory inspection, but she trusts the process.
Silent as the calls echo faintly through woodland, Huruma angles her attention briefly skyward to assess distance. The triangulation of the third ping not far from them is automatic, like the electrodes of a shark. Raising a fist to Lance and Geneva for a 'stop', it comes just at the same time as leaves shift and dirt scuffs out ahead. She stays back and instead ushers out a, "Two nearing in… Lance," and a single gesture for him to move quickly on ahead- - he's the quiet one, after all.
The familiar gesture brings Lance to a halt, freezing in his tracks; one hand sliding to his still-holstered pistol, though he doesn’t draw it just yet. The order gets a quick nod, and he murmurs as he starts to move forward, “—keep quiet, once I’m clear of you the bubble won’t be shielding you.”
The gesture’s followed in the direction of that slide down a slope; he keeps low and moves fast, calling back on training originally given to him in the wilderness of Canada. Not too much different than this. More snow usually. As he moves, he touches his headset, radioing, « We’re hearing someone calling for Ames. Confirm if we have another search team in our quadrant or not? »
Within the silence of the bubble, Hart's voice comes back after a moment, «We… I'm checking now with the local enforcement. Hold on.»
Geneva's tracking ahead of Lance finds more footprints, ones that spread farther apart from each other right up until the ledge ahead. She stays within range of his bubble, ultimately, granting the two the ability to still speak to each other. Geneva is first to the ledge where mud bunches and slips, Lance only a moment after.
«They didn't send anyone out that way,» Hart reports back.
Down below, hazel eyes at the bottom of a slope finish looking down to check a scraped leg, and then look back up to judge how far they've fallen only to find two sets of other eyes instead.
Ames' posture tenses as she rockets off the ground and takes off at an unsteady, ungraceful, absolutely determined run away from the unknown faces. Up on the bluff above, Huruma can hear the call of one of the searchers again— this time, only the woman's voice.
"Ames? Honey?"
With it comes the first prickling ping of absolutely ferocious worry and regret, perched on the razor's edge of cornered fear.
Meanwhile
Short barks call out the hounds' success to those it wasn't apparent to, a success that only one of the dogs takes pause at as they look up to give the birds going by a second thought, but even they continue forward a moment later, snuffling and checking on.
The dog farthest from Hailey abruptly stops, though, at attention. Their posture changes, head arcing up, ears pricked as a primal sense of danger runs under their skin, rippling the back of their neck, pulling back the curl of their lip. They can sense something's wrong, even if they can't see it just yet— only hear something that's set them on edge. It's a something that Joe can see in short order— something that stands out even in the growing shadows.
Pinpricks of red light, speeding in a sprint that goes straight past the first of the dogs, even as they snarl and snap at them— heading in a beeline for Hailey. The fading sun glints off of the metal beast's rusting steel, and servos practically grind rather than whine as the Hunter barrels toward Hailey.
That the wicked syringe that normally hangs from its lower jaw is long-broken might be of some comfort… but the claws and ridges along the Hunter's frame along with its sabretooth skull frame, fangs and all, certainly still pose plenty of threat.
There are so fucking many FUCKS in this moment. Hailey says she's going west instead of east, Joe is up a tree with Erin near him, and even as Elisabeth turns to listen in Hailey's direction she catches the sound of servos only a split second before the Hunter is bounding at her young officer!
«HUNTER!!»
The warning is one word laden with alarm. AEGIS armor is good, but in this moment Elisabeth misses the military-grade Horizon armor for its hydraulics. She starts running, hoping against hope that she can flank the thing. It's in bad enough shape, maybe she can rattle some parts loose. In the meantime, she can't fire at the thing because Hailey is between her and it. «Gerken, run!!»
The birds aren’t the first thing to leave Joe with a sense of unease, they only deepen it further as he watches them fly away as quickly as possible. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this.” They were trained and they were trained well. They know these kinds of woods. They hunted in these kinds of woods and know the way animals move when they are panicked.
His eyes track between both of the parties watching them make their way deeper into the woods. «I have a good overwatch position here Lieutenant.» Too bad he doesn’t have something heavier on him than his pistol. When Liz calls out Hunter Joe feels his blood run cold and his heart skip a beat. “No.”
There is no hesitation from him at all as he jumps from the tree straight to the ground. Joe turns the drop into a forward roll, relying on his skin to absorb the impact as his momentum brings him up and running. He will look back to make sure Erin is with him. He won’t stop, not with a Hunter after Hailey, but he does check.
As he’s running his hands move over his person checking to make sure his gun survived in its holster and it remains snapped. Hands check a couple of other spots as well to make sure hidden weapons are still in place as well. Not that his hidden knives are going to do much against a Hunter.
“Shitting fucking ass shit fuck,” Erin says, matter-of-factly, following Joe a short distance before dropping to one knee behind a tree with her weapon out and attempting to track the Hunter, knowing the best she can do if it’s after Hailey is make any attempt to shoot the shit out of it until it goes down. Maybe hit a sensitive joint or an optical element. It won’t be much, but it’s better than getting in the way and making things worse.
«I’m on backup. Positioned and looking out for more. Fucking ass hell tit bird.»
The dog-like Hunter bot continues to sprint toward Hailey, and there's every instinct one might have to simply lock up in that moment. But Hailey has more than that– she has training, both conducted in woods just like these, and with the police force she now represents. The fear carried in the fleeing birds is at a distance now, and as her feet skid in the dirt and leaves when she puts a halt to her forward run toward her dogs, she scrabbles back, hands on the ground to help propel her away.
"CHiPS, PeePee, heel!" Hailey screams out, hoping they'll heed her and stay out of this thing's very dangerous way. It's a relief it didn't clock either of the hounds as a danger, but she would be devastated if it did. She fires once with her drawn weapon, metal plinking against metal as the Hunter barrels toward her. As soon as she sees Joe jump down from the tree, she angles herself in his direction. "Joe!" If she's lucky, maybe as it chases her down, it'll take interest in the invincible him. And if not, well…
Those of the Lighthouse have always fared better together than apart.
Meanwhile
On the edge of Huruma's awareness where she pinpoints the woman calling out, she sees a shock of blonde emerge between the trees– a slightly older than middle-aged woman stepping out, one hand cupped around her mouth. She's dressed down in capri pants, a brightly-colored shirt with short, ruffled sleeves.
At the bottom of the bluff, Ames stumbles as she tries to run through growth, but she's determined to not be caught. She doesn't even spare a look behind her to catch better sight of Lance and Geneva to even register that they might not be with the people she's fleeing from, she just determinedly barrels further into wild in the hopes of losing them.
Huruma's read on the situation is kept up only by responses from the others— she can still hear the woman's voice calling in tandem with the cries of hunter in her receiver. She's closer to the retreating Ames than she is to It. The woman in her street clothes isn't someone she's ultimately concerned for, unfortunately. Or perhaps fortunately.
"«Keep it busy. We're right behind her.»"
The sooner they get Ames, the sooner it's over. Purportedly.
To Lance and Geneva, Huruma gives a brief and harried word. "I'll go to the side. Follow her." They all know how a pack hunt works. Huruma doesn't wait long before stepping out of sight and allowing her empathic field to lead her nose through wilderness. It's like reminiscing.
Lance’s eyes widen at the sight of Ames, but before he can say anything– she’s spooked and running. He’s already moving towards the ledge when Huruma gives her orders, anticipating them ahead of time. Two to fulfill the objective, one to distract or engage the other hunter – especially when the one is as deadly as Huruma.
A quick hop, and he’s skidding down the slope, one hand grabbing at mud and roots to slow his descent– and he hits the bottom at a stumbling stagger, catching himself after a moment and pausing for a breath to re-orient himself and think through his options quickly.
She knows him, but the chances of her pausing long enough to recognize him in her current state of mind - especially with him armed, in a vest and a helmet, hardly the casual clothes she’d seen him with at the Lanthorn - are virtually nil. She’s small, quick, and kids can be exceptionally elusive, especially kids raised by paranoiacs. He knows, he was one not too long ago. If they just kept chasing her, depending on how hurt she was, she might elude them again - and they couldn’t afford that.
A decision made in a split second, his silence field dropping as he moves through the brush in pursuit of the girl. He draws in a breath, and calls out, risking revealing his location to the other searchers: “Ames! Booger burger! Booger burger!”
Because of course there was a password set up. Wright and Elliot let her pick it out herself!
Ames trips, arms pinwheeling as she goes to recover, and she manages not to fall. She manages to calm her rabbiting heart long enough to look back. Her brain tries to catch up with what her eyes can see - the sight of Lance and Geneva heading down the hill to her, recognition of both of them dawning but not quite yet risen. Her eyes go up to the top of the bluff, though, and she recognizes Huruma instantly.
Her eyes widen and she starts to turn back in earnest, a dazed look on her face. "I don't care if the whole Safe Zone burned down," she yells out, in a way that sounds automatic – like she's said it and felt it enough that it's subconscious for her. "I want to go back. I want to see my mom!"
"I want to–" Her voice breaks, and she breaks into a full-tilt run again, this time directly toward Lance and toward safety as she tries not to cry.
The bloom of worry on Huruma's periphery profounds itself into grief and regret. The woman distant in the trees clasps a hand over her mouth, torn between wanting what's best for Ames and what's best for Ames. Thinking better, in the end, of exposing herself and thinking she's not been sighted, she wars with herself and ultimately begins treading back the way she came.
Between listening to Ames' cry to her and surveying the path the youths take, Huruma angles a half-look away, tipping towards where she can feel the other presence second guessing itself and fading to a resignation. The empath's ears are still primed for the girl down the bluff, and the movement towards Lance is enough to pull her back. Even though they wanted the girl, it wasn't meant to be— turns out what is best isn't up to them after all.
"«We have the mouse.»" A pause, considering— "«We had other company too. They've gone.»"
As she pauses, as she turns and calls back, Lance’s heart leaps – and he’s on the move again towards her, now that she’s not fleeing from them like a deer spooked by a particular noise. The lanky young agent sprints towards the girl heading back their way in an equally full-tilt rush until they’re almost crashing into each other - reaching out and sweeping her up in his arms in a fierce embrace.
“I got you,” he exhales in a breathless rush, voice near-cracking with emotion, “I got you, Ames. We’re taking you home. Promise.”
Meanwhile
«Keep it busy. We're right behind her.» Huruma answers over the comms while Elisabeth sprints wide in her attempt to flank the Hunter, and all while it closes on Hailey quickly. It had the advantage of surprise and wide-open space to do what it was named to. Its head notably lifts to note Erin and Joe as they run to catch up with her, but if anything, the information pushes it to make contact with its initial quarry faster.
Snout darts to the side in preparation of the dive as the Hunter barrels at Hailey with the force of a car pushing inner city speed limits. Dodging to the side as much as she can to avoid the full impact, the sharpness of the Hunter's teeth still manages to graze and catch in her calf, sinking in as much as it can without having a lower jaw. Hailey screams when it happens, her voice contorting itself to yell as firmly as she can, "Heel!" one more time to try and keep her dogs back as she's sent sprawling to the ground.
Once the bot has injured her, it thrashes its head from side-to-side painfully to free itself from her leg, readying to address the other two signals that read as threats to its sensors. Despite the fading light, it can still see them perfectly.
«I'm on my way. I've got the SPOTs with me.» Hart's voice comes over the comms, alert and driven even if there's a rattled edge to it. They all knew Ames' grandfather was former Mitchell administration. He'd dodged the noose for giving up his colleagues. Those affiliations were feeling much less 'former' now.
Joe is running for everything he’s worth. They did train in woods exactly like these, and while these aren’t their woods he knows what to look for on the forest floor that might impede or trip him. Without the need to worry about little things like bushes, branches or anything else that might nick, cut or strike him the strike of his boots tear up the forest floor beneath his boots. “Hails!!” He calls it aloud instead of over their comms, giving her a direct sound bead on him. They gather together, safety in numbers. Then he keys his comms. «If it gets a hold of me don’t try and save me, kill it. Our bullets can’t kill me.» He hopes. Joe fully intends to get the Hunter to come after him. If any of them can take the mauling it's him. He hopes.
Joe lets out a snarl as he sees that he’s not going to get there in time to stop it from getting to Hailey. Well when he sees that his hand lifts, his gun having been drawn as soon as the robot came into view. He’s running and he’s trying to take a tight aim with it closing on Hailey. Without a clean shot though he doesn’t take it and reholsters his sidearm. His hands slip beneath his armor, front and back and he pulls two heavy knives from beneath his armor. Without need of a hilt his blades don’t have them, just the handle and deep grooves to help him keep grip on its handle. Joe yells at the Hunter as he closes towards it, doing his best to try and draw its attention from Hailey and towards him.
“One of these days this is going to get me killed.” He’s incapable of sprinting any faster, his breath heaving in and out of his lungs, but he is flinging himself headlong towards the Hunter, no thought of his own safety, but then there rarely is. Trusting to his power to keep him safe. As he’s closing he’s looking for weak points. Wear in its armor, exposed inner workings anywhere that his knives might find purchase enough to do damage. Or at least keep its focus on him.
«Stay ahea—» Static at the worst possible moment cuts off what Elisabeth is trying to say. But Joe seems to be doing what she hoped for anyway – luring the mechanical monster off Hailey. She stops running and warns Joe again. «Keep clear of it! Don't touch it!» She needs line of sight, which she has, and it's a moving target. She vibrated the one in the fire apart with a simple blast – there was no need to focus very hard. And usually if she's holding a field, it's around herself or on a vector. This time, she needs every bit of her attention and facility with her power to pull off a field held just around that target without potentially vibrating Joe himself.
Only when the machine is clear of Hailey and she can see Joe off to one side and running does Elisabeth brace herself and let her power roll over the Hunter, encompassing it even while it's moving toward Joe. She grits her teeth and holds tight to that bubble of vibrational energy, unconsciously lifting her hands as if her clawed fingers are what's manipulating that bubble – they're not. It's sheer force of will encasing it in a field of harmonic frequencies caused by both its own inner noises – servos, joint creaks, the metallic buzz of electricity – and the ambient noises of the forest and the searches. She rattles the hulk of metal inside that field like the die within a Magic 8-Ball.
Let’s see how far this goes, Erin thinks, seeing the Hunter what she assumes is, oh, less than 25 yards away. It’s time for a Hail Mary.
She rips her gloves off, drops to her knees, and, engaging her power, plunges her fists directly into the ground. She envisions a line, a line of dirt and rocks and molecules and atoms and everything she can possibly consider as part of the ground, directly from her to the Hunter. The path seems to be clear. She pushes her energy into it all, and tries to rip apart the very being of the earth, to desolidify the ground from here to there, to ensnare the hunter in a pit of quick nothing. A chasm begins to form at her hands, and it crackles outward, fast, a chain reaction of empty spaces between matter growing and growing.
«Lt. Harrison?» The static draws a growl from Joe as he sprints ahead for all he’s worth. “Make sure to keep back enough that it doesn’t see you as the primary threat!” He shouts over his shoulder to Erin. Target priority. He knows they have that programming. Deal with the threat first. He has weapons out and ready. Trusting that it’s coding will continue to govern it’s actions despite the obvious decay and misrepair of the machine. As soon as the machine turns it’s attention to him fully he stops and hunkers down into a fighting stance just in case it comes for him faster than he can handle.
«No desire to touch it. Nuke it Lieutenant!» Instead of running towards the hunter he begins to circle it at speed, playing into its threat evaluation. A couple of feints towards it to keep it focused on him and in the clear of anyone else. When he sees the earth opening up beneath it, and sees the thing start to shake he angles himself back towards Hailey to protect the wounded in case the two ranged officers are unable to take it down. He trusts Liz, and though he doesn’t relax he’s pretty confident that the Hunter is done for.
A lot of things happen nearly at once. While the machine might not respond to Joe's shouting at him, it does take note of the fact he arms himself, which brings it to to stop only steps after having taken off at him, recalculating its chances. It's long enough that Erin, having trailed Joe, gets her hands dirty and opens the earth beneath it, sending its legs sprawling to catch itself before it can fall into the sudden chasm.
The desolidified ground works as a perfect beartrap that keeps the Hunter from making further progress, allowing Elisabeth's rattling to begin to shake apart the weathered mechanisms holding it together. Its red eyes are shaking in its frame as it lifts its head, looking at Joe again, intent on doing what harm it can before its systems fail. It claws into the earth, and–
The aggressive red lighting winks out, and the arm pushed against the side of the small crevice to keep it from falling entirely into the hole that's opened up beneath it suddenly stops being effective for the sheer fact the connective bits holding it to the larger frame have vibrated their way out of where they ought be. Under its own weight, it collapses down into the softened dirt below, wiring sparking where it was jerked out of its power unit.
The Hunter's legs scramble to try and get its body back under control and out of the crevice like a chicken that doesn't yet know it's dead. It lasts for only a moment, and then the last of that impulse is gone too, the machine no more than a pile of hunks of only partly-connected rusted metals and worn tubes now.
Wincing as she adjusts her sit so her wounded leg sits without the gash through it touching the ground, Hailey looks to her dogs and gives them a quiet command releasing them to go where they will– which is to her, in their concern. She looks up over to Joe with something of a ragged grin and tells him, windedly, "This little scrape? Nah, you'd have been fine…" Her gun is set aside so she can try to take a better look at where it feels like fire is burning through her leg, but she winces before she manages it.
Teamwork makes the dream work… or something along those lines. Elisabeth doesn't stop until she sees the unconnected pieces no longer able to be a threat. When she releases the field, she is breathing heavily and sweating. A shaking hand goes to her forehead to wipe there, and she gasps out, «Hunter down. Tell me you got Ames.» Leaning against a nearby tree, she drops her head back to try and quell the tremors of the adrenaline dump.
"«We have the mouse. –We had other company too. They've gone.»"
The Lieutenant wilts against that tree, closing her eyes in relief. Lightheaded from the terror of dealing with yet another fucking Hunter, she gives herself these moments to just… breathe. She can hear Joe checking on Hailey. «Let's go home, guys.»
“«Mouse. You got the mouse. We got the…I guess it’s kind of like a cat, in its own stupid fucking horrible dumb awful way.»” Erin says blearily, before she falls forwards onto her face and lays in the muck for a moment, still the most imperceptible bit softer than before and cradling her body like the least firm of dirty mattresses.
When the robot starts to crumple under the pressure of Liz’s power and forced further and further down into Erin’s crevice Joe turns his attention to Hailey and her wounded leg. “You’ve had worse.” Joe remarks with a nervous smile as he looks the wound over. “Yeah. I would have been fine.” He agrees with her as he inspects the wound as best as he can. «She’s going to need medical attention as soon as possible.» He reports into the comms before looking to Hails. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. Walk or carry?” He asks, glancing down to her leg.
«Lets go ho…. Erin’s down too.» Hailey is stable so he’ll move to his partner’s side to check on her as well, fingers going to her neck to check for a pulse and heartrate. Check for breathing and such. He’s no medic but he knows enough first aid and trauma treatment to get by in situations like this.
Sometimes, you take the wins as they're given to you. Ames' rescue had been their goal, soundly achieved. Even if the others who had been searching for her to bring her back to there camp are lost to the leaves and the dark, there's at least that victory.
Everyone walking away with their lives after being set upon by something that could have easily taken it is another victory as well. Hailey's mauling could have been far worse had the others not reacted quickly, pulling attention from the Hunter and then destroying it in short order.
The robots remains serve, however, as a stark reminder that there are still perpetrators out there who would kidnap children, who would set war machines on civilians and peacekeepers, who would spread wildfire to kill in its smoke, and who would set off bombs at music festivals.
The time for their reckoning will come. But for now, as dusk encroaches into night, they'll see at least one more day of freedom.