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Old 02-24-2017, 08:05 AM   #19
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Schrödiger's Closet

After the encounter with Terry Amiti, everyone was rather subdued. We moved slowly, encumbered with our wounded people, and jumped at every minor noise. Taylor heard a few worrying noises far off, but couldn't identify any as people in distress, and in any event, didn't even know where the echoes originated.

We didn't see anything else of note going through the last tunnel heading to the cellars of G Wing. We did see a rat, a sleek, well-fed rodent who spent a few breaths staring Taylor down. Once Dr. Anderson shined his light at it, it sped away. They're afraid of light, but not of humans. Probably have a taste for Terry's leftovers.

The door leading to the G Wing cellars is a massive metal blast door, like the one we left through when leaving J Wing for the tunnels. This one is locked from the other side and Reyes' keychain doesn't contain any key for it. O'Toole reluctantly takes out a lockpick kit and starts fiddling with the locks. In surprisingly short order, there's a click and then he slides the bolt open. Taylor gives O'Toole an impressed glance and moves to open the door, motioning O'Toole and Burr to wait in support. Our wounded are placed off to the side while everyone is busy.

Taylor has already calculated that any guard left in front of the armoury in G Wing will have his eyes on the cellar door if he's watching anything. He opens the door rapidly and enters fast to the left, giving O'Toole and Burr space to follow. Taylor tries to move as stealthily as he can, but the blast door inevitably makes some noise when opened.

The cellar is dimly lit, but not completely dark. There's light coming from a stairwell leading up to the ground floor. There is also obviously no one guarding the door where Dr. Anderson said the armoury would be. Because there's no door that looks like it might house an armoury. Just a supply closet.

Dr. Anderson is the subject of quite a few accusing glances, but no one says anything, because they can hear someone on the ground floor talking. Taylor is close enough to hear it's two speakers and that one of them is a guard he has seen before, the one named 'Ball'. The one who was on watch over Sherilyn's wing and who smelled of recent ejaculate.

Ball: "What was that?"
Other guard: "You think it was someone trying to get in downstairs?"
Ball: "Can't be him, he's too dumb for doorknobs, let alone latches and bolts. If it was the door, it's got to be them. You go check it out, I'll go fetch the Warden and the team."
Other guard: "I go? Why can't you go?"
Ball: "Just check it out, will you? You've got your Mace and baton and I'll be right back with the team."

Taylor decides that allowing Ball to go for help would be a suboptimal play. He jumps up, grabs the bottom of a step on the stairs with his fingers and swings himself up to the first floor. As he lands, both guards gasp in surprise, but Ball immediately starts backing up and reaching for his tool belt.

Taylor rushes in with his much-battered metal bar held in both hands ahead of him. Ball crouches down to meet his charge and Taylor ends up shoulder-checking him in the chest, sending him backward gasping for breath. An elbow strike to the solar plexus of the other guard sends him into a fits of wheezes and Taylor lunges with the tip of his battered metal bar to the floating rib of Guard Ball. Ball immediately goes down, completely unable to draw breath and trying simultaneously to vomit and gasp.

Taylor follows through with a vicious stamp kick to Ball's head. It shatters his cheekbone, bouncing his head off the floor, and may break some other facial bones as well. It's with a visible effort of will that Taylor stops himself from breaking Ball's skull as well as his face. Instead he moves behind the other guard, on his knees trying to draw breath, and takes him in a choke hold with his much abused metal bar.

Taylor then carries the unconscious guard downstairs and whispers at O'Toole and Burr to tie him up. He goes up and fetches Ball as well, noting without visible reaction that Ball has lost consciousness and is bleeding steadily from his shattered face. When Taylor brings Ball downstairs, Dr. Anderson whistles under his breath.

Dr. Anderson: "Was that really necessary? He obviously has a concussion. He may have intercranial bleeding."
Taylor [looks at Sherilyn Bell]: "Lynnie, did... did this guard ever hurt you?"
Sherilyn Bell [smiling eerily]: "Oh, no. Ball just likes to watch."
Taylor [flinches, then to Dr. Anderon]: "Sorry, Doc. Try an' keep him alive."

As we check that the supply closet is, indeed, just a supply closet, the radio on Ball squawks. Dr. Anderson grabs the radio and Taylor throws O'Toole the other guard's radio. Taylor: "No jamming, call for help."

O'Toole immediately switches to the Coast Guard emergency channel and begins to recite a DHS SHARE code-word, his badge ID number and our current situation, with federal agents needing emergency medical assistance and another presumed kidnapped.

The other radio, on the guard frequency, is broadcasting the voice of Deputy Warden Brad Tyrrell. He's demanding that every unit check in and report any sign of the 'traitors'. Taylor fishes out ID from the unconscious guard's pocket and whispers to Dr. Anderson: "Curtis Bender. Looks like a Kurt. Pretend to be Ball and tell him Kurt is in the crapper." Dr. Anderson imitates Ball with, what sounds to us, at least, startling faithfulness. Considering that he's only heard him once, at least.

The radio check-in ends with white noise static breaking in on all channels. O'Toole managed to get in a distress call, but received no acknowledgement before being cut off. As soon as he gets done with the radio, Dr. Anderson opens the supply closet and starts going through the chemicals there. He asks if there would be any value in having an incendiary, explosive or an irritant that can blind people. Taylor grimaces and asks if can make make something that will flash brightly and give off foul-smelling smoke, something that looks dangerous, but isn't really going to kill or even blind anyone. Dr. Anderson shrugs and starts mixing cleaning supplies.

Taylor has armed himself with a baton taken from the less damaged guard and hands Sherilyn Bell the tool belt from Ball, along with baton and Mace.

Taylor: "Remember, stick beats knife, Mace and running beat both."
Sherilyn [curtsy]: "Thanks, Chasie dear. You're so good to me."
Col. Burr: "Damn it, man, now you're arming the criminally insane?"
Taylor: "She's ain't a criminal, she never even got no trial. Until yer done been found guilty, yer innocent, 'least in my America. Didn't stop the Army from burying her here for seventeen years."
Taylor [angrily]: "Who says she's insane, either, the crooked doctors who lied to keep her here, like as not to cover up for generals and colonels? Sherilyn's got as much right to defend herself as any of us."

Col. Burr just scoffs, but Sherilyn looks at Taylor in genuine surprise. Taylor moves away in a fairly transparent attempt to hide his emotions from the others. Sherilyn shrugs and goes over to Dr. Anderson, brightly asking him what he's doing. Dr. Anderson, apparently an incurable lecturer, starts to explain to her how to make explosives and incendiaries from common household chemicals.*

Securing the rest of the cellar corridors is a pretty effective excuse, as it clearly has to be done. After a quick circuit, Taylor determines that he can hear soft breathing from the tunnels we came through. He waits until he determines that there are two people in there, they are afraid and they are not waiting in ambush, they are simply trying to avoid being found.

Taylor [softly]: "Y'all are safe from us. We're not guards, not here to hurt you. Homeland Security. Here to help, despite that. Federal agents."
Man inside: "Oh, thank god! Do you know what the hell is going on?"
Taylor: "The guards are hunting for us, by express command of Warden Tyrrell. We found a federal agent they've kidnapped. Now they're trying to kill us to cover it up."
Man: "That's completely crazy!"
Taylor: "None of y'all here on this island strike me as mighty well-adjusted."

A wiry, tough-looking black orderly comes out of the darkness with a wild-eyed woman dressed as an inmate in tow. He introduces himself as Robert and her as Cindy. Taylor gets the sense that Robert has been running and hiding for a while, but that he's mentally tough and isn't going to give in. He likes the fact that Robert is still taking care of a patient, even though he'd clearly be safer alone. Taylor tosses him the Mace from the guard's tool kit and the radio that was attached to the uniform.

Taylor: "Expect you know what to do with the Mace. Put the radio on channel 16 and keep trying to reach the Coast Guard. Repeat a simple distress message with our situation until you get an acknowledgement and then just answer their questions. The guards are jamming, so you won't get through at first, but if they stop to use their own radios, make sure you're ready for it. We're going to see what we can do about the jamming, maybe try to find another way to call for help. Y'all might want to hide until help gets here. If you could take care of some other survivors we found, I'd take it right kindly."
Bob the Orderly: "Sure, man. Whatever you need."
Taylor: "If the reason everyone is staying out of the tunnels was a big lunk named Terry Amiti, you don't have to worry about him. He's hurt and staying put until help comes. Might could be smart to hide in the tunnels instead of here, if'n the guards never go there."
Bob the Orderly: "The Monster is gone?"
Taylor: "Terry won't hurt you as long as you don't go looking for the room he's in."

*Wonderful. Daddy's Little Domestic Terrorist in the making.
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Last edited by Icelander; 03-03-2017 at 09:46 AM.
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