[MINGLE] PLOT: Down the Tubes: Alarm

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: The bunker & elsewhere
WHEN: 1 September 2018
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn on threads
NOTES: Plot Details | Bunker Details | Bunker Map & Key
Threads may take place ANYTIME during the plot, including before, during and after the tubes have been opened, just please do not godmod tube arrivals without explicit permission. Related threads not in the bunker are welcomed, as are general bunker exploration/reaction threads that have nothing to do with the arrivals. Please reference the bunker key doc for what is and isn't available to explore at present.

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Deep under the mountain, tucked away in the newly-discovered bunker complex, there is a room where everyone begins. It is filled with equipment — Computer consoles, monitors — but the point of it all resides within ten vertical stasis tubes lined neatly along a far wall.

One of them has been cracked and lies dormant, dry. In six of the remaining are bodies, unconscious and floating in their familiar vari-colored scrubs, vital signs ticking calmly off on their respective readouts.

In the corner, near the cracked tube, the ceiling has shattered and tumbled inward, across the floor and over the largest console in the room — The one flashing 24 HOURS UNTIL STASIS FAILURE.

Comments

item prep.

[nifties]

There's a trickle of blood that's dried down John's neck he doesn't seem to notice, matching his red scrubs as he picks at the communicator on his wrist. It won't come off and that's disconcerting. After his self-induced electrocution, it is acting a little weird though. He's scrolling through the posts on the community network, bemused by the dramatics of it all honestly. He looks up when he sees someone else wander inside, frowning when Cael pulls the scrap of fabric over his face. Okay, then.

John hops up and makes his way over, now dressed in the t-shirt and overalls combo with his hiking boots and peacoat on, the collar popped. What he wouldn't do for a ciggy about now.

"That's a choice," he says suddenly, for lack of a more clever way to greet the man. They are all in the same boat together, supposedly. Or are they? John's not counting his chickens before they hatch on that account. "Find anything out in there, Blue?" He means from the other people who have been here longer than them, but he leaves it completely open either way.

[cannily]

There's more blood where that came from, though the best Cael's found to arm himself with at this point is a sharp bit of rubble from the first room. Going unnoticed in a room is more of a skill than a crime, and the look sent back over his shoulder takes in the dark coat, the open bag. Must have been tucked in here to change.

"Dust." Whether he means to justify the cloth or summarize his understanding of their current situation, his inflection doesn't elaborate. He's made too good a use of his voice, over the years, to subject his throat to whatever gathers down here.

Dragging the once over back up, he tips his shoulder toward his chin. "If that's the other choice, I'm fine. Those trousers are even worse than the ones he has on. "They don't act like they have much to tell us. They seem surprised."

[nifties]

It gets a laugh, dull and hollow though it is. He hadn't exactly been trying to make a fashion statement when he changed out of those godawful scrubs. And besides, he doesn't like that they've clearly been put into categories, arbitrary though they are without the key. What the other man says has merit and he narrows his eyes as he thinks about them, the people who came before. They somehow seem even more clueless than the freshly arrived.

"You've got that right, mate. Poor sods, they think this is all a science experiment. One of the better covers I've seen, really, but it's still bloody elementary."

[cannily]

Science. There's a cutting word, especially the way the man says it. He likes it, for the way it seems to make sense of the flat colors, the straight lines and harsh lights of that first room. He dislikes it, for how he's behind on what it really means. If the others talk about it very much, though, he'll catch up.

Turning, he leans against the door with his hand at rest on the handle. Company, when poking around, is blame halved when caught--or a diversion in the making.

"I was in the ocean, before I woke in that...glass case. Water can be like that, with the right people manipulating it." Kieran had known his share of magic, and Cael had just burned away his household on the night of sacrifice. He would have had quite a boon; but where then was he?

[nifties]

John is already following along, happy to really since he can already tell Cael isn't like the others here. What he says about the ocean cements that for him, water is a great conduit for magic if that's what he means. It's how John is choosing to take that information, in any case.

"The question is who - or what is doin' the manipulating. And why." This group is so diverse, nothing Constantine has seen yet connecting them. "I had just come back from another dimension, well, my consciousness had." But it can't be the Egyptian Dream Temple method again, not when he saw the veil for himself.

"You might just be onto something, mate. Yeah." He wags his finger at Cael, thinking that over. "It's a crime of opportunity, then."

[cannily]

"I admire a man who uses that many words to say he was hit on the head," Cael muses, watching said man approach. At a certain proximity--just past the acceptable--he pushes the mechanism of the door, letting it open under his weight.

He doesn't deal in dimensions, and--there is that trickle of blood. Funny how it holds his attention, backing into a room where blood sits on display. Cael is a slash of dark and teasing eyes between the sweep of his hair and line of his makeshift dust mask. His edges smudge in the dark, blue and dark brown bleeding black, until their presence seems to activate the lights.

Snap, hum, solid bars of it cut the dark from above, then the shelves along the walls glow white from behind. It's a larger room than he expected to find, and he gives the man his side--certainly not his back--to drift toward the display and take it in.

[nifties]

That gets a snort, Cael is close enough on that account so he won't bother correcting him (for now.) He follows close behind when the door opens, hiding in the man's shadow in case something nasty is waiting for them. He's nice like that. Steph had said she'd canvased the place for anything lurking though, and he has that in mind when he branches off, having no such qualms in showing the man his back as he pokes about the room.

"Now, this is clever." He's smiling now, lopsided and ridiculously pleased it would seem, poking at a sample labeled with his initials - or it could be Jesus Christ. Who's to say? "Oh, people will buy this whole hog. I hate to admire kidnappers because, really, what a dull ritual, but this? This is too funny."

[cannily]

Once has the pattern of it, it doesn't take long to pick up the clear vials of blood and hair, CL, with a blue marker. What's curious is how closely they're set to John's--the letters and colors don't seem to be in any immediate pattern. "Are they--by date of arrival, do you think?"

How long were they in those glass tubes? Idly, he combs his fingers through his wet hair, but there is no sensitive spot, where it might have been pulled out.

"Trophies, or ingredients," he muses aloud, eying John's sample. The red marker upon it, and others in the rows. If Kieran pulled them through, or if this is something after death--the thought flits through, lands, in the harsh light: did Cael kill this man? Are all of them washing some version of ashore, from the fire he set?

[nifties]

They're both good guesses, though John's is disparate still. Is it even really their blood and tissues? It could as easily belong to animals or different people entirely. It's clearly amusing to him as he moves down the rows, reading initials and clucking his tongue.

"Could be. Could be random. Could be because we're both good-looking blokes. What difference does it make?"

[cannily]

Smoothing hands over his wet clothing, he finds pockets at his hips, on the odd loose pants they've dressed him in. He slips the vials inside: fire should deal with them both.

Following John's progress, he doesn't see anything labeled KD, red marker or otherwise. JT and JJ make him pause briefly, but he moves on. It doesn't mean they aren't here, but it will be interesting to see if that implied absence comes true. "You keep a trophy to remember what you've done. You gather an ingredient to do something else."

[nifties]

What Cael says is true, but true doesn't mean relevant, especially not to him at this moment.

"Well, no one's around to protect this place so let's bank on the latter, shall we?" And if they were, he's betting on some type of spell. Something to lock them into the Observer's whims. "A binding spell requires blood. And it's obvious they want to keep us here for whatever reason."

[cannily]

There's something--cocksure, a little flippant--to the man. Cael spares him another glance, just for that snatch of red fabric. Pulled through worlds and unconcerned. In death or life, that sits right, with the red on his chest. The red next to his initials on the vial.

But Vermidis sat on its wealth, and they're stragglers here. Useless, is the estimation Cael hovers his judgment above. Too soon, but the scale tips. "Powerful enough to bring us here," he thinks aloud. He isn't sure what it is, and John doesn't seem like much of a listener. "I imagine they don't need to guard their things. There's no telling how much of this they have, and there's certainly more where it came from."

The seeds are the curious thing, when he moves deeper into the room. One of the samples, despite its strange language, looks familiar enough: he pockets it for later.

[nifties]

"Exactly," he agrees, surprising them both no doubt. He plucks up another vial and looks inside. "They abandoned this place because it doesn't matter to them. Or perhaps it was only constructed to scramble our minds anyway, they want to see what our conclusion about them will be. Arrogant bastards, aren't they?"

[cannily]

"I suppose I'll trust your estimation of that," Cael rejoins, testing the dust on a shelf with his finger. Certainly abandoned, but the only good assumptions with so few variables are the ones that keep him safe, and keep him looking for more information.

"There's always the bigger fish," he cautions. "Something worse may have forced them to move on."

[nifties]

"As you should. I'm an expert." Because he's one of them. He looks up at the rest of the man's commentary. "Interesting. You think there might be something higher on the food chain?"

[cannily]

Yes, dear and simple stranger: that was the joke. Cael swallows the pettier reaction with a last slip of water, likely as not dripped down from his hair. He should change, he should find--solitude in which to think, but the room is wide and the labels many.

"Power is precarious. There's always something higher, or something below you on the cusp of revolt."

[nifties]

"Not always," John is quick to argue, though he tips his head a second later in concession. "As a general rule, though, you're not wrong. Especially in places like these."