Hybridization - for makingitworse

[musicdied]

There's something off about the facility set in what Yelena suspects was at one point an old mine - there are the bones of what might once have been a town along the overgrown track she'd used as an approach. As important as it's apparently supposed to be, it's sparsely guarded, and that's not just her training as a Widow colouring her judgment. Sparsely guarded, but not entirely unguarded - by the time she gets through the secure door to the facility's server room, she has maybe forty-five minutes before someone realizes the guard she'd had to incapacitate has missed check-in.

It takes her ten of those minutes to interface and get the download set up, and a bit of effort splices her into the security feeds so she can keep an eye on any unusual movement on her tablet. The feeds are conveniently labelled by floor and sector and - there are too many. A subfloor that hadn't been on the schematics lurks on one of the cameras.

"If I was hiding something really nasty..." she murmurs to herself. Still, she wrestles with her options for a long moment, weighing the possibility of valuable information against the sense behind sticking to the plan.

She won't get another shot at this place. Possibility wins out.

She slips her exploits in, system failure to kill cameras and communications and mimic the atmospheric interference she'd heard the guards bitching about, and sets them on a timer, then slips down the hall to the elevator shaft. The elevator's already locked up on the top level; it's a long climb down a narrow ladder that reeks of rust, but she's handled far worse.

She hadn't been able to see much with the angle of the one camera on this level, and what she does find is disappointing. Crates, all numerically labelled, nothing clearly showing what may or may not be important. She winds her way carefully through the metal maze until she finds - another box. This one, though, is white and sleek, with controls attached. There's a screen that appears to be intended to monitor something, but it's blank, and poking carefully at the buttons doesn't bring up a display. Eventually, though, she finds the sequence to unlock the box, and there's a dull thunk, followed by a hiss as it depressurizes. She steps back carefully as the low hum of hydraulics lifts the lid up and back, a small amber warning light blinking beneath the blank screen display.

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[makingitworse]

The inside of the box is lighted. Also, sculpted, with a space for a person inside.

There is, in fact, a person in that fitted indentation. He's got shaggy, curly hair, dressed in pale blue scrubs, with bare feet.

For a beat, he looks asleep, but then his eyes blink open and he frowns in confusion at the lid of the box hovering over his head.

[musicdied]

Yelena isn’t entirely sure what she’s expecting to find in the box. Weapons, probably. Maybe a bomb. Not a human being, and there’s a flicker of startled horror that transmutes to just plain shock as he opens his eyes.

She jerks back, with a slightly strangled, “What the fuck?”

[makingitworse]

He jerks, too, at the sudden motion so close to his... box. He's in a box. It looks like a very high tech coffin, which immediately freaks him out, and he hastily sits up, bangs his head on the box's lid, and then realizes there's a person right next to him, which has him pressing back up against the lid as the furthest away from that person he can get.

[musicdied]

She winces a little in sympathy as he smacks his head into the lid of the box. The obvious fear reaction - both to the box and to her presence - isn't exactly surprising, and she raises her hands to show they're empty. Not that it means much, for a Widow, but it's a gesture of intent, at least. And the chances he'll recognize her as a Widow are slim.

"I am not going to hurt you," she says, stepping back to give him a little more space. "Are you all right?"

[makingitworse]

He definitely does not recognize her as anything more than a woman about his age in a spec ops kind of suit with probably a gun somewhere on her person. He keeps himself wedged into the box and lid, though that probably cuts off his escape options. He could tackle her, but then what if she could pull her gun? Not worth potentially pissing her off to try and get away.

She doesn't seem pissed off, though. She seems-- confused. And wary. He doesn't know how she knows that, her expression is not particularly revealing.

"I, um, I don't know. I just woke up. I don't-- where is this?" He doesn't know if strange-operative-lady will give him a real answer, but the question pops out anyway.

[musicdied]

"The sub-basement of an O.X.E. facility in - technically this is still West Virginia," she says. Her gaze flicks from his face to the box and back again, and she lowers her hands slowly, though she doesn't reach for the gun that's strapped to her thigh. The wariness remains, an edge of evaluation to it, but there's a flicker of something like concern.

"Why were you sleeping in a box?"

[makingitworse]

"I don't know," he says again, and maybe unwedges himself a little, mostly because it was really uncomfortable, and a little bit because he's getting the impression that she didn't lock him in the box and that she's probably not going to shoot him. He thinks.

"The last place I remember was a lab in southeast Asia. I don't know how I... got here." He prods a little at the fitted foam he'd been lying in. That is very weird. And creepy.

[musicdied]

There's a flash of anger across the surface of her mind, white-hot and not directed at him, though the only external indication is a faint tightening around the corners of her eyes and mouth.

"Shit," she says. She studies him for a few seconds, then gives herself a curt nod and holds out one gloved hand in his direction, palm up, offering him a hand up in case he's shaky from, well. Being in some sort of stasis for at least long enough to get from somewhere in Asia to the bowels of an O.X.E. facility in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. "Okay, out of the box. I am thinking we both have a lot of questions, but I do not want to find out the hard way that waking you up tripped an alarm."

[makingitworse]

He hesitates for a moment, but then puts his hand in hers and climbs unsteadily out of the box. It feels weird. And smells funny. She smells like a person, real and solid and normal, if maybe a little sweaty.

He also doesn't want to find out of opening the box and waking him up triggered an alarm. He's not sure if going with her is the best idea, but staying here is definitely worse, and while he could try to strike out on his own, he could always do that later, too.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

[musicdied]

She doesn't pull away immediately once he's out of the box, waiting until she's sure his legs aren't going to go out from under him.

"Corporate espionage," she says, with a sort of easy flippancy that invites him to believe or disbelieve at his own discretion. "And now a bit of light jailbreaking, apparently. Do you - I guess you would not know if there is anyone else unconscious down here, but do you know if there was anyone else at the lab, besides whoever put you in there?"