A trail of aching derrières- next time they'll be more thoughtful

[gone_byebye]

The door opens onto an expanse of asphalt, steel, and glass. Nearby a sign reads:

WELCOME TO WHITE FLINT MALL
BEST PRICES IN THE DC AREA

4708 BETHESDA AVENUE
CHEVY CHASE, MD

It's a big parking lot, with the mall itself only visible off in the distance. Ray gives it the squint-eye before turning to the others. "Okay, people," he says. "This is it. Johnny says it's underground. Egon's best estimates indicate three miles down. Are we good?"

Comments

[gone_byebye]

The power room's controls are incredibly complex and varied, but they have a particular advantage: they're all labeled. The Foliage Census people have their own version of ISO 9000 certification. If you can't figure out what it's supposed to do just by looking at it, you'll get told what to do with it- one way or another. There's just so damnably many of them.

[md_donighal]

"Not like the last time you were shutting down power to something, eh, Ben?" Michael says, gently mocking, as he starts tracking all the electric flows in the room, then finding which particular panel seems associated with the most of them.

[masterofsoresu]

"Oh, I don't know," Obi-Wan replies. "Getting out was the hard part that time as well." Relying on his ongoing sense of dejys visti, he heads for the panel that looks most like the controls for the Death Star's tractor beam.

[steadfastknight]

"Remember, leave the environmental controls and life support up - after all, we are three miles underground. Also, let me offload the computer data before anyone catches on--"

And he looked around. The room appeared unpopulated besides them, but the question was if there was room for him.

[gone_byebye]

The room is too cramped in most areas- save one. A space big enough for two golf carts end to end, and wide enough for a cart and a half, punctuates one side of the control panels. There is a wide door marked MAINTENANCE ACCESS leading into that space. Scans will indicate that the opposite side of that door is a freight elevator shaft, with the elevator currently present. Hey, the computer consoles had to get there somehow.

(OOC: Kitt-mun, I had an idea for how you guys would wind up getting out eventually. Ping me or email me so I can get your opinion on it...?)

[md_donighal]

"Right, right, three miles underground and baselines need oxygen. Important safety tip; thanks, Kitt." He rubs his hands together with an odd glee. "Now go to town on those databanks, please."

[steadfastknight]

He nodded once, and then there, in that rather cramped area - well, it was a good thing he wouldn't be required to do any fancy manoeuvers - he transformed. It was a blur more than anything else, and then there was a car where a young man had once stood. And with the whisper of a scanner sweeping back and forth across the car's prow, the network load of the Foliage Census suddenly thickened.

[masterofsoresu]

Step right up, ladies and gentlebeings! Kitt Knight has managed to gobsmack a Jedi, a feat last achieved by Obi-Wan's own Padawan!

It takes Ben a moment to regain control of his jaw. "...Well. That's something one doesn't see every day."

[md_donighal]

Michael is similarly croggled. "And, once again, my definition of 'normal' gets dragged out into a back alley and pounded on with a recoilless basketball bat."

[steadfastknight]

Kitt's voice was the same though perhaps the faintest bit more digital. "My apologies," he said, "but this is the easiest way for me to make the required datacopies. I should have warned you."

The network wasn't exactly being friendly. But computers were his forte, for reasons that might be obvious.

[masterofsoresu]

Ben thinks about it for a moment. "It might've been nice to have some advance notice, but it's quite all right. It hadn't come up before, after all. And you are what you are."

[md_donighal]

Michael nods. "It could come in handy if we all need to get away from here at speed." Then he sighs. "Still and all... nothing personal, but only two words fit something like this, and they rhyme with 'trucking silly-ways'."

[gone_byebye]

The network wasn't being friendly, no. It was the network of a federal agency, and those by their very nature are designed to make life harder for their users. The thinking is generally that anything the users really, really struggle for must be worthwile, and everything else is just a waste of bandwidth. Having the channels of information blasted this far open is a new experience for them, and it's causing drain on every machine in the complex.

Which has its own uses, considering how much of security relies on those machines to begin with.

[steadfastknight]

"I believe I've heard those words before," said Kitt. And then he noted, "I'm also going to shut down all of the audio and video security systems, and erase the evidence of all of our presences if I can at all manage it. I'm having a bit of trouble with the network. You can begin to shut down other electronic systems, however. I will have a complete copy soon."

[md_donighal]

"Shut down systems? Oh yes, I can do that." His eyes begin to glow, and his feet to leave the ground, as one by one, all non-essential systems grind to a halt. (He briefly considered exploding them, but decided that might damage something important such as the environmentals. As it is, he leaves up life support, and anything Kitt's working on, and anything needed to sustain those bits.)

Does it count as godding if they're both your pups?

[masterofsoresu]

Obi-Wan looks a little bemused and chagrin'd. "You hardly need me here at all, do you?"

"On the contrary," Michael assures him. "You can stand watch, for whenever our run of luck runs dry."

"In my experience," Ben replies with that same sense of dejys visti, "there's no such thing as luck. Still, it never hurts to be ready for one's opponents." He takes up a position near the door, ready to meet any intruders.

Re: Does it count as godding if they're both your pups?

[gone_byebye]

Alarms would be going off about now if they were capable, but there's remarkably few of those left functioning. As it stands, the rest of the complex has far too much else to worry over anyway.

And there are still those who have a sense of duty to rely on. Kitt will notice in his download of the network data that the last squad of security forces left standing is a small knot of ex-Marines who've taken up a position at the top entrance to a maintenance elevator shaft- specifically, the elevator that feeds down into this very room. It's a damned fast elevator, and probably represents the quickest way out, but it would be wise indeed to be bulletproof upon exiting the upper doors.

Re: Does it count as godding if they're both your pups?

[steadfastknight]

"...We have a small problem," Kitt noted. "I believe that now is a good time for a strategic withdrawal, and this elevator represents the swiftest way. The difficulty is that we have been noticed via the network - unavoidable, I'm afraid - and we would be expected. They are armed."

Then he noted, quietly, "And I am bulletproof. We can make the exit, if the two of you would trust me enough to... climb in, once I'm in the elevator." If the elevator was deep enough for a Trans Am to fit in lengthways. He'd prefer to manage to burst out of the doors rather than the wall.

Re: Does it count as godding if they're both your pups?

[masterofsoresu]

"If I can trust my life to a speeder with Ani at the controls," Obi-Wan allows as, "I can trust it to a groundcar with a robo-brain at its controls. I'll be there, sir Kitt."

A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.

[md_donighal]

"Do you realize what you just said, Master Kenobi?" Michael replies. "But yes, Kitt, I trust you enough to passenge in you. Shall we do this?" He presses the elevator button.

Re: A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.

[gone_byebye]

The elevator's right there, and it's got enough room for Kitt. It's a good elevator. The Sears Tower doesn't have elevators this fast. It also doesn't have the ability to adjust air pressure to avoid ear-popping the way this one does- poor bastards.

Nor does it have armed men crouching around the topmost entrance, or a sign in the distance saying "EXIT", beyond which daylight can be seen...

Re: A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.

[steadfastknight]

Inside the elevator, the two wing doors swung open to admit the two men. "All I ask," said Kitt, "is that you don't touch the controls. Please climb in as quickly as possible, so you aren't hit by ammunition ricochet."

Re: A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.

[gone_byebye]

The two men get in, neat as you please. One of the guards nonetheless announces, "Come out with your hands up! Don't make us shoot!"

This should be entertaining.

Re: A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.

[steadfastknight]

LEDs climbed their scales, RPM measured in a growing arch.

Their exit would be amusing, he found as he stretched his sensors past the door, past the guards, and to quote old custom he said, "Ground floor, automotive department - thank you for shopping at Sears."

Signals were quickly sent in two directions - downward, and outward. Below them, three miles below them, a computer system began to self-decompile, heads digging into discs to make data utterly lost.

The other transmitted data on a line of highest security to the Foundation for Law and Government. Specifically, Karr and Michelle Knight. This was information they would need to have for their own security purposes.

And in that split second, a turboboost was executed. The black car burst through elevator doors and over the heads of the guards on the other side with a roar of V8 and turbine engine, showering shards but doing no direct human harm. He'd had to make sure of that.

Re: A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.

[gone_byebye]

For a moment- just a moment- the guards stared upwards in silent awe as the car shot over their heads.

Then it occurred to them that there was a CAR FLYING OVER THEIR HEADS, and they scattered like a nest of chickens with a hawk's shadow passing overhead. By the time any of them thought to look around for the car again, it was gone- well and truly gone.

Milliways could use any door it bloody well pleased, after all.