Difference between revisions of "Something Borrowed: Greed/Chapter 3"

Revision as of 03:36, 22 January 2014

Cilan's eyes are locked on a specific target, the area in sight is but a wisp at the distance away. Down below two figures are chasing a quadrupedal wolf bolting in a similar direction. The sky remains silent and beautiful, only the occasional noise of nature, and the distant roar of a waterfall.

Cilan studies the wisp of smoke for a moment before she raises her comm-unit to her mouth and speaks into it. Dropping her arm back to her side she goes back to soaring, this time rather in search of the elusive white cliff, she flaps towards the sight, stopping roughly a mile away so she can land safely and sneak up upon the source without drawing any attention to herself.

Rihko slips through the forest below after Balina, grinning at the thrill of the hunt, the rush of the chase. She slips to a halt for a moment before thumbing her com unit. "Cilan, Apo, Balina has something. We're closing in on it." Then she takes off again, keeping pace with the wolf, her tails trailing behind her as she darts through the woods.

Cilan says over the radio, "Hey, guys.. I see a wisp of smoke.. 'bout 3 miles south of my position, heading there now.. wait up for me, Rihko.. we might need to sneak up.. dont know who might've caused it.. could be hostile."

Upon getting teh radio message, Selene calls Wind and her puppies, back, the spirit wolves vanishing into her as the soars towards the wisp of smoke Cil indicated in her message, flying low across the treetops to stay a bit more difficult to see.

Balina's hot on the tail of the flyer above, her pace is breakneck considering the heavy wooden growth, the gryphon behind her having trouble keeping up. At the sight is a massive crater, charred earth and burnt land surrounding it. Deep gouges in the earth below look carved by some enormous animal scratching and scraping at something. The place smells of death.

Rihko skids to a stop as the crater is revealed, putting a paw on Balina's shoulder as she hugs the treeline. Her nostrils flare and her ears perk, the kitsune scanning the area for any motion. "Is this the place?" she asks, quietly, glancing over at Sienna. Selene comes to a stop, hovering over the crater, studying the gouges in the ground. "What.... what the hell did this?" she whispers softly.

Cilan reaches the rest of the group, stopping on the edge of the crater, "What.. the hell?" she asks noone in particular before looking around her, surveying the place for any possible sightings, or tracks of whatever had done this.

The face of a large cliff rests set into the earth behind in the direction they came from, the same pattern from earlier, white chalky limestone covered by moss with crags of granite set inside. Deep in the earth, the crater has unnearthed what looks like something made by man, concrete, the portion of a wall.

The gryphon finally catches up, looking rather winded, she bends over, looking rather nauseous, her hands on her knees. It takes her a few minutes to recover to even begint o react to the site.

Over her shoulder Cilan says to Sienna, "You're getting out of shape, partner! Gotta lay off the junk food!" a soft chuckle passes her lips before she makes a wide, and open gesture with her arms, "Well.. we're here.. now, your employer tell you /how/ to get into the lab or did they leave that part out?"

"Something got here first," Rihko says, quietly stating the obvious. She shivers and hunches her shoulders, then creeps closer to the edge of the crater. "Something big. And dangerous." Her ears go back, and she looks over at Cilan. "Think there will be survivors?"

Balina paws at the ground, snorting. She's panting, but grinning as best as a wolf muzzle will allow. "I'd feel a bit more accomplished about this if it wasn't so obvious from above."

Selene comes in to land next to the others. In response to Rihko, she says "I think that really depends on what part of the base, or bunker, that wall is from. Near the top? Probably, if the damage was done up here and directed down. In the middle? Maybe. Down towards the bottom? Unlikely."

Cilan says, "Dunno, Rihko.. Im kinda hoping that there are, and at the same time that there arent.. means less people to deal with, but at the same time, it'd be a shitty way to go; getting killed by whatever did this."

Sienna's breath turns to a gasp when she does see the destruction. She manages to squawk out a short response, "He said look for the cliffs and the entrance, but nothing more." then she points down at the concrete, cracked, a hole that could be slipped into. "I think whatever it was, gave us a direct entrance though."

Cilan answers with an understanding nod and traverses into the crater, heading to the hole where she stops and calls out to the rest, "Wish me luck!" going through it shortly after.

Rihko eyes the hole a moment, then nods her head. "I'm-" she pauses, then darts after Cilan. "Damnit, Cilan, let me go first," she mutters, slipping in after the woman. "Should we leave Nimbus on lookout?"

"Dammit Cil!" Selen shouts, as she sprints after her and jumps down the hole. As she does, Wind and her puppies reappear, and array themselves around the hole, most on the ground, but a couple of puppies in the air, circling.

Sienna makes her way down, in a leap, using her wings sparingly to slow her descent, and then follows in afterward. Her voice trails, "Be careful, we don't know what killed everyone who came last time, it could be a virus or rogue nanites!" she's shouting at Cil hoping she hears.

Balina huffs, then trots down to the hole, peering inside. "In for a penny," she mutters, then leaps through.

On her descent into the lab Cilan calls out, "Or it could've been the creature that left that crater!"

The cracked area enters into a multistory facility, looking like biological and supply storage and vehicles dispersed about. It's surprising, and the fall from above is surprisingly long. Balina leaping finds no purchase below. The only major light are some emergency lights on the ceiling and the sunlight streaming from the hole above.

Sienna attempts to stop the wolf's sudden fall, and fails, Balina spinning in the air and landing awkwardly. There's a rather loud crack as she hits the concrete below, and a loud yelp echoing in the large room.

Rihko winces at Balina's yelp, looking back towards the outside. She mutters under her breath, then focuses a moment as she holds her hands in front of her, palms up. The kitsune's wisps of flame flicker into life to help light the hallway, and then Rihko climbs back out to check on Balina. "Balina? You need the goop?"

Selene flares her wings out before hitting the ground, slowing her enough to land lightly. And wince, as she hears the thug, crack and yelp of Balina. She darts over to the wolf and checks for where, exactly, she's broken herself.

As soon as Cilan's feet touch the ground she looks up to the hole and breathes a shrill, and complex whistle out into the forest above. A few minutes later the familiar ethereal hawk dives in and comes to a flapping halt on Cilan's shoulder. "Hey, Nimbus, gonna need you to channel your healing ability for a minute, alright?" the bird just warbles a few soft chirps and Cilan's hands begin to glow a light ebb. "Hey, Bal.. where'd you hurt yourself?" she asks in a soft voice.

Balina rolls onto her side, cursing physics and drama. "Next time I do something this stupid, remind me that Balinawolves are heavy," she mutters. "I think I just broke a front leg, that's all. I'm afraid I didn't really have time to prepare; what works on broken bones out here?"

With the location of Balina's injury in mind Cilan presses her hands against Balina's front leg and channels both Nimbus' and her own spiritual energy into the wound, hopefully healing it, or at the very least being slightly bearable to walk on.

Sienna moves away from the scene after wincing at the landing, looking at the architecture and the overall scope of the place. She pulls out a comm, and brings a claw up to her beak, and presses something before putting it away. "What we're looking for has to be lower." she says, not turning back.

Rihko's ear flicks. She starts to speak up, although as both angel-types are working their magic she keeps her counsel to herself. She gives Sienna a nod and moves back into the hallway, sniffing around and waiting for the others to catch up.

Selene steps back as Cil heals Balina, and starts prowling about the area they've found themselves in, examining the stuff around them. "This place was.... well equipped. And it looks like whatever attacked only took out surface stuff, so we better be on guard for twitchy survivors."

Feathers shed from Cilan's wings, the lush fluffy coating growing a little ragged as she expends energy in repairing Balina's wound.

Cilan's hands part from Balina's leg and she falls back, and onto her ass as she begins to wear herself out, "God damn.. dont.. think I'll ever.. get used to that!" she says before bringing the ragged wings infront of her, examining the damage, though she ends with a breathed sigh, and getting back up onto her feet, a hand lashing out to anyone or thing to keep her balanced until she gains enough of herself back to steady her legs once more.

There are a few paths out of the area, one wide enough for vehicles, and the other more of a pedestrian hallway, the place is very sparse, RSX logos occasionally grace the supplies.

Selene darts over to support Cil as she rises, supporting her gently until she's collected herself enough t stand on her own. She nuzzles her gently and says "Don't overexert yourself, love. Who knows what yet lies ahead."

Balina watches Cilan work, and tries not to squirm as bone knits back together with a wet squelch. Once it completes, she's unable to offer any sort of support, but rises back to her paws, briefly testing the commando's handiwork and muttering something about "doesn't make it even" to herself before looking over to Cilan and nodding. "Thanks. I'll try not to screw up quite so hard in the future." Glancing around, the wolf gets her first good look, and smell, of the interior of the bunker as she begins to shrink back into a shape better-designed for bunkers.

Sienna begins to walk off, toward the pedestrian hallway, not really saying anything to the group behind. She seems agitated, her feline tail flickering in the air, and her ears searching for signs of life.

Rihko waits patiently, her tails flicking, until the others rejoin her. She smiles and gives Cilan a little nod. "Yea... who knows what else is down here yet..." Her ears twitch and flick, and then she looks around. "Right, I think we shou..." she sighs, and then quickly moves to catch up to Sienna. "Should go this way," she finishes. Her lights follow along, bobbing and weaving through the air, and the kitsune remains alert.

Cilan gives Selene a soft pat followed by peck on her lips, "Thanks love.. and sorry, just didnt want to have Balina suffer for something I shoulda expected.. shouldve brought a rope, or carried her rather than making all of you jump in after me.." looking over to Sienna next the soldier parts from Selene's side and moves to her partners side, "You know where you're going, Sienna?"

Sienna says, "Not really no. But I figured a vehicle path would be the way out from storage here." she shrugs and keeps moving, "Besides, I'm not sure if anyone is alive here, but this place hasn't been touched in a long time. Look at the dust."

Selen pads after the others, taking up a rearguard position, and keeps an eye on the vehicle tunnel until it passes from sight as they enter teh pedestrian route.

Rihko nods her head in agreement. "Right. That'd be the main way in, or lead to loading docks or something. This would be the route for people heading further in," she adds.

Balina finishes adjusting herself, looking up and giving Cilan a sheepish grin. "To be fair, I sort of deserved it. Of course someone with wings would go in without worrying." A brief look of confusion, "...Wait. Carry me? How much can you lift? Never mind, don't need to know. And as much as I'd like to pretend that the dust means we're here alone, I might want to point out the stench that led us here."

Rihko glances back at Balina and nods again, then looks forward down the hallway. "Any idea how fresh that scent was? I haven't done as much scent tracking as you."

Cilan drops to a knee and studies the dust gathered, seeing how it had piled up, and gauging finally, "'bout a year, Id say.. so, yeah.. either this corridor is not touched, or we're alone.."

The gryphon sighs as she tracks new footprints on the ground, saying, "So whatever took out the other people sent, got to them before they got down here... I bet that means the hole was openned up in the last few weeks." she continues across the large room, hitting the corridor, the occasional doors into small rooms, no windows, doors locked. "You think RSX would have at least some aesthetic in their hidden labs." "Fresh enough that I bounded off without a word," Balina says, hand rubbing the side of her muzzle. "Either whatever caused it isn't gone yet, or," she glances upward, "it was... really... big. Hell, now I don't know, either."

Still checking their backtrail, depite the apparent abandonment of the facility, Selene calls forward "Hey, Sienna! You got any idea where the thing we came to destroy actually is, or do we need to start kicking down locked doors?"

Sienna's response is, "I honestly have no idea. I'd think it'd be somewhere in the mainframe as what we're looking for is simply code, but who's to say."

Selene sighs. "Yeah, thought you'd say that. Whelp, we best hunt down the mainframe then."

Cilan scratches at the back of her head and asks, "Do you think we'd be able to power up one of the terminals if we came across one? We might get some valuable info from it, if possible?"

Rihko eyes a few of the doors as the pass them. "Possibly. Depends on how the emergency power is wired, and what the system does in an emergency. It could be worth a try." She starts trying doors as they pass them. "Want me to start popping doors open to check?"

Balina is quite obviously crestfallen. What kind of evil organization makes a doomsday device that's just a bunch of data? It has better at least be a really cool computer. "At the very least, we could probably try and rip drives out," she sighs. "Pull valuable information off of them when we get back, sort of thing. That's *kind* of like archaeology, right?"

Selene nods to Rihko and Balina. "We might as well knock some doors down, see if we can get a computer or two running.. and if not, yanks some hard drives out for later checking." When she finishes speaking, she checks the nearest door to see if it opens... and if it doesn't, kicks it in.

Sienna shrugs, "We can try, you'd know best my old friend, you know I'm kind of lost in these things. She shrugs and points at one of the doors nearby. There's no writing on it, the door is made out of metal and by the door is a card reader.

The door creaks as it's kicked, and then slides off it's hinges, not designed for the kind of strength brought upon it. Falling to the ground it reveals a dark room, the light from the corridor flickering upon a biological lab of some sort. Sienna from behind says, "I thought they only dealt withprogramming, why would RSX have been working on biotech?"

"Hey Rihko, can we get some light in here?" Selene calls out, as she moves into the lab. She can see well enough, but it's always better to shed a little light on things.

Rihko rubs her muzzle with her paw, then grins and shakes her head. She slips into the room, her wisps following her and fanning out to provide illumination. She paces through the room, careful not to touch anything as she quickly cases it. "Who knows? I'm sure they had all kinds of projects going on."

Cilan says, "Dunno.. probably trying to find that elusive 'cure' RSX keeps on ranting on about.. turn us all back into humans and go back to the way things were.. garbage.." she says before wandering into the darkened room, her eyes focusing for the low light, "Now if I was a terminal.. where would I be.."

Selene pads around the lab, examining the various bits and pieces scattered around it.

Balina steps inside, happy to have at least found some evidence of practical research. Despite the face she wears to the pub, the wolfcow is at least adept at the more practical sides of biological research. While terminals are a top priority, notes or any signs of work that was hastily abandoned are high on the list, as well.

There's a few terminals, powered off, the place finding emergency power only in the battery driven lights in the hallways, the main system off. The lab itself was mid project when things stopped, a beaker broken on a heating pad where it overboiled, while nothing was cleaned up when the room was rushed out of.

Closer inspection, Apostasy is able to make out the basics, various species DNA was being combined, basic genetic splicing, almost vanilla. However deeper in the lab she spots something particularly troubling, work with viruses, and DNA transferance. They were working on a viral method of the same thing the nanites are doing.

Today keeps getting better. "Looks like people left in a bigger hurry than I thought," Balina calls, continuing to root around. "I'm pretty sure we'd find half-eaten lunches if we kept digging, at this rate. Lovely for looting, if you're into that sort of thing."

Rihko remains fairly quiet as the others root through the lab, head cocked to the side. "Yea? We'll have to come back later, then. We've kind of got something important going on at the moment." She nods towards the computers. "So they're dead? We'll have to find the source?"

"Uh, guys? Interesting, and disturbing, find here. You know what the nanites do? these guys were working on a way to do it biologically. Viral infections, retroviruses, that sort of nastiness." Selene says, backing away from the research stations slowly.

Sienna adds, "Or at least find the main power, or backup generators and turn them on."

Balina looks up from her scavenging. "Not too surprising, really. The nanites are almost certainly partially biological. Maybe a method to reverse-engineer them?"

Overhearing Selene, Cilan just gulps and much like her lunerin lover leaves the room slowly, careful not to knock anything over on her way out.

Selene looks over to Balina. "Maybe, but think about it. The nanites essentially reconstruct you more-or-less instantly. Same thing, via viral infection? Long, slow, probably painful process. Much nastier."

Rihko files back out into the hallway. She glances back the way they came, then starts moving along the hallway again, eyeing the doors. "Should be stairs along her somewhere. Usually in a corner, if they're not in the middle. Might have a slightly different looking door. If the designers were at all sane there might even be a sign indicating them, but those sorts don't generally build secret underground virus labs."

Sienna beakily adds, "And also not controlled, I suspect that's why they went with the nanites." and nods at Rihko's assessment, "I suspect we go down."

Balina quits digging, having decided she's not going to find anything nearly as fascinating. "Or it would be so slow the nanites could just outpace it. Or it would be just as fast as they are. Not enough information to make a call. Ooo, working outside a bubble's a nice pe--" she stops, and decides to leave in silence.

Selene stares at Balina, a little worried, and then heads out of the lab behind the others.

The hallway is long and straight, mirroring doors every hundred feet or so, and it seems to go on for a surprisingly long time until a set of doors with stairs and an elevator are found. The staircase doors are locked, and the elevator power is off, clearly.

Rihko leans down to examine the lock for a moment, her tails wagging back and forth behind her.

Selene grins. "Want me to kick the doors down again?" Cilan comes face to face with the door to the stairway and says, "Well.. here's hoping it works a second time, right?" she asks noone in particular, finishing with a slight shrug, and finally driving her boot into the door, hoping to break it off its hinges like the door to the lab.

"Or Cil coud do it!" Selene says with a giggle

Rihko quickly hops to the side out of the way, and slips her paws into her pockets. She waits for Cilan to deal with the door, then gives the soldier a little nod and continues into the stairwell.

The door is more heavily armored, and a resonding thud puts a dent into it, but the hinges and lock hold, at least for the moment. However another shove manages to push the door off. There is wiring running into the wall that gets pulled off with it, and the staircase goes both up and down. The lack of any kind of sensible signs certainly infuriating.

Rihko tilts her head up, looking up, and then leans over a rail, looking down. She starts to head down, then hesitates, right in the middle of the stairs. She looks back at Sienna. "So the bottom, you think?"

Balina watches as, again, doors are bypassed the hard way. Or the easy way. It's hard to know these days. Shrugging, she takes a look through the door. "No reason not to go straight down, no. It's a bunker full of secret experiments; all the best stuff is going to be down there."

Sienna's response is a shrug, "I'd assume so. That's how the military tends to think."

"Remember, no poking funny things, eating odd things, or drinking mystery liquids." Selene says, half-jokingly, gaze lingering on Balina a little bit.

Rihko tilts her head to the side, then nods and starts off down the stairs, her lights keeping pace.

The steps down are relatively simple, little metal and rubberized bumpers helping the keep the slick concrete from turning into a slip and slide. The stairs wind around a few stories down before the first exit. Another floor deeper down below it. This door seems similar to the one above, a powers off camera facing them.

Selene waits a bit more for a response from Bal, or anyone else, before shrugging and heading down the stairs.

Rihko stops on the landing for a moment and looks up at the camera. Her ear flicks, and then she shrugs her shoulders and keeps heading down. She's keeping her eyes on where she's going, not wanting to run into any nasty surprises while she's in front of the rest of the group.

Cilan moves to the stairway, and begins trudging down the steps, always keeping close to Selene, who's hand she later reaches out for and grabs, lacing her fingers with the lunerin's own. "So.. any plans on how we're going to destroy the code? I suppose.. run a magnet over the drives or something?"

The lowest floor, the door far... beefier, more like a vault door, not something to be trifled with.

Sienna says, "I think permanent destruction is the right idea." huffing and trying to keep up with the fast moving group.

"Nothing smells good down here, anyway," Balina mutters, "even the stuff above smelled like death." Hmphing mostly to herself, she follows behind. Door-opening is best left to the professionals.

Selene squeezes Cil's fingers gently, and nuzzles her briefly. "I could melt them into slag, love." She pauses at the vault door, and whistles. "Now -that- is a door."

Rihko comes to a stop in front of the door, and then whistles, her head tilting to the side. "Niiiice..." She grins. "Big doors mean big things. I think you were right, Sienna." She pauses a moment to see if anyone wants to try kicking this door down as well, grinning. "Want me to take a look at it?"

Selene giggles. "I, uh, don't think I'll be kicking that one down any time soon. Science Kitsune to the rescue!"

Cilan stops as she stands infront of the vault door, "Huh.. guess this might be a job for thermi--.." a giggle passes her lips before she looks to Selene and says, "If you want to, love.. but I was thinking maybe save the heavier fireworks for when we need 'em!"

Selene eyes the door some more. "I think it'd take more thermite than we carry to get through that, love. Even Glaurung would probably only dent it."

Rihko nods. She moves forward and starts examining the vault door in more detail, looking for the control box and the hinges. "I'm sure if we beat on it long enough we could melt it down, but it'd take a lot of effort."

The door features a complex password input, what looks like a retinal scanner as well as keycards. Paranoid much? Clearly whoever designed this was of the philosophy of massive overdesign.

Sienna offers, "Maybe if we get power to this place we can trick the system or something? I'm not sure brute force will get us through."

Selene considers somthing for a moment. "Hey, Rihko, is the power still active for thsi thing, or dead still? If it's dead... well, if the locks were held in place magnetically... maybe the power failure means it'll open. Worth a shot, at least."

Rihko nods her head. "Maybe... you could try pushing, see if that works," Rihko agrees, a little distracted. She pulls her knife out and gently pries at the casing for the lock. "Depending on how they did this, I might be able to bypass all this junk and hotwire it, too. I'll have to see..." she sticks her tongue out a little as she examines it, then digs in her bag for a moment to grab a blocky object and some wires.

Balina says, "If a power failure meant it would open up, it would be the worst lock ever. Probably some nice, heavy bolts in the way for when the magnets, and there are always magnets, are dead." Stepping over, she taps a few random buttons on the password input, and looks at the scanner, but generally lets the science kitsune be all sciency.

Cilan just stands back as she leaves the opening to those that know what they're doing. Occasionally looking over to Sienna to see how the gryphon is holding up.

Selene shrugs. "Yeah, I know, but just as frequently the guys who design this stuff are kinda... narrow minded. They don't put in redundancies."

It takes some prying to get inside, and eventually Rihko manages to pop something off that really shouldn't have been. Inside are a complex set of wires, but Rihko jiggers things a bit and manages to get some power to the locking system, which boots up, the computer system that is the lock turning on.

"Alright..." Rihko mutters to herself, tails swishing. "So that's on. And if this wire goes there... and that one there..." The kitsune quietly pokes around in the box of electronics, thinking. "So if we get it to send a signal, maybe it'll release..." she continues. She really has no idea how to fake an unknown retinal ID, so she is hoping to find a way to bypass all that junk and send a signal directly to the lock; if it involves mechanical bolts, she's fairly sure there's some point where she can get to it.

Rihko spends a while tinkering, manages to successfully bypass the retinal scanner but also triggers an emergency alarm, which rings in the place until she finds a way to disable it. Then a few moments later manages to get the thing to finally accept, and there's a hiss, as the hydraulics unlock, and then the door powers off. It looks like she made it just in time.

Sienna moves forward, offering to test the door, having to push hard on it to get it to budge, it creaks open. She strains and gets it a few feet before she collapses and says, "Can I get some help?"

Selene claps and cheers. "Yay Rihko! Unlocker of giant doors!" She waits till Rihko is clear, and then grabs the handle, hauling the massive door open slowly. As she does, she says "Ready weapons folks, who knows what might lurk behind here, summoned by tha alarm."

Rihko lets out a slow hiss and quietly relaxes. "Uhm... sorry about that. Looks like we're good though," she offers. She gives the others a grin, her ears still flattened from the alarm, then moves up to help shove it open.

Balina winces at the alarm, but reminds herself that, really, if this thing wasn't powered, neither were whatever might have been dispatched. "Impressive, if noisy. Eight out of ten." She moves into place to help open the door, keeping her eyes focused up the stairs, just in case.

Cilan grins and eases her back off the wall, pulling her handguns from their holsters as Selene requests that the weapons be readied, "Got it, love!" upon passing Rihko on her way past the vault door's Cilan says, "Good job, Rihko.. thanks!" a bright smile pulling at her lips moments after finishing.

The door opens into a two story giant basement area, what was once mainframe computers lined up are now splattered and crushes or simply missing. Gouges in the walls, bullets, and even remains of armor and bones strewn about the place.

"Oh, come ON!" Balina wails, running in and going from pile of smashed equipment to pile of smashed marine to a totally different pile. "How the hell did something get in, be violent, and then leave, all while leaving the door intact?"

Selene blinks at the scene of old carnage. "Jeez.... something real nasty went down here. Stay sharp, people... whatever did this might still be around... since the door was still locked up tight."

"Well..." Rihko says, leaning against the door frame and tilting her head to the side. "Shit." After examining the room for a bit she walks in, looking around. "OK, this is... yea... my thoughts exactly. Did we miss the obvious entrance?" she asks quietly.

Sienna points up, "That hole in the ceiling I suspect." Cilan whispers, "God damn.." to herself as she looks over the old battlefield, her eyes surveying the damage whatever the corpses had been fighting in silent shock.

Selene follows the direction Sienna points, and sighs. "Man, we could've saved ourselves some trouble if we'd scouted around a bit more, eh?" She pads slowly, cautiously out into the ruined mainframe arrays. "We need to check for intact drives... and smash or otherwise destroy any we come across."

The place is littered with remains, and it's fairly obvious many of them were simply eaten. Lots of stuff has been torn up, many things having clearly been taken. Up above a pretty sizeable hole in the concrete is visible, and then a hole above that. Considering the thickness of the concrete the force required is almost unbelievable to puncture it like that.

Balina grabs a random piece of detritus, throwing it at the hole in a fit of sour-grape-fueled rage. Watching as it spins, it looks to be a discarded femur. "No respect for linearity, whatever it is. No wonder I got so worked up at it," she grumbles, then begins joining in the actual salvage operation.

Rihko's eye twitches, and she looks up at the ceiling. She scowls. "Of course. Why deal with the giant door when you can rip the ceiling open." She pauses, and looks around. "But how long ago did this happen?" she asks. "There was still fire smouldering up top... shit."

Sienna is busy looking through the computers, and then she swears, "Whatever it was, it had enough sense to grab the storage. It left all the processing servers and switches but took the main storage arrays." She goes back to scouting around.

Cilan spots Sienna out of the corner of her eye, and watches hir for a moment or two before adopting a curious look. Heading over to the gryphon Cilan asks, "Hey, partner.. found something?" a hopeful expression set upon her face as she asks.

Sienna' ears flick up and she looks at Cilan, "Uh, no, nothing important. Do you think we should follow wherever that thing went?" she says, pointing up and changing the subject.

Selene narrows her eyes as she spots something, and moves over to Sienna. "Hey, Sienna? What're you saying? Can't really hear you. And, uh... what's in the vial? I know you probably wanted to wait until you finished scouting about to show us it, but I'm curious. Can't help myself." she says, in a friendly, conversational tone.

Sienna hesitates, and then pulls a small vial out of her pocket, and says, "Its probably nothing, but I found this here by one of the corpses." she doesn't offer it forward though, her hand clinging to it.

Cilan answers Sienna with a shake of the head, "No.. we'd only get slaughtered if we tried to go up against it as we are no--.." her sentence sidetracked as she look to Selene, "Vial? Some sort of infection or something?" the bottom of her right eye curls up as she asks, ".. you werent going to do anything with it.. were you?"

Balina growls, not for the sixth time since entering, throwing down what she was looking at (what appeared to be a bunch of electronic components turned out to be a large pile of useless electronic components), and heading back over to the main group. A conversation is already in progress, but she is in a foul enough mood to simply stare at Sienna, nose twitching.

The gryphon stammers, "No, no..." she shakes her head, and she walks forward tripping as she does, the thing flinging in the air, and then cracks onto the ground near Cilan's feet.

Selene leans forwards, studying the mystery vial, and then yelps as Sienna drops it, trying to pull Cil away as she leaps back.

Rihko looks over from her study of the room. "Wait, what?" she asks. "Was there actually ever-" she starts, although when the vial breaks her eyes widen. "... What was that?"

Cilan blinks and with assistance from Selene, jumps back as the vial crashes near her, hoping that she had avoided whatever was in it before anything bad could happen to her.

Balina grabs a hypo from her pack, holding her breath and attempting to suction at least some of the mysterious goo up. Her attention bounces between the vial and the clumsy gryphon; no reason to trust either right now.

Sienna manages to get to her feet and looks up as the thing splatters about, some of it spraying into a powdery mist and splashing onto Cilan despite Apo and Cil's best attempts. Balina doesn't find much liquid to collect.

There doesn't appear to be any adverse reactions, and the gryphon moves over to help Apo and Cil to their feet. She looks guilty, "I'm sorry. I'm sure it was nothing."

Selene nods slowly, and accepts Sienna's help. "I... hope it wasn't. The last thing we need is mystery goop doing something funny to Cil. But, uh... please don't pick up any more mysterious shineys."

Cilan grabs Sienna's hand as shi offers to assist the soldier up, "Better hope it was nothing.." she grumbles before looking at where the mist had hit her, doing her best to wipe any of the powder off, "Anyways.. back to the reason why we came here.. servers need to be destroyed.." she says as she begins to walk off.

Balina scowls. "That wasn't an accident, and most vials don't vaporize the second they hit the air," she growls, stepping forward and still brandishing the hypo in her hand. "What was that stuff?"

"Forget it, Bal. It's done. Now we deal with the consequences." Selene says shortly.

Sienna says, "I'm going to go see where that... thing, went with the data." after helping her friends to their feet. "The servers themselves wouldn't be what we need to destroy. What we need to destroy is gone." And then Balina's direct questioning catches her offguard. She turns to the gruff wolf and says, "There wasn't a label, but it came from a dead science lady, judging by the bones and placement." she points to the remains.

Rihko scowls, and moves a few steps closer. Her head tilts to the side for a moment, but lets Balina do the threatening and interrogation. She does whisper something to Balina, though, before she looks over at Selene. "Fine. Let's move on. How do we track them down?"

Sienna headtilts at Rihko's... odd questioning. She points up, emphatically, and gives the most puzzles headtilt.

"Well then.. no sense standing around here.." Cilan says to noone in particular before extending her wings, grimacing at the missing patches of feathers, and general look of raggedness probably rendering them quite flightless at the moment, she then looks to Selene and asks, "Love.. dont think I'll be able to get airborne like this.. could you carry me, please?"

Balina stares at Sienna, not even following her hand as the gryphon tries to offer some flimsy explanation. Snorting at Rihko's comment, she shakes her head, breaking the spell. "I am not looking forward to the I-told-you-sos," she mutters, mostly to herself, before staring upward and making some mental spatial calculations.

Sienna offers a hand, "I'll carry you. I'm really sorry I missed catching you earlier. Can I make it up to you?"

Cilan grabs Sienna's offered hand and nods, "Heh.. yeah, you buy the first round of drinks when we get back home, and we'll see about the other favours you owe me, partner!" she says with a sparkle of amusement evident in her eyes.

Rihko looks up as well, then back to Sienna, her ears flat. "I'd rather not spend my reserves on shifting if I can help it. We could pile a bunch of junk up to reach the hole. Could try going out and up a floor." She shrugs. "Rope would be good. Balina, you bring the rope next time."

Selene takes to the air, flying up to see if she can spot or hear anything before everyone else gets up.

Balina does not, in fact, have rope. "Twenty freecreds says there's rope in the bus, too," she sighs, continuing to watch the hole. "Are we going to just have to let Sienna and Selene ferry the three of us out, then?"

The hole leads to a big power room, and there's a hole in the ceiling, and the primary generator is smashed on the floor to make room. Peering up that hold, this is the lab floor, and a hole leads through a series of labs and out into a corridor large enough for trucks to pass. Each hole seems... progressively larger and the path more destructive. The labs smashed to pieces.

Rihko shrugs a little, her tails twitching. "Depends on where the hole leads... guess we'll see what Selene says..."

Selene comes back down. "I've got good news, and bad news. The good news is, the hole, or series of holes, I guess, go all the way back to the surface. So we can get out that way, with some ferrying. The bad news... is that the holes get bigger, and the trail of destruction more... destructive... the closer to the surface it gets."

Rihko looks at Selene, then to Balina, then back up the hole. After a bit she nods. "Ah, well. That's life. Yea, ferrying, stairs, whichever you guys want."

Balina moos, "Stairs still leave us leg-breakingly far from the exit. Yeah, let's go."

Sienne and Selene help get everyone up top, the group avoiding the smashed labratory equipment, as the biological products may not be dormant and give it wide birth. Eventually they find themselves into the large vehicle corridor that split off from the storage facility.