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Old 03-01-2017, 05:10 AM   #50
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Bye, Bye, Blackbird

O'Toole is sitting with his back to the wall next to the open door to the corridor. His ears are ringing and he's breathing rapidly, but he manages to keep panic at bay, which he figures is pretty good for a first firefight. He scans the office looking for another way out, but it seems to be a dead end. Through the ringing in his ears and the concussive blasts of the rifle shots, he can hear loud cursing and a lower voice a short distance further down the corridor. He asks if everyone is all right.

Townsend [shouting]: "Burr is shot in the shoulder. I'm dealing with the bleeding. Are you hurt?"
O'Toole: "We're fine here."
Townsend: "What do we do, Agent O'Toole?"
O'Toole: "Beats the hell out of me. Try not to get shot?"

O'Toole can hear shouting from the guards in front and then the fire from there dies down. The handheld radio on Cherry Bell's guard vest squawks commands to 'cease fire, cease fire'.

After a few beats, O'Toole lets loose a string of profanity and reaches for the Motorola in his pocket. He turns it on and can immediately hear someone calling for help on Channel 16. It's Bob the Orderly and he seems to be getting a reponse. Unfortunately, Bob is babbling about monsters eating people and Cherry Bell mind-controlling everyone, but he also mentions the guards attacking federal agents and hunting down orderlies who object. O'Toole decides to stop Bob before he confuses the Coast Guard too much. He presses transmit.

O'Toole: "This is Special Agent Danny O'Toole, badge number 969642, US Customs and Border Patrol, temporarily detached to the DHS Office of the Inspector General. I'm confirming my earlier distress call around 2200 hours and requesting urgent assistance. Federal agents are taking heavy fire from the guards at Manhanock Asylum, who are in a state of mutiny. We've got men down, need medical assistance and SWAT now!"
Operator: "Sir, can you confirm for us your location? Over."
O'Toole: "[i]Location?! I'm still on the ----ing island, numbnuts! Where the ---- else would I be? Just now I'm in some abandoned office down cellar being shot at by a bunch of yahoos with assault rifles! Where the ---- is my ----ing back-up? Out on a romantic cruise?"
Operator: "Sir, we are responding to your emergency as fast as we can. Any information you can give us will help us do that. Can you tell us what the status of Agent Banks is? Over."
O'Toole: "----, no, I can't tell you that! He's just as missing as he was the last time I told you this. And if you don't ship up here in an all-fired ----ing hurry, you won't find us either. Trace my ----ing cell phone, triangulate this radio message, trace any ----ing electronic thing DHS has listed as issued to one of us. Send in the helicopters, cutters, SWAT, everything! This is a real ----ing emergency!"
Operator: "Roger, a response is underway, sir. Can you tell us anything about the numbers of the perpetrators? Over."
O'Toole: "How many guards are here? It's all of them! From the ----ing Deputy Warden on down, they are all trying to kill us. Estimate at least twenty ----ing hostiles, armed with military ----ing weapons. That's ----ing machine guns and grenades. ----!"
Operator: "What about hostages? Can you confirm hostages? Status, numbers, location? Over."
O'Toole: "Damn it, don't you get it? They've either got ----ing hostages or they've killed federal agents and maybe a ----load of other people. I don't know where they ----ing are, because I'm pinned down in a stinking cellar by automatic weapon fire, like it's ----ing Fallujah! Get your candy---es here before these re-res get bored of waiting and toss grenades in here!"

There is no response from the Motorola, not even static. O'Toole can hear the guards who had been shooting calling to him now. They want the girl, alive and unharmed. While still fiddling with his radio, O'Toole asks Cherry Bell if she knows some way out of there, but receives no answer. The guards are demanding that Ms. Bell be sent out immediately or serious consequences will follow.

Townsend: "We've got a wounded man. What about help for him?"
Guard1: "Send out the girl and we can talk about it."
O'Toole: "That doesn't sound like a very good deal for us, buddy."
Guard2: "And are you in a position to negotiate?"
O'Toole: "We've got the girl. Your boss wants her, right?"
Guard1: "Send her out and then come out yourselves with your hands on your head. That way, we won't need to kill you."

O'Toole looks at Cherry Bell and starts to ask her opinion, but is shocked to see no sign of her in the small office. He scans desperately around him, but is forced to admit to himself that he is alone in there. He opens his mouth to shout out that he doesn't even have the girl anymore, but fortunately realises just in time that doing so would invite a flurry of grenades.* Instead, O'Toole doesn't say anything and starts concentrating, with his eyes closed. He's feeling out the corridor with his telekinesis, looking for anything metallic. He hopes to find a wrench or piece of pipe with which to bang on the heating pipes, trying to make the guards think that Terry the Minotard is coming up behind them.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anderson is watching the doors that his fellow DHS employees dived through. That area of corridor is lit up by what appear to be flashlights** from the T-intersection, but a slight incline in the tunnel prevents Dr. Anderson from seeing all the way there. He can tell pretty clearly where the flashlights are coming from, however, which allows him to focus on the area where he believes the guards are standing. He concentrates intently on making anyone in that area fall asleep. Not just make them drowsy, but plunge them into a dream state as soon as possible. He has never used his powers at this range or against so many active people in an adrenaline rush, so he doesn't know what to expect, but even if it works, he calculates that it will be at least a minute until anyone falls asleep.

While he is concentrating, he can see Cherry Bell walk nonchalantly through the lighted area. No one seems to notice her except Dr. Anderson, as the shadows seem to cloak her lithe form. Cherry struts down the corridor like she's walking down a runway, flashing Dr. Anderson a gorgeous smile when she notices him hiding there and grabs his arm when she passes. She leads him down the tunnel, away from the guards, O'Toole, Townsend, Burr and Berrocal. They retrace their steps to the service tunnel leading to the barrack cellars, where there is a door they can shut to be able to talk.

Dr. Anderson: "Where are we going, Ms. Bell? We cannot head back, the barracks will be on fire by now."
Cherry Bell: "Oh, Mr. M, don't be difficult. We can't go forward and it was major Boresville back there. Let's go find Chase. He can get us away from here."
Dr. Anderson: "What about the others?"
Cherry: "Screw 'em. It's their mess and they oughta be able to get out of it. They're the G-Men, I'm just a damsel in distress. Anyway, I don't like any of them. O'Toole is a ----head in a suit, Burr keeps giving me squirrely looks and I think Townsend might be a fairy."
Anderson: "That aside, Taylor was supposed to follow us. Since he is not, something must have happened to delay him. He would not want us to go in there again. It is either on fire or he has been attacked and is fighting guards."
Cherry: "Maybe we could help. I could take out some guards. Wouldn't that surprise dear lil' Chasie?"

A stupendous noise interrupts their conversation. Behind them, rapid firing breaks out. Dr. Anderson realises that his powers won't be much use in a full-blown firefight and he and Ms. Bell quickly climb over the restrained guards in the service tunnel to reach the blast door to the cellars. Once they get it open, they can hear the blaring fire alarm in the barracks and when they stop into the cellars, sprinklers douse them with water.

Dr. Anderson notices that the water is fresh, not foul-smelling, suggesting that the sprinklers have been going for long enough for the stale water in the pipes to run off, to be replaced with fresher water from tanks. Dr. Anderson also thinks he can hear someone talking upstairs, but isn't sure. Holding hands, Cherry and Anderson start to climb up the stairs as stealthily as they can.

*I swear to God that O'Toole's player was going to tell the guards that Cherry Bell wasn't in there with him. I have no idea why he wanted to tell them that. OOC, I told him that if he did and they believed him, there was absolutely nothing stopping them from killing him by throwing grenades in there, without even having to come in, and the GM ruled that as Danny O'Toole isn't stupid and actually has police training, he could take back his decision to commit suicide by crazy guard.
**Tactical lights mounted on M16A2 assault rifles.
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Last edited by Icelander; 03-13-2017 at 02:35 AM.
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