Log:The Horde Plot, Scene 1

The Horde Plot 2007/12/25 	 Phantom Knife 1

is cracked and faded from decades of neglect. Children play unsupervised in now weed-strewn vacant lots. Graffiti along brick walls mark the territory of

various gangs trying to claim the neighborhood as their own. Harrisburg Elementary needs its tall security fence and guarded gate.

graffiti is ubiquitous. Drug dealers and worse have brought their crime to the district. Few trees or shrubs remain, and lawns are weeds and broken

bottles. Here dwell the destitute, the desperate and the homeless.

Obvious Exits:

Joe Stephen descends from the MagLev station.

Along a wall, are photocopies of people, pictures that have been posted to the walls, each picture says, "Missing" on it, with dates recent. The number of

pictures is disturbing, there have to be at least 50 pictures up. All with dates missing within the last 4 weeks...

Joe Stephen sighs silently as he passes by this. "I begin to see why people find the explosions so popular..." Because with explosions you can often see the

problem at hand.

A block down the street 2 people walk out of a basement entrance, they move with uncanny precision, both moving in time, as if they were robots, smooth even

efficient steps lead them out of the basement and into the quiet evening street of Harrisburg lane. They move in silence, only the shuffling of their feet

heard.

Joe Stephen is having a 'well, duuuh' moment right now. The decision now is whether to stupidly follow, or stupidly investigate where they came from. He

opts to take a 'look' at the posters waiting for them to pass beyond where he could be seen.

It becomes very obvious in just seconds that the two people walking are not paying attention to anything. They seem single minded in their precision as well

as their effort to get to where ever it is they are going. They do not move quickly, but remain at the constant walking speed the entire time.

Joe Stephen opts to silently follow after them. Joe may be a quiet guy, but that silently following is a bit more literal than usual.

The two continue to walk and then abruptly stop and one picks up a 250lb sewer cover, normally it takes two men with a tool to open one of those, but this

one does it by himself. As he holds it, the other climbs down into the the sewer, the other then holds the sewer cover by one hand like a waiter and his

tray, begins to climb down the sewer and places the cover in place one handed above his head.

Joe sighs silently once more and facepalms. Looks like someone is gonna do something incredibly stupid and suicidal. The sort of thing he was commenting was

stupid and would want to avoid earlier. His following after them is uninterrupted, and short guesstimated ladder travel time after the second one lowers

the heavy object Joe drops through said heavy object. Joe pass through one end, decidedly different looking person comes out the other and hangs onto the

ladder lookin down.

The sound of precise foot steps is head from below quickly moving away..

...its quite dark in the sewer...you can't tell shit from shinola. (excuse my french)

Phantom Knife trusts in the 'you can't walk through walls' (well, not at the moment he cant) hand groping and listening method to attempt tracking.

Fortunately he gets to stumble around in the dark without cliche bumping into things sound effects.

The footsteps much surer and faster than PK's move away, the direction is easy to know, the terrain impossible...

Phantom Knife again makes with the silent sigh, facepalms with his non groping hand... And uses the 'you can walk through walls' method now.

The way is dark but not treacherous, still, walking at speed in the dark is usually not what one had in mind, at one point all sound disappears, as PK walks

through a wall, He steps back and barely avoids walking into the sewer water, only his amazing reflexes stopping him from taking a plunge into stinkness.

While it wouldn't hurt him, or even stick with him, feces floating through your nose isn't plesant.

The sound of skittering is heard from where the footsteps headed off towards, and then more skittering, until you start to have a terrible idea..

The sound is like knives on cement, and like cockroaches on ceilings...infact the sound of the skittering is coming closer, and unlike the footsteps of the

people ahead, this sounds like a mad rush of insects headed for PK.

Phantom Knife's less than manly 'eep' can't escape his lips for multiple reasons. He suddenly wishes he could teleport like a certain homeless dude he

knows. Fortunately, he can jump quite high without worrying about hitting his head on the ceiling. And

Phantom Knife opts to Jump like the feel good

sports movie slam dunk depends on it.

The jump has PK's torso escaping the tunnel, his body above ground...

Phantom Knife notes to self as he 'pulls' himself upwards like from the edge of a hole int he ground. Notice when downwards slopes go lower than many

buildings while in tunnels.

Something brushes PK's leg as he pulls it out from the street..something hard and sharp.

But the object fails to break PK's skin and skitters off harmlessly.

Phantom Knife has the feeling that a mouth wrapped in bandages and wired shut lips wouldn't slow down that sort of thing very long with that many of em. He

incidentally jumps up on a freaking lamp pole... for dramatic reasons. Nothing to do with freaking out. Really.

There is no sound or sign of the bugs coming above ground...assuming they are bugs..

Phantom Knife is going to assume the hell out of this. Damn the 'it might have just been rats' possibility. He does take a moment though to remember where

he is. Street signs may help do that faster than recognizing geography.

Harrisburg North clearly is shown on a street sign.

Phantom Knife says to himself "Thats it, I'm moving tomorrow."

Phantom Knife in a more substantial mindset and...physicalset? Sends off a quick anonymous HeroNet message explaining who was followed, where they came

from, and where he left off before heading back for where the set of wall posters and the two's original exit point was.

Phantom Knife after Marking those two guys posters as 'Bugs, Strong Meta?', makes his way to the door they left from.

The door is a door to a storm shelter, the building one of the oldest in the area was built of brick and held a storm shelter below it. The two came out of

the storm shelter, and it is closed, if not locked.

Phantom Knife despite knowing his way around electronic locks and security systems, oddly never quite got the hang of usual locks. Lucky for him sticking

his head through the door for a peek is an option these days.

The room below the doors is dark. Too dark to see in without turning on a light.

Phantom Knife makes a note to start carrying a tiny flashlight that will cost him all of five freaking bucks. He goes for lightswitch, ready to get

needlessly violent if there is need... However that works.

The light goes on...

And a frightening sight is seen.

In later times PK might beable to pull up his eidetic memory to count exactly how many wee there that night, 48 in all, women children, men, the elderly and

the innocent standing side by side silent, their eyes open, dead eyes unseeing at first...then, recognition!

It's always those little inane details like 'I'm gonna need to write on more posters' that turn up at these times. Being willing to kick mind controlled

children the face is one thing. But he doesn't particularly like his odds. He flicks off the light switch and it's back to the vertical phase jump gag.

Yay multiple floors to choose from as stops towards roof.

The lights go off and PK jumps to the roof...in time to see the doors of the storm shelter oepn,. 48 pairs of eyes search for him...

place. the rooftop is partly because of how nigh

impossible it seems to be to spot anybody on rooftops"

The Taken look in every direction...

But they do not find PK...and when they don't they immediately begin running for the sewers...silent, and in lockstep, the go down the ladder and a child,

holding the sewer cover is the last one in.

Phantom Knife silently sighs as he rolls back further onto the roof. A few moments are spent quietly, before he pulls out his PDA and updates his Heronet

message. "...." Convenient he is self censored.