Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson ❯ A Prelude ( Chapter 4 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Esperati Nero 
A Prelude to the events to come.
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.28.2006 | Updated On: 10.28.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 113 | Status: Completed
A Prelude to the events to come.
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.28.2006 | Updated On: 10.28.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 113 | Status: Completed
Geb scanned his chocolate brown eyes rapidly over the screen. Back and forth... back and forth... nothing. It just didn't make any sense. If the grenade's remains revealed a different amount of remaining chemical, it would be a custom-built for sure. However, it was identical in composition to an F4s except for one extraneous ingredient to give it a power boost. It was only a theory that there was an extra combustion agent because nothing could prove that such a chemical existed in the grenade. If it did exist, it would've been one that completely reacted with a gaseous product, which unfortunately, would be untracable. Geb racked his brains for volumes of information that he probably deemed useless years ago when he first set eyes on them. His unique and highly freaky affinity with some of the world's most useless information scared many people. It covered the 'freak' part of the SS entrance requirements.
Flippy and Pi walked in on him. Or Flippy walked in on him and Pi snuck up instead. Geb had studied under Flippy for a while during his initial training stages. Now that he was 18, Flippy was a flippin' 26. She was also his buddy when there was still a partner system. Now she was his mentor, friend and accomplice in raiding the stock room for experiment materials. Pi often followed them around, being 21, stealthy and the only Med that stuck around for the Terrible Two's experiments to explode. She was usually first to their aid if they ever got blown into a wall by the product of their fire-related entertainment. The three of them along with Eridde and Satin made up the group that was going to be sent into the upper tiers. Satin's reaction to their initial venture was hostile enough for them to send her back. However, their job fell to pieces without her resourcefulness and there was no reason for them to remain there without her.
Geb already saw the door open in the reflection of his screen. Pi's stealth did her no good when she tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey guys." He didn't take his eyes away from the screen to look at them. He grabbed a clipboard of paper and began to scribble down notes in his unique style of shorthand.
Pi cursed under her breath. "Guess you've outgrown the joys of being startled." She played with a lock of her pale blonde waves. Her hair was cut above her chin in a nearly white, thick, bouncy mantle that fanned out around her ears. A black headband kept the curls on the side out of her face. Her skin was actually lighter than Satin's, with a light peach complexion and a tiny splatter of freckles over her nose.
"How's the analysis coming?" Flippy scanned the screen herself. Her complexion was a deep, rich brown, unblemished except for a few small scarlines. The springy night-black curls were tamed under a pair of black shades propped on her head and pulled back with a brown scrunchy. Beneath her skin were muscles of steel, tough and powerful with the shape and texture to give her the perfect figure she has. Even in the oilstained black t-shirt and denim overalls, Flippy had the natural grace and elegance of an amazonian warrior as well as the beauty of a queen. The image was so powerful and serious that it was ironic her nickname was something as silly as 'Flippy'. "You've got a pretty good amount of carbon deposits on it."
"Most combusted objects have some layer of soot on it." Geb grumbled, "And this one's got as much as the next. I've been sitting here for two or three hours--"
"Six." Pi corrected, looking at her watch.
"Thanks, Pi. Six hours," Geb continued, "and I haven't cracked a single piece of this code. Isn't it time they got a different Tech to do this? I'm a mediocre biological specialist. Whose idea was this?" Geb wasn't an easily angered person. He sounded more weary and annoyed than anything else.
Flippy sighed, and ruffled Geb's thick, chestnut colored, wavy locks. "Sorry kiddo. It was Scope. Can't argue with the Boss, ya know." She looked back up at the screen, her eyes flickering as if the data dazzled her. "Besides, everyone else was busy. I had to check possibly expired medical products for Pi here. We're running low on supplies and any still usable items should not be wasted."
"Now that you're here, do you mind taking my seat for a while?" Geb asked sheepishly. He didn't like showing his weakness, but he knows when he's defeated. "I think I'm going to crash if I stare at this any longer. Flippy gladly obliged, occupying Geb's chair as he stood and stepped aside shakily. He looked a little green.
Pi's eyes caught the tinge of nausea on his face immediately at a glance. She resisted the urge to whip out her trusty backpack, mix one of her infamous concoctions and pour 20 liquid ounces of it down Geb's throat. She carried her backpack everywhere she went, since it had all of her supplies in it. Pi was usually a field Med rather than a desk Med, meaning she didn't stay put and wait for patients. So naturally, she didnt dress as nicely as the desk Meds' crisp blouses, ties, slacks or skirts, not to mention pretty looking shoes. She wore the uniform white coat over a sleeveless blue shirt and khaki shorts that she borrowed from Satn. The brown hiking boots on her feet had grass stains all over it. The laces were fuzzy and muddy, the rubber soles worne down. "Geb, you might want to drink some water..." She advised softly.
"I'm okay, just gimme a sec to sit down." Geb murmured as he found his way to the wall. Leaning onto it, he turned himself around and slid down, heaving a weary sigh. "That's better..."
"I'll go get you some water." Pi began to turn, but was immediately stopped by Geb's cutting tone.
"No water in this room." He pointed to the sign hanging plainly on the sliding metal door. "No food, drink, pets, non-solid substances, combustable materials... there's a whole list of things you can't bring in here." Geb smirked at Pi's flabbergasted expression.
"So if you fell on a piece of shattered monitor screen during an accident and shouldn't be moved, I can't bring iodine or alcohol or anything like that in here?" Pi asked in an appalled tone. Her brows knitted together, gently wrinkling her forhead. "What if you died?"
Flippy muttered with a hint of annoyance in her monotonous voice. "I swear, Pi. You might be older than him, but you act three years old." Scrolling down the page, she caught sight of a few interesting numbers. "Gebby, what's Fibonacci doing on here?"
"Don't call me Gebby." The younger tech spoke quickly, "What data set is it?"
"Upsilon-22. G4." She read off the section title.
Geb suddenly grew serious. "I don't think I saw that... Can you read from two lines above, please?" It didn't matter how exciting this new find might be. Geb just didn't want to get up.
Flippy shrugged and did as he asked. "Upsilon-22 set G3, section 0.2. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen. Combustion reaction. [6126] Set G4, section 0.1. [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55... . 2 x Alpha-H, PSCD--"
"Stop there." Geb commanded. Flippy turned around in her seat, watching the younger one as he sat, deep in thoughtful and ruthless analysis.
"What did you find?" Pi asked, but was quickly cut off.
"Shh!" Holding up his hand, he opened his eyes and stared hard at the ground. It was nearly two minutes before he spoke again, his two companions clinging onto all that he had to say. With a deep exhalation, Geb gave his conclusion. "It's probably a sugar bomb."
"A WHAT?!" Pi exclaimed, "Sure it should contain hydrogen for flammability. The carbon could've come from soot residue and Oxygen is necessary for a combustion reaction to occur. Just because those three things--"
Geb once again interrupted her. "Bracket set 6126, translated to 6, 12, 6, applied to elements respectively." He gave them a moment for that to sink ink. "Glucose. I can't believe I didn't see this before, how can I have been so stupid?" He pumped his fist in the air angrily.
"Anyone could've missed it, kiddo. Don't be too hard on yourself. That's my job." Flippy consoled him. "Have you figurd out what Fibonnaci was doing on there? If you say sugar, I have a pretty good clue.
Geb nodded, "If you're thinking trees, I'd say that's a pretty good first guess."
"What are you people talking about? Trees? Sugar?" Anxious to know what was going on, Pi felt completely left out of this highly numerical discussion.
"It's complicated..." Flippy sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Let's keep this low for a bit, Geb. No need to mislead the entire organization yet. It's probably just a coincidence."
Nodding, Geb leant his head back against the wall. "Pi, you should go back to the medical center. Didn't you have mountains of paperwork to handle?" He recalled her excuse for refusing an invitation to lunch.
Pi shrugged, "It actually didn't take me that long. Someone put several reams of unused printer paper in there to freak me out. I wonder who did it..."
"Satin, who else?" Flippy smirked. "It's probably her way of saying 'hey, I'm back, but I'm too busy to say hi in person so I'll play a trick on you'." She chuckled, turning back to the screen. "Wonder what's keepin' her..."
"Axe, probably." Geb replied with his eyes closed, sitting against the wall with his thin legs stretched out his arms crossed over is chest. "He's been talking to her plenty as of recently. Say, anyone find out what happened to her out there on the moor?"
"Eridde might know." Flippy tapped lightly on the 'down' key to scroll the page further. "I saw him in the VR sims. He said he saw Satin, but he didn't give much details. He did say that he dressed her wounds, and told me to tell you you're supposed to point to him if the Axe wants a record."
"Pi doesn't know what's going on anymore." Pi murmured softly. "Pi ish going to go have dinner now. She hasn't eaten since breakfast. Ciao."
"Don't speak in third person!" Geb called to the snapping door. "How did she become an SS worker anyway?" He asked quietly, puzzled. "She's acts like a kindergartener!"
"The kindergartener is much better than you are at fixing booboos on the run, preschooler." Flippy replied, her voice flat as she focused most of her mind on the task at hand, "She's also and excellent researcher and is better than you at gunning. Now if you're just going to whine about her, I'll tell her to prescribe you a very bitter tea."
That shut Geb up nicely.
Pi sat down with a sigh, setting her plastic tray of food on what looked like a wooden crate turned up-side-down. There were several commons in Sub-Zero, each for the relaxation of their occupants and each bearing a unique name bestowed by their occupants. The Quills had a great decor idea involving important newspaper clips and pictures thumbtacked to the walls. It was amazing how easily one might find answers to trivia questions there. Naturally, it was called the Archive. Techs filled their place with tons of screens. They were probably the best off, as there were little robotic things that performed small tasks for them, a result of some overly enthusiastic braniacs. Who knows what 0100101 means? That's what's on the piece of cardboard tacked onto their door. Darts were definitely the worst off. But even worse than that, they didn't do anything to make it better. They simply didn't care. The commons are originally very shabby because they were uneeded luxuries, but the Darts' place looked more like an alley hole than anyone else's. How do they make a practically empty room look like such a mess is hard to comprehend... perhaps their lack of aesthetic perception? They simply called it the Wreck Room. Meds, who constantly complained that the sub-zero temperatures of Sub-Zero induced early artheritis, surrounded their commons with at least ten radiators. They named their common area the Infernomary.
At the moment, Pi was very glad for the radiator humming gently behind her. It's been colder than usual. Since a heating system might draw attention to themselves, Sub-Zero was perfect during the summer and brutal in a frost. This winter was more intense than any others that she's seen. She looked at her watch, which had a built in termometer built on the outer frame to disregard her body temperature. It was already negative seven degrees celsius. Imagine a winchill factor outside... She pulled on a long black coat hanging on the back of her wooden bench. They found that after something bombed a park. The relic mysteriously survived an HK-47. Must be some tough wood. Pi was starting to miss the Tech room. All the technology heating up in there made it the warmest part of Sub-Zero. She'd have liked to stay there, but she was hungry.
Food wasn't good, but it wasn't horrendous. For instance, the small fruit salad sitting in a styrofoam cup before her wasn't utterly bad, but it was canned papaya and melon. Fresh fruit wasn't common. And the dinner roll was previously frozen. By the taste, it had probably been frozen for several months. When was the next supply shipment going to come in? They only got good food on the holidays, where a large grocery purchase wouldn't look suspicious in the upper tiers. Sure, they could just go up there and buy their own food. The only problem would be civilian observation that a really old, broken down, dangerous garage was still very commonly used and there were actually hidden entrances to a secret organization down there. So much for that idea. Digging into her salad with a fork, Pi's mind began to wander.
That wasn't just a sugar bomb. If it was, they wouldn't have said 2 x Alpha-H. And what does PSCD mean? I don't get it, all 2 x Alpha-H models have to have a [3-20,000] prefix function for proper activation. I was right next to flippy and there wasn't a single one of those within the model set. Does that just mean it's a lead off? Maybe I should go and take a look at the thing myself... I'm not a tech, but... maybe I can accidentally nudge them towards something... just maybe...
One of the four fluorescent bars that lit the small room flickered and went out. Pi looked up and cursed mildy under her breath. The room was broken down as it was. There was just a small fridge in the corner, four 1 x 1 meter wooden crates as tables, a single bench, some sleeping bags and a microwave in that entire room, excluding the massive amounts of radiators. There wasn't much to be lit, but it would be nice to not eat in dimmer light. Can't be helped now... Pi thought with a hint of annoyance in her mind as she wolfed down the rest of her food. The portions were scant, and meager at best. There was that once though, when extra oil was used in the muffins and they did fill everyone up... for about half an hour.
She stepped onto the bench carefully and was about to remove the dimmed florescent bar from its casing above when Geb and Flippy arrived at the door of the Infernomary.
"Pi, you can worry about lighting later." Flippy's voice was serious, "The Captain wants us now. And he means now."
Pi immediately jumped down from her perch. The Captain didn't have a nickname, he was just the Captain. And he expects things to be done in the fastest, most efficient manner possible. Picking up her tray, she emptied it in the waste-disposal chute right next to the Infernomary door, taking the tray with her as she followed her friends out at a walk faster than 'brisk' but not quite a trot yet. Only two sets of steps were heard to echo down the hall. Flippy's feet were completely soundless. Pi's voice as quiet and anticipating, "What's going on?"
"Good news and bad news." Geb muttered, "That's all we know. But seeing Satin and Erride were also called moments ago, we're going back up there." He didn't sound too happy about it.
Pi didn't answer. She dropped off her tray on a pedastle at the corner of the main dining hall as she passed it, glimpsing the empty, desolate room. No one ate there usually except for maybe some Darts. If they were to be leaving for the upper world, there were things she had to tend to. There was going to be a heck of a flashback fiasco up there for her and probably and the rest of them. Might as well be ready...
Author's Note: I'm sorry for boring you with all this... but I'll promise action within the next few chapters! ^_^;; just please, bear with me! And review... >.> um... yesh, I got this author's note idea from Soulless Wanderer. Go read his stories, they're not too shabby!
~Esperati Nero
Flippy and Pi walked in on him. Or Flippy walked in on him and Pi snuck up instead. Geb had studied under Flippy for a while during his initial training stages. Now that he was 18, Flippy was a flippin' 26. She was also his buddy when there was still a partner system. Now she was his mentor, friend and accomplice in raiding the stock room for experiment materials. Pi often followed them around, being 21, stealthy and the only Med that stuck around for the Terrible Two's experiments to explode. She was usually first to their aid if they ever got blown into a wall by the product of their fire-related entertainment. The three of them along with Eridde and Satin made up the group that was going to be sent into the upper tiers. Satin's reaction to their initial venture was hostile enough for them to send her back. However, their job fell to pieces without her resourcefulness and there was no reason for them to remain there without her.
Geb already saw the door open in the reflection of his screen. Pi's stealth did her no good when she tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey guys." He didn't take his eyes away from the screen to look at them. He grabbed a clipboard of paper and began to scribble down notes in his unique style of shorthand.
Pi cursed under her breath. "Guess you've outgrown the joys of being startled." She played with a lock of her pale blonde waves. Her hair was cut above her chin in a nearly white, thick, bouncy mantle that fanned out around her ears. A black headband kept the curls on the side out of her face. Her skin was actually lighter than Satin's, with a light peach complexion and a tiny splatter of freckles over her nose.
"How's the analysis coming?" Flippy scanned the screen herself. Her complexion was a deep, rich brown, unblemished except for a few small scarlines. The springy night-black curls were tamed under a pair of black shades propped on her head and pulled back with a brown scrunchy. Beneath her skin were muscles of steel, tough and powerful with the shape and texture to give her the perfect figure she has. Even in the oilstained black t-shirt and denim overalls, Flippy had the natural grace and elegance of an amazonian warrior as well as the beauty of a queen. The image was so powerful and serious that it was ironic her nickname was something as silly as 'Flippy'. "You've got a pretty good amount of carbon deposits on it."
"Most combusted objects have some layer of soot on it." Geb grumbled, "And this one's got as much as the next. I've been sitting here for two or three hours--"
"Six." Pi corrected, looking at her watch.
"Thanks, Pi. Six hours," Geb continued, "and I haven't cracked a single piece of this code. Isn't it time they got a different Tech to do this? I'm a mediocre biological specialist. Whose idea was this?" Geb wasn't an easily angered person. He sounded more weary and annoyed than anything else.
Flippy sighed, and ruffled Geb's thick, chestnut colored, wavy locks. "Sorry kiddo. It was Scope. Can't argue with the Boss, ya know." She looked back up at the screen, her eyes flickering as if the data dazzled her. "Besides, everyone else was busy. I had to check possibly expired medical products for Pi here. We're running low on supplies and any still usable items should not be wasted."
"Now that you're here, do you mind taking my seat for a while?" Geb asked sheepishly. He didn't like showing his weakness, but he knows when he's defeated. "I think I'm going to crash if I stare at this any longer. Flippy gladly obliged, occupying Geb's chair as he stood and stepped aside shakily. He looked a little green.
Pi's eyes caught the tinge of nausea on his face immediately at a glance. She resisted the urge to whip out her trusty backpack, mix one of her infamous concoctions and pour 20 liquid ounces of it down Geb's throat. She carried her backpack everywhere she went, since it had all of her supplies in it. Pi was usually a field Med rather than a desk Med, meaning she didn't stay put and wait for patients. So naturally, she didnt dress as nicely as the desk Meds' crisp blouses, ties, slacks or skirts, not to mention pretty looking shoes. She wore the uniform white coat over a sleeveless blue shirt and khaki shorts that she borrowed from Satn. The brown hiking boots on her feet had grass stains all over it. The laces were fuzzy and muddy, the rubber soles worne down. "Geb, you might want to drink some water..." She advised softly.
"I'm okay, just gimme a sec to sit down." Geb murmured as he found his way to the wall. Leaning onto it, he turned himself around and slid down, heaving a weary sigh. "That's better..."
"I'll go get you some water." Pi began to turn, but was immediately stopped by Geb's cutting tone.
"No water in this room." He pointed to the sign hanging plainly on the sliding metal door. "No food, drink, pets, non-solid substances, combustable materials... there's a whole list of things you can't bring in here." Geb smirked at Pi's flabbergasted expression.
"So if you fell on a piece of shattered monitor screen during an accident and shouldn't be moved, I can't bring iodine or alcohol or anything like that in here?" Pi asked in an appalled tone. Her brows knitted together, gently wrinkling her forhead. "What if you died?"
Flippy muttered with a hint of annoyance in her monotonous voice. "I swear, Pi. You might be older than him, but you act three years old." Scrolling down the page, she caught sight of a few interesting numbers. "Gebby, what's Fibonacci doing on here?"
"Don't call me Gebby." The younger tech spoke quickly, "What data set is it?"
"Upsilon-22. G4." She read off the section title.
Geb suddenly grew serious. "I don't think I saw that... Can you read from two lines above, please?" It didn't matter how exciting this new find might be. Geb just didn't want to get up.
Flippy shrugged and did as he asked. "Upsilon-22 set G3, section 0.2. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen. Combustion reaction. [6126] Set G4, section 0.1. [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55... . 2 x Alpha-H, PSCD--"
"Stop there." Geb commanded. Flippy turned around in her seat, watching the younger one as he sat, deep in thoughtful and ruthless analysis.
"What did you find?" Pi asked, but was quickly cut off.
"Shh!" Holding up his hand, he opened his eyes and stared hard at the ground. It was nearly two minutes before he spoke again, his two companions clinging onto all that he had to say. With a deep exhalation, Geb gave his conclusion. "It's probably a sugar bomb."
"A WHAT?!" Pi exclaimed, "Sure it should contain hydrogen for flammability. The carbon could've come from soot residue and Oxygen is necessary for a combustion reaction to occur. Just because those three things--"
Geb once again interrupted her. "Bracket set 6126, translated to 6, 12, 6, applied to elements respectively." He gave them a moment for that to sink ink. "Glucose. I can't believe I didn't see this before, how can I have been so stupid?" He pumped his fist in the air angrily.
"Anyone could've missed it, kiddo. Don't be too hard on yourself. That's my job." Flippy consoled him. "Have you figurd out what Fibonnaci was doing on there? If you say sugar, I have a pretty good clue.
Geb nodded, "If you're thinking trees, I'd say that's a pretty good first guess."
"What are you people talking about? Trees? Sugar?" Anxious to know what was going on, Pi felt completely left out of this highly numerical discussion.
"It's complicated..." Flippy sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Let's keep this low for a bit, Geb. No need to mislead the entire organization yet. It's probably just a coincidence."
Nodding, Geb leant his head back against the wall. "Pi, you should go back to the medical center. Didn't you have mountains of paperwork to handle?" He recalled her excuse for refusing an invitation to lunch.
Pi shrugged, "It actually didn't take me that long. Someone put several reams of unused printer paper in there to freak me out. I wonder who did it..."
"Satin, who else?" Flippy smirked. "It's probably her way of saying 'hey, I'm back, but I'm too busy to say hi in person so I'll play a trick on you'." She chuckled, turning back to the screen. "Wonder what's keepin' her..."
"Axe, probably." Geb replied with his eyes closed, sitting against the wall with his thin legs stretched out his arms crossed over is chest. "He's been talking to her plenty as of recently. Say, anyone find out what happened to her out there on the moor?"
"Eridde might know." Flippy tapped lightly on the 'down' key to scroll the page further. "I saw him in the VR sims. He said he saw Satin, but he didn't give much details. He did say that he dressed her wounds, and told me to tell you you're supposed to point to him if the Axe wants a record."
"Pi doesn't know what's going on anymore." Pi murmured softly. "Pi ish going to go have dinner now. She hasn't eaten since breakfast. Ciao."
"Don't speak in third person!" Geb called to the snapping door. "How did she become an SS worker anyway?" He asked quietly, puzzled. "She's acts like a kindergartener!"
"The kindergartener is much better than you are at fixing booboos on the run, preschooler." Flippy replied, her voice flat as she focused most of her mind on the task at hand, "She's also and excellent researcher and is better than you at gunning. Now if you're just going to whine about her, I'll tell her to prescribe you a very bitter tea."
That shut Geb up nicely.
Pi sat down with a sigh, setting her plastic tray of food on what looked like a wooden crate turned up-side-down. There were several commons in Sub-Zero, each for the relaxation of their occupants and each bearing a unique name bestowed by their occupants. The Quills had a great decor idea involving important newspaper clips and pictures thumbtacked to the walls. It was amazing how easily one might find answers to trivia questions there. Naturally, it was called the Archive. Techs filled their place with tons of screens. They were probably the best off, as there were little robotic things that performed small tasks for them, a result of some overly enthusiastic braniacs. Who knows what 0100101 means? That's what's on the piece of cardboard tacked onto their door. Darts were definitely the worst off. But even worse than that, they didn't do anything to make it better. They simply didn't care. The commons are originally very shabby because they were uneeded luxuries, but the Darts' place looked more like an alley hole than anyone else's. How do they make a practically empty room look like such a mess is hard to comprehend... perhaps their lack of aesthetic perception? They simply called it the Wreck Room. Meds, who constantly complained that the sub-zero temperatures of Sub-Zero induced early artheritis, surrounded their commons with at least ten radiators. They named their common area the Infernomary.
At the moment, Pi was very glad for the radiator humming gently behind her. It's been colder than usual. Since a heating system might draw attention to themselves, Sub-Zero was perfect during the summer and brutal in a frost. This winter was more intense than any others that she's seen. She looked at her watch, which had a built in termometer built on the outer frame to disregard her body temperature. It was already negative seven degrees celsius. Imagine a winchill factor outside... She pulled on a long black coat hanging on the back of her wooden bench. They found that after something bombed a park. The relic mysteriously survived an HK-47. Must be some tough wood. Pi was starting to miss the Tech room. All the technology heating up in there made it the warmest part of Sub-Zero. She'd have liked to stay there, but she was hungry.
Food wasn't good, but it wasn't horrendous. For instance, the small fruit salad sitting in a styrofoam cup before her wasn't utterly bad, but it was canned papaya and melon. Fresh fruit wasn't common. And the dinner roll was previously frozen. By the taste, it had probably been frozen for several months. When was the next supply shipment going to come in? They only got good food on the holidays, where a large grocery purchase wouldn't look suspicious in the upper tiers. Sure, they could just go up there and buy their own food. The only problem would be civilian observation that a really old, broken down, dangerous garage was still very commonly used and there were actually hidden entrances to a secret organization down there. So much for that idea. Digging into her salad with a fork, Pi's mind began to wander.
That wasn't just a sugar bomb. If it was, they wouldn't have said 2 x Alpha-H. And what does PSCD mean? I don't get it, all 2 x Alpha-H models have to have a [3-20,000] prefix function for proper activation. I was right next to flippy and there wasn't a single one of those within the model set. Does that just mean it's a lead off? Maybe I should go and take a look at the thing myself... I'm not a tech, but... maybe I can accidentally nudge them towards something... just maybe...
One of the four fluorescent bars that lit the small room flickered and went out. Pi looked up and cursed mildy under her breath. The room was broken down as it was. There was just a small fridge in the corner, four 1 x 1 meter wooden crates as tables, a single bench, some sleeping bags and a microwave in that entire room, excluding the massive amounts of radiators. There wasn't much to be lit, but it would be nice to not eat in dimmer light. Can't be helped now... Pi thought with a hint of annoyance in her mind as she wolfed down the rest of her food. The portions were scant, and meager at best. There was that once though, when extra oil was used in the muffins and they did fill everyone up... for about half an hour.
She stepped onto the bench carefully and was about to remove the dimmed florescent bar from its casing above when Geb and Flippy arrived at the door of the Infernomary.
"Pi, you can worry about lighting later." Flippy's voice was serious, "The Captain wants us now. And he means now."
Pi immediately jumped down from her perch. The Captain didn't have a nickname, he was just the Captain. And he expects things to be done in the fastest, most efficient manner possible. Picking up her tray, she emptied it in the waste-disposal chute right next to the Infernomary door, taking the tray with her as she followed her friends out at a walk faster than 'brisk' but not quite a trot yet. Only two sets of steps were heard to echo down the hall. Flippy's feet were completely soundless. Pi's voice as quiet and anticipating, "What's going on?"
"Good news and bad news." Geb muttered, "That's all we know. But seeing Satin and Erride were also called moments ago, we're going back up there." He didn't sound too happy about it.
Pi didn't answer. She dropped off her tray on a pedastle at the corner of the main dining hall as she passed it, glimpsing the empty, desolate room. No one ate there usually except for maybe some Darts. If they were to be leaving for the upper world, there were things she had to tend to. There was going to be a heck of a flashback fiasco up there for her and probably and the rest of them. Might as well be ready...
Author's Note: I'm sorry for boring you with all this... but I'll promise action within the next few chapters! ^_^;; just please, bear with me! And review... >.> um... yesh, I got this author's note idea from Soulless Wanderer. Go read his stories, they're not too shabby!
~Esperati Nero