Log:Harrisburg Dreams, Scene 5

Harrisburg Dreams 2009/11/02 	 Sable Zachary Zimm 5

The Danzinger Estate is brightly lit during the day, with a security guard at the gate and a low, flat mansion with a circular section off to one side centered in the middle, near a large swimming pool and a flat expanse of grass. Several trees dot the property, as do several obvious floating security cameras. Two floating security robots, with no legs but two arms, a torso and a head, patrol the property as the lights and shadows shift with their movement.

Regan pauses well beyond the priphery of the estate to assess the coverage and the nature of the sensors. There is some delay while she registers the patrol patterns of the robots, her head tilting slightly and lips pursed while she watches their motions carefully.

The robots appear to be focussed on keeping people away from the house, though their programming is highly sophisticated. Every so often, they'll move into the house and through it, but only one at a time. The doors appear to have sophisticated security codelocks.

After some time, a delivery van approaches the estate. It reads "Medical Services" on the side. Apparently it's from some sort of private drug company. The driver leans out the window and has a conversation with the security guard for a moment. The guard walks inside, and closes the door. After four minutes, he comes back out. "You're clear." He says, and steps into the guardpost.

Sable shifts position to monitor the approachroad, judging the angles so that a car turning into the estate will provide visual cover as she approaches the vehicle and slides underneath it as it negotiates the turn.

The delivery van lumbers up to the estate, and the driver gets out. He walks up to the door with a package and rings the doorbell. The door opens and a servant takes it, and the delivery van lumbers back out. Twenty minutes pass before a flower truck drives up to the estate, and stops at the gate.

Sable moves into action as the flower van slows down, quickly sprinting across the intervening space and dropping into a head-first slide across the tarmac, relying on her suit to provide protection as she twists onto her back to latch onto the trucks under-chassis and haul herself up off the road.

The Security Guard settles back in his chair and crosses his legs. He appears to be reading a book by Charles Darwin. "On the Origin of the Species." The flower truck rumbles over the lip and onto the estate, past those unpleasant one-way spikes that make it difficult to enter or leave.... (OOC: Now, I don't know about you, but most security guards don't read Darwin every day. This might be a hint. He also spotted her, and radioed ahead to Zimm to prepare for what to expect. The robot Sable can't see makes it's way into the house and moves some papers to another location, namely, the paper shredder.)

Sable smoothly hauls herself up under the truck, looking very grateful the guard is predictably distracted from what is obviously a very tedious job. As she braces herself in position she twists her head to watch the passing terrain, looking for a good spot to disengage.

As the flower truck passes around a bend, a tree looms at ground level, the truck shifting a little bit as the tires turn. There is a wobble, and an opportunity....

As the robot turns in the exact wrong direction, winding up directly in front of the van, Sable leaps behind the cover of the tree, the robot shuffling along in the opposite way. It heads off towards the gate, resuming it's standard patrol pattern.

It seems as though one of the robots is currently inside the house, while the other is outside. Your slow, measured path brings you past the motion sensors as the outdoor robot continues it's sweep. You make your way around the manse towards the side door, the circular section on the other side. The swimming pool looms before you, empty in the late fall.

Sable skilfully navigates the seams of the security system's sensor arrays until she finally wins access to a wiring nexus which she can manipulate to isolate signals from the window she has chosen as her point of entry.

Through careful maneuvering, you disable the quadrapartite security system, including the hidden circuit breaker underneath that arms something unusual that you have no idea what it does, but it can't be good...The window lies open before you, the path of the fields easily rerouted...

Sable works on the wiring briskly but surely, identifying and then isolating the circuit for the chosen window until, apparently satisfied, she returns the rearranged wires to as close to their original configuration as she can manage.

Sable steers around the surrounding sensors and closes in on the window she has chosen which is high and isolated overlooking the rear of the property. Sliding it smoothly open she slips into the building itself, gliding the window closed behind her.

The medium sized study contains two chairs and a desk, a computer and a thick carpet. On one wall is a photograph of Martin Danzinger, jogging through Harrisburg as a teenager. Underneath that is written "Congratulations on your crazy project! Dad!" A robot appears to be heading down the hall, and there's a faint smell of ozone in the room here.

At the approach of the secbot Sable flows fluidly into a smooth roll across the desk, before sprining silently into a low crouch and sinking into a shaded niche created by the slightly tilted desk.

The robot comes into the room, gracefully scanning about as it leans forward on it's little anti-grav sphere. It's head extends off it's neck on a long, snakey rope, and it peers about the room, as if looking for you in all of the room's shadowy corners. The robot withdraws it's head, and slips out of the room, leaving you alone.

Sable waits breathlessly in her chosen hiding spot for the robot to withdraw. As it does she closes her eyes, shutting out visual stimuli as she focuses on tracking the robot by sound. But she makes no move to emerge, suspicious security often feign retreats in hope of luring out intruders.

After five minutes, the second robot enters the room, extending it's head and peering about everything, the floating robot head scanning over the room a second time. Seeing nothing, the robot withdraws.

Fifteen minutes pass, and the robots come in three more times. The entire estate seems to be bustling with life, even as the robots patrol. A maid comes into the room and starts dusting it.

After the maid leaves, the two robots return, scanning the room together as though they never do much of anything else.

The computer screen finally comes to life, autobooting up as it clicks on. There's a low hum and a whine of power, and the interactive screen begins to shimmer as something happens with it.

On the screen is the face of a bald, thick faced man, his eyes narrow and his teeth gritted. His head appears to be disembodied, and his gaze appears to be scanning about...

Sable finally glides into motion, carefully snaking out a booted foot to sharply kick out the power-cord of the monitor, once it is down she rises and slams up the window with one hand while snatching up a paper weight with the other. She throws the paer weight to try and trigger some motion sensors out on the grounds and then drops back into her hidey hole before the robots can make it into the room.

There is a weird humming sound and a click as the robots begin heading outside, the grinding whine of their little antigrav pods carrying them away....

Sable moves quickly through the house, navigating almost by instinct, and suddenly on a time limit. Security is a double edged weapon, the most heavily secured areas are the most delicate, at the same time they're going to want something not accessible by domestics or other interlopers.

The security system codelock on Martin Danzinger's home office is about the toughest lock in the place. This one even comes with an auto-911 call if the place isn't broken into. The smell of ozone is stronger here.

The door to the office is opened, and you slip inside. There's a thick oak desk and another computer monitor here. It's on, and Zachary Zimm's head floats ominously on it as you step inside. There's a disgusting charred mess in the wastebasket, and some file cabinets that appear to have been sloppily opened. "Ahh." Zachary Zimm's voice purrs from the computer. "There you are, Sable. I've been looking for you." The computerized face smiles. "I estimate you have about three minutes before the robots I've taken over get up here to the second floor and blast you into smithereens. You know, it's a real shame. A former assassin for Next Generation tries to assassinate Martin Danzinger, and gets caught breaking into his home. I wonder how this will play in the news..." His computerized face grins. "Sable! Wanted for Murder! I'll bet that'll even make you more popular with Knox Pooley than Silver Spider!" He gives you a cheeky smile. "On the other hand, it gives you three minutes to ask questions before they arrive, if you don't want to run."

Zimm's face chuckles. "Of course, that would require Martin Danzinger to die, so I guess I'll have to settle for attempted, since he's not home."

Sable's head tilts slightly as she crosses to the computer, clipping her fingers inside the box's clips and removing the casing before removing the drive within. "You're remarkably well informed." She observes drily. "So, you seem to have a lot of time to yourself for someone in federal custody." She cursorily examines any paperwork atop the table, lips pursing. "You're relying a lot on my good will."

There's a piece of partially burned paper in the wastebasket. It's got Jason Danzinger's name on it, and Zachary Zimm is the research assistant of record. It looks like a piece of medical records that didn't get incinerated.

Sable stashes the drive before running her fingers under the edge of the table searching for sqitches and/or buttons, also checking the underside and rear of any drawers. "I'm not that impressed by either your ham-fisted maneuverings nor your posturing. You knew that I would come here, precisely because you weren't clever enough to hide the traces of your passage.”

"I don't have to." Zimm chuckles wickedly. "Even now, the police are speeding towards the scene. Even now, 911 has already been called. Even now, even if you were to kill me, for which the so-called hero community would no doubt crucify you if they find out, I'm taking advantage of the lovely Harrisburg situation to advance my experiments. Experiments which, if you're not careful, you'll soon be a part of."

Sable bends swiftly to pick up the scorched piece of paper, carefully placing it inside an envelope. Once this is done she reaches under the edge of the table to press the button. "You knew where I was coming and you couldn't stop me, you know where I'm going and you still can't stop me, but you want me to be intimidated by you."

"Oh, Sable..." He smiles thoughtfully. "Who says I want to stop you?" He raises an artificial eyebrow. As the button is pushed, the part of the floor that Sable doesn't stand on is brutally electrified, sending over ten thousand volts through the rug.

Sable's brow arches slightly at the crackling ripple of electricity. "Well... it's good to know that that's there." Her shoulders lift slightly. "So I'm leaving now, and I don't have to kill you to stop you, just limit your degree of physical and mental function... prisons are notoriously dangerous places."

Zimm's head shakes, from left to right. "I'll just move some pennies around with instructions for what to do to you if that happens to me. Eventually, someone will take the contract." He grins. "I'm already in solitary confinement." He chuckles throatily from the screen. "Go ahead...I'm sure you'll be very pleased to kn...wha?" His eyes widen.

Zachary Zimm's face is replaced by that of a metal helmet with purple goggles and a purple cape. "Martin Danzinger! I am the Devastator! You are not safe, even in your own home! This broadcast will reach every television in Colonial Bay! I am unstoppable! Harrisburg is a free and independant state!" There is an eerie, high pitched whine...

BA-KOOOOOOM! And the world suddenly turns to white and ashes...

There is a horrid crack as Sable dives against the bulletproof glass, which cracks with eerie spiderwebs as the impact connects. The house erupts in a colossal ball of fusion energy, consuming robots and people alike as Sable is smashed outward from the force of the explosion, the glass vanishing around her with a sickening tinkle. In the distance, sirens wail, and the crackling ruin of the Danzinger mansion echoes in your ears...

The explosion hurls Sable through the air, the scorching incandescence of the blast blossoming abruptly to fill brilliance as she is blasted in its wake like a ragdoll, tumbling clumsily through the air with the scorched debris to crash through a few tree branches and tumble into the brush beyond.

The hard drive is a charred wreck, the envelope merely shredded pieces of dust. But your eyes did not lie. You saw the piece of paper, and Zimm's name on it. What does it mean...?

Sable picks herself up unsteadily, stumbling slightly as she gazes back an forth, pulling her elbow against the side of her ribcage to brace the fractures. Glancing back at the smouldering crater that was once the Danziger residence. Her face twists into a grimace as she gathers her thoughts, her shoulders heaving as ahe drags hungry breathes into flame-scorched lungs.

Sable turns for the gate, peeling away the tattered and scorched remnants of her costum and tossing them into burning piles of rubble as she staggers unsteadily for the main gate where there might be some hope of salvation, aiming to arrive there in the remaining shreds of her undergarments.

The security guard looks up. He appears to be talking to someone on a headset as he sees you approach, burned and horribly bloody. "Oh, my god!" He stares at you for a moment, and says "I have a survivor!" into the phone. "Just a second, ma'am. Ambulances are already on their way..."

He moves over and tries to stop the bleeding, his fingers cold, almost too cold, the shock beginning to set in...

The Security Guard goes over to the post and gets the first aid kit, coming back with a few sedatives. He hands you a bottle of water as the ambulance echoes, police cars swarming in behind. Two paramedics come out of the ambulance, and drop a stretcher down so fast it's as if they don't even need to make an assessment.

"Ma'am." One of the paramedics says, his face a little pasty, as if he's shocked looking at you. "We're going to take you to a hospital. And we're going to give you a sedative..."

Sable accepts the pain killers and the water and convincingly mimes consuming them though they remain unused in her palm. She sits pliantly while the EMT's work but waves away the sedative. "I took a bad hit to the head... you shouldn't use that."

The Paramedics lie you down on the stretcher, and carry you into the ambulance, taking you away to the hospital...

Sable is careful through the process of the examination, treatment and eventual loading into the ambulance, not to touch any surfaces that might hold finger prints. otherwise she acquieces to the ministrations of the EMTs without fuss or demur until the mid-point of the ride to the hispital at which point she abruptly sits up, yanks out her IV and, and smashes open the rear door of the ambulance to leap out.

Sable leaps through the now open doors and springs to a nearby rooftop, across which she flees leaving a dumbfounded EMT gaping slack-jawed in her wake.