Grayditch

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The scene that presents itself to the people arriving from Milliways is one of devastation old and new. The shattered, weathered remains of what had once been a city street spill out to either side, and half-standing, half-slumping outer walls are all that remain of most of the buildings. There are no people here, no animals, no life to be seen...

Well, no. That's not necessarily true. Here and there, fires burn merrily, and the occasional scratching scuttling sound can be heard on the sullen August winds that wind through the empty streets.

"This is it," Ellen says. "Welcome to Grayditch."

Comments

[magic_ferret]

Yuuno's rocked a bit by Spoon's shoulder bump as he replies, "I can receive and transmit radio if I need to, but it's distracting."

Then to Ellen," How risky would it be if I popped up and took a look from the air, do you think?"

She's local and has a better idea what the risks are for distance attacks.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I don't think there's anyone else alive around here, frankly," says Ellen. "Um, unless Mr. Wilks is a lot better at holding off the ants than I think he is."

She nods down the street to one of the fires, which is happily consuming what used to be some kind of newsstand or fruit seller or something.

"That was one ant's work, and there's a lot of them around here. Be careful."

[bprd_agent_red]

Red is used to running the show, or ignoring whoever is and doing his own thing. This isn't his world though and he doesn't know where they're headed or the guy they're looking for so he's just gonna follow for the time being.

When something shows up that he can hit, then he'll step forward.

In the meantime he'll try and be helpful.

"I'm fireproof, if we're splittin' up I can go with someone who ain't."

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"Give me a direction an' a partner. Not fire-proof, but, uh. Pretty much anything but silver resistant." Spoon says with a nod. Again, his helmet (now on) translates it into rattling clicks and soft roars, "You're Hunt-master here, lass."

[alertcommando]

"As long as I can see them first, the ants should not be a problem." Tanya is not at all fireproof, but all her shots are critical headshots or better, so...

Distance from fire and she can pile up mutated insect corpses. And she is also used to looking for survivors.

[time_dancer]

"Okay," Val in response to Ellen and then to the rest of the ground, "I'll be making a map with basic elevation as we go. The device uses a radio signal pulse like radar to take the reading. It's only good for about one kilometer at a ping but will build the map as we go."

She looks to Yuuno and says, "I'm sending the first ping now. It'll ping once or twice ever five minutes so I hope it won't be too distracting?"

"My armor should protect me from fire and I can make force fields, so I can protect whoever I go with."

[magic_ferret]

"That should be fine Val," says Yuuno before he crouches a bit a springs up into the air. He'll do a quick check for clusters of ant, blocked streets and any obvious signs of survivors before dropping back down to report.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right. Um." Ellen chews on her bottom lip, thinking. "Val, can you go with Tanya? Spoon, you and Yuuno, please, and Red, come with me? This is good armor-" It's the black stuff she got from the Talon Company merc, although she's taken some effort to remove the white claw logo and replace it with '101'. "-but it's not fireproof."

[alertcommando]

She nods to Ellen and the others, ready to move out the moment Yunno reports with a general view of the area.

[bprd_agent_red]

"You got it."

He moves to stand beside Ellen, glad for the pairing because now he shouldn't have to mess with any map.

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

Spoon grins at Yunno and nods, "Right. Any problems with me for a partner, lad?"

He promises not to talk about cows.

Probably.

[magic_ferret]

"Um, the streets are mostly clear and it looks like there's about fifteen of the ants," starts Yuuno, "They keep heading in and out of the transit station over there-" he points east"-so it was hard to count them. North and south entrances to to the town are barricaded and it looks like the houses are as well. There's also the diner and some cars in a yard that's fenced with a shack."

Briefing done Yuuno joins up with his partner, "No problem with it Spoon."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Okay then," Ellen says. "Let's see what we can find. Oh, um, just so you know- try not to be near any of the cars if you hit one when you're trying to shoot an ant, okay? They might not be workable any more, but the fusion plants inside them make a pretty spectacular explosion if a bullet or something breaches their cores."

[time_dancer]

"Nice to know," Val says as she walks over to stand near Tanya. "How are we going to keep in contact? Or should we just rendezvous at a certain time?"

[alertcommando]

Tanya locks the gun again, before opening her backpack and pulling out three slender, minimalist headsets. "What about these? They should work unless we trip into any strong radioactive residues." But they are just three: she had no idea how many people would come in total.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"One for each pair, I think," says Ellen. "Sound good?"

[there-is-a-me.livejournal.com]

"Won't fit under me helmet. Yunno, you want to take our set? Less likely to get broken that way, too."

See Spoon assume that Yunno is less likely to dive headfirst into danger. Spoon likes safe assumptions.

[bprd_agent_red]

He'll have to remember that thing about the cars. It's not uncommon for vehicles to get smashed when Red is working so he'll have to be careful.

It might also be something he can use if things get rough.

Looking at the headsets Tanya is holding and nods to Ellen.

"You'll probably wanna wear ours." She's leading after all, and he'll just lose it. Or break it. Or both.

[magic_ferret]

The thing with the cars is, well, at least they aren't fission.

"Right Spoon, that makes sense."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right," says Ellen, and accepts the headset. "Okay, let's go. Those Pulowski shelters are kind of nasty. I don't want that poor kid to have to wait too long."

(OOC: Shall we split up into subthreads by pair from here, to avoid tagging order troubles?)

[alertcommando]

"Let's go." Tanya will show them how to operate the headsets: they are military comms gear, so they are made to be easy to use, having push-to-talk and voice-activated modes.

That done, she moves off with Val.