aaaaaaaagh_sky | Marigold Station

There was a park near the mouth of the Metro station at Grayditch's eastern edge, long ago. A few of the rides are still present- the fulcrums of the see-saws, the rusted-out remnants of the monkey bars, even the pitted, corroded sheets of metal that had once been the slides. It lies a little lower than the surrounding road-beds, but it offers the easiest access to the Marigold Station metro entrance- and currently, the park is free of ants.

"Okay," says Ellen to the people following her. "Who wants to go in front, and who's going to guard our rear as we head in?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

alertcommando

She will try to bring cables and electrical components out as whole as possible, using a knife and a small tool set; the work brings a half-smile to her lips, as it reminds her of the months hiding in Berlin, scavenging parts and components for everything they needed.

She will return with the loot for Val. "Here, try these."

From:

time_dancer

"Score!" Val says with a smile and she sets to work. Tanya had managed to find a jack which would fit the walls computer port so now all Val had to do was make a bridge between the two different technologies.

It takes her a couple of minutes and whispered curses but she's sure it'll work. "I think I've got it. Everyone ready?"

From:

bprd_agent_red

While the computer stuff is being taken care of Red takes the time to eat one of his candy bars and drink a Red Bull.

When Val announces she's done he crunches the can in his stone fist and tosses it aside, stepping up to the door.

"Ready."

From:

time_dancer

Val looks around to catch everyone's eye before she says, "Okay then, in 3...2...1." And she send the code to release the doors.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The doors unlock with an audible click. Hellboy manages to heave them open pretty smoothly, just in time to catch a blond, bespectacled man wearing a lab coat, white tie, and trousers entirely by surprise. "Ooh! You startled me," the man announces, blinking at the sudden influx of people. "You really mustn't creep up on people like that."

From:

magic_ferret

"Creep?" asks Yuuno.

The man in the lab coat must be a bit nuts. They left a noisy trail of devastation through the tunnels.

Yuuno'll humor the poor crazy man, "It's not like you left a door bell."

From:

there-is-a-me.livejournal.com

Blink. Blink. "If you want I can go out and start blowing shite up? Haven't actually blown anything up this trip. Yet."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"I don't think we expected to run into anybody alive down here," Ellen says hastily.

"Well, don't go blowing things up indiscriminately! I have some very delicate experiments down here that I must attend to." His voice is nasal and pinched-sounding, and he doesn't give the impression of someone who talks to people much, for all that he's clean and reasonably well-groomed.

From:

time_dancer

Upset scientist? Val's got this one.

"I'm sorry sir, we didn't expect anyone down here. What sort of experiments are you conducting? May we come in and see?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"My experiments are of an extremely complex and delicate nature- you must be careful," the man says. "My foray into reducing the girth of these insectoid creatures is of utmost importance. I intend to generationally reduce their immense stature by way of a pre-hatching induced mutagen- isn't that clever?"

Ellen's father may not be on the same scientific scale as von Doom, but he was also a scientist, and Ellen's not sure she appreciates the tone of that last sentence. "You're trying to make them smaller over generations by doping their eggs," she translates.

"My word. You understand perfectly. How marvelous!"

From:

there-is-a-me.livejournal.com

Spoon has this thing about experiments on living beings.

It is a thing that causes him to say several very, very nasty things in yautja that the translator gives up on (it actually says: "Exceedingly improbable suggestions of applications of scientific experimentation." in an aggravated voice.) and stomps out of the room before he kills someone.

From:

bprd_agent_red

Once the doors are open Red heads in, letting the others deal with weird scientist guy. He instead has a look around, possibly poking at a thing or two.

"Those things out there ain't exactly chickens, mac. How're you getting the eggs?"

From:

alertcommando

Tanya shakes head. "Better yet, where are the eggs, and the one laying the eggs? if we destroy those, there will be no more ants to worry about... then the survivors can be handled one at a time."

All the science is good, but she agrees with Spoon: its time to blow stuff up.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Oh, I leave them precisely where the colony's queen lays them- in the hatchery," says the man. He eyes Spoon uncertainly before continuing. "Unfortunately it seems my calculations contained an error that caused the specimens to develop a new biomechanism, pyrosis, rather than reducing them to the size of ordinary ants- an ability which makes it more than a little difficult to reach the majority of my equipment."

"Wait," says Ellen. "You seriously think you can make these creatures' next generation that small?"

"Well, perhaps not the next generation, but one extremely proximal to that," says the man, adjusting his glasses. "I estimate a likelihood of about five generational turn-overs before the current oversized cohort is completely replaced by specimens of less than an inch in length."

Ellen glances over at Val, who she knows is far better educated than she- for all the Vault's trying- and then back to the man. "How do you expect something like that to even work?"

"A modified strain of something called the Forced Evolutionary Virus," says the man proudly. "I obtained a sample some time ago and have been attempting to modify it from producing monstrous mutants to rendering organisms significantly smaller and more tractable-"

He goes nattering on, but Ellen turns to the others. "I think we need to find the hatchery," she says, "but I think we also need to be very, very careful what we blow up. If he's using a virus to change these creatures, and we blow stuff up without making sure it all burns, we could get exposed."

From:

magic_ferret

One of Yuuno's best friends was abused by a mad scientist. Spoon's not the only one with issues.

"Let's- let's just shut this down," he says then taps his headset, "I'll keep an eye out in case Spoon runs into anything that gives him serious trouble."

Then he ducks out to keep watch on the werewolf.

From:

there-is-a-me.livejournal.com

"Some people," the werewolf says to the boy, "need to fuckin' contract a serious case of fuckin' dead."

There are a number of less structurally sound bits of wall than there were when he came out.

From:

magic_ferret

Yuuno attempts a should bump to Spoon. It could have gone better.

"Not for us to decide," he says, "All we can do is try and minimize the damage."

Sometimes being support instead of command sucks.

From:

there-is-a-me.livejournal.com

Spoon takes it in the spirit offered. "Innit the truth."

When he was human, if Yunno was an adult, this would be the point he offered a fag. He doesn't smoke anymore, so he offers a stick of gum instead.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"... so anyway," says Ellen, cutting off the man's flow of information. "How do you plan on fixing all of this?"

"Well, if I can reach my equipment, I can issue a chemical signal that will cause all the ants of the current brood to immediately begin attacking one another instead of humans- or anything else, for that matter," the man says. "It's the ant queen's nest guardians that make this so difficult, you see. There are five of them- filthy little abominations."

"When you say little-"

"Well, that isn't precisely correct. They're only little by comparison to the queen. I'd say any one of them is probably about as big as your red-skinned friend there."

Ellen winces. "Can they breathe fire too?"

"Oh, most indubitably. But if you can just take out the five of them and come back here, I'll issue that inhibitor pulse and there won't be any more trouble from these creatures what-so-ever."

From:

bprd_agent_red

"Only five?" Red grins. "Piece of cake."

From:

time_dancer

Val's been listening to the man and it all sounds reasonable except..."I assume you have a way of keeping the virus from mutating? You are sure it can not infect humans or other animals? And how far away is the nest? Is it easy to get to from here?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Oh, the FEV is highly resistant to the random vagaries of simple mutation," says the man. "It requires deliberate manipulation or exposure to massive quantities of radiation before it mutates on its own. This particular strain has been tailored solely to latch onto insectile DNA, since I'm only interested in working with the ants. As far as the nest goes, it's through that door right there-" He gestures to the door in the opposite wall of his overstuffed, tiny little lab. "Down the long corridor, to the left, and then through the gap in the wall that leads into unfinished stone tunnels. You can't possibly miss it."

From:

alertcommando

"Depending on the size of the lair... I can make it cave in with a few detonations in the right places." Squish queen.

The talk about this 'FEV' thing? Way too creepy to be commented on.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"No caving anything in until he's issued that pulse," says Ellen. "If he can really make the ants kill themselves from that terminal, we won't have to fight our way through them to get out of here."