July 11, 2015:
Following a lead, X-Red, along with Agent May investigate a research facility … and meet Eight
Research Facility - New York
Characters
NPCs: None.
Mentions:
Plot:
A Dark Hold
Apocalypse: Only the Strong
Blood versus Family
Bones Of The City
Breaking the Universe
Cyberdata War: First Strike
Dangerous Esterikos Wonderous Mystikos
Dark Gods & Times
De Oppresso Liber
Demon Lord of New York
Diaz de Muertos
Don't Tell Thanos The Babysitter's Dead
Empire of Tears
Escape from Sakaar
From the Ashes
Gateway to the Stars
Genosha: Rebirth
God Of The Dead
Hacker, Sass-Mastah, Engineer, Spy
Himmel und Hölle in Bewegung Setzen
Mood Music: None.
Fade In…
The Meta-Scanners have caused a great deal of concern amongst the mutant community. Where they came from, who's funding them and the research… no one knows. Investigations have shown there's a facility, just outside of New York that has an usual amount of computer activity associated with something called CADMUS.
Late evening, the facility is pretty much deserted, or at least that's how it seems… even though the lights in the compound yard are still on. The compound itself is surrounded by high metal fences, topped with slanted barbed wire panels. Seems like whatever is going on here, someone is trying to keep it private.
It's easy to miss, because humans tend to recognize the difference between a person and a statue on an instinctual level. The leather clad figure standing in the shadows of a nearby alleyway, it's too still to be a person right? It's a little too tall, too broad shouldered just plain slightly too big to be a person anyway right? The box truck parked just a few feet away looks equally as boring, if only because nobody can see the combat drones hiding within. Eight is in no rush though, it rarely rushes to much of anything really. Content to crunch the numbers for the moment, as it plans out this little assault.
There are two drones hidden away in that little box truck, and a third circling far overhead. Sending eight a stream of sensor data at a rate only a machine could properly digest, everything from magnetic resonance to microwave emissions. It's looking of course, for guards, for radios, for power supplies, for load bearing support beams, for security cameras, underground power and water lines. Humans fight poorly in low light of course, unlike Eight and it's drones. Satisfied, it's tinted motorcycle helmet visor glows for just a second as it starts foreward. Casually lifting a hand to that helmet, as the box truck's cargo door begins to lift seemingly all by itself. It's time to get this party started.
It's not officially part of WAND's jurisdiction, but it affects enough people she knows that when May heard of intel pointing toward this building possibly having a link to those metascanner things, she decided to take it upon herself to investigate.
Unaware of anyone else here doing the exact same thing, she's watched the building since sunset with the help of a particular Gotham Information Goddess. She's got the guard schedules and rotations already set, as well as a listing of every spot on, in, and around the building where their security has holes. Hopefully it'll be enough for her to get in, look around, and get out again without drawing undue attention.
It's a given that May is NOT wearing her usual SHIELD attire for this little excursion, but her all black ensemble is just about close enough. Deciding it's time to move, she makes her way to the building's roof as stealthily as possible.
Though she's likely as glaringly obvious to Eight's drones as the security guards are. A shame she's unaware of the mechanoid's presence. So far.
Bobby has come with on this one. Mostly he's been coordinating from X-Red HQ. This one is close enough that he could take a break. WOrking with May and … wasn't Brin aroudn somewhere? Working with them in the field is going to be interesting. He hasn't done much fieldwork. But it could be necessary if the indications of resistance were at all accurate. DNA Spliced humans and who knows what kind of tech. He's walking behind May. She's the tactical expert here.
Brins there, following behind, she's still getting used to the field work. In the time she was off, the team has grown and made contacts… and whilst hers in business are extensive, the teams for other things are pretty amazing.
May and Eight will notice that there are two entrances, logically at the front and the back. Each entrance appears unguarded but electronic snooping shows a highly effective security system is used to gain entry.
Same with the fences. There's a large sliding panel that allows ingress and egress for vehicles, with a people gate built in… simple enough to bypass if you've got the right tools and systems.
The drone overhead releases it's payload, it looks like a minikeg painted black really. Not that you can really see the thing as it tumbles away from the drone in the night sky, before it pops the chute and slows it's decline. The petals covering the exterior lift up, and away and the submunitions dispense with the aid of gravity. Little lead weighted spools, unfurling long strands of pure graphite into the night air. The little spools hit the ground harmlessly with an audible clink, as a dark black cloud descends from the heavens. It's strange and surreal, until those graphite strands drift into the power lines and tangle. Clogging glass insulators, sheathing whole bundles of power lines and causing them to arc spectacularly for a few moments before the local breaker trips and the entire neighborhood plunges into darkness. Those graphite strands, well aren't going anywhere either. The power isn't coming back on for some time then.
Perfectly timed as Eight casually strolls right up to the front entrance, and pauses. Waiting as several thousand pounds of darkly painted robotic spiders dismount that box truck and stalk foreward to join Eight in it's assualt. Not that it weights terribly long until it reaches out to grasp the front gate, and presuming we're just talking chainlink here it'll rip the majority of the front gate right the fuck off it's hinges. This is Eight afterall, remember? Ain't nobody got time for that gate shit.
Melinda May nods to Bobby as they approach the back entrance to the building, and then the power cuts out. She manages to not curse aloud, looking at Bobby then nodding to the fence gate in their way. Now that the power's out and it looks like any generators the building might have are focused on the interior, it's time to move quickly. "We need to move. Break it quickly."
Bobby nods, already looking for thermal around them. His hand shoots out and he rapidly freezes a section of the gate. "Give it a good kick." He whispers. Stepping back to give Brinley some room. Odds are good with the noise this makes it'll trigger some kind of response and he doesn't want to be crowding her when it happens.
Brin steps up and kicks open the gate, putting the full force of her weight behind it. The gate gives way, leaving a space for the trio to walk through…
With the power going out, the compound is thrown in darkness, although the lights in the facility stay on. Odd? Perhaps, or perhaps it has uninterruptable power supply - which, on consideration, even more odd. The whine of backup power generators can be heard as they spin up, won't be long before light is restored.
The noise of the front gate being ripped from its hinges gains some attention and Eight and its drones are met by eight heavily armed guards who pour out from the front entrance.
Maybe the trio at the back entrance got lucky - only two armed guards appear to block their way.
"Varmit! I'mma gonna blow ya to smitherines!"That, is a recording of Yosemite fucking sam. That's Eight's response, sealed with the flash of a neat red smiley face across it's "face". It lifts it's left hand as the armor along the right side of it's torso hinges open, for Eight to withdraw it's rifle. Not that it fires the first shot, no that comes from overhead inititally. A pair of short 7.62 machinegun bursts thrown down on the eight men, but of course it's not the only drone getting into the fight.
From the shadows those big spiders emerge, each about the size of a small compact car clad in heavy armor and bristling with machineguns. A total of four ultra high velocity 12.5mm cannons slung where a spider's fangs might be erupt, and it's quite the show. The sound of an Octanitrocubane derived propellant alone is downright ear shattering for blocks, throwing almost quarter pound projectiles downrange at more than ten thousand fps. This is the sort've shit Eight often uses to rip apart lightly armored vehicles, and enemy robots but well at under a hundred yards against actual humans it's likely more than just catastrophic. Several hundred thousand pounds of energy dispensed at more than four thousand rounds a minute, more of a roar than a machinegun's staccato bark. Eight walks foreward ever so casually, as that armor plating along it's side snaps shut. Internal fans whirring up to speed as it removes the last of it's own internal safeties.
Melinda May ducks past Brinley the moment she kicks the gate open, and her movements are punctuated by the weaponsfire at the front of the building. A matched pair of taser-ended batons telescope out from her hands and she swats the guards decisively before shocking each of them to put them down and keep them down. "I hate party crashers. We're on a very tight clock now. Move."
Without waiting to see what Drake or his companion acknowledge her words, she rushes for the door that the guards came from. Hopefully she'll be able to get in. Maybe a particular Gothamite can help in that regard despite the power outage.
"That's a lot of ordinance." Bobby murmurs most to himself. Fortunately, water is great at breaking force. A lot of it. You just… need a lot of water to do it. Bobby doesn't have that kind of time. Better to foul gun barrels and make it dangerous and difficult to move and or shoot. Of course… first he's got to survive. He hits Brinley and drags her down. She'll probably be up in a moment but cover is necessary right now and getting low is the best option. Then he zeroes in on those hot flashes, the gun barrels he hopes, and starts to send the ice their way.
"Ow… why Bobby, I didn't know you cared." Brin mumbles as Bobby takes her to the ground to provide cover. Peeking up, Brin waits till it's clear to get up. When it is, she struggles to her feet and rushes for the door, following May.
Eight and its counterparts tears the eight guards apart, they go down and they're out for the count. Eight can enter the complex without further challenge.
Bobby's ice freezes the weapons, rendering them useless… though the guards are still upright.
Inside the building, there are a handful of people working… a computer system and several cabinets used to store samples of the sort.
Eight steps right on in just as pretty as you please, and pauses to study the electromagnetic footprint of the place before heading for the nearest server bank. Shrugging as the little cat sized spider everyone knows and loves, "Muffin Tin" scuttles off towards the sample room. Eight's hardly subtle, nor is it terribly rushed. Of course, it also sort've knows exactly where it is that it's headed unlike the other visitors.
Outside the drone overhead breaks orbit to widen it's search of the immediate area, searching for possible reinforcements. One of the spidery drones slips over to stand directly infront of the front entrance, finally exposing that nose art painted along it's body. A cartoonish rat being obliterated by a sledge hammer, with the text "RAT SMASHER!" scrawled beneath. It's twin, seperates to climb a nearby building so as to provide some measure of overwatch. An ambush in waiting it would seem.
May waits just inside the door for B&B to catch up, not that they really have that much time to spare. "Get the data from the computers." She offers up a USB stick specially made by a particular Gothamite for whichever of the pair to take, then starts toward the cabinets presumably holding interesting stuff.
Nearing the cabinets, she sees the cat-sized robotish thing and her eyebrows draw together in a faint frown. Another form of security, or competition? Either way, she can't afford to waste time dealing with it, so she throws one of her batons at Muffin Tin, aiming to hit it with the taser end of the weapon. Let's just hope that stops it.
Bobby gets up. "Course I do. We're a team right?" He says quietly and motions to follow May. One hand is out. It'd be nice to have a weapon but honestly all it'd do is make him feel better. Nothing he could carry legally would match his abilities. Still, bare hands make him feel awful vulnerable.
Brin smirks a little, just a little at Bobby's comment and takes Bobby's hand to help herself up before moving to dart in the door past Agent May, pausing when the woman throws something at the catlike creature.
Taking the USB stick, she looks to Bobby "I'll get the computer, if you check cabinets?" She'll wait for May to give the all clear.
Apart from May, Eight meets no more resistance.
In the cabinets are samples of research, varying forms of what appears to be the same type of research, each labelled with sample numbers and dates.
Muffin Tin is, well tiny and built along apparently similar lines to a tarantula. Just yaknow, cat sized and armed and ok maybe not exactly cute. It does not however, like being fucked with. The little turret along it's back swivels into action the moment May pitches that stun baton at it. Letting our a rip of automatic gunfire, of an adorably small gun to shoot that baton right out of the air. The little spider postures up, emitting an ear bending electronic screech before swiveling that little gun towards May and pausing.
Eight doesn't visibly pause, but well May's certainly got it's attention. Casting a glance back through walls and pillars all, before jacking it's remote connection right into that server. Leveling that rifle casually towards the doorway as it proceeds to rip databases apart and compress the contents at record speed, then again Eight is a walking super computer what did you expect kids?
Seeing the cat-sized robotic spider thing swivel a gun in her direction, May immediately throws herself to one side to get clear. She also barks out a warning to Drake, so he doesn't get hit by the stray weapons fire. "Down!" So whatever this little spider thing is, it's after the sample also. Good to know. That means it's up to Bobby to get those samples and get out while May distracts their competition here. Clearly, throwing things at it is ineffective, and it's the one shooting at things (though she's fairly certain that this one little bug didn't make all that noise they heard outside), so she has to be extra careful here.
Bobby jumps at the sound of gunfire. "Not again!" He shouts. May's got its attention and that may be a problem. "Brin, arrows!" He's got an idea. Armor penetration is about two things, density and finding the right point to hit. He can help with some of that. The moment Brins' bow comes up he coats the projection with a sharp, dense bodkin point of glacial ice. That'll give it heft. Using it, or not, will be up to the empath.
The screech and the gunfire has Brin stunned for moment and then Bobby's calling to her for arrows. Within seconds, her glowing green and gold bow appears in her hand with a quiver of arrows on her back. Nocking an arrow, she watches as Bobby coats the head. Taking a deep breath in, aiming at Muffin Tin, drawing back… breathing out, she lets her arrow fly… and without waiting, she moves across the room to the computer.
Fitting the USB to the server, Brin starts to download the data the herself. There's a lot of it, so it will take a minute or two and once the download has started, she nocks another arrow… if she needs to she'll shoot again.
Now all they need are the samples.
Muffin tin, brave until the end lets out another burp of gunfire before that arrow smashes into it. The armor remains intact, but well theres more than a small amount of kinetic energy here. Certainly enough to throw Muffin across the room and onto the floor with a clatter as the little bot tries to figure out the license plate of the truck that just hit it. Poor little guy!
Eight is, well none to pleased quite predictably and it moves swiftly down the hall. Landing a single kick in the center of that door, before calmly stepping inside with a surge of red across it's "face". Rifle resting casually at it's side as it peers at the three in turn. "It would be wise to show more respect to the personal property of those who are substantially better armed than you."The voice is low and loud, and tinged with no small bit of russian accent. "Another act of aggression will seal your fate. You three are strong, but I am beyond all strength. Do you humans understand me?"
So there's the little spider's daddy. Crap. No matter what, May can't let this Russian-accented automaton get what they came here for. "I have no quarrel with you. Just let us take what we came for." Fingers crossed this mechanoid will actually listen to her.
"Your toy shot at us. Personal property rights sort of in abeyance at that point." Bobby watches Eight. "On the other hand you're talking and not shooting. So maybe you're prepared to be reasonable about it?"
The download completes and Brin grabs the USB, edging back towards May and Bobby. They've both said what needs to be said and they've got what they came for. It's time to get out now.
"I have the data, we don't need the samples. We can go now." Unless Eight decides to talk nicely that is.
"My drone defended itself, if it intended to harm you it would have."Eight seems, well eight's a robot so it's impossible to read beyond that red smileyface on it's "face". "I watched you break in here from a combat observation platform circling five thousand feet overhead, if I wished to kill you I would never have permitted you to breach the perimeter. Now leave here under your own power, or I will see to it that you leave here in body bags. I have no time for the inefficiencies of organics, there is work to be done."
Melinda May gives Eight and that damned projected 'smiley face' for a long second, then nods to Bobby and Brinley. "Let's go." The robot is clearly okay with telling them to leave, and if Brinley's already got the data from the computers, they can get out before anyone is seriously hurt. She's made a mental note of this mechanoid, however, and she WILL be doing some research. He's pretty distinctive. Someone has to have seen or heard of him before.