In the midst of Javier lecturing Warren or whatever, Red decided to walk off towards the exit and actually do her job as a scout by scouting up ahead with a quick salute to the others, letting them know she was leaving. The hallway that led to the exit stairs was blocked by a waist-high security gate; the kind you put the ticket in to open. Seeing as Red was lacking a ticket and had full function of her limbs, she easily vaulted the gates, feeling a twinge rebellious.

There was a whir of a motor as H.O.W.A.R.D. quickly sped up, coming into sight behind Red. It beeped suddenly as it ran into the waist-high security gate, all of that high grade technology a waste when it came to something easily traversible. A sad toned note came from the bot as it displayed a message on its side. "Warren sends his greetings. HELP PLEASE. ERROR."

Red grinned and made a "tsk" sound, picking up the robot. Being made of metal, it was about as heavy as a full-sized bicycle, but she brought it over to her side of the gate with ease. 

"THANK YOU." It beeped once more. 

The hallway itself was rather empty, save for a newspaper lying on the floor and a vending machine that was smashed into and looted. A shame, as Red could've went for a bag of pretzels.

The stairs managed to be more easily tackled by the robot, due to it's legged design. While gates and fences were a challenge, it was probably good that Warren managed to design it to take on something as ubiquitous as stairs. As the scouting duo headed up the stairs and into the crisp air that Red couldn't smell through the stuffy respirator she was wearing, she finally got to take in the ruins that New York had become.

It was a hauntingly beautiful sight. 

While every building still stood, every tower standing high into the sky, there was definitely something wrong.  The streets were empty of people. No one. Cars were piled up with no passengers to drive them. Trash was building up. The silence was deafening until a nearby gunshot, followed by the barking of dogs interupted the duo standing at the exit.

"Shit!" Red cursed, almost throwing herself back down several steps to take cover, just barely peeking over the top step with her rifle. Another shot came. One of the dogs let out a whimper as it died, the other's barking even louder. Suddenly, around the intersection they came. A rabid pack of them, ten in total. They ran, oblivious to Red and the robot, only interested in getting away. 

"Did you hit one?" Called a voice. "Yeah! I think. Got it right in the chest. I wonder how it's gonna taste. You think it'll taste like chicken?" came the other voice, a hint of amusement along with the raspy tone. "They don't all taste like chicken. Why does everyone think it tastes like chicken?"

Red pulled up her binoculars to try and get a look at the two people as they came around the corner, being able to get a nice, clear view even from this distance due to her steady hand and the very expensive viewfinder.

They waded around the pileup of cars, coming into view. Two men, one held a rifle and the other a pistol. Even through the binos, they appeared dirty and tattered. The only clean on them was the white masks they wore, covering their mouths and noses. They stopped at the corpse of the dog, one of them bending over and poking it with his rifle. "We should hurry, someone must've heard that shot. They'll want our dog."

"Wait, what's that thing?" one of them said, noticing Howard sitting in plain view obediently. 

"You are a terrible stealth companion!" Red whispered angrily towards Howie.

"SORRY."

One of them slowly started walking over to the robot, not really sure what it was. "Some kinda robbit thing. Aren't they supposed to fly or something? Drone thingies."

Red stood up from the staircase, coming into view with her rifle raised at the man. "No, he doesn't fly, and stay away from him; he's military property."

The man gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing as he caught the sight of Red's shiny DMR and outfit. "Military?" He suddenly looked a bit angry. "Why're you here!? Government bloody abandoned us. I don't care if you got fancy training. Things are different in here. 'at gun'a yours is worth more than you are."

"I'll keep that in mind when I decide to buy a car while I'm here, thanks," Red replied. "Now take your pet dog and crawl back into your hidey hole to enjoy lunch, we'll not bother you if you do."

The other man with the pistol looked at Rifle. Then back at Red. "Why should we trust you? Government bloody abandoned us, and now you're here for some reason. You ain't gonna help us."

"Because I haven't blown your heads off yet. If we planned on killing civilians, we would have just carpet bombed the place. I may not be here for relief efforts, but it's important business. You've seen Top Gun, right? 'I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you?' It's like that, so go home already."

"Give us your gun. We outnumber you."

Howard beeped aggressively. "Howie, leg," was all Miranda commanded.

The lower caliber gun mounted on Howard fired as his sensors locked onto the man. Its reactions were faster than any person could be as two rounds were shot. Both of the men went down, stumbling as they took bullets to the kneecaps. "SORRY," the message flashed on Howard's side. 

"Since you couldn't leave and tried to threaten a military officer, have fun [i]crawling[/i] back to your hidey-hole," Red coldly replied, still not dropping her gun from them, in case they tried something. Her eyes were briefly drawn to the blood pooling on the knees of their pants, the red being both a beautiful and terrifying color.

"You fuckin' bitch! You cunt! You fucking shot me! Jesus Christ you fucking shot me!" Rifle whined, holding onto his leg in pain. "I hope you get infected, cunt! God, that fucking hurt!"

"SORRY," Howard flashed again, before running over the man on his way forwards, with Red following behind, keeping an eye on them in case they decided to pull their guns on her. A hatch on Howard's back opened, a small medical kit falling out onto the ground for the men.

After Red passed around a corner, she turned her radio on to talk to the rest of the team. While Javier had said something about radio silence, she assumed this only meant outgoing radio signals, since in-squad radio silence would hamstring their ability to do any actual military business beyond playing a game of Poker around a table, unless they wanted to just shout orders across the city at each other.

"Red here, the way forward should be clear. Two civilians were getting violent so I had to disable them, but Howard left them a medikit and they should be fine, over."

"TELL WARREN I SAID HELLO."