london ♔ stand across the wire

[spellfile]

Technologic [fool remix] - Daftpunk

WHO ||  Lila, Astrid, Faye, Topher, Zero, One, GLaDOS
WHAT || Lila and Zero go to confront the technomage One, with a little help from their friends...
WHERE || Downtown London, CalTech building
WHEN || Late March, 2015 [backdated]
HOW || Actionspam

It's been a couple of months since the hacker who goes by the moniker "One" assisted in the attack on the Knights' castle, with the inside assistance of the Artificial Intelligence-turned-human GLaDOS.  Zero has good reason to believe, however, that One hasn't left - that he's waiting for him to come face him, and that the stage he's set for the showdown is the CalTech building in the city, whose employees are off for the week.  Realizing it's likely a trap, Zero's stacked his chips on setting a counter-trap - uploading a virus designed by himself and Topher Brink into the now-cyborg Faye Chamberlain's brain, assuming that he is going to try to hack into her and turn her against them.  

They arrive at the building as the sun is going down, staring up at the building that has a light show of digital streams coursing down the front of it, drawing a snort from Zero.  

"Theatrical jackass."

Comments

[bittersweeter]

[ with her phone abandoned at home, which is closer than the castle, she notes with irritation, lila feels slightly cut off, but she packs it away under layers of sheer annoyance. reaching out, she finally shoves the spare dreamwork charm in topher's hand. ] If you lose this, I'll kill you.

[reallywicked]

So...what? Do we just knock?

[pathology]

You'd think he'd be able to use spy cameras and see we're here or something.

[andblockbuster]

[Topher sticks it in his sweater vest pocket where it will not get lost, and then bounces on his heels a bit.]

Yeah, I'm like picturing a camera that just zooms down and scans our retinas and checks us for any weapons. Full on movie of the week stuff.

[spellfile]

We can assume he knows we're here. We let ourselves in.

[bittersweeter]

[ lila cracks her neck. ]

Well, I doubt he's going to come to us and I love a good game of cat and mouse... [ she strides forward like she's gonna go inside, carefully looking around for traaaaaps. (search 21) ]

[reallywicked]

[Faye's job is mostly to be bait. Also, she's not nearly as observant as Lila, so she's just gonna hang near her girl and try to act like she's not nervous about this whole thing.]

[spellfile]

[ the outside looks... relatively normal, as long as those streaks of code are just projections which they appear to be ] I doubt he'd try to kill us outside anyway. Where's the fun in that. [ he nods at the doors ] Someone wanna get those open?

[andblockbuster]

[Topher is just gonna open the doors like a pro door-opener, because why is everyone standing here staring at the doors anyway???

leave him alone. he has an 8 wis and has never been on a mission before.]

[behindcloseddoors]

[ LMAO HE MEANT THEY ARE PROBABLY LOCKED

WHICH THEY ARE ]

[bittersweeter]

[ lila casts knock because fuck doors tbh. ]

[andblockbuster]

[topher's still tugging on the doors, so when they finally unlock he stumbles back a bit. ahem.

door's open??]

[spellfile]

[ zero just exchanges a look like w/e he is not my biological child i hold no responsibility here. ] Thanks. [ so dry. and in they go... into the lobby of the building which extends long ways down quite a bit, several doors off to one side here and there. all the lights are currently set to dim and there's no one in sight. ]

meanwhile....

[spellfile]

[ while all that nonsense is going on below, lila ascends back to some nonsense of her own above... climbing up into the inky darkness. when she looks back down, the very steps seem to disappear, the scene of faye and the others vanished all the same.

she is, it seems, very utterly alone.





except that she hears a familiar voice and once she hits solid ground, she finds herself in front of a door, zero speaking behind it. ]

You stupid sonuvabitch. Where did you think this was going? Where was it all gonna end?

[bittersweeter]

[ gonna try the door? if it's locked she will not waste time on picking locks and just instantly cast knock because she ain't got time for this. ]

[spellfile]

[ the knock spell blows it open, and she stares into a creepy dark room where one wall has those blue streams framing a figure who seems to be strung up by cables that literally puncture through his chest, his expression twisted in agony, his eyes half-glazed over, his cheeks discolored.

the familiar shape of zero stands outlined before her, staring up at the guy, a tablet in his hands that is glowing with magical light, his fingers tracing across the screen. he doesn't seem to notice her entrance behind him. ]

[bittersweeter]

Zero! [ she strides over quickly, heels clacking in the silence, and though she's heading unerringly toward zero, her eyes are on the other man. ] Jesus.

[spellfiles]

Not quite, despite the whole crucifixion motif going on here. [ zero's voice is on edge, as he casts the tiniest look back at her, clearly biting down on his desire to tell her to go. he's learned it's pointless. ] What happened down there?

[bittersweeter]

Bitch put herself inside Faye. [ and lila is both helpless and useless and that just pisses her off even more. ] He's not...?

[spellfiles]

Not yet. [ he cuts her off quickly ] But those things are charged. One wrong move and they're going to fry him from the inside out.

[bittersweeter]

Can you turn them off? Or... like, overcharge them so they fritz out? [ #notanengineer ]

[spellfiles]

That's exactly what she expects me to do. There'll be some trick to it, some trap set in just for me, and then when he gets it--

[ his hands lower, the device drooping in his hands ] It's gonna be that did it. I let her kill him or I do it myself trying to save him. [ there's a defeated edge to his voice, a string of soft curses following beneath his breath ]

[bittersweeter]

Then find a different way or I will put him out of his misery. I can't do this tech shit, only you can. Fuck, ask him for help, but quit it with this defeatist bullshit. You invented technomagic, she's fucking computer program. If anyone can outsmart her, it's you.

[spellfiles]

[ his head turns very slowly to look at her, to weigh how much she believes that, to let the promise sink in - that if he can't do it, lila will kill him, and that that's the only other option here.

he looks back up to where irving hangs, his mouth falling open half slack as his body jerks abruptly with strange convulsions. ]

I'm not putting that on you.

If she really stuck herself inside Faye, then there might be something I can do. It might not be pretty, though.

[bittersweeter]

[ brusquely, ] I don't care if it's the scene from Alien as long as Faye is okay.