Somewhere above, in the depths of Two, Gordon slams his hand down on the console in frustration. He can chatter with the best of them; it's a practiced skill that proves invaluable to distract and sooth, but it needs at least a little involvement from the other party. Gordon has been carrying the conversation for the last twenty minutes, and there have been only mumbles from the other end for the last five.
"Hey, take it easy on her." Virgil is two rooms away recalibrating his exosuit for an extraction, but - as always - he's hyper aware of anything that could so much as scratch his lady. "What's the problem now?"
"Are you ready yet? He's been slurring pretty bad," Gordon says over his shoulder, "I can barely understand him." Gordon's fingers itch for a bio scan or a suit readout or anything else with some data to it. Part of his exhaustive training – aka being lectured at length by various family members – was to look for evidence to back up his gut; that instinct alone could get people killed. But with what little tech John had on him knocked out in the explosion all Gordon is left with is a horrible sinking feeling.
Virgil's heavy mechanical footsteps approach the chair, and he's leaning into the dashboard, swiping the display back to the building blueprints with a practiced gesture. He's studying his route in.
"You suspect a head injury?"
Gordon drums his fingers on the console, thinking. The symptoms could be consistent with a head injury, except John hadn't mentioned a blow to the head. He could be a stubborn fool sometimes but wouldn't have left that out. His perfectionism would see to that.
"I'm not sure."
Virgil gives him an enquiring look. "You got a hunch then?"
"We deployed atmosphere sensors down there, right?" The last few hours have had Gordon up and down the building, lifting, evacuating, triaging and doing general dogsbody work so Virgil can get in to do the heavy lifting. This has been their first opportunity to down a bottle of water and a protein bar in at least five hours, so some things have become a blur, but Gordon's pretty sure they deployed sensors at some point.
"We put them about half a dozen floors above him, remember? In the boardroom where the historical society were meeting." Virgil points out the room, and Gordon's gut sinks a little lower as he remembers the huddled group they herded out nearly ninety minutes ago.
"I'll send them further down while you get back there." Gordon is already sending the commands, the four little hover drones flying in strict formation through the corridors. Armed with an array of cameras, sensors and samplers the Fab Four are reliable information gatherers, but they have only the most basic AI - for the purpose of collision avoidance - and need active human piloting.
The amount of debris that's about, they may not be able to get into the shaft itself, but they can get pretty close and at least provide a visual of what Virgil will be navigating.
Speaking of which -
"You sure I shouldn't go? I'm about half your width." Gordon suggests. A lot of their time today has been spent working around the more severe collapses, backtracking around impenetrable piles of rubble that it's not safe to remove. Virgil has many talents, but sliding through small gaps is not one of them. Particularly when sheathed in several hundred pounds of machinery that augment his normally wider-than-average shoulders.
"I got this." Virgil clicks his helmet in place, checking the seal and air flow and flicking the shoulder light on and off several times. "I'd have to completely rebuild the suit to fit you. Keep trying with him and keep the comms open to me." With that Virgil is away, and Gordon is left with just his worries and a guilty conscience for company.