An Unauthorized Genetic Experiment: episode two.
Author: Chippewa Livingston
Archive: Please ask
Disclaimer: I claim no affiliation or ownership of characters or material related to Dark Angel.
18 Sheep's clothing
Information, the kind we were dealing with is like a drop of blood in water. The vibrant red, chock full of facts, dissipates almost immediately and spreads in fading shades of truth. The end result is a watery remnant spread infinitesimally thin.
Somehow it still drew the sharks.
I clenched my jaw as I listened I listened to Sharp/Jack spill blood in the water. Just a little. Enough. We'd have to trust this Logan now as the cage between us and the predators. I felt the steel enclosing me. "I'm going to get Nathan."
Outside the confines of the car I still couldn't shake the feeling of walls. The cool night air pressed too close and the spangled heavens contained a thousand distant search lights. The clouds were blowing off.
I stepped lightly over the paved surface feeling I was playing a game of escape and evade with the whole world. Soon the lights of the bar where we'd left Nathan loomed ahead. The claustrophobia in my head had begun to ebb away. Escape and evade was a game full of uncertainty but I had played it too many times to count.
The bar was dark, and the few patrons too alcohol sodden to notice me. Nathan jumped when I tapped him on the shoulder. "Time for a family reunion." I said and motioned him to follow me. He crumpled a bill and dropped it next to his half-empty bottle of beer.
In the dark, Nathan's motions sounded alarmingly loud to me but we moved fast enough and didn't attract notice. The car was dark, but I heard Sharp-- still on Asha's cell. Fear I didn't know was there dissipated. Fear that he had gone in again without me.
"Get in the car," I whispered to Nathan. I took the driver's seat again. "And keep quiet."
Sharp/Jack tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked over my shoulder to see his lips moving silently: "Logan doesn't want us going in now."
I grabbed the phone. The red plastic was warm from Sharp's grip. "What's the problem?" I asked.
"There are dozens of people in there. Police, both state and local, plus extra people from the security service, and an ambulance. Everyone except the CDC."
"No Center for Disease Control. So they aren't responding like it's terrorism." I fumbled with Asha's overloaded key ring until I found the one that fit the ignition.
"Right. They do have people looking for intruders in the computer system, though. I'm not going to be able to keep an eye on things much longer." Logan's voice was beginning to show an edge of tension.
"What do you still have control of?" I looked at the chips in my nail polish. I wasn't sure if it was the pregnancy or not, but the smell of nail polish had been making me nauseous recently.
"The camera system, the electronic locks, and something called 'NBC alarm'." I could hear key-clicks in the background. Logan was still doing his thing.
"They have nuclear/biological/chemical detection?" I remembered that wiring buildings with those sensors was a bit of a fad, back before the Pulse. Too expensive now, unless you were the government.
Logan said something, which I didn't hear, because I was remembering watching Asha's gloved hands on the security monitors. "Asha," I said, "where did your gloves come from? Any other medical supplies?"
"We got a big box from someone's fall-out shelter." She sounded puzzled. "Some stuff we can use, but also weird shit like a Geiger counter, a bunch of filter masks, and two entire Tyvek clean suits. Whole mess is in my trunk until someone helps me lift it out"
"Logan," I sang. "Can you get that NBC alarm to go off?" I imagined dozens of people running around in panic. Just what *we* wanted.
A few key-clicks came to my ear as I started the car.
"Done," said Logan. "It's actually a test sequence, but it sounds like the real thing and flashes the lights."
"Great. Now for some locks." I pictured the map of the building in my mind, and recited the numbers that would close just about everything except the front doors.
Sharp and I would suit up like haz-mat technicians, and walk in the back, while everyone else ran out the front. We'd get some crappy old files for Logan, and I would get to go home and sleep.
Author: Chippewa Livingston
Archive: Please ask
Disclaimer: I claim no affiliation or ownership of characters or material related to Dark Angel.
18 Sheep's clothing
Information, the kind we were dealing with is like a drop of blood in water. The vibrant red, chock full of facts, dissipates almost immediately and spreads in fading shades of truth. The end result is a watery remnant spread infinitesimally thin.
Somehow it still drew the sharks.
I clenched my jaw as I listened I listened to Sharp/Jack spill blood in the water. Just a little. Enough. We'd have to trust this Logan now as the cage between us and the predators. I felt the steel enclosing me. "I'm going to get Nathan."
Outside the confines of the car I still couldn't shake the feeling of walls. The cool night air pressed too close and the spangled heavens contained a thousand distant search lights. The clouds were blowing off.
I stepped lightly over the paved surface feeling I was playing a game of escape and evade with the whole world. Soon the lights of the bar where we'd left Nathan loomed ahead. The claustrophobia in my head had begun to ebb away. Escape and evade was a game full of uncertainty but I had played it too many times to count.
The bar was dark, and the few patrons too alcohol sodden to notice me. Nathan jumped when I tapped him on the shoulder. "Time for a family reunion." I said and motioned him to follow me. He crumpled a bill and dropped it next to his half-empty bottle of beer.
In the dark, Nathan's motions sounded alarmingly loud to me but we moved fast enough and didn't attract notice. The car was dark, but I heard Sharp-- still on Asha's cell. Fear I didn't know was there dissipated. Fear that he had gone in again without me.
"Get in the car," I whispered to Nathan. I took the driver's seat again. "And keep quiet."
Sharp/Jack tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked over my shoulder to see his lips moving silently: "Logan doesn't want us going in now."
I grabbed the phone. The red plastic was warm from Sharp's grip. "What's the problem?" I asked.
"There are dozens of people in there. Police, both state and local, plus extra people from the security service, and an ambulance. Everyone except the CDC."
"No Center for Disease Control. So they aren't responding like it's terrorism." I fumbled with Asha's overloaded key ring until I found the one that fit the ignition.
"Right. They do have people looking for intruders in the computer system, though. I'm not going to be able to keep an eye on things much longer." Logan's voice was beginning to show an edge of tension.
"What do you still have control of?" I looked at the chips in my nail polish. I wasn't sure if it was the pregnancy or not, but the smell of nail polish had been making me nauseous recently.
"The camera system, the electronic locks, and something called 'NBC alarm'." I could hear key-clicks in the background. Logan was still doing his thing.
"They have nuclear/biological/chemical detection?" I remembered that wiring buildings with those sensors was a bit of a fad, back before the Pulse. Too expensive now, unless you were the government.
Logan said something, which I didn't hear, because I was remembering watching Asha's gloved hands on the security monitors. "Asha," I said, "where did your gloves come from? Any other medical supplies?"
"We got a big box from someone's fall-out shelter." She sounded puzzled. "Some stuff we can use, but also weird shit like a Geiger counter, a bunch of filter masks, and two entire Tyvek clean suits. Whole mess is in my trunk until someone helps me lift it out"
"Logan," I sang. "Can you get that NBC alarm to go off?" I imagined dozens of people running around in panic. Just what *we* wanted.
A few key-clicks came to my ear as I started the car.
"Done," said Logan. "It's actually a test sequence, but it sounds like the real thing and flashes the lights."
"Great. Now for some locks." I pictured the map of the building in my mind, and recited the numbers that would close just about everything except the front doors.
Sharp and I would suit up like haz-mat technicians, and walk in the back, while everyone else ran out the front. We'd get some crappy old files for Logan, and I would get to go home and sleep.