[hr][b][h1][color=d5dbdb]Samantha Cole[/color] & Ellen Nile[/h1][/b][hr][hr] Written in collaboration with [@BlessedWrath] [i][u]Old Raygate, Prince Ed-Field, An Abandoned Apartment Complex Some Time Later...[/u][/i] Sam floated over a carbon fantasy, the glass-smooth surface of which seemed etched with countless metal pathways. As she watched, spark-blue pulses of energy whizzed past at unthinkable speeds. She looked out to the horizon; a city constructed with integrated circuits, capacitors, relays and diodes. The pulses entered and left this metropolis in some greater pattern she could not decipher. As she observed the energy pulses, something compelled her to reach out for one. Before she could think better of it, she caught one in her palm and was instantly accelerated toward the city at speeds which should have broken her neck. She jolted awake, drenched in a cold sweat, still clutching the little ball of energy from her dream. When she managed to open her fist, she found nothing in it, as she should have expected. It took some time for her to regain her composure, during which she shivered as if suffering mild hypothermia. [i]"It happened again..."[/i] The following moments consisted of Sam's typical information gathering exercises. She did not acquire much more than the fact they had been moved to an old apartment building, but even that told her something. It told her the drop had gone south, and it told her the family hadn't been able to look after her this time. Why that was would have to wait for later inquiry. Sam was more focused on her immediate situation. "What happened?" Ellen did not look happy, she was still clutching the case, making a conscious effort not to simply fade into the background. Sam had seen the other girl during the first few moments of consciousness, but it hadn't registered as important until she spoke. Then it all came back to her: The case had triggered her ability, and Sam, who had never needed to confirm a client's identity in the past, now shared the lobby with a completely unknown entity. For all she knew, the whole drop had been a trap. She scrabbled backward, somehow finding her feet, and clapped her wrists together with purpose. There was a high-pitched whine, increasing in frequency over the next few seconds, similar to an old-style camera flash. The way she was holding her arms out did not suggest a friendly use for whatever it was she'd just activated. "Who are you?!" she demanded, though the tone of her voice failed to mask her worry with intimidation. She looked like a panicked animal. "The fuck?" Ellen was startled by the sudden movement of the slight teen, tightening her grip on the metal case before her. This girl had just blacked out in the restaurant, with her case and money, and now she was the one who was the bad guy? She felt a heat in her chest. "I'm the girl you tried to rob, I'm not sure what that act was in the buffet, but I'm still here, and you're going to open my case now!" [i]"Shit."[/i] Sam realized what had happened. Not only had the drop gone south, but the client had violated their agreement and stayed on, possibly to ID her. This had to be handled carefully, or she'd never be able to operate under that alias again. She tried to word herself carefully, but the anger still showed through. "You were [i]supposed[/i] to leave the item [i]behind.[/i] That's why it's called a dead drop. You don't see me, I don't see you. If either of us gets nabbed, we just deny ever having met. Now we've lost that layer of protection." The girl had accused Sam of theft. Either she did not understand dead drops, or she really did not trust anyone. Not that it mattered now. They were in the shit, and Sam still had yet to figure out why the hostess would have bothered to move her to another location. The first priority was to determine whether her client was a sting, or just legitimately naive. "If I find out you're working for the cops..." she warned. "I'm sixteen, pretty sure the cops wouldn't use me as a snitch. Now you have my money, where's my service?" Ellen was getting agitated now, the case was here, as was Upgrade, but she seemed no closer now to getting access to her solution. Sam arched an eyebrow, almost amused at her insistence. She must not be familiar with the concept of deal gone bad. The Jade Dragon had always been a safe place in the past, but if they'd been moved, it must have been because of unfriendlies in the area. They would have to improvise. "Right. The case." Sam put a finger to her lips while she thought. "You're...not exactly familiar with the tech, are you? What's in that thing, anyway?" "Nothing!" Even Ellen realised that her response had been too fast. She flushed hotly, muttering, "it's none of your business..." For the first time in recent memory, Sam actually laughed. It wasn't even her typical caustic, derisive laugh. It was light and bubbly; the kind of laughter you'd expect after hearing a joke take an unexpected turn right before the punchline. "Buuuuuuuuuuuuull shit." she replied, wiping a tear from her left eye. "That thing has six million possible combinations, a rotating code failsafe to prevent war-dialing, and even the outer shell is impregnated with a wire grid to detect drilling. You don't put your nana's pearls in a case like that. Try again." The younger girl was furious, "I was told no questions, sounds like a question to me." "Well, that's when I thought it was just some random spare with a locked case. This is military grade. I need to know whose pants I have my hand in." Ellen looked shamefaced, her anger fading and being replaced by embarrassment. "It's... it's mine..." "Fine. Keep your secrets for now. The first thing we have to do is get out of here." Sam peeked out the window at the Jade Dragon. For a moment, she could not help wondering how the Cooks-That-Weren't-Cooks thought it was safe to dump them across the street; especially with a lot of unmarked cars and suits milling about outside. "Yep. Definitely have to get out of here. Take a look." She deactivated her gloves with another clap of the wrists and took stock of her gear. Aside from some jostling, it seemed in order. She hoisted up the bugout bag again and straightened everything out, then started nosing about. Ellen peered out of the window, allowing herself to fade out of focus, confident that as long as she wasn't too conspicuous she would be left alone. A black-suited man's gaze passed right over her, she shivered, she knew she wasn't invisible, that wasn't how this power worked. She was just somehow totally unimportant. It was chilling to realise that you didn't matter at all. "Who are they? They look like the CIA or something..." "Suits. Doesn't really matter who. You check the ear buds they're wearing? Standard issue for government spooks and personal security." Sam paused for a moment, unsure if it was the dumbwaiter or the laundry access she needed to find, before adding: "Don't forget the cut of their jackets. Extra room in the chest, so the butts of their guns don't stick out so much." Ellen shrugged awkwardly, she was way out of her depth here, and trying to hide how desperately she was treading water. "So how do we get out of here?" Ellen's question was answered by a loud 'thunk' as the dumbwaiter's false floor gave way under Sam's boot. She gestured, expressionless, toward the short ladder leading down. [hr] [hr][b][h1][color=d5dbdb]The Hostess[/color][/h1][/b][hr][hr] [i][u]Old Raygate, Prince Ed-Field, Jade Dragon Buffet[/u][/i] The two men who entered the Jade Dragon looked no more like customers than the two men who dragged Sam off to the safehouse looked like cooks. They were similarly dressed, wearing no distinctive features which might set them apart from any other Suit in play, which meant they were either CIA or personal security. The ear buds trailing from their left ears seemed to confirm this theory, as did their physical builds. The hostess often saw this type rolling with some of her high-priority clients, but she did not see one of those clients today. They approached the counter and, presenting an old photo of Sam (taken from the behavioral health center's patient files) and an artist's rendering of what she might look like today, drowned out the hostess' standard greeting. "We're looking for this young woman, and a reliable anonymous tip pointed us in this direction. We were told a girl matching this description left here not long ago. Have you seen her?" She did not take long to adopt her plastic persona again, taking the time to layer it with an effected Chinese accent purposely engineered to be so infuriatingly dense as to frustrate them out of any further inquiry. The goal here was to evade and deflect, and she was the undisputed master of this particular neighborhood. "I am so sorry," she replied brightly, beaming that artificial grin as widely as she could manage. "We get so many customer today. I do not remember all of them." She even took the time to study the photograph, still smiling stupidly as she did so. "No, I think I remember her if she come here! Beside...look how many teenager wear dark clothing today. Maybe you have wrong girl? She not in some kind of trouble, is she?" "That's confidential." the man on the right answered automatically, as if rehearsed. He turned to his companion and muttered: "Go for search and seizure. Anything that might link us to her whereabouts." "I don't see warrant." The hostess warned politely. It would have sounded like a threat, were it not for the candy coating. The man who'd ordered the illegal search turned sharply and composed his thoughts carefully. "My employer wishes you to know that this is not a request. Our organization does not answer to the federal government, and there will be no paperwork or warrants authorizing this search. You can either comply, or you can find yourself out of business and behind bars." He produced a rather official-looking document, several pages long, and slid it across the counter with his fingertips. On first glance, it appeared to be a gag order. "Naturally, you are ordered to keep silent about this investigation. Any inquiry you make is subject to charges of obstruction of justice, revealing state secrets, and treason." She knew they were lying, but could not afford to jeopardize the family. If she resisted, they'd know there was more going on in her kitchen than just the shrimp platter. With little other choice, she stood and smiled, allowing the suits to do their masters' bidding. Naturally, that did not prevent her pressing the silent alarm under the counter. The door swung open...more suits. Within minutes, they were crawling all over the Jade Dragon. But there was no evidence to find...she hoped. [hr][b][h1][color=d5dbdb]Samantha Cole[/color] & Ellen Nile[/h1][/b][hr][hr] [i][u]Old Raygate, Prince Ed-Field, The Old Tunnels[/i][/u] "Prohibition was the best thing to ever happen to crooks." Sam observed quietly, breaking the silence. She'd led the two down into the old smuggling tunnels, all but forgotten since the late '20s. Some sections still had power, but most had simply fallen into disrepair. It was not exactly the safest route, but certainly safer than a double-stack magazine of .40 caliber hollowpoints in her chest. "They used to use these tunnels to cart their booze back and forth between businesses and manufacturing sites. Now we use 'em." Ellen looked around the old and dusty tunnels. They clearly weren't a main thoroughfare, but even in those tunnels thick with dust there were trails of footprints. Even if it wasn't frequent, they were clearly still in use. Ellen wondered who could possibly still be using these tunnels, and what might happen if they ran into someone who didn't appreciate their presence in this buried labyrinth. They twisted and turned, clearly not modern in construction or sensible in design. They could stretch for miles, or only a dozen yards, it was hard to tell in the dim light. Some tunnels were simply black, not dark, that would suggest the presence of light, simply empty of all colour and definition, as if they were some gaping maw that absorbed anything that dared to penetrate it. She looked back to Upgrade, concerned, "we?" Sam nodded curtly, opting to retrieve a powerful LED torch from her messenger bag. The original casing had been gutted, and its internals replaced with a custom lithium ion pack. The original LED had been upgraded to use the main diode from a set of vehicle headlights. Naturally, it carved through the darkness. She twisted the head of the torch, widening the throw of the light to reach either side of the tunnel. "Yep. 'We'." She left it at that. Ellen hadn't exactly been welcomed into the family, and it wouldn't do for Sam to start blabbing about the internal affairs of the local branch. Even Sam was not considered a member; more like an associate or affiliate. But she'd parleyed that into regular employment, using their distribution network to fix her up with clients who needed her services, which suited her fine. Using another's infrastructure was much easier than establishing her own, after all. That it gave her plausible deniability, if she had to split, definitely did little to change that mindset. Sensing the concern in Ellen's voice, however, Sam did eventually add: "Not much to worry about down here. The only people we'd run into are on our side. We can lay low in the distribution point up ahead. It's not much farther. If we're lucky, it'll still have power and I can take a look at that case." Ellen wasn't entirely reassured by the notion that whoever they might meet were on 'their side' after all, what the girl must mean was 'her side', that didn't bode well if someone turned up who took issue with her presence in the tunnels. She could barely defend herself, and her current ability seemed to be relatively ineffective on her companion, was she running out of juice? That had never happened to her before, and she inspected her skin, worried that perhaps she might see the early effects of ashing. It was irrational, but in the darkness, even lit by the powerful beam from Upgrade's torch, it was all too easy to grow paranoid. She hung back, following the other girl, but ready to swing the case like a weapon or turn and run. Her fight or flight instinct was keyed in, and she could feel every tendon in her body on edge, ready to strike. Her anger had vanished as soon as it had appeared, and she nervously acquiesced to the suggestion. "OK, I'm following." The aforementioned distribution point was little more than a reinforced rotunda, held up by old wooden beams which showed evidence of recent repair. There were shelving units, a few closets, a couple of desks and a lot of old crates scattered about. [i]Somebody[/i] was using it. Sam plopped down next to a rickety-looking gasoline generator and gave the ripcord a tug. By all appearances, it should have resisted a one-pull start, but it grumbled to life and the string lighting which hung around the perimeter of the ceiling slowly brightened. She clicked off the torch and stuffed it back in her bag. "Well, this is it." She offered, motioning for Ellen to bring the case. "Let's see what all this hype is about." The case was heavy, and though it was clearly solid, probably armoured enough to resist bullets if not a bomb blast, Ellen set it down as though it were her child. She edged back a little, but continued to watch Upgrade nervously, glaring about her as if expecting besuited gangsters toting tommy guns to emerge from the shadows demanding payment for safe passage. The case was large, a little larger perhaps, than a briefcase, with thick hinges and a bulky panel on the front with a plain glass panel set into it. It was sealed around the edges, air-tight, and was cool to the touch, surprisingly so. "I need to be able to get back into it." Ellen glanced at her watch, "I only have a few hours, it just locked down and stopped me getting in two days ago... I haven't gotten anything out of it since." "Putting curiosity about its contents aside for a second," Sam began, poking the keypad with an index finger. "I feel compelled to point out that the buttons aren't doing [i]anything.[/i] I feel pretty confident that a digital keypad needs power. When was the last time you charged this thing?" "Charged..." Ellen looked puzzled, "I've never charged it, it was... it was a gift... he never said anything about charging it..." She shrugged, "sealed things was kinda his speciality..." [i]"I've never charged it..."[/i] The words struck Sam like a sack full of old trout. There was the eyebrow again, slowly gaining altitude, and she could have sworn she heard crickets. All electronic devices needed power. Did this mysterious man never think about long-term storage? There had to be some contingency in place. "Ok. So he never gave you any charging solutions. Fine. We can work around that. First thing is to figure out where the charging port is. Then we figure out how to give it power." "Well it was sort of a last-minute gift... I guess he must have been in a rush..." Mannequin had been arrested before she'd found the case. He'd left it in his temporary lab for her, she'd gone looking after the Eco-Natura attack and his highly publicised arrest. His trial must be due soon, after all, RAVEN had made a big thing about capturing him. She'd stopped watching after that. not interested in what they were saying about him. He'd helped her, wanted to make things better for metahumans like her, who's powers made their lives worse, not better. "Well," Sam replied with uncharacteristic optimism. She stood, brushing off her pants. "After seeing the tech that went into this thing, I can tell you this much: There's no way somebody could engineer something on this level without at least thinking about power solutions. Whoever you got it from, the guy knows his stuff." She wore a pained look then, staring down at the case, and wrung her hands. "This is gonna suck." She hefted the case onto a nearby desk and focused in on it. She shed both her gloves and placed her palms flat on the exterior. Her eyes shut tightly under the strain of concentration. She'd gotten a pretty good look at the internals when her ability triggered the first time, but a second inspection was necessary to determine her next course of action. The information was there, just...disjointed and disorganized. Scanning the device a second time was not often necessary, but often beneficial in devices this complex. "If I black out again, you'll have to stand guard." "Alright, no pressure then." Ellen stood awkwardly a little way from the strange scene, glancing around. A tunnel led away in either direction, one lit by haphazardly strung lights, one of the bulbs a little way along flickered irregularly. She kept glancing back, making sure that the case wasn't being hustled away down some other passageway that she hadn't noticed yet. Though her suspicions bore no fruit, she still didn't trust the other girl. "Heh." Sam tried to stifle a chuckle as she felt her conscious mind slip away, but Ellen was beginning to grow on her. Paranoid, unsure, and hiding a secret so important that it required black market connections to preserve...yeah, Sam knew [i]no[/i] one that fit [i]that[/i] description. But it hardly mattered in the following seconds, as she plunged beneath the surface of the case, wires and circuits whizzing by as she mapped the device a second time. It was hard to believe she could have missed it. The device did have long-term power storage, but like any other device, it needed replenishing. First inspections had failed to turn up any kind of charging port or electrical contacts on the exterior of the case, but there had been a very specific reason for that. It used a variation of Tesla's resonant, non-radiative energy transfer technology; that is to say, an electromagnetic coil meant to accept induced current from a sister coil in the case's charging dock. Armed with that information, Sam mentally pushed away from the device. Shutting down her power was always rough, and the transition back to conscious thought left her at less than her best. Her head swam, and she had to steady herself on the desk, looking for the world as though she was about to empty her stomach all over the floor. Ellen was growing impatient, Upgrade was still simply staring at the case, sure her hands were on it, but it didn't seem to be having much effect. "Good news, bad news," Sam started, slightly out of breath. "It's definitely out of power, and we [i]can[/i] charge it. Trouble is...if I don't get it exactly right, the failsafe will blow out the charging relay and we'll see peace in the Middle East before we ever get into it." "Oh god..." Ellen looked distraught. "You mean..? Oh shit..." She walked towards the case with half a mind to simply take it and leave, there must be some other way, maybe something in Mannequin's lab would charge it. If there was anything left of it, somehow she doubted it was all still there. "Oh god..." She walked away, caught in a loop by indecision. "I need... you need..." She got a grip on herself. It was harder than it should have been. "Do it." Sam was already casting her eyes over the interior of the rotunda, noting every resource at their disposal. Her mind had already engaged. Ellen's words came through the grinding of those gears as a distant hail. She absently turned back to Ellen, needing to process her miniature freakout before formulating an answer for it. "Oh, yeah," she replied brightly. "We were always gonna do it. I mean, how else are you gonna get in? I just wanted you to know the risks." She retrieved her torch again, and one of her thermos bottles from her bugout bag. Much of the water ended up going down her throat, but she did offer some to Ellen. The gesture seemed devoid of altruism, somehow; there was a sense of urgency there which did not quite fit with a friend trying to stave off dehydration. It seemed more like she just wanted to get rid of the liquid. Ellen took the bottle, more because she didn't know what else to do right now, and downed what was left of the water, finding some calm in the sensation of the liquid sliding down her throat. "Thanks." "Sure." Sam answered automatically, miles away as she took the bottle back. She worked briefly to unscrew the lid, then pried out the internals and set them aside. She retrieved a small insulated lunch box from her bugout bag and, dumping the contents onto the desk, set to work cutting out the insulation from the interior. In minutes, she worked the translucent white material into the outer casing of the clear plastic thermos, removed the retaining ring from her torch, and screwed the thermos into the emitter assembly. When she clicked it on, the makeshift light diffuser transformed that torch into a 360 degree lantern, brightly illuminating the entire room. "That's out of the way," Sam muttered, making instantly for the string lights around the ceiling. She unapologetically ripped them down and set to work stripping the wires. The bulbs themselves were packaged in the remains of her lunchbox, 'just in case', and she began nosing about for some new material. "Look for something round...maybe a couple inches in diameter. Table leg, pole, something." There was a table in the corner of the small storage room, something that in another life might have held a lamp or a few cups of coffee. Ellen smashed it without remorse, prying the leg from it. "This do?" She handed it over, before retrieving another, it wouldn't do much good, but she felt better to have a 'weapon' in her hands. Sam paused her wire stripping long enough to heft the leg. Her brow furrowed, and she dove into her bugout bag again. "Diameter's off, but we can fix that. It's the shape I really need." She hated the cliche she was about to commit, but duct tape would serve admirably for bulking up the leg's diameter to the correct size. It took a few minutes, and she kept going back to the case as she worked. It wasn't altogether clear whether it was some kind of superstition, or if there was something greater at work. "I think I got it. Now comes the pain." Sam shrugged; a 'what are you gonna do' gesture. "What kinda tech you got on you? Phones, tablets, anything with a circuit board." Ellen patted her pockets, producing a small plastic rectangle. "I've got a phone?" Sam frowned, but accepted the phone. The components were terribly small, and she no longer had access to her full workshop...such as it was. But, without challenge, victory lost its flavor; so she told herself. She dug around in her bag for a moment and dragged out an assortment of old circuit boards, AC wall transformers, and other electronic odds and ends. "[i]Hate[/i] working with SMD..." she complained, trying her best to set up a decent arrangement for her soldering iron. The wall plug had been replaced with a DC barrel plug and a fist-sized roll of lithium ion batteries. She clicked it on and set to work, testing the circuit once in a while with a device meant for the task. Sam made one final check of the case, now comfortable and confident with the technology it employed, and gave Ellen the 'thumbs up'. "Green light, if you wanna risk it. No guarantees." Ellen stared at the strange contraption she had rigged up, "shit..." It hardly looked like it might be the answer. "Fine... I guess I've got no other choice." Sam tried to look hurt. "A cook's only as good as her ingredients, you know." She threw the switch, completing the circuit to the generator, and put a palm on the case again. Ellen once again saw her 'check out'. Sam detected no overloads, and the case's many failsafes refused to engage. It was fascinating to see the inner workings of such a complex device [i]as they functioned,[/i] and it occurred to Sam that she hadn't had occasion to witness it before. "It's working," she advised, her eyes slowly opening again. "But it's gonna take a while. The power flow is just a little under, because I had to include a capacitor to level out surges. Judging from the size of the power pack, it could take hours." She took a moment to reflect, and added: "You know...it's lucky you found me when you did. Did you know this thing has a low-pressure airlock with phosphorus-ignited thermite as a self-destruct failsafe? Anybody tries to crack the seal, the air rushes in and distributes the thermite through the whole thing...right before the phosphorus torches it. Whole thing is toast. It really is an impressive little lockbox. I...I kinda want one." The relief in the air was palpable, and Ellen sank to a sitting position against the wall, almost crying with relief. "Thank you..." Not that what might have happened otherwise was reassuring. She smiled, the first time she had since meeting Upgrade. "I don't even know your real name..." "That's true." Sam replied simply. She grabbed a couple of snack bars from the pile on the desk and tossed one to Ellen. "We have the time, right now. We might not later. Keep your strength up." Clearly Upgrade wasn't interested in sharing that information. She kept quiet, resisting the urge to blurt out her own name. She wasn't cut out for all of this cloak and dagger bullshit. It seemed like way too much work. She caught the snack bar easily, tearing the wrapper open with her teeth and biting off about a third. It felt good on her empty stomach, and she realised how long it had been since she had last eaten. "I needed this." The two passed the time with small talk, though it seemed more like a verbal skirmish. Ellen would probe, Sam would evade or deflect the question, and neither seemed very compatible with the idea of actual trust. Still...in their exchange, they were able to learn a few minor details about one another. For one thing, Sam seemed utterly disinterested in movies and television, which left a rift of its own. 'Friends' was too strong a word for what they became, while 'associates' barely seemed adequate. Thankfully, the tension broke when the backlit security panel on the case came to life. "Pizza's here," Sam announced. She hopped off of one of the abandoned tables and strode over to the desk with the case on it. "You wanna try your code again?" Ellen stood eagerly, perhaps a little too eagerly, and moved swiftly to the case, trying to avoid the temptation to simply shove the other girl out of the way in her haste. She laid her thumb against the glass plate, there was a brief, frozen moment, where nothing seemed to be happening, then a click. With a sigh of relieved tension, she opened the lid and it's contents bathed her in a faint purple light. She took a vial from the insulated interior, forgetting that Upgrade was watching her, and slotted it into a syringe gun. It only took a moment, and a sharp pain, to relieve her worries for at least another week. "Thanks..." Sam's eyebrow lifted again, but she knew better than to ask. She'd never seen any street drugs matching the description of these vials, nor had she ever seen a junkie with enough cash to afford a case like that, which led her to push for prescription drugs as a possible explanation...though for what ailment, she could not say. She decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left that mystery exactly what it was. "If we're all closed up, here...?" She urged Ellen, nodding her head toward the far tunnel. "Yeah, sorry." Ellen closed the case and hefted it from the table. With the weight of her shoulders she felt more able to relax and joke. "I guess the guide out is free of charge then?" Sam sniffed. "What guide? I'm headed for the junkyard. I can't really help it if you follow me." Ellen shrugged, her phone had long since gone, contributed to the strange device that had recharged the case. Although it was unlikely that google maps covered this strange network of tunnels. Feeling light again, she began to head after Upgrade. "I guess not. Lead the way." Sam shrugged and gathered what she could of the growing pile on the desk. With her lunchbox compromised, anything cold had to be left behind. She wolfed down what she could and stuffed the rest into the box, and the box back into her bag. In seconds, she was ready to go. There hadn't been much time to stabilize the improvised charging device, but she wrapped it up anyway and handed it to Ellen. "Keep track of that. It should work on any 120v circuit, as long as it has a 20 amp breaker. I might try to streamline it later, if you're still around." It didn't take long to get to the junkyard, not really, not after they'd already spent hours down here. It would be good just to get out of the claustrophobic conditions. Ellen perked up as the tunnel began to grow lighter, this time with sunlight rather than cheap bulbs. She picked up her pace at the prospect of freedom from the confines of the underground.