trans_9 | Life's a Drag, Pun Intended [Open]

Entry tags:

Life's a Drag, Pun Intended [Open]

Finally having moved all the scrap he allotted for the day from the borders of the explored city to the little abandoned building he's calling The Warehouse, Howard nearly collapses onto the couch he's 'borrowed' from a neighboring, uninhabited house. After laying completely still for a few minutes, soaking in Stacy's downright weird artificial sun - though he guesses it's not much weirder than the FAYZ's - he sits back up and looks over today's haul.

A bedframe. About sixty pounds of various pieces of scrap metal, mostly aluminum this time, from the looks of it. Some PVC piping. A cardboard box full of jewelry, some of it looking expensive. Some weird alien cube that keeps making humming noises when it's not chirping. A dead iPod-ish computer thing. Corked bottles full of smokey, glowing substances. Walkie-Talkies with no batteries. Folding chairs. A box of gel pens. Flashlights. What looks like an alien ukulele. Something that may or may not be a magical wand. T-shirts with four arm-holes. An empty refrigerator that doesn't appear to work, but may be useful with a lock installed. Not that he'd have been able to get it here without the trolley he also kiped. And another plastic box full of various odds and ends. There's another mountain of stuff, slightly better organized, just behind The Warehouse's door.

Howard chews on the end of one of the gel pens and sings to himself as he starts sorting. It's probably nearing time for him to actually let other people come look through the stuff too. He cracks his neck and rubs one shoulder ruefully - skinny teenage bodies aren't made for dragging refrigerators.

"Spacey Stacy, give me your answer, do
You're totally crazy and more full of snot than the flu
Your food is a sloppish nightmare, but it's better than starving, I swear
It's not your fault, but could you use some salt? Because some spice is much overdue..."

(( OOC: Feel free to have your character find stuff in Howard's pile of junk, as long as it makes sense to have found in The City. ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Howard's in a bit too grave a mood to respond with 'who you gonna call', so he just shakes his head. "I don't know. What about the Magic Department? Should we tell Stacy? Because they didn't seem dead either. Or I mean, they're a really noisy dead."

No, that's true, they're not in the FAYZ. He still keeps tapping his pocketknife and dragging his shoe back and forth in the dirt anyway. "No, I know, I'm just sick of that sound. Well, I guess we check that dojo off the list of places to train. Sensoriums are more than good enough for me."

He looks up at Zouichi, not necessarily surprised but still noting that the children in the mold were unsettling and new even to him. He really doesn't know enough about Zouichi's world - bar the zombies - to know how weird or not weird it was.

Zouichi nods thoughtfully. "The Magic Department... or perhaps the Science Department. After all, we don't know for sure what caused the phenomenon. It's possible the effects we experienced were due to some kind of environmental toxin."

His world has zombies, Synthetic Humans, psychic powers... just no ghosts. As a general rule. "Whatever is affecting this building may also have spread to other buildings in the area. If so, it could pose a larger hazard to the crew."

"Could be, like, the crazy mold makes us hallucinate," Howard says, trying to convince himself that it's something benign. "Except we both saw and heard the same thing, right? We should just...tell someone."

And lay any possible responsibility at someone else's feet, someone better equipped to deal with this, someone who is not them or at the very least not Howard.

"And it probably spreads fast, since I didn't notice anything a few days ago. Or maybe it was just...asleep. I don't know."

"Hmm... if there's a danger of it spreading, perhaps we should dispose of it." The wheels of destruction are turning.

"...do you have any weapons in that reclamation pile of yours that might be able to do the job?" Because if not, Zouichi can always go back and get his coil rifle.

Howard grinds his teeth in thought. "I have a flamethrower," he says, casting a long look at Zouichi to see how he'll react to that. Surely Zouichi wouldn't judge him for wanting to be armed.

No hesitation. "Then let's get it, shall we?"

Zouichi would be surprised if Howard wasn't armed.

Howard nods in affirmation, and starts walking quickly back to the Warehouse. Once there, he considers telling Zouchi to wait outside, but decides that won't help that whole 'trust' thing they're playing at. Instead, he walks into the kitchen and drops to his knees in front of the cabinet, reaching in and unlatching the secret door on the inside and pulling the floor out. He doesn't invite Zouichi into the hidden cellar, but he won't stop him. On his way down he quickly tosses a tarp over the still he's working on for Chase.

"Someone even more paranoid than me owned this house first," he explains. Through another hidden door and there's a stash of weapons, mostly organized by size and most of them in crates. Howard pulls out the box that contains the flamethrower, and as soon as he can, hands it off to Zouichi.

Zouichi would have respected a request to remain outside, but since Howard didn't tell him not to, he follows Howard down to the cellar. He glances at the still before Howard tosses the tarp over it, but even if he'd had some time to examine it, he's never seen a still before and wouldn't know what it was for.

The owner probably was paranoid... but Howard's the one that picked the place out, after all. Zouichi takes the flamethrower, looking back at Howard. "You don't want to do the honors?"

"I'd probably end up setting myself on fire, and no thank you on that one. I'm betting that out of the two of us, you're the one who knows how to use something like that." He waits for Zouichi to go back up the stairs first so he can lock up afterwards. "Anything else we need?"

He packs another flashlight just in case, and grabs a shovel from the closet.

True, Howard; very true. "A fire extinguisher?" You know, just in case the massive blaze gets out of hand.

"Other than that, I'm fine. Do you want to get a mask or something for yourself?"

Howard pulls a small notebook out of one of the drawers and looks over Albert's entries. "We...actually do have a fire extinguisher." He roots through one of the boxes in the closet and pulls it out, and grabs his first-aid kit and a shirt on the way out. "Mask probably won't help. Wet t-shirt'll be better."

Slinging the shirt and kit over his shoulder and holding the shovel, he has to admit this does look sort of badass. Not that it makes him feel even the slightest bit more excited about going back to face that mold. "Let's go."

"You're very organized," he says, rather approvingly. It wouldn't do to misplace the serious firepower, after all.

Zouichi nods curtly in response to Howard's words, slinging the flamethrower over his shoulder. As luck would have it, today he's even wearing his body armor. Not that he's expecting anything to go wrong, of course.

He's more than happy to start back. The sooner they get back, the sooner the creepy mold becomes scorched mold.

"Easy to lose things," he says plainly, tense now that they're going back there and a bit lost in thought as they walk back. Mostly he's just trying to keep his stomach from turning and his hands from shaking as they head back there. Bravery has never been his strong suit and for all he knows, that mold is going to grow entire people out of it to fight back. But the more he tries to calm himself, the more horrible ideas of what the mold might be capable of blossom.

When they're back to standing in front of the dojo, he takes a slow breath, all the way to the pits of his lungs. There shouldn't be any need for a fire break - the buildings are already spread far enough apart and there's no brush anywhere. Furthermore, Stacy's humidity should dampen things a bit. Unless whatever the mold breathes out is highly flammable. "Man, I do not want to go back in there."

Zouichi doesn't comment on Howard's obvious anxiety; in fact, he's a little impressed that Howard hasn't abandoned the task altogether and asked Zouichi to do this alone. Also, and there's no point lying -- he wants to see how well the flamethrower works.

"We don't have to go back in attic," he says. "In fact, it's probably too dangerous. Stand back a bit, please."

Zouichi walks up and just into the wide doors of the dojo, examining his surroundings for a moment before a line of bright flame bursts forth from the weapon in his hand. He sends the flames lancing back and forth, lighting up the windows of the building as he backs away. The dojo is made of wood, and though it's a little damp, it's not long before the building lights up.

By the time Zouichi walks back to Howard's location, the flames are climbing higher and higher -- licking at the floor of the attic, no doubt.

"Great, now you tell me it's probably dangerous," Howard grumbles, to himself more than to Zouichi. He stands back more than a bit, eyes getting wide in admiration for the weapon. As Zouichi's burning it, Howard's doing another sweep of the surrounding area, making sure again that there's nothing flammable. Howard can't tell if it's the flame lighting things up or actual, reserved enjoyment on Zouichi's face, but he wouldn't be surprised by either at this point.

Soon enough, in addition to the crackling and popping and crunching of the building burning down, there's a keening noise.

Great. The mold screams. Just great.

At least it doesn't sound like kids anymore.

There's an explosion from one of the back rooms, small but audible. Howard guesses that there was a propane system involved after all. Satisfied that there's nothing immediate that needs clearing out, he takes a seat on the curb, away from the smoke, though he still keeps the t-shirt at hand if the wind changes. He bites his lip, irritated that he wasn't able to hide his fear from Zouichi, knowing that Zouichi doesn't seem afraid of much. Perhaps damage to Fuyu. Howard doesn't recall having ever seen Zouichi afraid of physical harm.

"Having fun? Gotta admit, you looked like a pro doing that. Wanna sign your name in fire?" It's a bit of forced chipperness, but he actually is impressed.

Alas, no expression of enjoyment, although the sentiment is there; Zouichi's used to conflagrations that are a little less controlled. But it is rather satisfying to hear the creepy mold shrieking as the building goes up. He doesn't appreciate having psychic angst beamed into his head and whatever that mold was doing, it came close enough.

As far as Zouichi is concerned, fear is an emotional response to be expected from human beings. Either through his training, his personality, or some inborn quality he was engineered with, he rarely actually feels it himself. The closest thing he's experienced is his concern for others, particularly Fuyu -- but to be afraid of harm to himself would render his mission practically impossible.

He gives Howard a little smile. "No, thanks. Actually, we might want to get out of here, in case anyone sees the flames and comes to investigate. I don't remember any rules against setting fire to mold, but you never know."

"You know, normally I'd be all for that" he really, really would, "but I don't think we should just let a fire like this burn out without supervision. Just in case. I don't want us to be responsible for taking out a whole block."

He looks around, eyes settling on a building across the road - it looks like it might have been a diner once, including a high counter to duck behind if anyone comes by. "Not that that stops us from finding a hiding place to watch it from, you know."

He picks up the fire extinguisher, kit and shovel and motions for Zouichi to follow.

Fire suppression? Cool guys don't look at explosions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo), Howard.

Zouichi nods; what Howard says makes sense. He follows close behind, shifting the flamethrower's strap against his shoulder once more. Inside the diner, he picks a booth and sits down, glancing outside at the burning building.

"So, do you come here often?"

He chuckles. "Not anymore. Ew, smells like burning hair out there."

He pops his head into the back room, checking to see if Stacy decided to bring over any food, and sighs when it just seems to be endless empty fryers and kitchen utensils. He grabs a fork out of one of the tables, inspects it, wipes it off on his pants and twirls it in his hands, stopping every once in a while to click the tines against his front teeth. He slides into a booth across from Zouichi. "Stacy's just full of surprises, isn't she? I bet that's from someone else's screwed up homeworld."

He clicks the fork again. "You think any of your zombies'll show up? I'm really hoping mine doesn't."

He makes a face. Thanks for bringing that up, Howard. Zouichi isn't at all sure that any food the ship would have brought over with this place would have been edible, anyway -- no telling how long the diner's been around.

"If they do," says Zouichi, "That would be the end of the majority of the crew. N5S is incredibly fast-acting, airborne, and the infection rate is almost 100 percent, with the sole exception being Accommodators. There's a reason most of the humans of my world were forced to live in disease shelters. The only variable is whether the nonhuman members of the crew would be susceptible."

Also, he would probably have to kill off the infected crew members.

You'd be surprised what stays edible for long periods of time, Zouichi. Cans of preserved fruit are like tiny vessels of happiness from the heavens.

Yay, that sounds like 28 Days Later. Fantastic. Another thing to worry about, but Howard would rather know what to worry about than be blindsided should it ever happen. "They stay contagious until they die, then? Or even afterwards?"

Yeah, but how long would they have been around? Forty years? More?

"Die?" Zouichi looks a little confused. "The hosts die, and are reanimated as drones. And the drones produce a kind of... I suppose infectious spore is a good way to describe it. It is capable of surviving even in the vacuum of space. If the ship were foolish enough to bring that aboard..."

Hey, if it's not bursting at the seams from some type of obvious contamination, Howard would consider eating it.

"Well, I don't know, destroyed. But so the virus is its own thing...would there be a way to isolate places on Stacy just in case a breakout happened? Like reverse quarantines?" Oddly enough, Howard finds talking about this almost comforting. Like planning for problems in the future makes the creepiness and untrustworthiness of Stacy now less of a problem.

Zouichi does not find the current conversation particularly comforting, but he'll talk about it... to a point.

"It depends. I don't know what sort of capacity the ship has for isolating disease breakouts, but normal virus quarantine procedures should suffice once an area is contained. On the other hand, the ship has proven that at least some of its containment systems have failed or are failing. It may not be capable of maintaining its own disease perimeters.

"On the other hand, the ship itself is an enclosed area, unlike Earth. It may be possible to sterilize compromised sections of the ship."

"Yayyyy," Howard says unenthusiastically. "And I'm betting sterilization is just thrilling."

He bites the tip of the fork, looking outside. "I think our dojo's officially burned down out there. Let's go out and finish it up. Might as well give all the mold kids a proper burial."

The idea that they might have been alive still hasn't quite left Howard's mind.

Life's a Drag, Pun Intended [Open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

All Internet but phone Internet is gone. D:

noooo!

It's back!

Re: It's back!

Re: It's back!

Re: It's back!

Re: It's back!

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

Leave it here?

Leave with next tag?

Consider it left!