September 28, 2003
.09.28.03. - sequengics [imogen]

[sequengics lab]

what james knows:

Okay, what Imogen would have told James?
Would be that she would call him before entering the building, but would be in the building for about half an hour to an hour before getting anywhere near the shafts. But she had no idea where she was getting into the shafts, though she was going to the fourth floor.

----

(seq)
Rutgers frowns at her for a long time. Then he looks up at the nearest vent. Back at her.

"Would it be absolutely necessary? It's not company policy to let non-personnel wander around the compound, much less in the ventilation shafts. They aren't designed to support human weight. They aren't safe. If you were to fall out of them, we'd be potentially looking at an enormous lawsuit. On top of all this." A nod to the dead body. "Isn't there some sort of assay you could run that doesn't involve your physically getting into a vent shaft?"

(imogen)
She nods her head slightly, "It would be necessary, unfortunately. I'd need air samples as best as I can, and preferrably swabs of the vents." She exhales, lips thinning briefly, as she stares half pensively at the vents (wondering mildly if they would hold her weight, or James's, and why in the bloody hell did she not think of that before?), the pensiveness ends, and she shakes her head again, "No, it would 'ave t'be the vents. 'ave any idea 'ow much they can hold?" A deprecating smirk, "It's not as if I'm that 'eavy."

In fact, the doctor was positively childlike in some respects. Most children outgrow her height by about grade six or seven.

(seq)
The self-deprecating smirk and comment draws Rutger's attention down. He sizes her up (checks her out) and then shrugs. "Stay on the braces as much as you can. You'll see them at the edge of the shaft sections. They're reinforced steel and bolted into the framework of the building. They'll probably support a few hundred pounds. Do you want a ladder?"

(imogen)
Crouched as she is, there isn't much to see. The hooded sweater was deliberately loose fitted, and the vest beneath the fabric would do more to disguise what might be considered appealing. Pity for him, perhaps.

She nods, acknowledging the advice, and glances upward again toward the shafts, "Yes, I guess I'd better have one."

(seq)
Rutger clicks his comlink on - "Sam, can we get a ladder up there? Yeah, 8-foot's fine." Pause, glance at Imogen. "Make it a 10-foot. And make it quick."

In a matter of minutes, an aluminum ladder is set up and a vent shaft grille is pulled down. "Shout if you need help," Rutgers reminds her as she disappears up the ventilation.

The vertical shaft is very narrow, a square of about 18"x18". It empties up into the hall shafts, which are about three feet across, two feet high. Because the vertical shafts empty into one side of the floor of the hall shafts, there's room beside the opening to crawl around it with little difficulty. The pipes branching into the rooms are about two feet across, one high, and would be a tight squeeze even for Imogen. There's no lighting in the shafts themselves, though light does seep up from below.

It's also freezing cold and drafty in here as air conditioned air continually circulates. She'll soon find that as long as she stays on the braces, she can move with relative silence as long as she doesn't try to move too quickly. If she steps between braces, however, the metal buckles down and pops back up again in her wake with a hollow thump.

(james)
she said she'd call when she got into the building
which was just fine and dandy
but it's the first phone call that had him up and moving

just the fact she, y'know, called

close to fourty five minutes after that no-call call
four toes spread on the slabs of metal that make up the shaft
calloused pads give just that smidgen more grip
not to mention, it's a lot easier and quieter to creep in lupus than it is to shimmy down a shaft in homid
weight distributes with each stretched step that places a foot precisely on the braces
(nah, he hasn't done this before... honest.... though my god that breeze)
somewhere, in the maze of drafts (!) and tunenls
there's a scent there
one redhead kin
that's what he's following

hopefully she'll see the dreads that never fully go away and not freak.....

(imogen)
While she waits for the ladder, she prepares to go up, snapping off her gloves and placing them in a plastic bag, and then opening up the aluminium brief case to take what she needs up with her, since obviously the case would be in appropriate. There is, however, a cloth bag which would be slightly more appropriate (OCME emblazoned in yellow across black), within which she places various pieces of equipement, including a piece of equipment that looks like it may be a suction cup attached to some sort of electronic reader. Swabs encased in plastic, a thermometre and a few other things make their way in. most of this is done behind the screen of the raised lid of her brief case, simply by design. She was facing Rutgers, and when lifting the brief case, of course, the lid had faced him, too.

She's ready by the time the ladder shows up, and shuts the lid of the brief case as the elevator doors whoosh open in the distance.

"Leave this down here, shall I?" she inquires non commitally, as she straightens, the movement somewhat arrested by a stiffness to her back, and toes the brief case to indicate what she means. She does not sling the cloth bag over her shoulder, instead carrying it in one hand. Even from here, it looks like a tight squeeze, and a bag over her shoulder might take a bit.

"Don't worry if I'm a bit. It takes a while t'get what I need. I'll be as fast as possible." That, at least, was the truth.

She acknowledges that yes, she'll shout if she needs anything, and begins up the ladder, the bag preceding her into the ventilation, tugging shoulders and hips through the tight fit and into the frigid ventilation shaft. It's tight, but she manages; the metal is cold beneath her hands and that is almost comforting. The darkness and close space, however, is not. Breath deeply, and this too, shall pass.

She doesn't give herself a chance to discover what would happen if she stepped between the bracers. One can guess it would make sound at best, and at worst, buckle and collapse beneath her weight.

James is a dark bulk in the shadows and she freezes as she catches sight of him, and the stillness is near animalistic, before she exhales, and unseen in the darkness her eyebrow arches. Well. If this wasn't James, this would be a problem all of its own, and she'd worry about that later.

First she had to go up a floor. And make a phone call, provided her cell phone worked; her foolishness for forgetting until the ladder was already there, and then not being able to come up with an excuse for a phone call in the seconds that followed, she had abandoned the idea.

Parallel to the elevator shaft. Right. Goddamn it was cold. She moved in the appropriate direction without a word.

Not that it was likely she could say anything without being overheard, just at the moment.
(seq)
Like the hall below, the vent shaft curves. Since she is headed toward the elevator, the curve is to her left, and while it seems slight enough not to cause any problems of fit and size at first, the added strain of always crawling toward the left soon begins to wear on Imogen and James. Their right sides tire before their lefts. It's a relief when an opening appears on their right, a single straight tube leading across toward the east. Through it, they can dimly glimpse the vent shaft feeding the east ring, and between there and here, the gaping holes, at least five windy feet across, in the ceiling and floor of the shaft.

The main vertical shaft.

It's even darker there. The only light comes from the halls outside and below the shafts; here, there are no halls nearby. Between floors is almost total darkness. Imogen's eyes, sharper than James' wolven ones, can make out rungs in the shaft, though - a very crude ladder built into the vertical wall for maintenance crews. Thank god for the small things.

Between the crawling and the waiting for the ladder, it's now 2:20. The guards on the fourth floor are in the south of the east ring, circling clockwise toward the Perseus lab.

(james)
dark furry bulk cuts out most of the light that would reflect off the surface of the shaft
not the most heartening of things to come across in a shaft, that's for sure
but as the good doctor freezes animalistically - he answers in kind
weight sinks ever so slightly into a crouch
shoulders shifting until whiskers on his chin brush the floor
the light silhouetting him brightens
he's not about to roll belly up at this exact moment
it's the closest "I'm not going to eat you" move that's possible in such a cramped space in near total darkness

but what.... did she expect him not to show up?
please.

she pulls ahead by about a yard before he follows
(that breeze. is....... refreshing)
but at least the crawling position is a little more natural for his current frame than the kin's
though since he's in the dark - in more ways than one at this point - he just follows
more by scent and sound than sight
hopefully she knows where she's going
(what he'd give for a totem phone with the kin about now....)
(imogen)
At least there's a ladder. That was something.

This was as good a place to stop as any. She is acutely aware of passing time, as if each passing second were a heart beat, and certainly she could hear her heart right now, pumping blood through veins and doing all such things required for life.

Her cell phone light flicks on illuminating the shaft in an unnatural glow, and she glances toward the wolf behind her. Chances are, if it had occured to her, the kinfolk would give much to have a totem connection to the lupus formed gnawer, as well.

She's checking for a signal on her cell phone. That she might be able to make the phone call now, as she slides the bag over her shoulder to get on the ladder that the Garou cannot quite see.
(seq)
Well...let there be light, at least. The cell phone isn't a halogen bulb, but it's a bit more light than they had before.

Unfortunately, there's no signal this deep in the building, surrounded by metal, and next to the elevator shaft. Maybe if she tried again in one of the rings.
(james)
it's not much, but that's a little light
it's enough to vaguely make out the shadows cast by the rungs on the wall as she moves the phone around
(this should be fun)
and yet again, he gives her the time it takes to pull a short distance ahead before he's following
it would probably be easier in homid, true, but he keeps up with Imogen
(just call him Rin-Tin-Tin)
carefully navigating his way upwards
occasionally grabbing onto a run with his teeth for support

[pause, rl shit]

-------

[and in a strange summary...]

Imogen Slaughter

Sun 08:04PM
Damn. Small mercies have run out, at least until she gets to one of the rings, where it might -might- work.

Silence still. There's no point in speaking to someone who cannot speak back; and really, she'd expected him to shift to take the ladder. She could talk to him then.

That he attempts the ladder first in lupus, results in a stare downward from the slender kin, watching, expression impossible to gauge in the dark, her cell phone put away from later attempts. That she winced at the clatter he made was likely easy to guess, however.

She watches him for a second before beginning to climb again, this time in near blessed silence.

When she reaches the top, and has managed to get to the ventilation shaft, balanced on the braces, she explains, not the situation, but what she needed him to do. Or what she thought would be best.

They were in the middle of two rings of the building, right now, she explains. In each ring was a laboratory with a culture that needed to be destroyed - incinerated - in the centre of the room was a camera that moved 360 degrees and took about a minute for a full sweep. She speaks softly and quietly explaining the security measures. Fire doors. Plate glass windows through which guards could see you, should they pass by. She outlines, vaguely, the guards routine, when they passed and where and that when they were in the southwest part of the building, it gave them the most distance between the two laboratories.

He would go east, she would go west. East he had farther to go, but, and she smirks slightly, he'd hopefully be faster than she. If he continued to go in the direction she gestured, it was the fifth laboratory. And he had to be really bloody careful, because what was in those cultures could kill him. Hold his breath, do whatever. It had to be destroyed, no if ands or buts.

When the alarms go off, she explains with a shrug, he needed to get out while the security guards were trying to get at them. The fire doors would slam shut, so maybe it was time for that disappearing act all such of his kind were famous for. She must mean the umbra. She'd get out.. .deal with it, whatever, after destroying her sample.

"That's all I've got," she finishes quietly, "an' if yeh think we're both in f'r it, better say it now, because otherwise, I've gotta get moving." Try her cell phone again, get started.

---[then]--

Imogen would have called him later and asked him to meet her at Woodside Rd westbound near Seashore lane. She wouldn't tell him at the time of the phone call, but it would be obvious enough when he gets there, she needs help with body clean up.

---[and then]---

The walk out of the forest: it seems like a million miles and twice as many years. Following the crashing path of the Dancer back takes her past the wreckage and the wrath: the guttering fire which is all that remains of the compound she had paid so dearly to destroy. Matheson facedown in the trampled brush, only he didn't have a face anymore, only a crushed pulp for a head. The briefcase is still handcuffed to his wrist, the brushed steel splashed with blood.

There's more blood on the trees, smeared on as the Dancer, in his punchdrunk rage, crashed against them and half-staggered, half-dragged himself through the forest. There are branches pulled roughly down as he stabilized himself, patches of earth torn up, and everywhere, the glistening mucus laced through with blood. Cerebral bleeding. Internal hemorrhaging. Enough to kill a man, but he was not a man, and his blood running out wouldn't kill him.

His blood stopping did.

A few feet further and she finds the body of Eleanor Sinclair. There are lacerations streaked down her body and bits of broken glass caught within, as though she had been dragged out through a windshield. Her blond hair is stained as red as Imogen's. The top of her skull is missing - bitten cleanly off. Her right hand is wrapped around the sniper rifle; her left, around her sidearm. There is a look of dazed surprise in her eyes, as if she did not expect it to end this way.

The forest ends and the road lies before her, asphalt streaked with tire-tread and wet with blood. The armored truck is overturned, a scorched black shell, the gas tank a livid red inferno of flame. There's a heap of broken flesh and bone and fur not far from it. Crushed halfway beneath it is Joseph Charlton's body, torn nearly in half, his chrome-plated pistols clutched in a dead man's grip.

Crouched neither moving nor weeping over him is Seth Connall. Imogen's footsteps are light, but he neither turns nor looks up. When her shadow falls over him he moves at last, carefully taking Charlton's hands and crossing them over his chest. He doesn't touch the pistols.

Lastly, he closes the intense dark eyes, blank now.

Then Connall rises laboredly to his feet to face her. The splint on his leg has cracked; the angle looks painful. He puts a hand against the overturned truck to stabilize himself and looks at Imogen for a long moment. His eyes are hollow and dazed, the blasted stare of a shellshocked survivor. He doesn't ask any questions. He doesn't say a word. Eventually, his gaze slips off her face and he hobbles slowly away.

The hood of the Xterra is smashed beyond recognition, but the engine miraculously still runs. Its taillights glow red as they disappear down the road.

--

Cleanup takes all night. It's tough labor, and gruesome, but at least the night is cool and the flies are dead until spring. Bodies are piled deep in the woods and burned, mingled smoke rising into the air. Blood melts easily away from the pavement with gasoline, and then the armored truck, too heavy to move, is set ablaze again. Daybreak comes, and all that remains of the night is a trampled path leading nowhere and a long column of smoke

---[and]---

The only thing that post doesn't say is that there are two spiral bodies; one is the one on the road, near an armoured vehicle. And the other is actually in the woods (that's the trampled path) and both are crinos. The one in the woods is odd though, because the blood doesn't actually smellfresh it's already well coagulated.

---[...and!]---

Oh! Man, I kept forgetting. (smirk) LAST thing about the SL, I swear: Imogen obviously hadn't gotten out of it unscathed. Her upper left arm was clawed (though not terribly, but.. well. it's garou claws) and looks like she took a clout to the face. She'd also be moving rather stiffly, but she'd insist on dealing with the bodies and making sure it's taken care of. (and has to go to work in the morning. *smirk*)

Also: James was probably shot at, had to kill a guard or two (so Imogen was told by the Kin supposedly watching him) but nothing permanently fuck uppy. For once.

Posted by james at September 28, 2003 12:00 AM