Log:Wasp Venom, Scene 17

Wasp Venom 2013/10/01 	 Rose Allison Porter Malcolm

17

Champions Mush - Monday, September 30, 2013, 10:19 PM

As the trio head back toward the cafeteria kitchen, they are intercepted by the food services manager who insists on taking Porter to her office to discuss what he has to offer her. The portly woman barely resists licking her lips as she looks the young 'representative' up and down and suggests he leave his assistants to look around.

Rose dutifully makes hand-written notes about refrigerator capacity, food preparation facilities, volumes of sales traffic and the like, asking a variety of questions about daily turnover, delivery schedules and the like. At the answers she nods solemnly and looks to her colleague.

Tablet in hand, Allison raises a brow and pushes her totally useless eyeglasses up back to the bridge of her nose as she watches Porter wander off with the woman. "Okay..." she murmurs softly. <> she asks mentally of her AI who dutifully begins trying to find a way into said network.

As Rose and Allison pass into the kitchen, a third 'twin' bodybuilder steps out of the kitchen and says something to his siblings in a language that sounds like Dutch. One of the pair reply in the same language and the third rises from his card game head back toward the kitchen.

The vault itself turns out not to be hidden at all. It sits in the kitchen through a recently created hole in the brick side wall with the bulk of the container outside the kitchen in the elements. Unlike the white kitchen office manager, most of the kitchen staff are Black with the actual head cook of Chinese decent.

"Your English is quite good," the head cook comments casually.

Rose nods. "My father worked in Foreign Office and had several postings overseas. My favourite was Ontarioo..." She smiles. "though the winters are absolutely brutal." Looking around the kitchen she nods. "It's quite an impressive operation you have here. About how many meals an hour can you serve?"

 At that, Allison -barely- stifles a grunt or snicker or some such. <> she thinks to Julius,  he replies. She shakes her head then and just stands behind Rose. <> she instructs Julius.

The head cook hmms thoughtfully, then glances toward the 'twin' headed her way. She says a quick sentence in the same Dutch-sounding language to the 'twin' with the word Ontario at the end.

The twin veers toward Allison and Rose and says something that, from context, sounds suspiciously like "Why?"

Rose turns to regard the bodybuilder with a soft smile. then she lifts a tiny hand to point a finger at him. "Stand still and don't make a sound." She says in a thoroughly conversational tone. "Let me explain about Ontario..."

The bodybuilder's eyes widen in shock, but he obeys the instructions. The head cook looks back and forth between him and the visitors and starts to slowly back away.

Seeing Rose starting to work, Allison narrows her eyes, <> She steps back a half pace and to the side one step. Just to get a little space and to provide the others without two targets bunched together. <>

Rose looks to the chef and makes a slow sweeping gesture fro left to right with her hand, trying to erase his memory of wht just occurred and implant a suggestion that he has urgent business at his home. There is a fire there, he just received a phone call....



While the blonde bodybuilder stands still and silent, the head chef gasps and bolts out the back door of the kitchen, leaving her staff looking confused for several moments until one older cook quietly hangs up his apron and walks out the door. The others follow his lead, quietly pretending nothing is wrong while they vacate the building.

Rose turns back to the body builder. "We are not here to harm anyone, nor to destroy any property nor to do anything other than rescue a kidnapped woman. If she is not here, we will leave. If she is here we will rescue her. If she doesn't want to be rescued we shall leave. Neither you, your brothers, nor any of the staff or students have anything to fear." She watches him intently. Then points to him again. "Remain stationary and silent."

Glancing to the vault... Allison remarks softly, "If it can only be opened from the inside, how is it securing someone -inside-?" She shakes her head, "But we -could- start flooding the spigot and sewage drain from it. It should be noted that the -door- to get in, is outside and beyond that wall there." she says as she starts heading for said wall to tap on it as if to set the example.

Rose nods to Allison. "Well, the deal was I get all the blonde body builders and you get the cranky machines." She gestures with an open palm. "So work your wonders while I keep our friend here entertained."

The bodybuilder nods slowly but doesn't look terribly trusting, more wait-and-see. But he stays where Rose tells him to.

"We have no way of knowing how many people may or may not be inside. If she is in there, she might have a guard, or she may be secured and flooding it could kill her." A sigh and Allison shakes her head. "I doubt that even with my armor on, that I could get strong enough to peel this thing open." She sighs and steps forward, armor starting to flow about her almost like it was a liquid. "But I can try... " A pause and she closes her eyes, looking to see if there are any communication signals coming or going to or from the vault. Like... internet access, etc.

Armored up now, Interface sends to Malcolm, <> and she stays inside for now. After all, she doesn't want to do this in plain sight. She simply points at the wall of the vault and decides to test its durability. A trio of focusing lenses slide out of her armored sleeve and energy builds up, a burst of gravitics firing forward to try to warp its way through some of the vault material.

The metal rends with a loud screech as layers twist loose from the layers underneath. The vault itself appears to be layers of steel with layers of lead between them.

Raising a brow under her helmet, Allison says in her digitized voice, "Rose. This may draw more attention but I seem to have had some effect. I could continue trying to pulse my way inside but... as you heard, it is -not- stealthy." She aims and starts firing again.

At the sound of rending metal, the sound of overturned chairs in the cafeteria can also be heard.

Prompted by Interface's message, Malcolm slips his way into the appropriate part of the academy's cafeteria building. He's dressed casually and quite appropriately for the locals, doing his very best to simply blend into the social landscape. Most likely, he will be arriving somewhere in the middle of the catastrophic failure of metal.

Rose's head swivels abruptly at the sound of the weapon ripping into the vault and then turns back to the bodybuilder. "There's a woman inside that vault called Sato Katsumi. If there isn't I promise, you can arrest me and I will pay for a replacement vault."

Malcolm strolls through the door in the middle of shrieking, tortured metal. Reflexively his body erupts in metal, coating him from head to toe in protection. Still more metal spreads outward from his left forearm, generating a robust, rounded shield as he takes a defensive position just inside of the kitchen.

"You guys know I can punch my way through walls and stuff like that, right?"

At the sound of overturned chairs Rose turns to fix her attention on the doorway. "Then feel free to lend Allison a hand, the sooner we can prove there's actually someone to rescue the better because I feel like this is really going to sting."

The original bodybuilder stands there while his brothers appear.

There is a blur of movement and another bodybuilder appears in the room in a multicolored spandex suit with a 3 on the chest. Almost as quickly as he appears still enough to see, he swings at Interface with his fist.

Another blond body-builder type blurs into existence in position to put a hurt on Interface. Forge twists that way, metal cables bursting out of his shoulder and chest to streak across the three meters separating him from the duo. Cables snap against the fist and forearm as Thing 3 swings, throwing it off-target by just enough to count.

"That's easier said than done, Star," calls Malcolm.

The third of the triplets flies in the room also dressed in same - a mostly red and blue spandex suit with white on the upper arms and shoulders black below the neck. A yellow "5" is in the black area. He's also fast, but not moving as quickly as his brother. He also spots Interface and comes to the same conclusion as his older brother.

More of Forge's cables snap and swing, Thing 5's fist sailing neatly through the roiling cloud of metal tentacles. Several of his tentacles get thrown off their own courses by the wake cast off by this guy's bone-powdering punch.

Rose turns to point at the blonde who just bulldozed Interface. "Stand Stock Still!" She commands, her voice quivering slightly, perhaps with emotion perhaps with the weight of the magic involved.

Rose's lips compress as her command seems to have no effect whatsoever. "We're hear to recover a kidnapped woman, we had the opportunity to harm your brother and he's perfectly fine because we don't want to hurt anyone, we're here to rescue."

Forge seems to be batting .500 so far. The metal man lurches into action, taking the comparatively short leap across the room with a burst of metal coils seemingly etched into the surface of his legs. Landing nimbly, Forge purposefully skids across the flooring to place himself and all of his now waving cables between Things 3 and 5 and Interface. He holds his hands up, palms flat, as his shield melts back into his steel-colored forearm.

"Guys. Let's relax here. I'm sure we can talk this thing out, right?"

Thrusters firing in elbows, lower back, etc.. Interface activates her flight power and rights herself quickly. (Position Shift). <> she instructs Julius. The apertures for the grav lenses withdraw into the armor and she bulks up visibly before landing back in front of the hole and reaching to grip the edges of the hole she made...

The only triplet still in his cadet 'disguise' breaks free of Rose's control, rushes her and says in stilted English, "You will not get to do that again" as he pulls his fist back to punch.

"Guys. Guysguysguysguysguys," rumbles Forge as a pair of cables snake outward from his body toward the latest Diamant to attack. One metal line impacts the triplet in the elbow while the other strikes at the base of the neck to throw off the bodybuilder's aim.

"Use your words. Not your fists."

Diamant Four turns away from Rose and gazes intently in Interface's direction, then gasps and yells "Do not fire. You will harm her!" then rushes to Interface's side (if Malcolm lets him).

"I wasn't firing. I'm pulling now. Step back and she will be quite safe." says Interface, "Unless there is some security protocol you should share."

Forge doesn't interfere, so long as Thing Four doesn't try anything aggressive. Even so, there are a bunch of tentacles just waving around, at the ready.

Diamont Five joins his brother, Diamont Four, on Interface's other side and the pair very carefully help her peel back the remaining section of vault wall. "You blasted the lead layers away so we could see," one of them explains.

Recorded
The scene that greets the six onlookers is a horrid sight. A woman is on all-fours with her legs up to her knees and her hands up to her wrists imbedded in the steel floor. The metal around her contains little waves like the steel has been turned to mud and then back to steel. The vault door contains the same little waves. The woman has a metal helmet strapped to her head and a milking machine designed for cows fitted to her chest. She has lewd writing and dried fluids all over her body.

Rose backs away from the psycho who tried to smear her, her brow furrowed and her lips mulishly compressed but she doesn't say or do anything. Even when the vault is ripped open she keeps her gaze fixed on the man who just tried to kill her.

"Well. That's an image that I cannot unsee," notes Forge. Even covered in metal, the tall man looks more than moderately horrified. His cables retract into his body with a faint "reeling in" sort of sound before he takes a step toward the ruinous, impromptu entryway.

"What the *MANY CENSORED WORDS* in a bucket?!" exclaims Interface as she recoils and steps back. Her weapons come back online and she raises both hands to point at the two thugs before her. "Tell me that you didn't put her in there..." she states, her hands kind of shaking. Yeah, she's just a kid and this has scarred her. She'll never quite be the same after seeing -that- image.

Diamont Four rips off his cadet suit, his expression stormy and his gaze murderous as he looks toward his brothers. Without another word, Three disappears in a blur of motion, shattering the kitchen door to kindling as he passes through it. Diamont Five looks to Four who nods and says in English (for the benefit of the others present), "I have this. Go stop him from killing anyone." Then Five also disappears.

Only once the potential murderer has left does Rose turn to look into the vault. "Well get her the **** out of there!" She looks to Interface. "We need to tell the people back in the Bay we have her." She moves to stand in front of Allison. "They need to know right away to stop the retaliation group. Send images, they need to be able to show Froth and the others what we found."

Diamont Four gazes after his departing brothers, then says softly. "No, we did not do this. We would never do like this." Then he pauses, does a quick double-take and says to Rose "Froth? Sigmund Froth is in America?"

Rose can see Interface's mental processes focus a bit and relax just a touch. "Right..." she remarks, "Should I override TV signals and just broadcast this footage to like every TV in Colonial Bay? Or just email a vid capture to one person?" she asks even as Julius says in her mind <..lly! I've been yelling but you weren't listening... thank the maker you are back with me.> Yep, Allison was totally losing it there. <>

Diamont Four says urgently, "Does American vault also contain trapped person?"

There is a moment where Forge very seriously considers launching after the Wonder Twins. He pauses as he notes the mental turmoil etched into Interface's stance, voice, and posture. Forge shifts his weight and steps aside, looking at Diamont Four quite seriously, "Who is Froth to you?"

Rose keeps her voice even and soft. "You saved her Interface. Because of you she's going to be free and we're going to catch the people who did this. . You broke that vault, you're her saviour." She looks to number four. "There's a vault, but I think that Scorby chick spoke to the woman inside and she's pretty happy, so she's not trapped."

"Or she's brainwashed to think what she's doing is good and right." says Interface. "Forge, you've the most experience with liquid metal. Think you can get her out of there? My brute force approach isn't likely to work right. I'll stand watch and record it all."

Diamont Four pulls a very thin phone out of a pouch inside his pants and dials a number. A very animated argument in Afrikaans begins almost as quickly as the party on the other end answers.

Rose turns to regard Diamont Four and as he yammer on the phone. Her right hand rises to to her right temple, the pads of her index and middle fingers flattening as she stares at her target. "Sure, hit the news channels, do it up as a breaking story." She answers absently.

"No, no. Don't answer the metal guy," mutters Forge in Thing Four's direction. He nods to Interface and starts wading into the vault again, cables unspooling from his surface again. Carefully, he picks his way through the ruins toward the woman, stooping to press one hand against the floor. "Give me a minute. Let me... Just..."

<> says Ally to Julius.

Forge takes several moments to press his liquid metal flesh against the flooring. There is a long silence from him before he lifts his hand and twists to try removing the helmet from the woman, considering both her and the helmet with a serious expression etched into his face.

As the helmet is lifted from her head, the woman begins to cry. Long racking sobs, punctuated by pleading in Japanese.

"I don't suppose you guys speak Japanese?" calls Forge over his shoulder.

"I suppose I could try to run a translation online." suggests Interface. Meanwhile, Julius is broadcasting a feed onto the CB major news networks. Brute force hacking for now.

"And Forge, can you like.. scalpel her out of there for now?" adds the armored girl.

Rose seems to be becoming agitated. Moving quickly, she crosses to grab something to cover the woman with, a coat or table cloth. Something. She also starts some tea brewing before coming back to see if she's finally been freed yet.

"That's a, uh..." Forge trails off, expression growing distracted as he stares into the middle distance just to the right of the woman's head. Slowly, carefully, Forge stands up and circles her at least three times as Rose drapes the random cloth over the trapped woman's form.

"Would everyone just stop yelling at me? Give me a chance to work here?"

Who's yelling?

Rose rounds on the blonde bodybuilder. "How about instead of yapping with your Dad you get onto the local emergency response teams here, the have equipment for getting people out of car wrecks they should be able to handle this, if you don't trust the Zu authorities. Get someone you can trust." Having berated him sufficiently she turns to look at the trapped woman, closing her eyes for a moment before raising her fingers to her temple again in an attempt to establish telepathic rapport.

Rose focuses her attention on the woman tying to get her to concentrate on her breathing, she's safe now, it's just a matter of time until she's free and oone else can hurt her. The young woman tries her best to be reassuring and calming.

Four grabs a cadet, commands him harshly in Afrikaans and sends the awed boy running off to phone the police. Turning to Rose, he says "Help is on the way. I must go help my brothers."

Forge keeps circling, he may be in a world of his own - he certainly doesn't seem very responsive in the psychic teleconference. Rose and Sato can both sense intense mental activity through the link, Malcolm is doing something - they can sense his general feeling of 'this is nuts', if not quite what he is planning - that seems to require every iota of his attention.

When Forge finally stops circling Sato, all eight of his cables immediately lash out to *SLAM* into the rippled, twisted metal surrounding her limbs. Forge breathes slowly, deeply, and purposefully as his eyes close. A faint white light surges up and down his tendrils of metal as they slowly, /SLOWLY/ start to take on the same appearance as the metal entombing the woman before him. Metal flesh warps and ripples erratically before Malcolm manages to clamp down on that degree of sameness with the ruined structure around him.

And that's when the metal around Sato creaks and groans in a strangely ominous sort of way. If you listen close, you can hear Forge groaning in similar fashion as he seems to strain to do... Something.

Rose makes a waving gesture that's more than slightly dismissive as she continues her mental exchange with Sato. As Malcolm begins his elaborate preparations the young mentalist shares images of Malcolm the hero who saved Colonial Bay from death by poison gas. This is a man who knows what he's doing and even if it was only for a little bit, held up an entire train. He's someone Katsumi can trust.

Several sections of warped and fused metal start to peel back with great cracking *SNAP*s. Other sections seem to simply vanish, the cables in contact with those areas thickening substantially as though with new mass. It takes close to two minutes, once the groaning starts, for the sound and the fury of the process to finish.

"Huh. I wasn't sure I could do that," states Forge as he turns to look at Rose. He takes precisely half a step before he face-plants on the floor, metal draining steadily into his flesh and blood body as he sprawls across the floor.

Sato shrieks as she fights to remove the milking machinery from her body and rise to her feet. But her body has been trapped for over a month in that steel and she can do little more than flop around in pain. Finally, she manages to drag herself the few inches over to where Malcolm recovers from his exertions. She repeats 'thank you, thank you' over and over both in spoken Japanese and with a mental bond. The moment may pass, but at this moment she loves Forge with single-minded devotion and adoration. As she clings to him, the blanket slips a bit and the words, "I wanted this" can clearly be seen written in permanent marker between her shoulder blades.

Diamont Four is gone.

Rose blinks as Forge falls face first to the floor. Her expression betrays a rapid series of emotions before she steps forward. She re-establishes mental contact with Sato <> She examines His mind for signs of damage or rapidly fluctuating activity levels while checking his pulse and moving him into coma position.

Malcolm shows all of the signs of being a zombie. You may have to shoot him in the head before he bites anyone.

Sato's mind laughs softly as Rose blunders her way around Malcolm's body and opens her own mind more fully, flooding Rose with her observations.

Well, apart from Signs of rage virus infection Malcolm seems fine and it's an absolute mystery why he should e napping when they have real victims to help. As she shifts him into coma position she manages to step on his hand and twist his lower spine in a way that might perhaps have left a less robust individual in need of a few months of rehab, but with Sato's guidance she transitions abruptly from destruction testing to actually deneficial remedial work.

Malcolm shows all of the signs of clinical exhaustion and moderate dehydration except for his pallor. He is much paler than he was before, but not nearly as pale as he should be for his diagnosis. Sato can come up with several possible explanations. That being said, the tall man's color and respiration rapidly improves once he's in coma position. Rose, assuming her magic senses are on, may sense something odder than usual for Malcolm's normally distinctively weird aura.

After a few minutes, Malcolm regains consciousness. He blinks a few times and peers at both Sato and Rose.

"I had /THE/ weirdest dream. And both of you were there."

Sato says, "If you'll have me, I'll *always* be there."

Rose nods and moves to fetch Malcolm a bottle of water and Sato a cup of tea with milk and sugar, figuring she probably needs the energy and the wormth. "First thing we have to do is get to somewhere safe where we can all get our bearings and get well."

"I... Uh. We should probably get you to the nearest medical center," is Malcolm's diplomatic reply. He gives off embarassed mental vibes as he picks himself off of the floor. "And let's see if they don't have something you could wear hanging around. You gotta be cold like that."

Sato flinches when she is touched, despite her words moments before. She is out of the metal, but she is still a long way from being alright. She looks around nervously. The vault wasn't just her home, it was safety and that has been damaged as much as the walls.

Rose kneels beside Sato and pulls out a phone. "Is there anyone you want to call. Your family, colleagues, is there anyone you trust? We can get you out of here and back to Colonial Bay, but if you want to go to Tokyo, maybe there's someone we can call to make that happen."

Sato looks straight at Interface and says, "If that transmits, will I be safe anywhere?"

The transmission did not include your face, you were inside the helmet." Rose explains. "Besides which there are many ways you can avoid that sort of attention or publicity. But that's not what's important, what's important is getting you to some place you want to be, some place where you can get well."

Rose looks to Malcolm with vague unease but returns her attention to Miss Sato after a moment. "Would you like to go to Colonial Bay? Or would you prefer Tokyo? Or maybe somewhere else entirely."

Malcolm takes the proffered bottle of water and half-staggers off toward a corner of the room. Cracking the bottle open, Malcolm chugs most of it in one go before he sinks down to a seated position against the wall. For the moment, he seems to be out of things to say - serious or light-hearted.

Sato asks Malcolm, "Can you stay here? I ... I need to survey the damage. D... do something useful. See what we can salvage."

"I didn't plan on going anywhere until you're settled, Miss," replies Malcolm. He offers a cheery, but exhausted smile. "Unless you meant damage on me? In that case I'm pretty sure we can salvage everything."

Rose nods. "Forge isn't going anywhere, he and I will be staying with you. Ok?" Rose tries to make eye contact with Miss Sato. "He will be right here, and he will keep you safe." She looks over at him with some concern but Sato can't see that. "But you aren't safe here. None of us are. We have all entered the country illegally, we don't know whether or not Adamini was working in conjunction with the Zu authorities, we don't know how they will respond."