Poughkeepsie Attacks!!!: Team Big Blue

[gone_byebye]

The IBM Supercomputer Benchmarking Plant in Poughkeepsie lies at the center of an enormous corporate campus on the northern side of town. As far as Ray can tell, that's where the really hairy readings were coming from, although he could of course be wrong.

He's about to find out. Ecto pulls to a stop just outside the main entrance to the IBM property. "Are we good?" Ray asks.

Comments

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Tilda knows what to do with guns, at least.

The first part involves staying the heck behind Ecto. She's not insane.

The second part involves popping her head up and yoinking one away from its idiot whenever she can get a clear line-of-sight. The trajectories she aims to throw them on involve a whole lot of up with a secondary component of away from the truck with the Ark in it.

[ultradreamer.livejournal.com]

Mirai, for his part, also hides behind Ecto.

"I wish I had my gun," he says. "Does anyone have anything I can throw?"

[basic_powers]

Tyler passes a buzzing egg towards Mirai.

"Here! Toss it at the biggest group of shooters!"

[librarian-flynn.livejournal.com]

Approaching from the rear, one slightly winded Librarian.

"Sorry I'm late, guys, got a little -- holy crap, Ray, is that your car? -- sidetracked. Did I miss anything?"

[stilljustandrew]

*Andrew pipes up from his spot behind Ecto's left leg.*

Uh -- bunch of Nazi lamers running around and screaming; fake shoggoths from our side; Indy and Mel being generally awesome; some gunplay; and, um, Ecto says we should all stay behind her now.

How's your day been?

[ultradreamer.livejournal.com]

Mirai throws the egg. He's got a good arm!

"Hello," he says, "we encountered some very unpleasant men and a magical circle."

[gone_byebye]

The egg soars overhead and hits its target in a flurry of-

Oooh. Ow.

Whoever programmed that egg reads webcomics.

[basic_powers]

...

...

Tyler is going to have WORDS with Angie about that setting.

[librarian-flynn.livejournal.com]

Flynn winces. "Not nearly as bad as that guy's just got," he says to Andrew's question. "But, yeah, ditto Nazis, ditto awesome, not so much with the shoggoths, though."

[md_donighal]

"Whoa," says Michael. "Space station flashback."

[ultradreamer.livejournal.com]

Mirai looks very sad. Emo even.

He whimpers, "I am supposed to destroy creatures like that, not summon them."

[basic_powers]

"...Mirai? That's not a real creature. It's nanite putty."

right, list of people Tyler needs to have talks with. Anige, Mirai, Angie again, and then maybe start asking for more weaponry.

[ultradreamer.livejournal.com]

"Oh... it is like Miclas, a Maquette. I understand now, but he does not see to be liking that at all...."

[stilljustandrew]

*Andrew is making the ewface.*

Oh, that's not right.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"...I think I saw something like that in an ancient Japanese scroll once," says Tilda, looking mildly distressed. "There was an octopus involved. No, two."

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

"At least--"

He doesn't continue.

If it were the sort of thing he'd say, he'd probably admit along the lines of 'I got nothing'. As it is, he just sort of scratches his ear.

[gone_byebye]

Ray went to an engineering school at Columbia. Engineers occasionally get their hands on movies they shouldn't. Sometimes they have names like Urotsukidoji. Hence the face.

Ecto, for her part, goes "Eeew!", but otherwise remains unmoved. She turns towards the truck and says, "Dad, I think I can handle him-"

"Oh, no," comes the sound of Peck's bullhorn-amplified voice. "No, actually, I don't think you can. CEASE FIRE, ALL OF YOU- and stay right where you are, robot."

No one has ever said Peck had a commanding presence, but you know? Nobody's shooting any more.

"I want to talk to you, Doctor Stantz. Where I can see you."

Ray looks at the others and spreads his hands a little. "Think you guys can cover me?" he asks.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Most certainly," says Matilda, bright-voiced and putting a hand to her shoulder-bag.

She might get to blow things up! In the name of Ray Stantz!

Happyface.

[ultradreamer.livejournal.com]

"I will do what I can."

He has not noticed the Mebius Brace appearing in a sizzle of gold on his left arm - but it is there, because he's worried.

[stilljustandrew]

We got your back, Ray.

*Andrew is not sanguine about this at all. Peck really, really doesn't sound like a guy who's going to be reasonable.*

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "Thanks," he says, and steps forward- not coincidentally, standing between Ecto's feet.

"Oh, and if I were your friends, I wouldn't try anything funny. Especially not the psychokinetic. You wouldn't want me to let go of any dead-man's switches right now..."

[wellthrownstone.livejournal.com]

Garion doesn't particularly like this situation but, unlike the last time he was in it, makes sure not to set anyone on fire. He just waits for, as he'd told Ray, a cue.

[gone_byebye]

Well, dang, thinks Ray, but doesn't say it. Instead he clears his throat. "What do you want, Peck?" he calls instead.

"I want your assistance up here. Right here on this truck."

"... you know," says Ray, "I think I must've taken a severe blow to the skull during the fight, because I could have sworn I just heard you say-"

"Can the clever talk and get your ass over here, Stantz!" snarls Peck angrily, standing up fully for the first time since all the fighting began. He does not look like a well man; his cropped-short red hair is patched here and there with grey and silver stipples, his skin is blotchy from bad eating and stress, and he's dropped far too much weight to be really healthy. In someone else it might elicit sympathy. Here it just adds to the ominous glower of his expression. "You heard every word I said, and you heard them perfectly well. You. Are going. To come over here. Right. Now."

"You should've stuck with the head injury if you expected me to do that," Ray says. "All things considered-"

An unwholesome smile spreads itself across Peck's battered face. "On the contrary," he says. "You're going to do it freely and of your own will."

Ray glances around, first to his left, then to his right, then up overhead. Then he pinches himself. "I don't have any means of testing to see whether I've walked into an alternate universe by mistake," he begins, "so I'm going to have to assume you have access to at least some form of Earth logic that you haven't shared with us yet."

"As a matter of fact I do," says Peck. "Think for a moment, Dr. Stantz. Did you really think that if I was going to come after you and your wretched operation in New York City I would do it half-assed? Not too likely. Not after what happened last time. Oh, I remember what happened to Foliage Census, all right, and it's not going to happen again- no matter who you brought with you."

He steps forward and lays a hand on one of the more elaborate piles of electronics.

"I worked for Foliage Census for years, Dr. Stantz. You were far from the only technologist to catch our attention. We tracked all the technological movement in North America- including when something too dangerous to be left out in public went to the Warehouse."

Ray's face begins to go o___O as dawn begins to break over Marblehead.

"The Ark was hardly the only thing removed from the Warehouse's custody that night. This-" He pats the device again, and smiles. "-was my other goal when I went in there. You put an awful lot of store in technology, don't you?"

"Uh...."

"I'm not even going to consider opening the Ark," says Peck, eyebrows lifting. "Your mother's ancestors were outstanding members of the Vytvytsa synagogue, according to the immigration papers they left at Ellis Island, so if anyone here has the ability to come near that thing without being blasted it's you. If you do get blasted, well, that's one problem removed for me, isn't it? Dr. Stantz, your choice is simple. Either you come up here and open the Ark yourself..."

Ecto is standing very, very, very still. "Oh, no," she barely breathes. "Daddy, no-"

"That's right, robot, it's an electromagnetic pulse generator," snarls Peck. "Stantz, open the Ark or your daughter gets it."

[ultradreamer.livejournal.com]

Mirai's eyes go very flat and very hard and his expression stops being one of the goofy guy in over his head and turns into the expression of someone who really, really wants to redesign Walter Peck as a man with multiple apertures for excretion.

"He is not lying. I can sense the power from here. We may have no choice but to give him what he wants briefly."

There is an eerie flicker in his eyes, perhaps, as he speaks his next words very softly.

"And then take it away from him when he lets down his guard."

[stilljustandrew]

*Andrew's mouth opens, and nothing comes out. No curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men...*

*And then it closes with a snap.*

Oh, you're dead, Peck.