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Post by SceneMod on Mar 4, 2012 19:59:51 GMT -5
Month 6, Week 2, Day 2, following 'Prison Transport', Jasper's bar in Detroit, semi-private, mention of Carolyn with player permission
Arlen Pace gasps, out of breath, feeling like he just stepped out into the Alaskan wilderness from a nice, warm house. He is laid out flat on the roof of a bar, and he claws at his chest for air. That last gate stretched things a bit far. He will not be making any more gates today, his body tells him in no uncertain terms. His range should be better than this, but it is not and that is just something he has to live with, because otherwise, it will kill him.
He checks and makes sure that Carolyn is all right. Then he rolls over and taps lightly at a trapdoor on the roof. He reaches into a pocket for his lock-picking gear and carefully examines the lock. The lock is of good quality but nothing extraordinary, as he expected. A truly difficult lock would be out of place here and would draw suspicion. Arlen suspects that there will be better and more interesting locks somewhere deeper inside this building. If he recalls his briefings correctly, and he always does, there is also a bar in here.
There is also... it doesn't matter. It can't matter to him, and that is that.
Arlen knocks out a series of sharp, staccato taps that make up a code on the trapdoor. Knocking is only polite. However, their contact may be busy. That would be reasonable. Arlen will give it five minutes and then start picking the lock. In the meantime, he stays flat on the roof and watches the city.
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Mar 4, 2012 20:57:10 GMT -5
Knock on the roof. Now that's odd. Well, not that odd, but odd enough. He should have a look. Specially beings as it's that knock. Someun come to have a nap, no doubt. Or reload. All the same to him, really. Of course, they would come right in the middle of "Mail Call", wound't they? Ah well. Not as if the History Channel won't run this episode again some other time.
"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles as he climbs the ladder to access the rooftop trap-door, flipping the lock on the door to his little apartment along the way. Old Sam out tending the bar itself wasn't one to come snooping, but no sense taking the chance. "I'm comin'."
His cane dangles from his left elbow as he trips the catch to unlock the door from below, and then, with a spryness that few would believe, he slides back down the ladder to wait, leaning on his cane with his free hand hovering near where his .357 is hidden.
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Post by Carolyn Blake on Mar 4, 2012 21:10:49 GMT -5
Carolyn crouches near Arlen as he has his gasping fit. She does not comfort him. A very small part of her would like to do so, but it was ingrained early on that she can't coddle her team members, no matter how frail they might be. Though she does coddle him, in a way. She keeps him out of sight and away from major engagements if possible. Supposedly, this is because he is a liability due to his frailness, something all the team members understand.
She does reassure him that she is fine, but only with body language and facial expression. Carolyn hears the slight sound of the latch being pulled and slings her rifle to her back, pulling out her revolver.
She's going in first. She knows who the Keeper here is, after all. No need to put that burden on Arlen as well. She opens the trapdoor and drops down to the ground, gun pointed at Jasper like it should be.
"Evening Gramps." She never did have the same reverence for him the others do.
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 4, 2012 21:21:14 GMT -5
Arlen goes for a knife, not for the assault rifle on his back. It is no gesture of disrespect. Arlen can do infinitely more interesting things with knives than he can with bullets. Carolyn is the sniper, and there are other, better gunmen than Arlen of other specialties on the team. He gets to his feet, no higher than in a crouch, and he looks around the roof one last time.
He climbs down after her. Making a jump is just not something he wants to put his body trough, at the moment. Arlen does climb along the side, though, not putting his back to the old man. He positions himself behind Carolyn, on the side of her off hand, in case he needs to move in front of her for some reason.
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Mar 4, 2012 22:49:36 GMT -5
Damn kids. Never seen these two before, but... he doesn't remember seeing any of them before. He never does. That's kinda the point, really.
Assuming that they're not just petty thieves, but he knows better than that. They've the Look. The way they move, the wariness, the no-nonsense grasp of the whole damn world. Aye, they're Them, but can't be takin' any chances now, can he? She'll have him ventilated before his pistol is in line, but he's not so old that he won't at least make her remember him with a little copper-jacketed smooch before he falls. He doesn't move, but his hand is still braced on the wall, as if to hold him upright, but a centimeter or two from his weapon.
"Thieves be gettin' pretty desperate these days to go for this flop during evening rush," he observes drily. "In my day, I'd have been and gone afore the poor old sod even knew what was what, I tell you. Lazy. Lazy and wet. New at this are you, lass?"
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Post by Carolyn Blake on Mar 4, 2012 23:48:24 GMT -5
"In it long enough to tell you that you won't grasp that piece of yours before you fall down dead, Old Man," she says coolly, face expressionless. She means it. She knows the Seeker's kill spots. It's her job, and Carolyn can be cold as stone on a job.
Except when it involves Slaughter, apparently.
"But since the vorpal blade went snicker snack, I really doubt that's going to become an issue now, is it?"
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 5, 2012 15:46:02 GMT -5
Arlen has to look at the old man, because not looking at someone is a very good way to let that person kill him. Thinking about exploitable weaknesses is natural to him. Memorising faces so he can pick them out later is just what he does.
He shouldn't make comparisons to himself, though. That is a waste of his time. Besides, Arlen doesn't look like much of anything, except a scarred mess, unless he spends some quality time with his makeup.
Arlen sighs and recites, "I am the Gatekeeper. Are you the Keymaster?"
A small part of him wants to murder whoever assigned him that particular code phrase but only a small part. Whoever assigned it to him, he is sure, is just a normal human, weak and in need of protection.
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Mar 5, 2012 20:05:49 GMT -5
"Rough night on the playground, children?" Jasper asks.
From behind them both.
The Jasper standing with his hand upon the wall flickers like a bad filmstrip, then vanishes in a showy flash of sparks, the sparks as much illusion as the old man had been. The real Old Seeker is standing against the far wall behind the two, a Sig Sauer leveled at Carolyn's head, and a wry grin upon his lips. Behind, but far enough back to be, hopefully, beyond Carolyn's immediate range.
Jasper's old, but not stupid. These NextGen kids are tough, and he just doesn't have what it takes to not die if he'd been right up on them both with that pistol pressed to the back of her skull as he might have in his Service days. He still expects a bit of a beating just for getting this little bit of a drop on the pair.
But perhaps not until after he gets Carolyn patched up. "Look like you've been dragged behind a tank, girl." Most of the accent is gone, and his gaze is sharp and clear as he holsters the pistol against the small of his back with a low grunt. "This way."
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Post by Carolyn Blake on Mar 7, 2012 12:54:39 GMT -5
Carolyn pivots and drops, bringing her gun to bear on Jasper even before he's finished revealing himself. In any other situation, she'd be firing as well. But these are the types of dangerous games Family plays with each other, and she hold her fire- for now.
She stares down the old man for several seconds before straightening and holstering her own weapon as well. "Later," is all she says.
Carolyn does look rather worn, at least in appearance. Her lightweight body armor just isn't designed to hold up long under Slaughter's sonic attacks. She's the team lead, but she's also the distance shooter, not the tank. Arlen is probably more heavily armored at the moment than she is, given his frailty. Even though she kept herself moving as much as possible, she still caught the edges of those blasts occasionally. She hasn't shown any physical signs of pain yet, but then, she's trained not to.
"Need a new suit," she says as she makes to follow Jasper, nodding at Arlen as she does so, "Some patching up. Gotta a couple of busted or bruised ribs. Think my left arm is just bruised to the bone, but need to make sure it isn't cracked."
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 7, 2012 16:22:06 GMT -5
Arlen feels a pang of jealousy. He should be able to cast illusions like that, at the very least. In fact, his design spec called for 'solid light holograms', he has been told over and over again. However, not a trace of such an ability has ever surfaced in him.
Before the jealousy had faded, he moves to provide an amount of cover for Carolyn without ruining her firing solution. Arlen is, after all, much more expendable than she is.
Only when she lowers her weapon does he move back to his position more or less behind her, on the side of her off hand. Arlen does not want to admit it, but he cannot let his pride get in the way. He is, after all, a very expensive piece of machinery, and he has an obligation to keep himself in proper running order. So Arlen admits quietly, "I need to sleep. Quite a bit." What kind of soldier is he, that he needs to sleep? One who has run out his allotment of special powers for the day and who spends most of his time feeling a bit achy due to botched surgeries, anyway. "Tangent to that, I could go for a Vesper, as well."
His lips pull up in something of a self-deprecatory smile. He may not be able to get properly drunk, but he can at least drink something very well-made. Arlen hates it when things taste bad. Having quite good senses just makes MREs all the more dreary.
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Mar 11, 2012 21:54:25 GMT -5
Jasper is well aware just how close he'd just come to being shot, but, indeed, these are the dangerous sorts of "games" they play upon one another, even if they've never met. They are, after all, all Family, and even retired old has-beens still keep their hands in now and then.
Well, at least he does.
"A-yup," he replies as he leads them both toward his little bathroom. It's habit as he summons up the illusions that hide the complicated little sequence he does to activate the retinal scanner; what they don't know can't be tortured out of them, and what's behind this door is worth... quite a lot of torture to the right hands. Leaning in, he allows the scanner to grab it's required image, but there's more. He's an illusionist, and probably not the only one. There's a little prick near the corner of his eye as the scanner also takes a tiny little tissue sample to verify his genetic key code.
Only then does the door release with a low hiss, swinging into the wall of the shower stall itself.
"Medical's stocked and ready," he says as he steps back to bow them both beyond the darkened doorway. Medical is always stocked and ready to go. That's rather half his job here. Not that he's a medic, himself, but the set-up within the safehouse can practically run itself. "And the larder's full."
He tilts a wry little smile back at Arlen, nodding. Oh, Jasper knows all about needing to sleep; when Jasper would teleport, that's all he would be able to do - sleep. Not a useful talent when it came to combat, really. Arlen may envy Jasper his illusions, but Jasper will be equally envious of Arlen's teleportation, if the younger man mentions it.
As for the illusions, themselves, well, they aren't foolproof. In top form, Arlen stands a good chance of hearing through them, and, unlike any such "hardlight holograms" that Arlen may have been designed to have? Jasper's illusions aren't able to actually affect the world at all. They're just light. Plain old ordinary light and willpower.
"Conveniently, there seems to be a bar out front," he remarks to Arlen. Also convenient for Arlen, there's a lot more than ordinary MRE's stashed in the food supplies down below. The lad can actually look forward to a good meal for once!
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Post by Carolyn Blake on Mar 11, 2012 22:26:30 GMT -5
Carolyn shakes her head at Arlen. "You and your fancy drinks. Just give me a good beer and I'm happy."
She heads past Jasper to the hidden safe areas. Carolyn is feeling stretched thin. The mess with Slaughter, the pain from her injuries, the second-guessing she's doing about everything, its all bleeding into one big mass of anger and pain and confusion that makes her want to scream and punch things.
"Get some rest Arlen. You're no good as you are now. We'll talk later."
"You gotta gym setup down here too, right?" she asks Jasper.
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 11, 2012 22:43:10 GMT -5
"God," not that Arlen believes in one, "you're even better than the legends say," Arlen says, sincere for once. He can get a drink and then go pass out! This is the best day he's had in a long time!
He follows along, wary and attentive to the details.
"I suppose I'll have to change and put a real face on."
It is probably not healthy to think of his looks the way that he does.
"Then rest. As you say."
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Post by Jasper Stoneham on Mar 11, 2012 23:06:03 GMT -5
That's the thing about Family: given the opportunity to be safe, quite a few of them tended to truly unwind from the things they saw and did on such a constant basis. Japser may have mentioned that bar being "out front", but the really good stuff? It's all down here.
He secures the door behind them all, letting it reset to conceal itself as he follows behind the youngsters. "Aye. Gym and dojo and range," he replies, nodding. Not the "average" safehouse, this. It's more a self-contained base with everything than an actual safehouse. Maybe that's part of why he'd been allowed to "retire". Or, perhaps, him being there at all is why it's such a better safehouse than the "average" one. Harder to keep everything up to date and stocked when there wasn't anyone around on a constant basis to man it, and the Family? Not very big on the Trusting Outsiders thing.
"Medical first. Beat the hell out of yourself after," he ordered. "Your next right."
Legends? Did Arlen mention legends? So he hasn't been forgotten! Jasper grins a little stupidly to himself.
"Food, too," he suggests after a moment of satisfied gloating. He really hadn't been forgotten. How wonderful was that?! "Replace lost energy before you crash. Sleep is food, food is sleep."
Of course, sometimes, sleep was the better of the two, no matter how well one has physically recovered. Sleep... knitted the raveled sleeves of care, so to speak, and the youngsters looked as if they could use quite a bit of mental knitting.
"A real face?" he asked curiously. Given her quick reactions, he could guess what some of Carolyn's abilities might be, but Arlen was still quite the mystery. Of course, the addage about things not known not being possible to torture out of someone weorked for him, too, so he wouldn't be surprised if Arlen remained silent on that score.
"Any chance of a tail?" he added. Not that he expected anyone to have been able to follow someone from the Family when they were trying to get away, but accidents did happen, and so he should follow that bit of protocol to ask.
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Post by Carolyn Blake on Mar 12, 2012 20:17:32 GMT -5
Carolyn shoots a sharp look over her shoulder at Jasper. Part of her wants to argue and stalk right past the indicated door to the gym, but she knows better. She, like Arlen, like Jasper, is a very expensive piece of machinery. She is, maybe, more human and less machine than they, but she is still nothing but a glorified lab experiment. Keeping herself in proper shape is one of the foremost orders programmed into her mind.
"No. No tails."
She cuts into the med room and starts stripping out of her torn suit. Mrf. If what skin she's seeing now is any indication, she's going to be one complete bruise nearly from head to toe.
"Fusking sonic fusking blasts mother fusking bastard Slaughter!" She continues to grumble in a similar vein as she undresses, and by the time she's half done, she's throwing things across the room and against the wall.
Everything except her weapons. Those are getting lined up in a nice neat row on the counter and near to hand.
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