[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

[digging]

Karen's eyelashes are damp when she opens them again, and she instinctively dabs at the corners of her eyes with the back of a hastily-lifted finger. The wetness of her new company strikes her first, confusion flickering across her expression before the familiarity of the face clicks. She doesn't know this woman, but she's seen her, hair floating dreamlike around her angled face, dark lashes resting content over pale cheeks.

"No, not really," Karen replies, and then croaks out a laugh. "Probably worse for you right now, though."

Coming out of the fountain, twice, had been bad enough. Karen can't imagine being spit out of one of those tubes, in the midst of all this chaos.

[fishingfortrouble]

"It's not the most ideal, I'll admit. But I suppose it could be worse."

True, she's been kidnapped off to nowhere she doesn't recognize, and doesn't so much as know how to get back home, much less when. But ignorance is sometimes bliss, and while she can tell that she's arrived in the middle of something more than a little chaotic, worrying about it is only going to make things worse.

(Plus she has always had more of an eye to the personal aspects of a situation, and this is very much that.)

She doesn't ask if Karen wants to talk about whatever it is that's bothering her. She's curious, yes, but for once it genuinely isn't any of her business - which, it should be noted, hasn't always stopped her - and she figures that if all Karen wants is a conversation entirely unrelated to whatever it is, she can manage that much.

[digging]

Karen doesn't like to think of the ways it could be worse, but she has no doubt it absolutely could be, even if this woman likely has no idea of the scope she's even talking about. It's a flimsy sort of optimism, but faced with someone fresh out of those terrible tubes, birthed into the cold stone of this bunker and not even the fresh air to meet her, Karen guesses maybe she should take it. Even if this woman's own emotional breakdown is likely still on the way.

"I'm Karen," she says. Chin up, one foot in front of the other. "Where are you from?"

[fishingfortrouble]

Someone could actually be dead, for one. Not that Phryne is ruling out the possibility just yet - she does have a distinct tendency to get involved in things at just about the same time that someone turns up dead - but given that there's already kidnapping involved she isn't actually going to say as much. Especially when Karen doesn't inquire further.

"Phryne," she answers instead. "And Melbourne, most recently. You?"

(Meanwhile, Karen isn't wrong to assume that Phryne's own breakdown is on the way. But Phryne isn't even so much as considering the possibility of that at the moment, instead firmly shoving her own emotions about everything that's been involved in her own arrival out of her mind.)

[digging]

"New York City," Karen replies, a world away from Melbourne, and both of them who knows how far from home. At least Phyrne's from Earth; that tends to make things marginally easier, most of the time.

Taking a deep breath, Karen pushes herself to her feet and then slides the vial of Matt's blood into her pocket. She's not sure what she plans to do with it, only that it seems wrong to leave it down here, in a tidy, impersonal row with the rest of them.

"I'm guessing nobody's taken you topside yet," she says, easier to focus on helping a newbie than focus on her own tenuous emotional state.

[fishingfortrouble]

It's something, at least. True, Phryne isn't even remotely familiar with New York City, but she's heard of it, and that's a good start under the circumstances. It's not going to change the fact that neither of them has any idea how to get back home - or at least she doesn't, although she supposes it's not entirely impossible that Karen might. But that's a conversation they can have later, assuming it actually happens to come up.

"Not yet, no. Although I have at least heard some of the relevant details."

Mostly in that there is something up there, even if she doesn't so far have much of an idea about what to expect from the villages. Or, for that matter, an idea of what the local weather should happen to be like. But she is, at the very least, not completely unprepared and that's something.

[digging]

"I can take you, if you're ready to go," Karen replies with a motion toward the door. "It'll probably be just about as confusing as down here, but there's fresh air and hot food and the view is approximately ten zillion times nicer." And the truth is, getting away from the cold, hard walls of this place is probably best for her right now, too.

"There's a little bit of a walk to get to the village proper, but I can try to explain some things, answer questions on the way."

[fishingfortrouble]

"I'd be glad to," Phryne answers without so much as a second thought. The bunkers might not be quite as traumatic for her, yet (if only because she hasn't yet had the time to go looking at the list of names) but it's certainly not the most visually appealing of places either. Plus, it's rather lacking in certain amenities. Most importantly anywhere to actually sleep, if she's going to be required to stay for a time. And given that it's certainly sounding like that's going to be the case, better to actually take a look at what all is around.

"And I certainly don't mind a bit of a walk."

It'll give her time to dry out some more, at the very least, and perhaps also to get a feel for the local terrain, such as it might be.