Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. (Pt. 5: Chances)

[cityship]

The plan was...well, it wasn't simple, but it sort of was.

While the CLF attacked multiple Clone Processing centers to distract the government, the group with the CLF would target one particular one in the region that'd once been New Jersey. The group with the government would offer their services in putting down their own people.

In the center, they'd split up into several groups. One would fight a fake fight, create a massive diversion, and blow up the room where the samples their DNA were being kept in the process. Another group would secure a teleporter pad. That team would teleport out other teams to steal a ship, steal some med tech to teleport to said ship, and steal a medical database. Another team would go to the main command center and hack into the government mainframe to down the sensornet around the planet so they could escape. And Nightwing himself would accompany the clones to upload the harvested memories to the Mother Brains, left unguarded because of the diversionary fighting, and make sure that was all they did.

Meanwhile, there'd be a standing order for all teams to avoid killing other crewmates, and avoid killing guards unless absolutely necessary.

It was a complicated plan. If a single part fouled up, they might find themselves dead, trapped, or worse. But if it worked, it'd work pretty spectacularly and leave them with medtech, a medical database, the clones helped, and possibly a grateful Council depending on how the fight went, because of the ones seemingly aiding the government.

In some worlds, things that were a million-to-one-chance (exactly a million-to-one) by their nature had to work. Let's hope this world is one of them, eh, mission crew?

[ooc: Only comment to threads if it says they are open here. All threads: OPEN. Characters may get injuries up to and including 7 on the Injury Scale (scroll to the bottom). Any higher, and they must ask permission of the plot-runners, just to make sure everyone isn't immobilized without enough people to help move them.]

Comments

[theboywhowaits]

"No more than a concussion when I was a child. Fell out of a tree." He shook his head. "Far as I know, there's no real reason for it, unless something happened after I was shot and my mind repressed it so as not to deal with the trauma."

He nodded, keeping pace with her calmly. "We've got three hours, at the end of that we'll find out. Wish we had more of a clue, but nothing to be done for it."

He kept his eyes open, looking for anyone who might stop them, it appeared quiet for the moment. It wasn't a vital area of the hospital and it was unlikely that it would be heavily guarded. Or they hoped. "Left sounds good to me. Nurses station just down the way, supply closets should be around that."

[encourage]

She filed away that answer for later. Always good to know more about the history of people around her -- medical histories in particular. "If it's repressed, it's choosing one great time to start coming out again."

The same unhurried pace took them past the nurses station, to closests marked with symbols as well as the word for supplies. She only knew that after reviewing the language of the world, one thing the omnicomms were good for regardless. She nodded to Rory as if he'd said something of importance, replying with, "I agree, it's important to know what kind of stock any one of the centers is taking. Did you hear about the new release from ViaTech this year?"

Hardly a pause as the door opened to a scan of her badge, and Sakura was slipping inside the storeroom.

... That was easier than she was expecting.

[theboywhowaits]

"Yeah I know. Best time, right? At least I'm not doubled over in pain right now, it feels weird, but I'm functional. More functional, really." Patience he had, the ability to wait...yeah, and now he knew where he had gotten the sword. "The headaches kept occurring when I got stressed, and considering the situation...well, I thought it was normal. Or at least, as normal as this can get."

He nodded, arms relaxed at his sides. "Of course, the hospital's ability to react to the current crisis. I saw the paper before we left, but I haven't gotten a chance to review yet."

It was almost strange how easy this was. How normal they made it seem. It was completely relaxed and comfortable, no one so much as looked twice. "Floor, ceiling, walls, right?" He reached into his bag for the sensor tags. "Seems small enough to go, useful things. Their medicines are almost more useful than their machines. I think it might be best to take a look at the diagnostics room next."

[encourage]

"We should look into this more when we have the time." Ha! When did anyone have time? "When we're back on ship, at least."

She hesitated, reaching for one of her own sensors to affix to the far wall. No need to keep talking about some ViaTech paper, now that they were in. With the door shutting behind them, they'd hear anyone else entering.

"We can use this as a drop point for any of the smaller things." She hesitated -- then shed her backpack, the one carrying unnecessaries. The less on her the better, when it came to what she didn't immediately want at her disposal. "I'll get ceiling."

Looking for an open enough section of wall, she found a narrow strip and started an awkward shimmy up to the ceiling, that she proceeded to crawl across to about the center. Chakra was a wonderful, amazing natural part of the living body. "Diagnostics -- next -- sounds good to me."

[theboywhowaits]

"Yeah, I plan to. At the very least I need to get scanned." He flexed his hand, staring at the fingers for a moment. Flesh, not plastic. No gun. He'd need to fix that. The sword was good, but he'd feel better with a gun as well. How was he flesh? "Back on the ship, feels like we've been gone a month, and only been a few days." Time was funny like that. Blink and a week passes, and then an hour dragged on for days.

"Sounds like a plan, we can clear this floor of anything useful. We passed a nurses station, which means there will be nurses about. They're more likely to ask questions than guards. So be careful."

He watched her ceiling crawl, unable to really find it in him to be shocked after everything. "You do this often? Crawling on ceilings?" He applied the censor to the middle of the floor, walking along the walls to apply them as evenly as possible.

[encourage]

Sakura stayed quiet, listening to what he had to say. Time did seem to pass at it's own strange pace, both faster and slower than it should by all rights. On ship it was even more difficult to track. "It's been a long few days," she agreed, crawling back toward some clear space, letting go to drop down in a rolling fall.

She landed on her feet, absorbing most the impact, and stood. Fixing her costume, she smiled a little. "Crawling? Not so much. Usually I'm running across them. What's left for this room?" She headed back toward the door, pausing to shove her backpack under on shelf and keep it nicely out of the way.

[theboywhowaits]

"I thought we might get a shower, this long planet-side. But it seems the fates had other plans for us." He smiled, quietly rueful as he watched her crawl across the ceiling.

"How exactly are you managing that? Is it some sort of technology?"

He ditched his backpack after a moments hesitation, not wanting to leave it behind but capable of seeing the logic of doing so, keeping the sensors in a leg bag. "You know what I don't want to happen? That thing to go off and us to still have these in our pockets."

His head jerked to the side when smoke started billowing out of the elevator, keeping himself still when people started shouting and running towards it. He waited until the hall was clear again before he spoke, sirens blaring overhead as the smoke detector reacted. A recorded and creepily robotic voice started issuing evacuation orders.

"...sometimes, I think they should really go over what exactly 'covert operations' means before sending someone to preform one..."

[encourage]

"Showers. I remember when I actually had those." Wistful, and ultimately out of place. She shook her head, an almost imperceptible movement, before answering his next question. "Training. I can tell you more some other time. it's really interesting! Or I think it's really interesting. It's a large part of my lifetime of training, so I'd better think something of it."

The explosion and subsequent reactions had her on edge. "Covert's pointless by now. Come on, we're listening to what that voice is telling us."

By ducking into the diagnostics room and helping direct some of the nurses inside out.

"There's been some sort of attack on the elevators. We're asking everyone to get to the stairs and to proceed down in an orderly fashion. Patient evacuations will be starting on all levels."

[theboywhowaits]

"I think we all do. Showers and food that didn't look like porridge if you boiled all the taste out of it." The Doctor had helped some, helped get it down to a more manageable scream inside his head. He could function, and he was going to look at that as a benefit and keep it together.

"I'll hold you to that. Must have been some impressive training, if the result is sticking to walls."

He watched the security force heading into the staircase, pressing his thumb to his ring, not sure if it had the range for it but willing to try.

'You have twelve incoming, followed by civlians evacuating.'

He sighed, shaking his head faintly, just glad for the moment that the sprinklers hadn't turned on. What exactly had the other two lit on fire, anyway? That was an awful lot of smoke. "Yeah, I figured it might not last long..."

Really, this only went to prove his earlier point. But that was neither here nor there and he would simply need to keep moving. And possibly include it in his report later, which wasn't something he was looking forward to. He didn't imagine the Captain would be pleased with any of them.

"Just remain calm, the situation is being handled by security, the evacuation is only a precautionary measure, there is no need to panic."

It was amazing how much could be accomplished if you simply stayed calm and acted like you knew what you doing. In a few moments they were alone in the ward, Rory glanced at Sakura, ruefully shaking his head.

"Peaceful people, seems like. Not used to all this chaos. Bit sad, really, to bring war to their doorstep." But there wasn't much to be done about it now, the only way to move forward was to shake things up. That was their only choice. "Lets move before the army gets here."

[encourage]

She nodded, glad the whole scheme of looking like you knew what needed to happen paid off. Then again, it did that back home, too, even when the world looked like it was falling down around her ears. Keep calm and give orders. People liked to respond to those, or to argue with them, in times of crises.

Not that Sakura believed the building was coming down, but it was a useful distraction. "War was already there. They just didn't know about it." She frowned, moving through the room as she said the rest of that thought. "It doesn't make it any less real."

She had her stickers out, all ten left, sticking one smiling, almost idiotic face on the side of a diagnostic machine with a repair unit for something child sized. "Marked this one," she said conversationally. "Anything you see we should make sure we get out?"

[theboywhowaits]

"True. War often arrives before any of the civilians realize it...." He sighed, moving to a diagnostic machine more suited for an adult and tagging it. War always arrived before anyone was ready for it. And before everyone could get clear, he hoped with the sirens going off everyone had cleared the building. "Honestly they explained so little it feels like we're tagging blind. Tag as much as we can and hope it turns out useful in the end. I'd like to get to the research labs a level down and grab at least a few of the computer systems. Even if we just put them into our drop zone. Avoid anything that looks like it needs spare parts. Otherwise, if nothing else I'm sure tech will enjoy it."

"What do you think they blew up?"

He leaned to look at one of the terminals, frowning at the data and trying to work out what it meant. They used different terminology than he was used to. "Everything is shutting down, they're at a level three security break, all non-essential personnel and patients are being evacuated as we speak. At least there will be no more casualties than we can help."

It felt wrong to attack a hospital, to hear explosions ringing through the halls. To be planning to rob them and take what they could.

This was a place of healing, it should never be attacked. He pressed his lips into a thin line, hoping that Zouchi and Howard remembered their orders. At least for as long as it took the doctors, medical personal and patients to clear the buildings.

[encourage]

"No idea. It may have been entirely a distraction, something in the elevator shaft." There'd been nothing to say to the first part. They were tagging blind, doing what they could. If really...

"If that explosion was us, I trust both Zouichi and Howard to be thinking clearly. There had to have been a reason. If it was anything else, then..."

She trailed off, finishing stickering another machine. This one some kind of restructuring unit, which felt out of place.

"I can work on ferrying electronics. Can you get Howard or Zouichi on rings?"

[theboywhowaits]

"Right, hope so. Last thing we need is this getting messier than it already is." He couldn't shake the feeling that this was wrong, even as they went about the theft, helping with the evacuation as they could.

"Can't, they're not answering. Probably too busy to notice it. I hope it's all going well and they're not hurt."

He sighed, gazing around at the machines. "Best we can do is finish with the theft, really, and then try to find them. Lets make sure we tag R&D."

[encourage]

"Let's move to do that, then try to find the other two?" She frowned, really not liking being out of contact. "If they're fine, we can work on pulling out together. If they're injured, then we get to them and pull them out."