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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 8, 2010 21:14:22 GMT -5
"Well I have no idea how much you value being able to see," placing the EBR back down, "If you let me operate on you I can slimline the process..." Aya plucked the syringes from Matt's grip, looking at both of them for a moment, "Yeah. these'll do," slipping the cap off of the eye fluid cylinder and squeezing a little into a petri dish, "I can replace the implants with tumblers, sort of like a socket which you can lock the implants into. It means you'd be able to do it yourself, once every five years. The cornea implants will be a little more tricky-" coincidentally looking up at the switching pupils at the same time, her expression going quizzical, "Looks like they're being affected in some way. Worst case scenario, we get you new eyes all together,"
The petri dish went into the analyzer; it felt relieving feeding something unrelated to that damn weave into it, "Your knuckles and knee caps I'll cast entirely of Titanium alloy with an application of Ruthenium. Wear resistance will increase along with the benefit of corrosive resistance plus the melting point is doubled," continuing to take the cap off of the second syringe and remove some blood, "Should last you until the day you die,"
A theory had already been developed towards the switching iris; the analyzer would confirm it for Aya any moment now. There really was only one reason Matthew would have a handfull of metal surgically placed inside him; it was a performance deal, or rather an improvement of what already existed, "It's totally up to you, though," a beep emitted and the page was slowly printed out.
Slowly as in slower than usual, a lot had been picked up in the sample. Aya wasn't familiar with the strain of Progenitor she was reading, making the situation a little more tense for her, but it spoke for itself: Prog-L+. She looked up one last time, quickly checking Tyson's position, "Yeah, this is good. Enough here to manufacture the replacement nanites," she lied, setting the page aside.
"Should be able to get the resources from my PMC. Small air lift. It'd take the better half of a day to get here, hoping Dragonfly isn't in too much of a bind, and we would probably have to pick up our stuff and move on to somewhere more secure immediately afterwards," Aya set the second petri dish onto the microscope platform, "But all your crap'll be fixed within the week,"
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Post by .Merios on Oct 9, 2010 11:18:55 GMT -5
"My eyes are.. What?"
He looked at her quizzically for a moment, but then silenced himself when she began speaking about the coated joints in his knees and knuckles. With a shrug he relaxed a little, bringing his legs up and locking his feet in place on the bottom rung of the stool. The page printed out of the analyzer and he watched as she snatched it up and read it. He noticed she glanced over at Ty momentarily before setting the paper aside.
"So.. "He said, standing up from the stool and taking a few steps into the room. "You're wanting to open me up, replace my implants and... For what?"
He walked back towards her, crossing his arms over his chest and sinking back onto his left foot. His stance showed that he was more "You don't even know my story, where I came from.. Honestly?"
He headed back over to his stool and stood next to it, not quite sitting down yet. "I'm not sure if I want to be operated on by someone who hasn't even admitted what she is."
He headed back over to the garage door, kneeling down as he approached his duffle bag. He opened it up and started fishing through it. Within a few seconds he procured his shoulder harness which included his Stoeger Coach sawn-off. He slung it over his right shoulder and dug back into the duffle bag, finding a box of shells and pulling them out, walking back over to his stool and sitting down, laying the harness across his lap. He pulled the shotgun from the holster and broke the breach, tipping it down and turning the gun upside down, dropping the two spent shells from the barrel.
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 9, 2010 21:30:43 GMT -5
"You're kidding me, right?" Aya was about to fish for the reflective surface of the microscope platform when Matthew's pupils returned to normal; she made a small frown, "You have, y'know, looked in a mirror recently? I mean from my experience the logo popping up makes plenty of sense. It's when your iris goes abnormal that indicates malfunction," drawing an invisible circle around her own eye with her index; it probably seemed contradicting considering the natural yellow pigment of her own, "You've never spotted the change?"
Standing up as Matthew did, worried he was taking this as his leave. It ended up more of a confrontation, "Why should I need to know your story. I didn't need to know the dozens of people who were about to be burned alive just to aid them," she smiled, "If I had known, it probably would have been an added incentive to not help out," that sounded like a decent enough defense.
His behavior in being uncertain if he wanted to sit or stand gave Aya the impression that he was tossing up between staying or leaving. Then the bomb was dropped. Aya deserted her argument, "What I am?!" she barked, feeling herself tense up. Dropping back onto her seat and swiveling to face the other direction.
"Only ever refered to as a 'thing,'" desperately looking among her work for something to keep her occupied, "Last time I admitted it placed me in an amount of agony I'd rather not experience again. You'd be wrong to think it would help anything,"
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Post by .Merios on Oct 10, 2010 19:59:00 GMT -5
He slid one shell into the right breach of the shotgun in his lap, moving his left hand over and placing the shell in it into the gun as well. With a quick jerk, he flipped the breach back up and snapped it in place with a click. He turned it sideways and slid it back into the holster, listening as she mentioned the last time she revealed herself. He picked up the harness and set it on the table with a bang.
"Agony? Who do you think we are? Does Tyson even-"
He lowered his voice, looking over at Tyson. It was almost as if he could see the ex-soldier snort and turn over in his sleep. Matthew then turned back to Aya, his voice a decibel or two quieter.
"Does he even know what you are?"
He shook his head, his left hand moving across his lap and clasping his right. He played with the gold wedding band on his right index finger, spinning it a few times around his flesh. "Agony? You know by now I'm not human. Even if I find my family, it's not like we can buy a house with a white picket fence and a god-damned Golden Retriever."
He stood up, grasping the harness as he walked past Aya, kneeling down by his dufflebag and stuffing the harness inside the bag, fishing around for something else as he turned his back to her.
"So lets stop this pity party and get down to it. You can experiment all you want on me if, in return.."
He withdrew his machete from it's sheath with a long metallic scrape, grasping the sheath with his left hand and holding the leather-bound grip in his right as he made his way back over to his seat, stopping by Aya on the way and holding the machete up to her head as he passed, "I get to dig a little deeper into that pretty little head of yours."
He moved past her and plopped down on his stool, turning his sheath over and tugging at the leather shoulder strap of it, making it much longer and freeing it from it's clasp. He put the sheath on the ground and gripped the free edge of the leather strap as he held the sheath on the ground with his right boot, pulling the leather taught as he began drawing the blade up and down the strap.
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 10, 2010 20:34:11 GMT -5
Aya hung her head a little in shame, "Tyson knows... the basics. Far as I can tell he could care less," she looked over at the sleeping behemoth; too forgiving for his own good; it was likely one of the reasons they got along so well. Ty was happy not to know, and Aya was happy he didn't ask. Matthew though; talk about a 180, "I wasn't talking about psychological pain. I meant last time actually hurt like sh*t," she had been curious whether the ring was sentimental or actually stood for something that still remained, it signified his potential mental status; he had said 'find' meaning it likely remained as a sign of hope; maybe even a reminder.
Or it was all a ruse, and a clever one to make Aya spill. Regardless, if it did land her in crap she would just deal with it like every other time; it wasn't Matthew himself that she wanted information from, rather whatever person made him. It was hard to tell who had more to lose, granted no one was lying, but Aya felt the scale tip in her direction in this instance. She could learn all she wanted from the implants alone and Matthew didn't even need to know, "Fine," the tan girl finally replied, leaning back to look at the ceiling, "What do you want to know."
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Post by .Merios on Oct 10, 2010 21:57:54 GMT -5
He drew the blade across the leather strap, cleaning the blade and giving it a small amount of sharpening as he went. His eyes moved from the blade to her as she tipped back and looked up at the ceiling. He sighed and pulled the leather up, sitting the machete on the table and beginning to work the strap back into the sheath's harness, slipping it back into the copper buckle.
"Look, if it'll make you feel better, we can swap questions, deal?"
He looked to Tyson once more then back to Aya, finishing up the strap.
"So... What exactly are you?" He raised his eyebrow and waited a moment then quickly let out a laugh, setting the sheath on the table.
"I.. I mean," spoke between a half-hearted laugh, "Did you have a life before.. They got their hands on you? How infected are you?"[/i]
He smirked to himself, knowing his questions were relatively vague but he wanted to know the information. With a droll demeanor, he reached over and plucked his machete from the table and slid it into it's sheath, strapping it back into it's place and standing up. He walked a few feet over to his dufflebag and crouched down, sticking the machete in it and grasping the bag itself, lifting it up and throwing it over his shoulder, walking back to his stool and dropping it by his feet. He sat down and pulled it onto his lap and began sifting through it, taking occasional glances at Aya.
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 10, 2010 22:53:18 GMT -5
Clenching her fists, "First things first, try not to reference me as a thing. I don't know how much you like being asked 'what' you are but it really doesn't settle well with me," then breathing out casually, Aya flicked her hair away from her face, "There was never anything before this. The moment I was born I ended up the subject of testing. A soon as it was detected that my structure would mesh with a Base extract from Progenitor I was rushed to the lab," she looked to Matthew, "Yeah, all Umbrella related. They were so excited to find a newborn that could accept Progenitor that I was practically thrown onto the table,"
The skin of her left arm rippled as Aya clicked on the replication process for half a second, stinging, "I have no idea what it's like to be normal. The first stage with an individual of my design is agressive pre-adolescence, meaning things were extremely uncontrollable. Once phases past though, the benefits could slowly be drawn out," she shook her head as if to forget, "It's a long story. There's an entire other side to me. That's Progenitor. We co-exist together, that way we both reap the benefits of the other. She's happy to stay dormant until I need her, which I'm grateful of. Back at the Sands had been the first time in ten years," Aya flinched to think of what it must have looked like, "It's like taking a backseat and letting something greater takeover. Being the first though I've got no idea how I'll change in the future, or for how long things will stay the way they are,"
"Don't know how much of her you saw exactly," Looking back up at Matthew now, "I only changed over for long enough to deal with the bipedal and you were pretty knocked out," Aya removed the coat and hung it over the corner of the bench, "That's 'who' I am out of the way... so how about you? How much of yourself do you know, or who was involved,"
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Post by .Merios on Oct 11, 2010 0:17:15 GMT -5
Matthew listened intently, searching around in his dufflebag. To anyone else, his actions would have given the impression of not caring nor paying attention. Within moments, he withdrew a flint lighter and dropped the bag to the floor. He watched her fling her coat onto the back of the bench as she relaxed, speaking to him as if he was the only person on Earth.
"That's 'who' I am out of the way... so how about you? How much of yourself do you know, or who was involved?"
Matthew tensed and then shrugged, flicking the lighter out and slipping it in between his right index finger and middle finger, spinning it around to the front, showing Aya the design on the front of it. A beautiful woman's face was etched into the steel with long snakes billowing out of her head like flowing hair.
"It was my 23rd birthday, my daughter Zoe was born that year."
He tossed the lighter on the work table, letting it slide towards Aya on the wooden surface.
"I learned a few years back who originally kidnapped me.. It was a group of Russian ex-patriots that formed a PMC by the name of Medusa." He hesitated for a second, "they bought a missing shipment of "Stairway to the Sun"... For some reason, they thought they would be able to get ahead of the competition by spending some money to research Progenitor. Or.. What they thought was Progenitor."
He hooked his feet onto the lower rung of his stool.
"Long story short, they found my genetic cocktail to be the most delicious and couldn't resist. Umbrella found me and thought that had something to do with it, even though I was working for the a**holes," he grabbed his dufflebag again and began shuffling through it.
"Kept me in captivity 'till '98.. Hell, I didn't even know they did much until I had to research it on a company computer back in '07. I know exactly who did this to me and they're still operating.. They're still out there."
He looked back up to her, bringing out what looked like an old pistol- rust locked and decayed. It was half-covered in a white towel as he brought it out and set it on the table, unfolding the towel to reveal a beat-up old VP70. Without looking up from it, he spoke.
"So, without switching over to Progenitor.. You're basically human? You can just turn it on and off like that?"
He mumbled the word 'lucky as he dug into his dufflebag once more and procured a metal box and set it on the table, opening it up to reveal a cleaning cloth, alcohol and what looks like a lack-luster amount of q-tips and miscellaneous bits of cloth.
"Any family?"
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 11, 2010 11:33:58 GMT -5
Lazily putting out a finger to stop the course of the lighter; Aya glanced at the face grasping its relevance after Matthew spoke of the PMC, shaking her head, "Haven't heard of them. They either went defunct before 2011 or keep to themselves. I'm guessing a bit of both," she leaned forwards and set the lighter upright, "Even if a company was disbanded I made it a hobby to read up on'em. Of course, it's not like under new management a PMC can't just change name. It's how the more shadowy organizations operate: go underground and emerge as something totally different,"
Pinning each key point in his career which was heavily inclusive to his changing, Aya hooked onto the part about Umbrella particularly. Matt had already hinted his position with the group back in the swamps; they were both running on assumptive nature then, it was nice to have it the vaguality clarified once and for all, "I spent a lot of time with Umbrella. More than half of my life. Witnessed plenty of fresh faces arrive and leave during my time in each key facility, and I'm not one to forget faces," placing both elbows down on the bench and leaning forwards, "I really musn't had thought much of you when I saw you then, huh. Every other face I can think of either has a 'dead' or 'turned' tag pinned to them,"
They both paused for a moment to be with their own thoughts. Matt pulled out what looked like another piece of sentimentality; god knew what that was connected to. Aya kept her mouth shut on that one; they were already making it personal enough. Matt's arbitrary question toward Aya's mutation yeilded a bit of ignorance though, "Do you have any idea what it feels like to have another six lungs constructed from super catalyst replication?" she retorted with a rhetorical question, "Any scientist who had the luck to see the process would say 'that sh*t certainly wouldn't tickle,'" she eased, feeling her point made it across, "I don't use it lightly. Can't even explain what it feels like... it's just hell. That's not counting deconstruction," shaking her head in almost disgreement with her other side; thinking about it alone could only clarify her fear for it, "The only human quality about me is what you see on the outside. My blood content is alien, organs have shifted to work more efficiently. I haven't exactly experimented on myself to learn more, don't plan to; and I don't plan to let anyone else do so either. Like I said, I'm grateful Progenitor has let me keep who I am; whether I'll lose it at some stage, that's entirely up to her,"
Twiddling her thumbs. Thinking about the inevitable and what she could be tomorrow or the day after. Aya was relieved to hear Matthew ask about her family; a perfect distraction. Her fidgeting stopped and she smiled, "I have a daughter. Cutest thing," flashes of Ayame flicked across her mind, "I see a lot of myself in her. Family kinda ends there, though. It's... been a weird tree at that, but she's all I really care about. Had parents. Had siblings. They're all dead. It was never something I could hold onto very well; probably why I want to try so hard to raise her," and from daydreaming of the inevitable to worrying about someone hundreds of miles away. Aya had to change the topic just to keep focused.
"So Medusa picked up a batch of the Mother virus," resting her head on her hand, "But that wasn't what they tested on you? Or they thought it was Progenitor while it was infact a varied double helix?" she slipped the analyzer information around and held it up by a corner, "I, uh, already did the examination for it. Never thought I'd find myself in the same room with someone supporting the same chain of nucleotides as me," she half smiled; probably the only damn thing they had in common.
"The reason I want to replace your implants, Matthew, is because I may be able to trace the old ones back to their source," suddenly being honest, "I know it's been years since they were surgically placed, but any shred of evidence would be a potential lead for me to follow," she waved her hand at a dusty, small first aid kit resting on one of the shelves she worked under: the Umbrella logo inscribed into one corner; all of the contents likely having 2036 as a printed expiry date on them, "No matter where you look, there's a bit of Umbrella in everything. It's taken a back seat in my life now, but whenever I come across a warm thread connected to the organization I follow it and cut it loose. I'll keep going until I feel nothing remains - which is probably never," she clasped her hands together and held them high to stretch, "So you can image how I felt when I met you,"
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Post by .Merios on Oct 12, 2010 15:01:11 GMT -5
Matthew looked up at Aya from his side project on the rusted VP70 on the towel in front of him. He listened to her explain about the PMC, and how most of them tend not to stick around for too long. Sure, that was agreeable. He knew Medusa probably wasn't around anymore, and he was fine with that. Eventually Umbrella would be swept under the rug and become just another tragedy in the past.. But when ancient relics like himself are still walking around, it tends not to disappear quite as easily as it may have sounded.
"I have a daughter. Cutest thing, I see a lot of myself in her. Family kinda ends there, though. It's... been a weird tree at that, but she's all I really care about. Had parents. Had siblings. They're all dead. It was never something I could hold onto very well; probably why I want to try so hard to raise her."
He had a striking feeling to reach into his wallet and pull out older pictures of his own children and have a share-and-tell bit, but hesitation set in. He turned back to his gun, working on it a bit as she continued talking. The rust wasn't as bad as he originally thought, cleaning it tended to be a bit easier than it would to completely fix a rust-locked pistol.
"The reason I want to replace your implants, Matthew, is because I may be able to trace the old ones back to their source, I know it's been years since they were surgically placed, but any shred of evidence would be a potential lead for me to follow." He could see she hap-haphazardly pointed at a first-aid kit which he glanced at but didn't take too much of a notice. "No matter where you look, there's a bit of Umbrella in everything. It's taken a back seat in my life now, but whenever I come across a warm thread connected to the organization I follow it and cut it loose. I'll keep going until I feel nothing remains - which is probably never, so you can image how I felt when I met you,"
Matthew turned to look at her, his fingertips covered in black as he drug them across the white towel, leaving dark streaks in the cloth. He crossed his arms over his chest, straightening his back a bit. If he were an animal, his fur would be puffed out and on end.
"So. I worked for Umbrella for a number of years, in their Raccoon facility." He sighed, "there are always going to be threads to pull. Unraveling the entire quilt is going to take a hell of a lot more than just dismantling one of their experiments."
He grimaced, having just referred to himself as Umbrella's property.
"These implants aren't just improving me.. They're governing me."
He turned away, walking a few steps into the room, moving his right hand up to the back of his head and running his fingers through his short hair.
"You've got that alternate personality.. The second half of you? Progenitor?"
He walked towards the EBR she had sat down, standing a few feet from it, looking it over. "Since these implants have been failing, I've been having more and more blackouts. I'm.. I think I may be losing control or... Evolving?"
He shook his head, walking back over to the table where his gun was and starting to replace everything back in the cleaning kit. Within a few moments, he finished up and folded the gun into the white towel and pressing it inside his duffelbag. He slung the bag over his shoulder and walked towards the door leading into the back compound. He stopped by the door and turned to look at her.
"Tell me when you've made the call," he said, reaching down to his belt on the left side and retrieving a small walkie-talkie and waving it a bit before clipping it back on, "I'll be around." With that, he pulled open the door and stepped outside, letting it slam behind him.
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 13, 2010 6:40:39 GMT -5
"We are one," Aya put bluntly to correct Matt adressing her other half. She wasn't too sure where Matthew was going with his hypothesis, 'If he's actually feeling change then there is a possibility Progenitor has something to do with it. It could just be the implants shorting out his senses, though,' Then he headed for the exit, seemingly having had enough of all the chat. "I'll be around." Aya nodded as the dim afternoon light shone through the open back door; returning to her bench to see the shadow of the Progenitor man vanish as the door slammed shut. There had been one thing the tan girl didn't bother commenting on, one constant that Aya had against Umbrella, "Got all the time in the world to work on pulling those threads. Just have better things to do at the moment," lifting off her stool and dusting her hands. Aya crossed the garage, approaching her Luna, "How ya doing girl," she soothed while picking open one of the motorcycle's back pouches, pulling out her smartphone plus multiple adaptors for it, "Sure hope our satellite is pointing roughly over Nevada about now," thumbing the cell on while crossing into the grocery shop in the next room. From there she pushed open the door to storage and ascended the ladder to the roof. Dry breeze floated over the gas station pulling some slightly warm air with it; the girl edged over to one of the refrigeration units and took a seat on top. The ear piece and mic were plugged in first followed by the signal booster. Aya held the small black block up as she keyed in PMC-D's backwater number, holding her breath. Minutes turned to hours. Aya lazily walked back and fowards across the roof staring intently at the cell's screen, patiently waiting to grasp a signal. Eventually she was forced to leap up to the elevated rooftop, holding her hand high as if to mock the Statue of Liberty. As time continued to slip by though Aya took a place sitting at the edge of the roof, dangling her legs in annihilating boredom; as the golden rim of the setting sun vanished below the desert horizon, and the lights of Vegas could be seen flickering to life, Aya's head dropped to resting on her knee; eyes heavy. BlipOne eye shot open to see a tiny blue bar grow in the corner of her cell, the call tone dialling. Aya stood up, her face swamped with LCD light from the phone's display. The night sky sparkled as the full moon turned everything blue; Aya barely noticed she had fallen asleep, with one hand held high at that. None of it mattered now; someone just had to pickup the phone. -click- "Identification.""Colonel Aya Flow of PMC Dragonfly," she was quick to answer. "What's your IDC Colonel.""2501 - Barnstorm.""...Patching you through," -click- Taking place on the lone, dusty deckchair and letting a long winded breath escape, rubbing her eyes. "Major Loren speaking. Been a while since you reported in Colonel. How can I help?""Hey Loren. I was wondering whether I could get an air drop of any resources from HQ for some surgery,""Anything in particular?""Actually quite a few things," Aya rolled her head back to stare up at the sky as she rounded off, "I'll need a couple'a dozen kilograms of titanium alloy, approximately 500g of Ruthenium along with that. A metre of fiber wire and a soldering kit. Oh-" she jolted, recalling her other project, "Think you could drop an arc welding kit, another 20 kilos of titanium, 3 keys of iridium and 500mils of palladium?," she held the mic down for a moment and raised an eyebrow, mumbling to herself, "That might solve the overheating process..." mulling for a moment before lifting the mic back up, "Make that 5 kilos of iridium."Moments passed; Aya thought she could hear the sounds of a keyboard being used, figuring Loren was noting everything down. Either that or it was just static. "Huh. I can do one better for you Colonel. We've got a research team wrapping up some work down in Phoenix. I can have their lab platform flown over to your position if you like. Just drop me your coordinates."Amazed to near blindness of her luck, "Ah-b'yeah, give me a moment," she checked the map on the cell, "36 degrees, 55 minutes, 46 seconds North. 115 degrees, 11 minutes, 28 seconds West.""Copy that. Don't s'pose you had anything to do with that Las Vegas incident? We didn't have any units in the area at the time so we haven't recieved a formal report.""Nah. Just got out before the shooting started. It was a planned attack from what I've heard, so if we did have any members in the city at the time we would have lost them,""Understood. The lab platform will be dropped 70 klicks North-West of your position at approximately 14:00 local tomorrow, well out of the way of any passers by,""Thankyou, Major. Tell Claypoole I said hi," and with that she yanked the booster free and turned the cell off. _______________________________________________________________ Rocking on her stool, head buried in her crossed arms against the bench. All Aya had now was to wait; she had been staring at the hardwood of the bench sleepless until finally succumbing to the subspace void of unconciousness. "Granted, it wouldn't even work. Hell, no one's even studying theory on this sort of thing because it's impossible." The end of the sentence echoed off in her head as Aya's eyes pulled open wide at how lucid the voice had been. She had recognized it. It had been her a long time ago playing with science like she was god in that bleached white lab coat spending countless hours in her windowless studio. 'I'd been talking to another senior member of the R&D department at the time. She was like my mentor, even if I trounced her in conception countless times,' she slapped the two hovering legs of the stool down and stood up, 'Whenever I felt I was onto something huge I'd talk endlessly to her about it, bragging almost. Then a week later I'd be telling her how much of a deadend it was and what a waste of time it had been working on it,' finding herself standing over the scrunched up piece of paper sitting in the corner, "It's just a deadend compound..." crouching down to pick it up, unfolding it and rocking her jaw once while staring at it, hoping she wasn't imagining things, "Maybe it isn't,"Gathering all of her equipment together from the bench, clumsily pushing it all into a sack with little concern for making noise of breaking objects. Aya returned to the ladder leading to the roof; instead of ascending, this time she descended; pulling the hatch open to the basement area. She dropped the bag in and followed suit, slamming the lid shut once she was inside. There was no waiting to do this. Even with limited supplies and tools Aya couldn't hold her breath until the lab platform made it up to Nevada; it was something she had to do now. There were plenty of machines in the workshop to help out in that regard; the little engineer would just need to get a bit creative with them. _______________________________________________________________ Working throughout what remained of the night, a ton of noise being generated; the thick concrete did well enough to muffle most. Aya analyzed, hammered and crafted her way to victory; smelting the enhanced element she desired, clean cutting the disc of metal on the flywheel grinder, digging out two small holes into the shell with an industrial drill and going at it rock mallet and anvil to achieve the shape she wanted. Some leather was cut into strips to support the armor all together. With a flick Aya nudged the metal mask down over her face, ready to perform the first test. Her Pro-9 sat in a vice at the other side of the room pointing at her; in her hand she held the corded trigger to fire it, a CAD claw hovering inside the trigger guard primed to squeeze. Wrenching her eyes shut, Aya stabbed the button and a report fired off doubling in volume from reverberation off the concrete walls. Then a loud fizzing sound filled the room. CRACKThe bullet spat off the mask and dug into a random pile of trash. Aya opened her eyes, unharmed. She lifted the mask up and pulled it off to look at it only to see the faintest mark where the round had hit. A moment passed, and then she held her hands high in victory hissing a "Yes!"Looking as if she had no time to waste the girl hopped back into overwork mode, killing to get the weave done up next.
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Post by Mikey on Oct 14, 2010 23:49:49 GMT -5
The crack of the gunshot was what pulled Tyson out of hi sleep. He jerked his head up and reached for the Glock that was nearby, aiming around the garage. He didn’t see anything. Looking around in confusion for a moment, he heard noise coming from a corner of the room. It sounded like screaming. No, not screaming, yelling. And not in a bad way, it sounded.
Sighing and sitting up, his back cracking a few times, he pulled his leg off the bed of the truck and scooted back. Easing the broken limb to the ground, he cracked his neck and yawned.
He’d had a weird dream last night. He couldn’t remember anything about it, but something in the back of is mind told him that it had been strange. Weather it was about the things they had just done in Vegas, influenced by the conversation he may or may not have heard from Aya and Matt, or just about Miss December. He couldn’t remember for the life of him. Yawning once more and shrugging it off as just about any other dream he’d ever had, he could never remember a dream no matter what he did, he turned over and put his weight on his good knee. Using the truck, he stood up and gently put some weight on the broken leg. It didn’t hurt as bad as it had the night before. Seemed like it was going to heal up pretty good. Didn’t hurt that the brace was all but squeezing everything into place with no hope of letting go. Like a giant, metal, medicinal boa constrictor trying to crush his leg and make it into a meal.
Looking over to where he had heard the sounds come from a moment ago as he took a drink of water, he looked to the hatch he hadn’t noticed when they first got here. Taking a look to Aya’s work table, he saw that it was empty. The tiny scientist slash engineer slash soldier slash whatever else she managed to cram into that brain of hers had taken her tools with her. He had a good idea of where that might be, the more his mind put two and two together.
Limping to the hatch and bending down with the bad leg hanging out at an angle, he grabbed the handle and easily pulled the hatch up. Looking at the ladder for a moment and wondering how he could manage to get down, he thought against it and decided on laying on the ground and taking a peek inside. Sure enough, there she was, hunched over a table in a way that made her look like Quasimodo. He saw her setup, the gun in the vice with a string attached to the trigger. She must have been working on the weaving some more.
Not sure if she knew he was there and was ignoring him or if she was so concentrated on her work that she hadn’t heard the hatch lift he did not know, probably the former, he was unsure if he should interrupt her or not.
But in the end, curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to know what she’d found out that had her in this kind of frenzy. Not but a GED and anything you picked up on the streets or an Army base ran through his mind, but he was starting to pick up interest in all of this. Especially because it would benefit him the way it did. He didn’t know if Aya had a plan for the weaving of her own or if she was doing all of this for the chance to work on a material that shouldn’t exist, but he’d leave her to decide what to do with it in the end.
“New development?” He asked, his head hanging upside down from the hatch, looking in on her as she worked upside down on something that he still couldn’t see.
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 15, 2010 10:38:43 GMT -5
"- 239 squared over 12, 4 Pi times by 10 to the power of negative seven, 23 Magnetism equals Ch-"“New development?” Scrunching her eyes shut trying hard to keep track of the formula, caught mid consonant, "Faaaaaa!" third time she had lost track now. Looking around to find out what the distraction had been; prefering it had a neck to strangle, "Ty?" she had almost gone to look at a watch on her wrist even when it didn't exist, "What's the time?" if he were awake then they must be somewhere around dawn, maybe early morning. Aya seemed to gaze off for a moment, "Hmm? Development?" just realizing he had asked, "Oh!"Pivoting around to slip the plate of metal over her head and flick it down, surprising Tyson with a quick turn, "Whaddaya think?" holding it at the chin and half posing, "Pretty classy. I was just about to give it a second skirmish... did a bit of adjustment to the formula," in terms of safety it was obvious Tyson would need his own protection in order to observe. She flicked it up, "I finished yours too. It'll replace your old mask," walking over to the hanging man and handing it up to him, "It'll fit. I used measurement from your other mask to get it all good and right,"Standing over the big, white X on the floor; Aya's target area, "Alrighty, test number 2, 1100 Teslas. Neutron count 4.5 over 5. Negative mass effect applied," she clicked the corded trigger, her Pro-9 reporting sending a round strait at her forehead. This time the bullet didn't even hit, instead it curved around the mask and slowed significantly dropping no more than a metre behind the masked girl. Aya was quick to flick it up and check the placement of the bullet; nearly ecstatic, "No fricking way!" she crouched down and picked up the warped piece of lead, "Remember how the suits had the problem of discharging rounds back into friendlies?" she reminded Ty of how much a benefit that had been to them, "Fixed," holding the round up, "Kill enough inertia and when a bullet rocks up on a collision course it drops to a non-threatening speed so it doesn't indirectly hit anyone else around you," she flicked it into the air with her thumb, catching it again and pegging it at the work bench, "Imagine if I ramped the Teslas up even more," she mused with a smile, "I bet I could make bullets just stop in mid air," waving her hand gracefully as if to interpret how magnificent it would be. "It ended up being really simple in the end. I mean the only reason I missed it was because I'd already made it," taking a seat, trying to explain how she had stumbled across the retro-engineering would be difficult to make sense, "I mean a long time ago..." pointing her thumb over her shoulder to insinuate how far back on her timeline she suggested, "I was playing around with halving neutrons and protons to boost positive and negative polarity. Didn't really have the tech back then to do the job, and I hadn't reached a point of excellence in resourcefulness so I was pretty darn convinced I couldn't do much with the atom compound," rubbing her dark eyes, "Not to mention how unstable it all was, nearly splitting an atom entirely... well," shrugging, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki can let you know how that worked out,""The thing that gets me is, how the hell did I help myself?" squinting an eye, "I mean, someone developed this element with my own work. That sort of research wasn't allowed out of the room back then. Anything we did got incinerated. Not to mention why they wouldn't use it until now," shaking her head at how much sense none of it all made, "Either way, it's helped me work it out, I think that warrants pushing it to the back seat for the time being. I was gonna try and build some weave but I don't have the resources for it. This'll do."Aya slipped her mask off of her head, setting it down satisfied, "Just need to give it a name now," tapping her fingers on the bench, "Polarium maybe? Or Inertium," tilting her head in thought. Then she yawned. "Oh man," standing up to stretch, "I'm kinda starving. What's for breakfast?" walking over to the hatch, "What'd you say the time was again?" raising an eyebrow as she began to climb, "Need to be outta here by 12 hundred to meet up with the Dragonfly airlift in time,"
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Post by Mikey on Oct 16, 2010 8:47:15 GMT -5
When Aya went all out with her explanations and questions to herself and the odd word that was bound to confuse the flying f**k out of him, Tyson stayed silent. He couldn’t interrupt her during one of these moments. He literally couldn’t, every time he tried to speak she was either talking some more or doing something. He couldn’t even tell her the time when she asked. Sure, it wasn’t a matter of telling her what time it was, it was a matter of telling her he didn’t have a watch but by the amount of light outside he had to guess it was going on six.
“Given the time of year and area of the country, I’d have to say its about six in the AM.” He said, feeling the need to give her not only the time of day but how he came to that conclusion and overall use more words than necessary to try to trump her own habit of it. Or at least try and make her aware of it.
“For breakfast, we have either military grade imitation food, or gas station snack cakes and chips.” He told her. Unless she had some real food hidden in a small extra dimensional space hidden in her shoe, they were kind of limited there. Come to think of it, he might have believed her if she said she used to, but left it in her other pair of shoes. It was a week of the impossible. Maybe next she could whip up something to let him fly, or talk to muskrats.
“Whoa whoa whoa, Dragonfly? What are they doing in the middle of bumf**k nowhere?” He asked her. He could ask the same of them, but he knew the answer. Aya was impatient. He was also curious about what they were airlifting in or out. They weren’t going anywhere, she didn’t say evacuation or pickup. “And what are we getting?” He said. He then took a look around. “And where’s Matt?” F**k, was he ever going to be able to sleep around these people? Were they going to go and create world peace while he took a nap? He could only imagine waking up to that. No one killing each other or whatever they did these days? It’d drive him over the edge.
“And…” He began again. “I’m out of questions.” He said suddenly. “Chicken, pork, or Twinkies?” He asked her. Their food options.
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Post by Lunapocalypse on Oct 17, 2010 10:32:14 GMT -5
"Six. Okay," Aya mumbled under her breath while climbing the ladder, slightly hoping it would be closer to noon, "Been awake long? You must have had a pretty good sleep," she caught sight of his metal cast while pulling out of the hatch, "Hows the leg going," a small part of her leader role remained holding the concern for her team members. Once topside Aya went to grab a mucky rag from the work bench, wiping grease from her face as she pulled a latch on one of the scrapyard windows and lifted it open; a deep breath of the morning air made excellent revitalization of the staleness of the basement. “Chicken, pork, or Twinkies?” Aya didn't often succumb to the junk food side of things; it wasn't a health issue, her metabolism broke it down until there was nothing left; it just ended up being a standards thing. This morning was an exception. Finishing a ton of work gave the girl a craving, "Twinkie please," signalling two after realizing she hadn't pluralized it before holding out her hands ot catch. "Claypoole's got some folks down in Arizona doing some research," pausing to open the plastic packaging, "They just wrapped up the operation and we're getting the lab platform from them," Aya spotted Tyson might be missing a few key points of info, she took a quick chomp off of the space cake before elaborating, "Doin' some surgery on Matt which needs a little more than what's in this garage. S'not important," she could tell Tyson the details only to find out he didn't care. "Didn't really think to ask what the Dragonfly guys are checking out. Must be pretty good if a whole mobile platform was moved from Baghdad," she smiled while chewing, flicking the wrapper in the dustbin, "Probably better I don't know. I'm occupied enough as it is already," she wiped the first twinkie out, "Along with that is a bunch of resources I need to finish making your armor," pointing at Tyson to make the accalamtion, "And to round off a final design of the EBR," she leaned back onto her elbows feeling a small hole fill inside her, savoring the second sponge cake, "Been thinking about making some of my own armor too. Not as bulky as your riot gear. It's not like I really need it as well, but... I dunno. Putting on that mask - it feels good - almost like an alter ego,"Running her tongue along the inside of her cheek picking up any residual cream, "As for Matt," she turned to look out the window, "He bugged off early last night. He said he'd stick in radio contact so he's still in the area," turning back to look at Tyson, "Probably catching butterflies or whatever you men do during the night,"
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