[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

[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."