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 Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 7:51 pm
Riyoku followed him closely, never further than six meters behind him, yet never closer than three. That way his invisibilty was somewhat 'borrowed' although not to the best degree. She imitated his movements to create equally inconspicious actions for herself, with modications for her size, weight, balance and build. So far so good, there was absolutely no other signs of life in the vincinity.
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 9:16 pm
They were nearing the bottom. The readout on his watch told him so, but even more, his senses told him so. Amazing hologram, that. Making it appear that the stairs led quite a way further, he thought. It's probably pressure-sensitive. He swung his whole body onto the length of the handrail, then he clamped one end of his zipline onto it. He would open the door at the bottom, suspended by the handrail and the line. The motor inside his zipline feed moved inaudibly, and he could've screamed with relief at that. A few more inches, and he would be walking along the side of the rail...perfect. But it was still too far away. He motioned for Riyoku to use him as a bridge and open the door.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:21 pm
Riyoku nodded and silently crept onto him. She was light enough to move her entire weight onto his shoulder without damaging anything. The door wasn't trapset or locked. She double checked it for safety, then sent the slightest supersonic through a wire like device through the crack in the door. Nothing reflected back from any angle that she could reach and she tugged open the door, stowing the wire into her wristband. Riyoku slipped from her perche and lighted on the handle, pressuring it to move back in silence, creating enough space for Styx to enter discreetly without any accidents.
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Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:34 pm
Styx let his body go a little bit as he felt the weight lift from his back. He held up a couple of fingers; a few moments, please, to gather his energy.
He looked up, or ahead. The door was just barely large enough for him to slip through when is a door not a door a jar but he felt he could make it. He bent his legs and leaped off the rail...landing on the other side of the door without a sound. Now, he could hear machines groaning around him, and electricity buzzing in a low monotone in the walls.
He motioned to go forward.
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:23 pm
This is it. She thought, This is the core of everything. At the center of the entire operation, she could hack through the program like a razor and set up its total failure with enough time for them both to get away. Carefully, she checked trip lasers and found none. They really thought they were well protected.... Looking sideways at Styx, she waited for further commands.
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:48 pm
He nodded. Do what you have to.
He began setting up the thermal explosives and the EMP devices, rigging the EMPs so that they would activate a second before the thermals. He would initiate the countdown precisely three minutes after they were done. Once Riyoku had finished gathering the data, he would open the core CPU and run a magnet across the hard drive to erase whatever data was stored on it. The EMPs would fry the circuits, and the thermals were there to remove any trace of their presence.
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Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:22 pm
Riyoku's gloved hands flew effortlessly over the controls. The system was easily breached under swift fingers. Her hunch was right, that the access code had a pattern to it. She felt used to this task, one she had performed countless times at her own computer at the base. It was as natural to her as heart beating. Every shred of information, she recorded onto a drive built into a bracer around her forearm. This way they could never track her. Her system was independent and self reliant, internally functional. They will never find her...
As soon as she was done, she checked the surroundings and nodded to Styx. Completed.
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:44 pm
Good.
Styx twirled the magnet about his fingers, then wrenched up the hard drive from underneath the controls. He wiped that one, and then he brough up another, and another, and another...
After five of them, he could find no more. Then he looked at the controls themselves...and there it was. It was ingenious, really. The drive was embedded onto the back of the controls and the screen; there were four screws in each that seemed to have no purpose. He dismantled both, and found his hunch to be correct. He wiped those, and dug deeper into the tangle of wires. He brought a final one out on that dive; it was smaller than his nail, but it was probably the most important of them. He gave a thumbs-up, and he pocketed it, being careful not to let it come near the magnet.
He made sure the power was on before setting the detonator for the EMPs and the thermal bombs. Then he pulled Riyoku out of the capsule and back into the hallway where the machines still groaned. He held up three fingers. Three minutes to get out, or he would have to detonate while they were still inside the complex. After three minutes, if they weren't out and he didn't detonate, the clones would be able to ID them through the biological cameras. The invisibility field would work only until the cameras changed their recording frequencies. Being ID'd by a clone is never a good thing; clone mentats can easily manipulate a human's mind if given an ID, and do so within a second of seeing the name and neural patterns of the human.
Four minutes in total from the moment he tripped the alarm by taking the hard drives to the moment he'd have to detonate. One of those minutes had already passed. He shot his grapple to the top of the stairs, and pulled the two of them up as quickly as he could.
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 4:34 pm
Riyoku bit her lip as she went up. There was one thing that she hated in any mission, and that was having no footing without her own control over it. The ventways were all known to her, and the old plating on the ones she saw indicated that they haven't changed in the least. She was small enough to fit into one, but was Styx? She looked at him... he would be slow and time was limited. They could go back the way they came... chances were they'd have to find a window to climb up from the outside to the craft on the roof.
Clinging to the grapple with one hand, she held out other and make a sign for window, out, wall and up, then a sign for inquiry. This was his plan, and she would rather not sabotage anything. Riyoku knew that she was there only on back up assistance and retrieval, here, Styx was in charge.
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:40 pm
He nodded. She could take that route and be out before he was. He gave her the detonator before releasing her to do as she needed. Then he continued to pull himself up. The going was much faster and easier now, but the clock kept on ticking...
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 3:06 pm
Riyoku easily fit herself into the vent and vanished, where she came to another in the stairwell they came down from. Taking styx' grapple idea, she pulled herself up to the top most part of the stair well. There was a window there, and she opened it. Placing her feet on the window sill, she easily found the rim of the roof and swung up. There was only five inches of standing space between the edge and the fencing. Riyoku grabbed the fence as soon as she was on solid footing. Pushing on the tubular top, she pushed herself over it and found the craft. Now she could only get it prepared to take off again while Styx was finding his way up. She was absolutey sure no cameras had seen her. There were no traces of her in the facility, she had taken care to erase all and prevent most.
"Please Styx... hurry... "She whispered in her mind to herself. "Don't lag..."
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:57 pm
Styx looked at his watch. Fifty seconds left, and he still had aways to go. Still another thirty meters vertical to the top staircase. Another fifty seconds, and he'd be burned to a crisp along with everyone else inside...
No. That wouldn't happen. Not today, and not to him. After Riyoku threw the switch, if he got past the staircase he would have fifteen additional seconds to escape the complex. It was an approximate, but it seemed right.
At the top of the staircase, he had gained five seconds. Why was he so tired, now? The clone mentats! They were already attempting to shut him down! Well...we'll see about that!
"Blow it!" he screamed into the radio. "Blow it all to hell!!!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:25 pm
Riyoku was nearly deafened by his command as it rang loudly into her left ear. It took a few miliseconds to register as a result, but she did it immediately, enhancing control with the power of her gate. The gate identity had shifted, keeping her a secret from the clones. She had discovered how to alter the numerals of her gate. It would mean memorizing more digits, but it was worth it.
"Hurry up Styx!" Riyoku changed her voice tone completely, they won't find her by sound. She was in the pilot's seat, hovering the craft dowards over the window by the stair case, ready to take off the moment he got on. There was a long chain dangling from the copilot door. He would beable to jump onto it, and with the forced used to jump, swing up into the copilot seat and get away in time. She could see that he was weaker, and she herself wasn't affected in the least. Riyoku knew that he ordered her to not do anything with her gate... but it was necessary now. Forming its energy into a blade shaped edge, she servered the transmissions of the mentats and backfired them, causing many to shorcircuit or just plain malfunction. "Get on, now!"
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:53 am
"Fifteen seconds." There was no longer any point in radio silence, or silence of any sort. The clones knew he was here. He prayed they didn't realize Riyoku was here as well; why should he pray?
When he heard no explosion, he triggered it himself. The thermals detonated, and fire surged through the building, feeding on the air being pumped into it.
Double time, Silencer. Get your a** moving!
There was no time to think. Only time to act. Styx acted. He would never get out in time, now. But perhaps he could survive it...
He grabbed a panel from the wall, wrenching it off to reveal the hollow between the rock and the wall. He punched through the plaster barrier thank god its plaster and slid into the hollow, with the plate in hand. He pressed the plate against the hole he made in the wall, and held his breath when he heard the fireball rocketing past. The plate of metal grew very hot; he hadn't anticipated that. He leaned his back against it, and though he heard the flame-retardant material of his jacket begin to melt.
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 7:50 am
Riyoku was completely furious. Not using her Gate had become stupid. The first time they had known her was by the number 17.2 yet now... "Open 17.25!" Instead of her small and agile Gate Powers, a massive Black, omnious form in the shape of a winged, fanged and ramhorned horse emerged. The horse looked part draconian, with a set of claws instead of front hooves and a long, spiked tail that flailed like a whip. The moment it emerge, every piece of technology in the building began to malfunction. Its frequency was strong enough to misguide completely even the frequency sensors.
"Get him." Riyoku's command was grimly said. The strange creature swooped down and crashed into the wall, taking the whole section with it. As he swooped up again, Styx would be in his claws with pieces of wood and plaster falling off him.
"Get in, we're getting out of here." The creature placed Styx in the copilot's seat and vanished back into Riyoku's hand. The door closed the the chain retracted and the craft shot off, cloaked and hidden. Riyoku had overreached the power she was allowed, and her already weak health was reacting to it. She could feel blood rising up in her throat, an urge to get rid of it... She was furious with Styx. Riyoku seldom had any feelings at all, but she was furious now. If he hadn't been almost killed, she would be planning to yell at him when they returned. If he told her what to do, she would've been able to do it without an ouce of detection. Now there were the complications of remodifying her own gate, taking another good portion of her energy away.
The foreign detectors weren't sensing anything like cameras or whatever that wasn't on them before they left. Her gate seemed pretty sure that there werent any sensors either, no camera, no recorders. She slipped off her fencing visor and turned to Styx, "Why didn't you trust me? I detonated them as you said, you just gave yourself even less time to escape. We could afford the spare seconds, in fact spare minutes, for it to blow, why didn't you trust that I'd do it?" Her glare was cold.
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