Log:Gridlocked!, Scene 3

Gridlocked! 2010/10/27 	 Jolt Imaginary Girl Quirk 3

Quirk is tired. He's joined in helping out the emergency services, and has now been opening doors (quite literally) for them to various parts of the city for hours.

Imaginary Girl's just returned, carrying the ambulance back to the hospital's ER entrance, from another call for paramedics. Setting the vehicle down, gently as she can, she then stay sout of the way as the medics usher the injured person into the care of the hospital's staff.

A little bit of background static over the radio is a clue that a familiar hero who has been absent for quite a while has returned. Jolt is seen flying through the sky in her familiar red and yellow costume as she makes her way to the CBSU area. She's probably been shifting cars around with magnetic force to clear pathways and the like for atleast an hour before the futility of trying to move an entire city of stalled cars dawns on her that they probably need a simpler solution to the problem and she heads on over to the hospital area "Geez, I never knew the traffic was this bad... I heard a few people blowing horns a few days back but this is rediculous"

Quirk says, "Ridiculous, but just a nuisance. But if this were to be extended to several days or weeks it would be catastrophic."

"Hopefully, someone'll figure out how to stop whatever that signal is that I heard about, the one that's killed all the cars", Imaginary Girl says, hands on her hips - yeah, she looks frustrated, too, being as she's not one of those brainy types who're probably already working on the problem.

Jolt nods some to Quirk and sighs "Yea, I was thinking of putting cars up on the rooftops of buildings, but then I realized any car I put up there, would be one that I, or someone else would need to bring back down later" the electrical hero grumbles "So why arent the cars moving anyways, I've been out of the loop for a while until I got some messages from some friends of mine"

Quirk says, "All the antitheft systems have somehow been triggered at once: they're all in lockdown."

"That's what I heard on my little ear radio thingie", Imaginary Girl confirms, gesturing vaguely up at the right side of her head. "That word 'lockdown' is what I heard people saying."

Jolt blinks a bit at that and cant help but laugh at the situation "Is that all? THat's the only reason these cars wont start or move?" she asks as she looks around for a nearby abandoned vehicle and with a gesture from her hand floats it off the ground and holds it up on it's side. It might not be obvious exactly what she's got in mind but she's got something that's for sure.

Quirk says, "The perpetrator styles himself 'Merlin'. Though his methods seem to be technological, not mystical - what are you doing?"

Imaginary Girl nods. "Yeah.. that's all.. but it hit the whole city at the same ti...", she starts to say, her words trailing off as, from the expression on her face, she's wondering the same thing Quirk just voiced.

Jolt shrugs some at Quirk and laughs "Well if it's the anti-theft device that's causing the problems. It's this little box right here that's causing everyone's headaches" she points at a relatively small obscure box for both their benefits "You could just rip it out but the more elegant solution and probably the easier one" the wires going in and out snip and fold together as she touches it with her finger, effectively welding or soldering it together as she comments out loud "Who would have thought that learning to steal cars would someday help save the city" the electric heroine shrugs "Never seen the point in these things anyways, it's not like hardened crooks or villains goto the local Ford dealership looking for a vehicle for their nefarious purposes"

Quirk says, "You can disable them? I thought that took about an hour or such!"

A nearby police officer perks up his ears.

"Well... if shorting that lil thing out'll let the car start up... try it on the ambulance, too!", Imaginary Girl says. "If we can get a couple of ambulances and some police cars running, that'll help TONS!", she comments, darting up into the air a few feet in her excitement at that prospect.

Quirk says, "Well, somewhat. The streets are still largely clogged up with cars."

"If EMS can do /their/ jobs, we can do ours and clear paths in the streets for them", Imaginary Girl contends.

Quirk nods, and then is distracted for a moment, as he's asked to open a portal directly to an apartment from which a medical emergecny has been called in.

Jolt shrugs some "Sure if you try to hack through the encryption and junk... but you bypass the whole module and connect the two lines directly and the voltage that normally goes through it on the way to the engine bypasses the module designed to shut the car down" she explains not noticing the police officer "They're just electrical equivalent of governors of old... Except they take remote controled commands over the radio, and it's probably an illegal modification but hey despirate times and all that you know, besides I never seen these things stop a car chase or a dedicated car thief, just the stupid ones" she pauses for a moment and looks to the ambulances for a moment "Except that some emergency vehicles are or should be hover capable, meaning tehy can go over the traffic with no problem, like this model here" she then forces it over to her and hovers it on the side performing much the same procedure "It's more of a pain for EMS and Police vehicles though... if you disable the Anti-Theft, you lose the sirens and the ability for their vehicles to coordinate with traffic signals but that shouldnt be much of a problem in the current situtation"

Quirk, having opened the new portal, comments, "It sounds like you've done this a lot."

Imaginary Girl's been thinking the same thing, and noticed how that one police officer, the lieutenant who's coordinating superhero-powered rescue efforts, took notice, too. Flying over to land near him, she says, "Maybe we can just... ignore how she knows all this? It's gonna help a /lot/, right now, if it can really get some of the emergency trucks going!", trying to convince him NOT to take some kind of investigative action on what he's learned about Jolt.

Jolt smiles at Quirk "Yeah I used to... but alot of my knowledge is 6 years out of date" she admits ofcourse the statue of limitations is probaby 7 years... Oopsie "Thats when a friend of mine got caught and took the blame for all of us, after that I really couldnt in good conscience keep doing what I had been doing. Plus you could say I grew up and stopped doing childish bullshit"

The officer seems to be having none of this. Rather he gets a look of victory on his face, as if a long-standing problem has been resolved. "I knew it! When this is over, you and I are going to have a long talk about the crimes you let your friend take the blame for, down at the station...."

Imaginary Girl frowns, hands on her hips. "Well, yeah... /after/... right now, she's /helping/, and we need her doing what she's doing, right?", she insists.

"Plenty of time," the police officer agrees. "I've waited six years...."

Jolt sets the EMS hovervehicle down, upright and reaches over to the keys, probably because when theres an emergency they dotn want to be fumbling around looking for keys... that or everything being disabled noone could steal the vehicle and turns the key. This time the vehicle hovers a few inches off the ground on it's own power. She then takes a look a the officer and recognizes him as she sighs and with a handwave knowing she's been caught and defeated atleast for the moment "... Sure, whatever makes you feel better" and at that point her mood goes from cheerful and outgoing to a bit more moody and quiet as she prioritizes the EMS vehicles that can hover first... partly because she likes paramedics more than police officers under normal circumstances and the one being a jerk at the moment is just rubbing it in... Plus theres probably not a whole lot of street level crime going on with all these heroes running around either.

Quirk frowns at the officiousness of the policeman. Still, he suspects that they're not likely to go hard on Jolt if she helps out in this crisis, so decides the best bet is probably just to stay quiet and let the matter pass as unremarked as possible.

The police officer seems content that Jolt agrees to this conversation, and goes back to his duties. Humming to himself.

Jolt grumbles something to Quirk along the lines of "he's just an asshole" as she works on getting the hover-capable EMS vehicles going... Now how many there are is the question... 3? 5? 10? over 9000? Jolt dont know exactly "Meh and this is part of why I try not to stick my neck out for people... that saying goes what No good deed goes unpunished"

Quirk says, "I'd say rather some deeds go unpunished and some don't, but this has sadly little to do with whether the deeds are good or bad. But I doubt they'll be hard on you if you get their vehicles running again."

"Just as long as you help out now, best you can, and turn yourself in all peaceful-like, I'm sure they'll go easy on you", Imaginary Girl says. Her arms crossed across her chest, a 'pained' sort of look on her face... these combine with her tone of voice to show that she's conflicted in how this should be handled.

Jolt shrugs some and yawns a bit "Well yeah, what you think I'm gonna fight the police... I'm not that stupid, even if the urge to zap that one jerk is pretty high at the moment" she continues to work on the EMS and Police hover vehicles before asking "Should I even bother with the ground vehicles for EMS and Police... it's not like they're exactly useful and it'd just mean theres more work to undo when this is all over" she asks IG, not really wanting to talk to the guy in charge anymore. She pretty much goes like clockwork pulling one vehicle into position and working on disabling the offending device.

"Probably oughta leave those the way they are, yeah", Imaginary Girl says. As they realize that the hover vehicles are working, the respecive vehicle crews start mobilizing to get going on thier jobs.

Quirk says, "Perhaps not, but it might be worth it for fire-engines: more of them are ground vehicles, what with the weight."

Jolt takes a moment to let the EMS crews know the sirens wont be working but other than that everything should be fine "Hrm... yeah but they still cant get through on ground, they need to be carried"

"I can do that... and the fire trucks aren't seeing nearly as much use as the ambulances have been... and now the cops have at least a few cars to use, too", Imaginary Girl adds, with a nod of her head for emphasis, showing that, at least, she finds this temporary solution to be a good one.

Quirk says, "It comes down to whether clearing the roads or carrying the fire engines about is easier. Which I'll leave up to the people who can do that!"

Jolt hrmfs "They probably gonna want to put me in a cell or something too just to prove a point"