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Post by Pyro on Jul 2, 2006 10:27:01 GMT -5
It's the easiest thing in the world to slip back into old habits and John slid back into the habit of researching like he'd never been away. He scoured the news pages of the internet, searched, strained and condensed as much information as he could until he had a decent picture of the company calling itself NovaTeX.
Formed in the wake of the destruction of the main Worthington facility on Alcatraz, NovaTeX was one of the subsidiary companies that had previously only produced standard drugs; insulin for diabetes, Factor IX for haemophilia - the usual kind of IV stuff that did the rounds. Apparently they had been given a small stockpile of the Worthington Cure and for some unknown reason, they had now decided the time was ripe to come out into the open with this.
Further research had led John to discover that unhappy mutants the world over had been clamouring for more supplies of the cure.
He also found the article that stated the cure was only a temporary thing and this made him both glad and uneasy. It meant that several of the old Brotherhood - at least the ones who hadn't been atomised by Jean Bloody Grey - might well return to his doors. That meant more numbers. This was mostly a good thing.
Mostly.
His eyes were already stinging from staring at the computer screen for too long, but he did a bit of extra research just to see what had been published worldwide about the stunt in Liverpool. He was delighted to discover that on several online forums, discussion was rife about the public return of the Brotherhood. It wasn't all complimentary, but there were clearly several pro-Brotherhood people out there.
Result.
John flipped the monitor off and leaned over to switch his stereo on. Music. That's what was needed. Some quality tunes to help him clear his addled brain. The sound of the Smiths filled the office.
The boy with the thorn in his side Behind the hatred there lies A murderous desire for love How can they look into my eyes And still they don't believe me ? How can they hear me say those words Still they don't believe me ? And if they don't believe me now Will they ever believe me ? And if they don't believe me now Will they ever, they ever, believe me ? Oh ...
Timely. Oh, so timely.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 13:01:23 GMT -5
Jane had gotten bored with "ooh new place" pretty quickly. Most of the interesting places (or places she imagined must be interested, since they said "authorized personnel only" and had little danger symbols on them) she wasn't allowed into; also, the entire building appeared to be either gray or black, with little to no decoration, unless you counted a polished metallic sheen as decoration, which Jane didn't. It was a military base, plain and simple: a fortress. It wasn't supposed to be pretty, or even attractive - just functional and maybe impressive.
Outside the sprawling complex (which, after all was said and done, was mostly imposingly vast empty spaces) was the jungle, of course, which would be interesting, but only for about fifteen minutes. It was jungle, after all. There was only so much to jungles, and even if they were, in essence, her chosen element, her mind tended to wander, even while using her power. Terraforming the land into a farm (to help with food supply and hopefully improve her speed and endurance) would take forever, but wouldn't consume her the way powers consumed some mutants.
But she'd save the jungle for another day, or maybe just later today. Jane ambled through another steely hallway, resisting the urge to drag her fingers along the wall, which was too rough for her to keep up her usual habit - the stone would give her some serious abrasions, even through her gloves. They'd heal, but they'd be annoying.
She found another map attached to the wall - how did they do that? It was just a sheet of fiberglass with a map behind it, no bolts or anything - and found the You Are Here dot, her finger tracing the path back to her claimed room, which still had a long way to go until it started looking like home, even with the addition of the vase Pyro had given her. It had only the few books she'd brought and a couple CDs on the desk and a few articles of clothing in the dresser and her survival tin buried underneath the bed, and the sparse furnishings looked lonely with nothing on the walls or even any clutter.
She moved her finger back onto the dot and followed a path to a little room that appeared to be centrally located, ambiguously named 'OFFICE.' What kind of office? The office of what? Or of whom? Probably Pyro, since he appeared to be the guy in charge. Maybe she'd go bug him. He, at least, would probably have something to do.
Even if it was stacking books.
Jane walked through the empty hallways up to the office; it was a pretty short walk, at least, since it was halfway to everywhere. She didn't even pass Fishboy on the way. For such a large complex, it was weird the number of times she'd managed to run into him, even today.
She found the office door and knocked on it sharply with the heel of her palm, producing a dull thud, but the room must've been metal from the way she could hear the clang resonate.
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 13:10:02 GMT -5
John, who had been poring over a sheaf of papers that he'd printed off looked up at the knock on the door. For once, he was almost glad of the interruption. He had been reading some fairly heavy-duty biochemistry research papers - and scientific academia wasn't his 'thing'.
He got to his feet and padded across to the door, throwing it open and actually delivering a dazzling smile when he saw who his visitor was.
It was unnerving.
"Jane!" he exclaimed. "Come in, come in, grab a chair, mind the mess."
The 'mess' consisted of a lot of pieces of paper strewn everywhere. A laser printer in the corner of the room was regurgitating information at a fairly consistent rate. John picked up another sheaf of papers and added them to the precariously balanced stack already on the end of his desk.
As offices went, this one, like the rest of Genosha had an overriding theme of 'metal'. The desk was metal, the chairs were metal, the bookcases were metal. It wasn't a particularly large room; barely large enough to contain the desk, a few chairs, and John's stereo (which was currently playing some soft classical - which was surprising). But it had a strangely lived-in feel to it.
John slid into the seat behind the desk. "I've been researching NovaTeX," he said, almost redundantly. "There's an absolute gamut of information. And from what I can figure out, they've been stockpiling the Cure even before Worthington Labs originally announced it."
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 13:59:39 GMT -5
"Jane! Come in, come in, grab a chair, mind the mess."
Wow, he had a lot of teeth. Jane wasn't used to her presence garnering such joy. He had to be more bored (boreder?), even, than she was.
She followed him back into the office, which appeared to have been hit by a localized but very enthusiastic literary tornado; paper was thrown everywhere, carpeting the floor, a few chairs and most flat surfaces under six feet in height. Jane picked her way carefully through the rare bare patches and even stepped on a few sheets, but did so regretfully.
A printer hummed in the corner, expelling paper every few seconds. The pile had grown so much that the paper was just sort of falling off the edge. Carefully, Jane picked up the stack and resettled the new paper so that it fell onto the printer itself and glanced through the first few lines of the pages she'd picked up.
She found a chair in front of the desk - a metal one, unfortunately, without much cushioning, though it was vaguely comfortable in an unforgivingly ergonomic sort of way.
"I've been researching NovaTeX."
"So I see," Jane said, glancing up at a stack of paper dangling off the edge of one of the bookshelves, almost ready to float down.
"There's an absolute gamut of information. And from what I can figure out, they've been stockpiling the Cure even before Worthington Labs originally announced it."
Jane frowned, going back to the papers she'd picked up, which appeared to be stock reports from NovaTeX warehouses. "Looks like they've got quite a bit," she said, running a finger down the column that denoted the number of doses per shipment - the number of shipments themsleves was large, and there many, many doses per shipment. "These records go back before even the news reports that Worthington was working on a cure."
Another silent moment in one of the Underground clubs, though that one had been post-ocean-jump and had been followed by a raging brawl between those who liked the idea and those who didn't. Jane had wisely escaped to the street before it got really heated, but had been in quite a mood for the rest of the week.
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 14:11:32 GMT -5
"Looks like they've got quite a bit."
"Yeah, well, not for much longer. Because we're gonna divest them of their stockpile." The boy raised his eyes from the desk and met her gaze. There was the glint of slight madness there, but it appeared only briefly and could easily have been imagined.
Perhaps.
Given his ensuing outburst, then again, perhaps not.
"DAMN Warren Worthington the bloody second! Damn him and his idealogies! How DARE he try to tell us that we have some sort of disease? It's not us who need 'curing' but the rest of the human race that needs to be evolved beyond what they are!" He slammed his fist down on the desk so hard that the CD jumped several tracks.
Nothing had been heard of Worthington since Alcatraz, although there had been a kind of befuddled statement that said he was going to go away to spend some quality time with his son and was leaving the running of his company in the hands of his trusted right-hand man, Edward Rawlins.
That hadn't stopped John from trying to find Worthington.
Without success.
The young man gathered up another handful of papers from the printer and began intently studying them, marking certain paragraphs with a highlighter pen. He looked up.
"Feel free to see what you can find out as well," he said, cheerful once again. "There's plenty of stuff to wade through."
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 14:33:56 GMT -5
"Yeah, well, not for much longer. Because we're gonna divest them of their stockpile."
Jane glanced up to ask exactly how, but was stopped by the strange in his eyes - he had green eyes, too, she noticed, though she'd almost expected red or orange, but they weren't... like hers. Brighter, for one thing, and distinctly crazier.
He gazed at her for a few seconds and suddenly appeared to explode with anger, making Jane jump back in her chair, heart tacking rapidly.
"DAMN Warren Worthington the bloody second! Damn him and his idealogies! How DARE he try to tell us that we have some sort of disease? It's not us who need 'curing' but the rest of the human race that needs to be evolved beyond what they are!"
Both Jane and the soft classical CD jumped harshly at the slam of John's fist against the table, but Jane, being the only sentient one, was the only one surprised that John's hand hadn't left a dent. While she agreed with everything John was saying, he seemed strangely consumed by it in a way she only ever was for breif periods - and never like this, not so completley enraged. She had a temper, sure, but not like this.
John quietly picked up more paper and started marking them with a hilighter, the only sound for a few moments Jane's breathing, just slightly harsher than usual, and the squeak of John's pen.
"Feel free to see what you can find out as well. There's plenty of stuff to wade through."
So gonna snap. Well, no, scratch that - so gonna explode, violently, in a burst of napalm and shrapnel and death. And fire, likely.
Oh well. He wasn't THAT crazy, Jane told herself, looking back down at her papers, sifting through the numbers and the Courier font; he could manage it enough to run a base, after all.
They sat in contemplative and companionable silence for several minutes, John hilighting and Jane racking up rounded numbers in her head, dog-earing pages with important information.
She hit the name Trask four times before spekaing up. "Who's Bolivar Trask?" she asked, still reading. "He's got some sort of defense contract with NovaTeX. And they've been supplying chemicals in lieu of money - see, the bill comes to zero down here."
She put the page on John's paper-covered desk, pointing to the little zero at the bottom of the services rendered bill, despite the charges that were totaled up above it. The total on the export order for various huge orders of specialized chemicals to Bolivar Trask was the same. "Whatcha think?"
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 14:43:35 GMT -5
"Bolivar Trask? He's the President's military adviser. Head of the Department of Homeland Security. Talk about your pretentious job titles. Or he was, before Alcatraz, I guess he probably still is." John took the offered piece of information and cast his eyes down it thoughtfully.
He doodled vaguely over the numbers with his highlighter as the cogs of his mind turned quickly. "This is interesting," he murmured, far more to himself than to Jane. "Why would a military man hook up with a pharmaceuticals company?"
John scooted backwards on the chair to the bookshelf which was filled with files. He paused momentarily as he stared at them. "Must sort those out sometime, they're all out of order."
They were filed perfectly alphabetically.
His hand stopped on the 'M' file and he hauled it out. It was full to bursting with even more papers and news cuttings painstakingly cut out and stuck down. "Military," he murmured. "Military, military, military..."
Things went silent for a while.
"There's allusion to something referred to as the 'Sentinel programme'," he said eventually, "some hush-hush thing. Let me check out the usual routes, see if anything's updated since I was away..."
The file still open in front of him, he pushed a handful of other papers out of his way and clicked onto his keyboard.
You could say what you wanted about this kid, but he knew how to research.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 15:00:09 GMT -5
"Bolivar Trask? He's the President's military adviser. Head of the Department of Homeland Security. Talk about your pretentious job titles. Or he was, before Alcatraz, I guess he probably still is."
That certainly didn't bode well. If NovaTeX had government protection, they'd have a worse time getting in - there could be no theatrics about their entrance or else there'd be tanks everywhere in no time, and they still couldn't stop bullets, much less mortar shells.
"This is interesting. Why would a military man hook up with a pharmaceuticals company?"
"He was drunk and they were cute?" Jane murmured, as much to herself as John had before.
"Must sort those out sometime, they're all out of order."
Jane glanced at them. The alphabet still ran the way she remembered it. She decided not to say anything. He didn't need any furthering on his way to napalmdom.
John murmured as he went through the files and Jane went back to her sheaf of paper, pushing the useless stuff on the floor, where everything else was, and keeping only things with names or full paragraphs or numbers that looked more important than the rest. The only thing she really understood was that, for whatever reason, NovaTeX was giving Trask a whole lot of transmission fluid. Apparently whatever the chemicals were being used for had wheels, or at least gears.
"There's allusion to something referred to as the 'Sentinel programme', some hush-hush thing. Let me check out the usual routes, see if anything's updated since I was away..."
Jane looked up from her papers and leaned to one side, trying to see John's computer screen, but all she got was an off-kilter glow. "Sentinel," she said. "Senn-tinn-ell..." She'd heard that. Somewhere. Recently. But recent times were kind of a jumble, what with bank robberies and Italy and everything. "Sounds like recon," she said. "A sentinel's just a fancy word for 'guard,' isn't it?"
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 15:19:07 GMT -5
"Yeah. Sentinel." He gave a strange sort of smile and dropped momentarily into Pretentious, Well-Read Smart Kid mode. "French sentinelle, from Italian sentinella, probably from Old Italian sentina, vigilance, from sentire, to watch, from Latin sentre, to feel. Indo-European. Probably."
He ploughed through still more papers. "NovaTeX are affiliated with - surprise, surprise, Worthington Labs. When the Alcatraz base was destroyed, all operations shifted out to the Boston factory. NovaTeX have major distribution points all over the East coast, but the one that Trask appears to be using is based in Baltimore."
More papers were spat out the printer and he went to fetch them, absently.
"He's getting the transmission fluid - along with hydraulic fluid from a commercial branch of the company based down in Florida. But the Baltimore branch...seem to be supplying..." He snatched up a discarded sheet. "Yep. Sedatives."
He paused briefly as the CD finished and moved onto the next one, which was definitely not classical.
Can I play with madness? The prophet stared at his crystal ball... Can I play with madness? There's no vision there at all...
"Iron Maiden," he murmured.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 16:32:25 GMT -5
"Yeah. Sentinel. French sentinelle, from Italian sentinella, probably from Old Italian sentina, vigilance, from sentire, to watch, from Latin sentre, to feel. Indo-European. Probably."
Jane rolled her eyes expressively and gave a little huff before sinking farther into the chair, slumping a little.
"NovaTeX are affiliated with - surprise, surprise, Worthington Labs. When the Alcatraz base was destroyed, all operations shifted out to the Boston factory. NovaTeX have major distribution points all over the East coast, but the one that Trask appears to be using is based in Baltimore."
Jane watched as Pyro went over to the printer and came back, not interrupting his monologue, since he appeared to be getting into it.
"He's getting the transmission fluid - along with hydraulic fluid from a commercial branch of the company based down in Florida. But the Baltimore branch...seem to be supplying... Sedatives."
"Sedatives?" Ew. Ew ew. Nothing good ever came of sedatives. "What do they need sedatives for?"
The CD switched over with a smooth grind of gears, ending up as something a far cry from the earlier selection.
"Iron Maiden."
Jane, personally, was not the biggest fan of Iron Maiden, but she somehow doubted insulting Pyro's music taste was a smart move while he was so deep in researach of people who had tried to kill him, especially considering his earlier outburst. "If they're just watchers," Jane mused aloud, "they wouldn't need sedatives. But if they're actually going to be attacking something, like you'd expect with sedatives, they should have bullets..."
You could almost hear the hamster wheels in her head whizzing along.
"...unless they'd get in trouble for killing people," she said, the light bulb above her head clicking on, if only metaphorically. "Like they would with the whole Mutant Rights Bill, and they can only be going after mutants if they're guarding the Cure... looks like we won't be worrying about stopping bullets anyway, then."
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 16:42:09 GMT -5
"Have a read of this."
John hit the print button to print out the web page he had just been reading and scooted the chair backwards to get the page from the printer. He almost went flying when the wheels of the chair got caught in a pile of paper and he cursed loudly, getting up and walking the rest of the way.
The article was a brief news report of the press conference that had recently been held in Washington at which the Sentinel programme had been unveiled.
It made for most disconcerting reading.
"Explains the hydraulic and transmission fluids," said John, a little grimly. "All those moving parts are gonna need some serious lubrication."
He could feel a headache coming on.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 16:54:47 GMT -5
"Have a read of this."
Jane tried very hard to remain concerned about their possible death/maiming when John hit the paper slide, but did not, unfortunately, succeed. She might even have snorted into her hand a little bit.
She took the sheet and read through a press release detailing one of the President's press conferences, taking in the by-now familiar name of Bolivar Trask and scanning through it to find the first mention of the Sentinel program, which popped up after the initial discussion of the Cure.
A coldness formed in the pit of her stomach as the journalist described the Sentinel. It became very clear why they needed sedatives.
"Explains the hydraulic and transmission fluids. All those moving parts are gonna need some serious lubrication."
While she normally would've said 'ha ha, lubrication,' this time Jane simply bit her lip. "So," she said, "we're going to break in and try to outrun... one of these?" When they probably had motion sensors and all sorts of nastiness? And she did NOT want to know why they were just going to sedate her rather than kill her, no matter how much trouble they'd get into for killing a mutant. Scientific experimentation on mutants was not unheard-of, and Jane was scared enough of pointy things without worrying about scalpels dissecting her as she slept.
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 17:01:50 GMT -5
John too had heard of, read about and seen photographs of mutant experimentation. It was right up there on the list of Things That Were Wrong In The World Of St. John Allerdyce. Right up there with Bobby Drake, Warren Worthington II and white chocolate.
"You know what?" he said, his tone cool and impassive. "You know what, Jane? I'll be DAMNED if they'll keep me from doing what needs to be done with a fucking TRANSFORMER." He picked up a handful of discarded paper and began shredding them methodically. "It's part machine. Machines can be disrupted."
Either the kid had balls made of adamantium or he was verging on the suicidally insane.
He continued to shred page after page, that maniacal glint back in his eyes. "We need to think this one through very carefully. I need to start working on creating that fire shield...we need to research the exact sedative, it's possible you could create an antidote with all the plants you can make pop into existence..."
Shred, shred, shred.
His eyes strayed to the bookcase. "That's REALLY getting on my nerves now," he mumbled. "Do you want a coffee?"
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 17:12:32 GMT -5
"You know what?"
Danger, danger, Will Robinson!
"You know what, Jane? I'll be DAMNED if they'll keep me from doing what needs to be done with a fucking TRANSFORMER."
It's a Transformer that will eat you for breakfast, Jane wanted to say. Wisely, she didn't.
"It's part machine. Machines can be disrupted."
"How?" None of them, as far as she knew, had the magic power of disrupting machines. The only thing she could think of that might kill it would be Cain running at it full speed, and it'd put him to sleep before he could take too many out, wouldn't it? Unless you could bake whoever was driving it.
John was putting the Crazy Face on. Jane contemplated how fast she could run away with the paper everywhere to trip her and John to torch her.
"We need to think this one through very carefully. I need to start working on creating that fire shield...we need to research the exact sedative, it's possible you could create an antidote with all the plants you can make pop into existence..."
"An antidote to a sedative is going to be something like Speed," Jane said slowly. "That's really dangerous, it can overtax the heart really easily..."
"That's REALLY getting on my nerves now. Do you want a coffee?"
"'Kay," Jane said, picking up her papers again, and instantly regretted it. Maybe whatever was in the coffee was what was making him crazy. Whatever. She wasn't the person who torched people they didn't like. She just... grew bamboo shoots through their stomachs. Well, maybe she wouldn't go too suicidal.
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Post by Pyro on Jul 3, 2006 17:21:38 GMT -5
John went over to the coffee machine and poured her a cup. He didn't, she noticed, take any for himself. "Depends on the sedative, surely? A little more research and we'll have a better idea of what we're up against."
It was unspoken but obvious that the kid would get no rest until he'd explored every avenue.
He sat back down heavily in the chair and not for the first time since she'd been thrust into his company she realised just how young he really was. He looked at her, almost wistfully. "D'you know, time was when the most pressing issue I had to deal with was getting a new set of curtains for the bedroom after I set fire to them in the night again? If it didn't involve Bobby Drake, I'd go back to that life in an instant."
He stopped, looked momentarily horrified at himself and physically shook himself. "I have NO idea why I just said that," he said.
He then proceeded to obsessively flick through the current CD, playing the first few seconds of each track until he found a song that satisfied him. He'd then listen to that for a couple of seconds longer before flicking again. Then he pushed aside the remote.
"Chop, chop, busy, busy, work, work, bang, bang," he muttered, more to himself than to Jane. He pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger and resumed the endless reading.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 3, 2006 17:51:43 GMT -5
"If it's already in the system, the only thing you can do is add something else that reverses the effect," Jane said. "Like... if you add too much of any ingredient to soup or something, you can't just take it back out, because it's already mixed in. You just have to add other stuff until you can't taste it anymore. It's viable, I guess, but you just have to be careful, or else you might end up with something weird. You can add more everything to soup, but you can't add more person to person."
Cooking analogy. Not gonna get through to a guy who, as most kids did, probably lived on pizza, Dr. Pepper, candy and whatever he could find in the back of the fridge.
Suddenly, he didn't look crazy anymore. He looked young.
This was getting seriously weird.
"D'you know, time was when the most pressing issue I had to deal with was getting a new set of curtains for the bedroom after I set fire to them in the night again? If it didn't involve Bobby Drake, I'd go back to that life in an instant."
Jane blinked at him.
"I have NO idea why I just said that."
"That makes two of us," she said.
Jane watched him flick through his CD until finally turning it off, muttering to himself nonsensically.
"Um," she said, putting her un-drunk coffee down on the desk. "I think I'm going to go... practice. Antidotes, yeah?"
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Post by Pyro on Jul 4, 2006 11:50:54 GMT -5
He looked up from the papers.
"Antidotes, preventatives, cures. Anything that's gonna help. I need to start practising making a fire shield, although I have no idea how I'm gonna test it...Juggs just runs into stuff...damn, we have so few numbers."
He rapped smartly at the side of his head. "So few members, so much to achieve...heh." He gave a short, totally non-amused laugh. It was not a pleasant sound. "I have such a headache. No more coffee for me."
If you listened ever so carefully, you could hear the sound of his brain imploding, one synapse at a time. John Allerdyce had taken on far too much far too young and the strain brought about by the events of the past few days was most definitely starting to take its toll.
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Jane
Natural
It Ain't Easy
Posts: 174
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Post by Jane on Jul 4, 2006 11:55:21 GMT -5
"Antidotes, preventatives, cures. Anything that's gonna help. I need to start practising making a fire shield, although I have no idea how I'm gonna test it...Juggs just runs into stuff...damn, we have so few numbers. So few members, so much to achieve...heh. I have such a headache. No more coffee for me."
Oh... kay. Exit. Exit. Exit.
"I'll, um, work on that," Jane said, maneuvering herself out of the metallic chair, careful of the paper that carpeted the little office. She actually hadn't thought of a preventative agent, but she needed to know what was in the sleeper itself before she could block it. And she didn't know what kind of stuff a preventative measure would do, either. Nothing had zero side effect.
She got across the office to the door pretty quickly, though carefully, since she didn't want to deal with any broken bones from falling all over the paper. "You have fun researching," she said before slipping out the door, walking as fast as possible (though not running) away from the crazy.
[Exit thread to generally somewhere else, tbd later]
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