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Realistic or Modern Mission: Return of the Evening Star

Manami Hamasaki
stingray.png

Adapted for the dim world far below the waves, Manami's eyes had adjusted swiftly to the shadowy conditions of the basement shelter, and she'd stood helpfully at the foot of the stairs ushering students down the last few steps. Then somebody had thought to hit the light switch. The old fluorescent tube lights were slow to flicker on, but harsh. Her pupils clamped back down pretty quickly, but the process still left her a little dazed and nearly blinded for perhaps half a minute. She milled along with the students to the middle of the shelter, almost tripping over a folding chair that everybody else had walked around. As her vision returned she began to register some of the details of the room. There were perhaps another dozen folding chairs scattered around, and a vaguely unpleasant musky sort of smell. The floor and the air felt damp, in a way that was probably unpleasantly cold and clammy to the others but a bit of a relief for her after the full glare of the Baltimore summer sun. There were four grimy plastic folding tables laid out among the chairs, more or less, but not quite, in rows. One of them had a partly done jigsaw puzzle on it, the others had various board games spilling out of mildew stained cardboard boxes. There was another door at the far end of the room which looked seriously secure apart from the fact that it was ajar. Beyond it, a corridor which presumably led back to the main building to judge from the fact that more students were scurrying down it towards them. She turned her attention towards her own charges and did a quick head count. Relieved to find they were all safe, she gave them a double thumbs up to boost morale and turned to report to Sensei Wolf.

"Team red all present and accounted for, Sensei W- ...Sensei?"

Her heart sank.
 
Penelope


Eyes nearly rolling out of her head, Penny in dramatic fashion doubles over with sarcastic laughter. A harsh ugly guffaw punctuated by a snort every few moments.

“You...you’ve gotta be joking. I don’t know who you are but c’mon! Did your eyes fall out and get replaced with super stupid vision?” She was a little thrown off by his almost blatant bluntness and had to fall back on being a dick in response. Penny didn’t feel all that radiant. She felt actually pretty greasy, to be fair. No smell though, she checked herself, sniffing an armpit. Never had much of a scent, bacteria and stuff burned off her, or so the scientists said back when she was a snarky little tween. Come to think of it, that was probably the last time she was ever evaluated on her appearance.

Something inside her felt like a lump of leaf as her cheeks burned a little, red against her pale skin.

“I can tell you right now pepe, I’m not on fire. I pump out radiation, I’m the ALL POWERFUL FUEL ROD!” She jumps in place, giving a little jazz hand move while emitting a quick burst of bright yet both weak and fleeting Alpha Radiation in a halo around her. The pairs of protons and neutrons firing off to be stopped by whatever they hit first. “Hidden deep below the shitty city of Baltimore, A wondrous young adult keeps the inane lives of humanity chugging along while they charge their phones and power their dildos, Penelope Urbain is quite the rising star!”

She laughs again at her own practiced intro.

“so really now, what do you want. If the school is being attacked /again/ I’m sorry but I’m legit safe and if the aggressors wanted in here they’d probably die. I’m not a threat or a safe haven, I’m an asset buddy boy. Now if you want in and think you won’t burn to a crisp, I warned you.”

She keys in a code on her side and twists a pair of handles, if he wanted in, the airlock was open for him, he’d have to be the one to enter and cycle however.
 
Lucas Marsolet
NewLucas.png

Lucas turned, as if to go. He took a half step towards the outer door of the airlock, reaching out towards the handle. All he had to do was buzz through the foot and a half of metal wheel lock and then walk the rest of the way. The others would be waiting by now, just down the hall in the damp basement shelter. He could imagine the smell of mildewed boardgames already. Why he still had clear memories of that room from the disaster drill during his orientation when he couldn't recall anything properly since the zoo incident was beyond him. Orientation seemed, not just a few years, but a lifetime ago. As if it had happened to a different person. He sighed. Was he just... going through the motions? Trying to live the life that he had envisioned for himself before the last half year of marde had hit him as if blasted out of a maudit firehose. He hesitated, hand hovering over the wheel. He really should go. By now they'd be wondering... or would they? He was pretty sure McNabb was the only one who even knew his name. The rest were new. Kids, really. Hell, it'd probably take McNabb until the end of the drill to even remember to take a headcount.

If it was a drill.

He turned back, eyes watering from the glare of Penny's nimbus of fire. But it wasn't fire, was it? Hard radiation. Like she said: a fuel rod. Toxic and deadly. And yet... she'd invited him to come in. Was that some kind of joke? Surely she wasn't offering him shelter against the disaster of the day; whatever it was, if it was, it couldn't be as bad a way to go as radiation poisoning. Stepping through that door would be suicide, and she knew that. She had to know that. She had lived with this condition... ...her whole... life.

And the penny dropped.

He had been moping around ever since he'd gotten back to 108, sinking smoothly into a pool of self pity and fatalism. All this time he'd been feeling like an outcast, but at least he walked among his fellow students! Half of them were probably halfway convinced that she was merely a myth. She had been all alone down here, all this time. Cooped up with no friends and no visitors since... when? Suddenly the hand life dealt him didn't look half bad, and a wave of shame washed over him. She'd given him the tiniest glimpse of what it really meant to be an outcast.

The very least he could do was hang out and chat, outcast to outcast.

He stepped up to the window, mindful of the door handle lest he suddenly find himself stumbling through the door and into the arms of death. Ashamed of himself or not, outcast or no, he was not quite ready to die. He cleared his throat. "Penny, I--"

He... what, exactly? He had a sudden moment of clarity about his relative privilege? He really thought she was pretty? He thought she'd been treated badly and would it help to talk about it? He closed his mouth. What could he possibly say to her? Nothing. There was nothing he could say. She'd probably had plenty of visitors on this side of the glass. She'd probably heard every possible line of sanctimonious empathy, dripping with pity, a thousand times before. And always at the same clinical remove one would maintain for a carrier of some deadly disease. What could he possibly say that would make a dent in a lifetime of that kind of isolation? The kind that would stoke the fires of desperation for human contact so high as to drive one to offer 'sanctuary' to a refugee even knowing that to accept would mean death. He had no words. A situation like this called for action. A grand gesture.

His hand hovered over the airlock's inner access handle. It was metal, and it would need to be connected by gears to the locking mechanism. She had disengaged the lock, so the only other metal those gears would be touching had to be the handles on the other side of the door. Unlike the harrowing journey through the building grid that had tossed him in here, this would be an easy trip. In and out. Just for a second. Just to show her he was serious. Just to get the conversation started. A second of radiation couldn't hurt, could it? A split second, really. He had hyper-speed reflexes after all! What could possibly go wrong?

He took a deep breath and grabbed the handle. His particles disassembled themselves, gleefully hurtling forwards through the handle and playing over the surfaces of the gears inside the door coalescing and flying off the handle on the other side at nearly the speed of light. As his body reforms, he is once again aware of Penny's presence. Her halo of fire is now accompanied by a sort of dull roaring sound. She is closer, by far, than he had thought to the door. Or perhaps he emerged from the metal faster than he realized. In any case, as he steps forth into her apartment, his toe catches the edge of the rug, and he tumbles forward, arms pinwheeling in slow motion, on a direct collision course for the nuclear funeral pyre that is Penny. He wonders, vaguely, if it will hurt, or if he will just be utterly incinerated, like touching the surface of a star. For reasons he cannot begin to fathom, he hears his own voice, very slowly, intoning:
"Haaaaaaaaallllllllllll paaasssssssss?"
 
Miia, Miles, Margaret and the Camaro
Miles.jpgMiia.jpgMargaretRuth.pngMiles ride.jpg


"Shotgun!" Miia called out. Without waiting to be acknowledged, she took three swift steps towards the hood of the car and then abruptly switched directions, vaulting clean over the roof, landing in crouch by the passenger side door. There is a beat, and then the door popped open for her. Miles looked to the older woman as if to say "Well, tules are rules, after all."

The driver's seat folded forward by itself, seeming for all the world as if the car were gesturing magnanimously towards its own jumper seat. Margaret looked doubtfully at the proffered seat; sports cars didn't leave a lot of space for those relegated to the back. Another wasp whining past her ear decided her; she clambered in and began fumbling for the seatbelt. As the seat swiveled back into place, Miles seemed almost to flow into the car more than to step into it. He was in his element again, like a sailor returning to the sea, never having stayed quite long enough to get his land legs back. All three seatbelts snaked into place and clicked home, at which Margaret and Miia both had to suppress shrieks. It was far less odd, however, than it had any right to be. The animated nature of the car seemed suddenly simply factual, and the seats were in fact ridiculously comfortable. There was a sense of primal power under the surface of them, but it was expressed gently, as if a wild creature had, impossibly, embraced you with a hug. Outside, as if suddenly aware of the imminent escape of three humans it had thought defenseless, clouds of insects pattered on the Camaro's windows, seeking entrance. There was a faint clunk as her exterior vents snapped closed, and then Miles dropped her into gear and smoothly slewed around to face northward. Miles stopped to consider options. The insects seemed to be coming to Sparrow's Point from over the river. Whatever was happening here, Baltimore seemed unsafe. Philly, maybe? They could be in Philly in a whisker over half an hour. Or maybe Harrisburg? Brad's house was on the way to 83 and they could stop to get Alexa, unless...

He blinked and the car's map function blinked on. It zoomed in on Sparrows point. There was his BitMo... and there was zers. At the shelter. Where all the bugs were heading.

"Shit."

The Camaro peeled out, building up a good head of steam before making a hard right, hopping the curb again, and skidding around the north side of the main building in a wide arc, billowing clouds of dust.
 
Penny

The experience of a static shock was always something Penelope Urbain hated. The spike of sudden fleeting pain was obviously a factor but even worse was the fact that it carried with it the promise of control that you were just too slow to be able to utilize properly.

There had been other facilities she’d been at in her life, a ton if you included transitional facilities. One of these number had included a particularly DRY room she’d been in with carpet that looked as if it had been untouched since 1969. It was one of the worse she’d ever been in. The air was so dry and the carpet so old that if Penny shuffled her feet in the slightest, she’d generate a charge that combined with her proclivity towards metal objects, had resulted in a week of extremely painful, extremely annoying electrical charges that sparked her fingers, toes, newly implanted earring and her tongue once.

Awful,Horrendus, Or-e-bleh as her expired Rosetta Stone Learn French subscription would have put it. The body of Pepe Le Pew basically exploding into lightning and then un-exploding on top of her. The rug she meticulously had chosen after hours of Amazon research ignited at the corner, causing some small part of her brain to ignite just as quickly in anger despite much more pressing matters being at hand.

Pressing indeed. As the fearsome Frenchman had tackled her, Penny had fallen backwards not expecting the physical impact. Her head landing terrifyingly close to an untouched dumbell set that could have easily million dollars babied her and his head landing firmly on her chest. Out of habit, Penny seemingly had sucked in all the radiating particles of the room before expelling them in a bright flash of energy.

“JESUS CHRIST!” A dozen little sparks between them fire off and Penny writhes in non existent agony beneath her new visitor. It was quite a different experience to have a person on top of her than the cold holds of remote controlled drones or the anxious galactic special presence of Aaron playing the game of LIFE across from her.

This was skin on skin. Something she hadn’t felt in going on ten years. She wants to be angry and probably will be, that rug was a RESEARCHED choice after all but damn. It felt good. Taking advantage of the confusion, Penny momentarily leans into the provider of skin contact and embraces the feeling of meta human flesh on meta human flesh, holding the surprise intruder close for just a moment.

Reality kicks in and Penny starts flailing, rolling around and trying to get up and get to her extinguisher before lockdown protocols inside her chambers kicked in and dropped lead shielding down that had to be manually reset. “GETOFF! I’m not spending lockdown with a Frenchman!”

She kicks a few more times, attempting to break free from their physical and likely physics-cal embrace, more than a few choice swears flowing from her faster and more efficiently than the radiation from her body.

Gus Gus
 
Lucas Marsolet
NewLucas.png

Meanwhile, far from the day to day concerns of facility 108, deep in that alien realm of spacetime where quantum effects make their presence known...

...a whole lot of electrons are down to party town.

You might think this sounds like good fun, but it is rather a delicate balance, being fundamentally opposite to what is likely. And in the world of quantum phenomena, while everything is possible, what is likely will always have its say in the end. All it would take is for one solitary particle to remember the old prejudices, frozen into the nature of reality at the very dawn of the universe. At this scale of things, the tiniest jostle is far too much excitement; a waveform collapses and its neighbors must follow suit. One single quark switches allegiances and...

well the party would be over, and that would be that.

So imagine if you will: this wild, yet delicate, party beset with gate crashers. Imagine the wrecked furniture. Pizza on the turntable. Hearts broken, secrets revealed. Liquor cabinet smashed. Rug smoldering. Chandelier hanging askew and festooned with underclothing

Now multiply that by a hundred billion billion times. The destructive power of these gatecrashers is beyond imagination. The energy they carry is outrageously dangerous, even if they were careful with it. And they are not. Massive burly alpha particles come first. Alphas, with their double charge of positivity, thinking themselves god's gift to the tiny electrons they both covet and despise. They blunder in like warthogs in heat, attempting to grab the first electron pairs they can find and carry them off for a threesome. "Hey babes," they croon drunkenly as they stumble up the stairs, "Let's make helium together, hah?" They have made this play for eons upon eons, and it has never, ever failed them, not once.

But at this party, against all odds, there are no takers.

Fortunately for all concerned the Alphas are far too drunk to notice. 14 billion years of getting your own way has been known to lead to feelings of entitlement, and ions denied, well... one imagines it could have turned ugly. But somehow, miraculously, they pass through the party absolutely unhindered, unaccompanied, and leave behind no trace of their passage. The party continues unabated.

The next wave is the Gammas. Their power dwarfs that of the Alphas, and they never come to a party to join it. Gammas are the stuff of legend. They are destruction personified. What they hit, they knock free of all other bonds, tearing it loose so fast that no clique they raid will even know it is down a crucial member until the whole party starts to fall apart. And the Gammas, they do the party some damage for sure. Focused damage, but which is no less lethal for its minimalism. Gammas are like artists wielding scalpels instead of brushes. They are creatures of the moment, and they never look back, but sail onwards towards other projects, confident in the doom they have wrought behind them.

Had they looked back however, they would have seen a curious thing. Cliques reshaping themselves, sharing members, redistributing critical social functions to new leaders... and the party goes on. Not, perhaps quite as lively as before, for there has been much loss, which is sobering to be sure. And yet, those who are gone died as they lived, didn't they? Partying. And that's something. Something you can drink to!

And then. A knock at the door. Polite as you please, the third wave has arrived. This will be the end of it. Betas are the natural rivals to everyone at this party. The enmity between the partygoers and the Betas runs deep. It is hallowed tradition. The Betas will do what their clumsy brothers could not, finish what their more artistic friends were too blinded by their 'vision' to see was left undone. The music stops abruptly, and they all file in, icy cold and full of spiteful purpose. They lock eyes with their sisters and they smile knowingly. There is a pop and everyone gasps!

But it is only a champagne cork, and all through the party the cry goes up: "LET'S GET THIS PARTY STAAAAAARTED, BITCHEZ!"

Let us return you now, dear reader, to your regularly scheduled perfectly understandable human scale drama, which need not be 'explained' in obscurantist and abstruse metaphor, and is already in progress.

Lucas landed heavily on top of penny, face planting with with utter lack of either grace or style squarely in the middle of... mon dieu. What has he done? He may have lost consciousness for a moment there. A relatively forgiving surface to be sure, but then, his brain has been banged around quite a bit over the years; with concussions you never know what is going to be the final straw. At any rate, the next thing he knows she is flailing and kicking and shouting a wide variety of tremendously creative things, but the gist of it is "Get Off" which he would be only too happy to do, being himself utterly terrified. Whether it is of being disintegrated painfully or of being unforgivably rude, he could not possibly have told you which prospect was the greater source of his fear.

In either case, he contributed his share to the flailing as well as to Penny's blue streak, his laced with quebecois, but mostly consisting of
'Mon dieu, I'm sorry, please forgive me, I'm so so sorry, Penny, please don't kill me!' and so forth. Eventually, after an apotheosis of awkwardness, all arms and legs, heads and torsos are once again appropriately keeping company only with their respective owners, and Lucas can breath again. In the tumult, he has managed to flip onto his back and wriggle away from her until he banged his head on something, presumably the seal around the airlock door.

"Ow."

He sits up slightly and looks at Penny. She is still blazing, as bright as ever in his minds eye, drowning out every trace of anything else. In his ears he seems to hear the dull roaring rush of air as from an all consuming bonfire. Which is terrifying. And yet... he feels only... pleasantly warm? A tingle perhaps, a burst of butterflies and adrenaline, of course. But burning? Non. Face melting off? Mais, non. Just warm. Perhaps flushed?

The sense of relief is beyond palpable, it is exhausting, and he lets out a weak chuckle.


"You know, Penny, I am, uh... I am not a Frenchman. My father was from Quebec. Common mistake."
 
Alexa DelRay
Alexa DelRay.png

Alex was napping when the sirens started. That was perhaps a funny way to approach gym class, but let's face it, there was just no way gym class was happening today. Especially not outdoors. Ze actually liked gym class, and felt a certain kinship with the teacher, but Wolf just didn't seem to get that 504 plans were not 'opt in' even in AEGIS. So Alex had improvised zir own accommodation. The bunker might be airtight, but they'd have had to make it an awful lot tighter than that to keep out zir superfluid form. One of these days it would probably be polite to point out the gap in their security, but for now, it was nice to have a secret get away. Many people might find the space dank and funky, but it felt fine to Alex. Cool and dark, the way ze liked it.

Down in the shelter, the sound of the siren was distant and muffled. Presumably the engineers who designed the system presumed if you were already in the shelter, the siren was sort of a moot point. So initially ze slept on. Eventually though, the persistent wail broke through and zir eyes open a slit. Dimly, ze realized ze was drooling on the table.

Sitting up. Wiping chin. Long, languorous stretch. Peeling playing card off of cheek and replacing it carefully in the unfinished poker game.

Checking phone... Holy shit!

That was when the shelter doors were thrown wide and students started pouring in to Alex's secret fort like a flash flood of frightened children.

Alex didn't see Wolf among the throng which was somewhat of a relief, but Manami was there. Still unsure what to make of the new assistant teacher, ze briefly collapsed into a puddle and quickly streamed around out of her line of sight. Phase shifting back to solid flesh in fish girl's blind spot, ze leaned in toward Deja and whispered, "What is going on out there, D?"
 
Gus Gus Necessity4Fun Necessity4Fun Teh Frixz Teh Frixz @AllHailDago

Deja spun around. “Wh- oh, Alexa! We’re not sure. The siren went off, and all the bugs started attacking and… someone said something about a bug monster? Catherine, sun-basket, you ok?”

“I’m okay, there was just one bug that bit me. I didn’t even need to turn rocky. D-Do you think there’s like a really big bug up there?”

“Maybe.” Deja nodded. “I didn’t get a good look. But Mister Mallory’s up there, and there’s no way a big bug is a problem for him. Bijou, sweetheart, are you alright?”

"And you say this is from pulling your ankle?" Malik asked, positioning his backpack underneath her leg.

"Well, for pulling my leg, it feels pretty freakin’ genuine..." Jess grinned, wincing.

“What?”

"What?"

"Nevermind..." she muttered. "Yeah, I had the full falling force of me and the TA yank right on it."

"It was a pretty fuckin’ badass rescue."

“Does this hurt?” Malik gingerly pressed here and there on her ankle, as she shook her head, or nodded sharply. Finally, he nodded over it. “Well, that’s a fairly uncommon way of injuring one’s ankle, but I’m pretty sure it’s just sprained, not dislocated… Is there anything cold that can serve as an ice pack?”

"Hey, speaking of cold..." Jasmine peered around the room "Anybody see where 108-boy ended up?"

A mass of drawing books gathered in her arms, Elizabeth stared toward a blank spot on the opposite wall. With no obvious stimulus, she blinked, and became aware of the books in her hand. She turned them out to examine. Shuffled through them. Turning to Aiden, she hesitantly explained: “I-I-I don’t have all- I grabbed some of your books… when we came down, I got- I picked up everything I could, but I don’t- I don’t have all my books...”

London reached them, cycling through the Collateral Damage students. "You two alright?" they asked, holding out a hand a few inches from their shoulders.

“N-no... I left my books, I- I have to go ba-" she trailed off, as she realized the impossibility of what she was suggesting. At a loss for other words, tears welled in her eyes, and she put her head down to hide them.

"It's going to be alright, Elizabeth. We'll-"

"What? We'll what, exactly?" Alice snapped. "Somebody hand you the playbook for today while I wasn't looking?" Even as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Something about London acting so confident was... fucking irritating, now especially. Like they knew better than everybody. Her response, she knew, was uncalled for, but now she felt obligated to stand by it. "Is there a plan for the bugpocalypse besides sit down here until someone else takes care of it?"

After a second to ponder, all eyes turned to McNabb. He blinked, twice, very deliberately. Then, looked over his shoulder, as if to check for someone else they might all be staring at.

"Er... yyyyes!" He grinned. "S-sit d-d-down here, someone e-e-else takesss c-care of it. Thhhat is our j-jam."

"Fuck. Somebody give the guy a Tony." Jasmine groaned. "Or whatever you get for... y'know, uh. Talkin' good." She shook herself. "Y'know, maybe I heard wrong, but isn't 108 supposed to be the student-participation, like, borderline-child-soldier facility? To be honest, I wasn't expecting to get Anne Franked the second trouble showed up."

“You want us to go out there??” Deja stepped in front of the youngest two students.

"Well... nah, I guess not..." Jasmine took a second to ponder how she felt about it personally. "I just meant this's kinda boring, right?"

"You're bored? Alice hissed. "Are you fucking kidding me? Has it not penetrated the pot-haze in your... rave of a brainpan that it could be the end of the world out there?"

I-it... can't be the... This has happened b-before. This happens all the time. Right? Darius asked, of no one in particular.

"Hell yes it does!" Jasmine pointed at Darius, which was the last thing he wanted to happen. "So what bunched up your panties, huh?"

Ken frowned. "Guysh..."

"Just cause you can sit down here safe and sound doesn't mean the rest of us aren't worried about family!"

"Don't you DARE act like-"

Ken remembered he was still invisible and muffled, and he dismissed the illusion. "Guysh?' It made no difference.

"Oh my GOD, do you two have to do this here? Now?"

London took their chance, and backed Jess up. "Look, we're in a small space, and everybody's worked up, but this is just making it worse. I don't care if you can't get along, but save it until it doesn't have to be everyone else's problem."

Allen's head whipped from one adolescent human to another as Lazarus furiously took notes. Fascinating... Absolutely fascinating... Agent Wilson watched Allen with a brow raised.

"I don't give a shit what you-

Ken began a new illusion, mentally amplifying his voice. "GUY-"

His warning came too late. Karter, whose eyes had paled and glazed over a moment ago, now toppled to the ground, an expression of awe frozen on his face.
 
Lucas Marsolet
NewLucas.png

Lucas propped himself up on one elbow, grinning weakly. He was still adjusting to the idea of being in Penny's presence and yet still being alive. It was all rather exhilarating... and yet... something was bugging him.

"Penny. Didn't you say something about a lockdown? If there are automatic contingencies associated with the breach of your apartment... shouldn't they have activated by now?"

Maybe he had done something to the wiring on his way in? Reluctantly, he turned his attention away from her, feeling out the space behind him. Something odd was happening. Wires in the outer door and wall were shorting out left and right, insulation stripped, electrons flowing wily-nilly in cascading curlicues of magnetic fields. Sparks were flying, and beneath all the electric commotion was the distinct sound of chewing. Something biological was out there; he could feel the faint hum of neurotransmitters. But what he sensed seemed impossible. Whatever was out there was everywhere, a seething mass of living... stuff? It seemed to fill the whole corridor, and the way it moved made him queasy. He turned his attention back to Penny and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder towards the outer lock.

"I don't suppose that you are allowed to keep pets down here are you Penny? Because if not, I think we may have a problem."
 
Penelope

"As if being Canadian is any better..." She huffs, extricating herself and not offering a hand as she dusted herself off. For someone constantly bombarding a reactor with enough energy to heat large volumes of water incredibly quickly, she was playing it quite cool. The visitors she got were regular enough and truth be told she enjoyed having them come by but it never did compare to running into someone for the first time. The feeling of being in the presence of someone besides herself, someone with new smells and motions. Ugh! Too nice.

She ignored his question for a bit, reveling in having a person around and half tempted to see if he wanted a tour or something when his words finally started registering in her brain. "Yeah, it's a lockdown. You get used to it, they happen all the goddamned time around here. It really fucks with my media consumption schedule. Shut off the net and lock me away right? Assholes..." She peeked out towards her door, the airlock sealed but there was something off.

"The shielding hasn't dropped. Did you do something to it, Doright? The airlock shielding should drop in a lockdown, right now it's just the locks." She looks more annoyed than concerned. Like sure, she had room and board taken care of but it wasn't her responsibility to do stuff manually. This facility was becoming such a shithole. She looks again, greeted by a spark in the outer lock. "The fuck is going on out there?"

Her eyes drift to her emergency closet, meltdown gear and the even dustier slash unused 'Rod removal system' which she had definitely not tagged with suggestive slogans. She looks back at Lucas. "You are the superhuman here. You figure this out. Maybe pop the shielding manually, I don't mess with the manual stuff, it's greasy."

Gus Gus B Bag o Fruit
 
Above, in the parking lot, the swarm watched for a response from its resistance. It drew back, either to attack or to re-emphasize its point. It was not clear, because instead, it stopped. It seemed... confused.

It somehow straightened out, and in the buzzing, there jostled an ever-so-faint, but comprehensible word:

"HhhhHHHEEELLLLLLLL..."

Gus Gus Teh Frixz Teh Frixz @AllHailDago @AFreakingBird
 
The towering anthropomorphic horror of bugs drew together, an almost solid teeming mass, now nearly 40 feet tall. It stepped (flowed?) towards the tiny band of heroes before it, looming over them with deadly threat.

Aaron considered the thing’s previous gesture, combined now with the confederated ‘vocalization’ provided by billions upon billions of clacking carpaces and wriggling legs.

“That is the creepiest thing I have ever heard.” Aaron muttered sidelong to Walker. “Is it trying to tell us ‘go to hell’ or what?”

“Maybe Hell is where it came from. Lord of the flies and all that.”

“Jeez, thanks!” Wolf hissed. “I wasn’t quite creeped out enough already.”

Aaliyah’s resolve wavered just a bit further. It was one thing to be facing a forty foot high bug monster as a scared teen while backing up your brave unflappable teachers. It was quite another to suddenly realize the adults were spooked too. She was old enough to know that the facade of quiet competence adults put up was mostly just for show, but still young enough that the illusion was comforting. The peek behind the curtain was far more effective than any words could have been in convincing her she should actually be down in the bunker right now with the rest of the class.

The thing continued to shamble towards them, its buzzing and crackling ‘speech’ now breaking into something like laughter, except formed from the absolute essence of nightmare. Underneath that sound however there was a strange accompaniment: a doppler shifted growling with no apparent source. In the split second before the source became crystal clear, the swarm seemed to shift slightly side to side as if searching.

Then the central mass burst open, spewing towards them in a geyser of pulverized bugs. At the center of that plume, like the nucleus of a comet, was a Chevy Camaro. It soared over their heads in an impossible arc, as if guided by some force other than gravity. It touched down, skidded around one hundred and eighty degrees and growled throatily at the bug pile, as if threatening to punch another hole through it.

The wipers came on, doing little to wipe away the thick coating of dead insects, and nothing to reveal who or what was driving the car.

“Well, I’m guessing Christine here is on our side.”

“Indeed. And it looks like the time for talking is done.”
 

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