The sextuple of Wunya, Stitch, Ned, Leo, Nancy, and Cecil stood in a tight, uncomfortable knot in the center of the lift. The walls of the elevator, sample metal paneling, was unpleasantly reminiscent of Stitch’s containment chamber. His blue fur stood on end.
The elevator rattled shakily up its cabling, begging the question of when it had last been serviced. The group speculated aloud that whenever it had been, it had not been recent, then fell into the tense kind of silence that belongs to the wary. Eventually they shuddered to a stop, and the doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
“Pneumatics?” Nancy quipped back at the doors as she stepped over the gap from the elevator into the room beyond. “What is this, a damned sci-fi movie?”
Wunya glanced at Stitch, still in his space jumper, and smirked. Sci-fi, indeed.
The small mismatched ensemble stepped gingerly out of the dingy elevator and into a large open-floor workspace; it was well-lit, chaotic, and lived in. Several dangling fluorescent lights beamed out of their hoods into the space illuminating the small woman in the center of the room as its centerpiece; all around her were the trappings of a space that had once been an office and had since become a living quarter.
Sometimes minds too active to contain the spectrum of their thoughts need outlets. Dozens of sticky notes decorated every surface of the room detailing complex equations, simple reminders, and even functional diagrams.
The occasional plate could be found next to sheaths of papers and myriad ashtrays overflowing with spent cigarettes. A line of empty water bottles stood like dominoes in a row against the edge of a desk so cluttered that it was impossible to tell what kind of material the desk itself was made of. Stitch approached an ashtray and prodded the pile of darts heaped atop it with a clawed hand. Butts tumbled out onto a tattered notebook.
“Ahem,” Emmy cleared her throat, tapping her foot. Her arms laced over the bell laden motley that drooped down either side of her red and blue uniform. “Are you bozos here for questions, or what?”
Emmy ashed the end of her cigarette before taking a long, drawn-out pull from its filter. Wunya eyed the women fastidiously, though a plume of smoke obscured her face for the briefest moment.
“We bozos are here to do this thing,” agreed Wunya, her voice like a tumbler of stone. “We’ll let the chaotic bozo ask his question first.”
She gestured at Stitch, who puffed out his chest with an inflated sense of self-importance.
“What -” began Stitch, thumbing over his shoulder to indicate the carnage they’d emerged from on the other end of the elevator.
“-
happened?”
"A whole boatload of nothin' good,” Emmy replied, unfurling her arms. Her intelligent eyes flashed with the memory. She collected her thoughts before continuing. “Mass spontaneous breakdown of a bunch of our staff, then DAVE broke containment, then the bigwigs' little pet projects for the boss all broke loose. You can probably get an idea of what happened after that."
Ned shuddered involuntarily next to Wunya, and she knew he was remembering the carnage of their trek through the halls. The more time they spent together, the more Ned’s squeamish tendencies had bubbled to the surface. At times he would avert his eyes from biological horrors, but there were other times when the ichor grew thickest when he was never more than a pace from the roughneck Nancy’s side. He was out of his element. Deprived of mustache wax and comfort, he’d begun to devolve.
Wunya eyed Ned, her gaze flinty.
“Subject R,” interjected Wunya, shifting her steady gaze onto Emmy’s eyes. “What is this thing?”
Emmy met Wunya’s gaze, searching the Coach’s irises.
“Sorry, bozos. That's classified,” Emmy replied with a shrug. She pointed her cigarette at a nearby camera. “Can't say anything about that while the cameras are on you.”
Ned cut in again.
“Weaknesses?” he begged, sounding miserable. His lips were chewed to bits beneath the coiffed tufts of his brown mustache, which had begun to droop. In places his lips had begun to bleed. “Does it have any weaknesses you can tell us about, at least?”
Emmy looked speculative as she turned to Ned.
"I didn't work on the project, so I couldn't tell you much. Science like that is above my paygrade, Emmy said, then paused, thinking. After a moment where it appeared she was chewing over a decision, she went on. “I hear R is supposed to be blind, or mostly blind, and pretty physically frail. Fast and smart as anything, though."
Stitch and Wunya exchanged a glance. Standing quietly in the back of the group, the quiet and competent soldier Cecil looked curious as well.
“Do you have some kinda plan to get this situation under control?” asked Nancy, staring shamefully at Ned, and shaking her head.
“You
are the plan, bozos.”
The group fell silent, looking at one another appraisingly, as if weighing each other’s merit on a scale.
They were quiet for what felt like a long while after that. The smoke from Emmy’s cigarette hung over their heads, a literal cloud. The smell in the room was acrid, and Stitch wondered how much smoke had sunk into the walls of this small place. He wondered, as well, what it might be like to cohabitate with the feisty, smoke loving Emmy. What kind of a mind hid behind those fiery eyes?
“Bozos?” croaked Stitch, looking over the group, parroting Emmy’s delightful catchphrase. He found that the word felt good rolling off his wide tongue, and reveled in obtaining a new phrase in the Common.
Ned looked shaky and ashen. Learning more information was not having a good effect on his fragile disposition. “What part do we play in the, um, plan?”
Emmy eyed him carefully. “"Beats me. The boss didn't tell you anything?"
Nancy elbowed Ned in the ribs and hissed, “Bozo!”
The vitriol of the group towards Ned felt palpable, but dissipated. Was it not natural for strangers forced together to feel a degree of tension, after all, when lives were at stake?
“What do
you think is the best way forward in this thing?” Wunya directed at Emmy, furrowing her green brow. The coach’s tremendous squared shoulders seemed taut.
Stitch wondered if she needed a massage.
"Me, personally? My plan is to keep people alive, and get 'em out of here. Only way to do that is to get the teleporters back online or the transports able to leave. DAVE's got all of that on lockdown and under heavy guard, though."
“...someone is in league with this DAVE, then, perhaps,” suggested Wunya.
Emmy’s clever eyes flashed again, and she looked directly at Wunya.
“With the number of safeguards we kept that thing under, there's no way he broke containment on his own, that's all I'll say."
“And this thing,” continued Wunya, gesturing widely to refer to the nuance of the complicated situation in its entirety. “It happened all at once?”
“Not exactly. It all started out of nowhere, then spiraled out of control over about three weeks, though. We’ve been holed up for about four months now, give or take.”
From the state of the woman’s surroundings, that seemed an appropriate period of time. In fact, given that information, it was a wonder that she kept the place as clean as she did.
Emmy leaned back against a console that came to a point past her waist, resting her elbows on it. She took a leisurely drag of her cigarette and looked over the ragtag group before her as if wondering if this was the best she could get, while trying to calculate out the odds of their individual survival. She
had stated that her goal was to get everyone out alive. Looking over all four feet and ten inches of the woman, Wunya was inclined to take her at her word. Nothing about her
seemed disingenuous.
“Engineering?” offered Stitch, looking up through the massive height differential between his gaze and Wunya’s.
Wunya looked over their four Carnivale attachées, weighing their options. Then she stooped down and whispered in Stitch’s giant ear.
Stitch’s black void eyes revealed nothing, though he nodded sagely.
“One more thing,” added Emmy, looking them over. “This symbol right here…”
She reached behind her and retrieved a piece of paper with three triangular lights depicted on it.
"It's basically DAVE's eyes. If you see 'em, he's spotted you. Be ready for anything."
Ned gulped audibly.
They took awhile to gather their bearings, then began to gravitate towards the elevator, though a faint hope that Emmy might give them some final piece of sage advice hung over the group like a desperate mantle. Stitch glanced over his shoulder at the small woman and met her eyes before he entered the elevator, though his own dark eyes were unreadable.
"...boombox?" asked Stitch.
Wunya, too, looked to Emmy.
"It may help us in doing this thing."
Party Members - Stitch, Wunya, 4 CR Employees (Ned, Leo, Nancy, and Cecil)
Currently - Security Wing
Action - The group, having questioned Emmy, will bid her a solemn farewell then endeavor to return to the elevator and go back down, unless Emmy stops them or offers any final advice.
They are also requesting a boombox.
Focus - 3/3
Stats - Reason 11, Stamina 12
Inventory - Survival Gear (Both), Battered Shotgun (Wunya), Access Card (Stitch)
