clandestinement | Hybridization

Hybridization - for makingitworse

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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They need to get moving. She still doesn't hurry him in those few moments that he does cling to solid ground, instead opting to give him the chance to catch his breath, both physically and metaphorically, while she stands guard a little further down the hall.

"Stay behind me," she says quietly once he's picked himself back up again, and starts the slow progress forward, stopping at the corner to press against the wall and peek around for any guards.

There are two of them, more than halfway down the hall. She closes her eyes for a moment, mentally calculating an approach that gives her the best chance of disabling them before they can call for backup, then turns to Bob and mouths, "Stay here."

He puts both hands to his mouth for a second, wanting to help but knowing he's still shaky and unhappy and also he can hear them and he doesn't know what it'll sound like when one of them hits them.

Also, he can't ask to help without giving them away. He finally nods a little.

She checks the odd bracers she wears, the edges of her mind becoming all clear, sharp focus, then steps around the corner. There's an electric crackle a moment later, followed by a bolt of pained shock across the mental landscape, followed swiftly by the empty blot of unconsciousness.

The second guard starts to say something, then cuts off with a choked gasp. There's the sound of scuffling, of cartilage crunching, and then another electric crackle.

Then comes the rustling of fabric and rip of velcro, and a series of sharp, metallic clicks as Yelena strips the guards of their weapons.

That all sounds... horrible. And he can feel when each guard goes down, as much as hear it, and oh god he feels like he might throw up, except there's nothing in his stomach. Why does he feel this stuff??

He stays where he is, biting at his knuckles in an attempt to keep his stomach under control, until she comes back around the corner.

It's a moment or two longer before she returns, footfalls soft, focus still sharp. Concern skitters across the surface of her mind as she takes him in, hunched posture and hands still pressed against his mouth.

"How are you holding up?" she asks.

He should probably tell her. It might not be safe, he doesn't really know her that well, but she's all he has right now, and she knows more about this place and the people behind it than he does. And she seems... well-meaning, from what he can feel from her.

But maybe not in a place where they might be caught at any moment.

He shakes his head a little, swallows hard, and unhunches with effort. "We should go, right?"

She reaches out to touch his arm gently - not restraint, just simple human contact meant to reassure, and holds out a ballistic vest with her other hand. "We should go, but put this on first. The guard will not be needing it for a little while."

Because they aren't dead - there might be a nagging sense of them from down the hall, if his newly-formed empathy isn't too scalded from the fight to pick up on the dull signature of unconscious minds. It isn't mercy, on Yelena's part, just expedience, but it does make the psychic backlash a little better than it could be.

He musters up a tiny smile for the touch, then gives the ballistic vest a wary look before accepting it. "Are we, um, expecting more of... that?" He gestures with the vest itself in the direction she had her little scuffle.

He can't tell if they're alive just yet, he's still too wound up and trying to sort out what different things mean, but when they get closer, to move past them, he'll be very relieved to notice it.

"I am very much hoping I can get us out of here without more of that," she replies. "There are only two other internal patrols on this level, and we can get around them. But in case something does go wrong, and someone is somewhere they are not supposed to be, this will help keep you safe."

"Okay." He pulls it over his head, makes a little face. "It's heavy." Which he supposes shouldn't surprise him. To stop a bullet, it will have to be made of sturdy stuff. He has no idea how the straps work, so he just leaves them loose. With any luck, he won't have to wear it long.

He settles it into place, takes a steadying breath, and turns back to Yelena. "Ready."

"Yes, it is," she agrees, with a faint flicker of humour. She considers him for a moment, then reaches over to do up a couple of the straps, enough that it shouldn't hamper his movements too badly, or shift enough to leave him exposed.

"There. Stay behind me, and let me know if you hear anyone coming up on us."

After a moment of embarrassment over having the vest done up for him like a child, he just says, "Okay." He can do that, at least. Probably manage to not mess it up. He wishes he could actually help, though, he hates feeling so useless.

(Nevermind that listening for and/or sensing trouble is, in fact, helping.)

They manage to make it out without further incident, though there's a harrowing few moments in which they have to duck into a half-empty storage room to avoid another guard who isn't where she should be.

They even manage to steal a pair of boots from the locker room.

All told, it's the better part of an hour before they reach the ATV Yelena's stashed beneath a camo tarp, on the outskirts of the ruins of what was once a mining town, nearly a century prior. By that point, the lights on the exterior of the facility have bloomed to spotlight-brightness; it's the cover of the encroaching woods that keeps them hidden, more than anything else.

It's another three hours, winding along narrow trails through the darkened woods until they finally reach a country road, before they finally stop, at what appears to be little more than a run down hunting lodge.

"We'll stay here tonight," Yelena says as she shuts off the ticking engine.

The boots are an improvement. Now he isn't feeling every little crack in the concrete under his normally pretty tough soles, let alone every twig and rock and worm once they get outside.

By the time they get to the car, he feels scraped raw from jumping at every little creak of tree branches, every little echoing shout from the complex they just left, every smell he can't identify but which are all crowding at his nose. Only feeling Yelena's mind helps, but it feels like there's a vague halo around every tree and little points of brightness in his mind for each owl and mouse and raccoon. He thinks they're owls and mice and raccoons, anyway. He hopes they are. Maybe he's just hallucinating.

He tries very hard to sleep in the car, but it's so loud. And smelly. And bumpy. Are cars usually this bumpy?

So he exists in a state of wired exhaustion, badly craving some kind of chemical depressant, for most of the ride, holding onto the seat and door and trying not to have a meltdown right there in the probably-rescue-vehicle, probably-not-kidnapping-vehicle. He has no idea where they're going, and by the time they finally stop, he doesn't even care so long as it's quiet.

He lets out a long, shaky breath at the relative silence of the engine cutting out. "Okay," he says.

She hasn't been ignoring him, but most of her focus has been on the drive - first on not hitting anything on the trails, and then on making sure they haven't picked up a tail. So while she's been aware of him clinging to the seat and door, it's only now that she can truly take in how frayed he really is.

"Come on," she says, opening the door and stepping out of the vehicle. "The water heater is surprisingly good, if you want to get cleaned up a little while I get us something to eat."

It's an attempt to give him a little privacy, so he can catch his breath, break down a little if he needs to, process some of the shock of waking up in a box in a clandestine facility before they have to sit down and talk about what happens next. The intention is layered clearly over her concern.

A shower sounds loud. But being clean would probably be an improvement over smelling like sweat and fear and the guard's deodorant from the vest. So he nods. "I'm going to guess you don't have a spare set of clothes," he says more than asks as he pries his hands up from their death grip and slides out of the car. "For a guy, I mean."

"I actually do," she says, and gives him a crooked little smile. "But I can't take credit for planning that. This place belongs to a friend, and he keeps some things here so he does not have to pack heavily when he comes out. It won't be a perfect fit, but the clothes at least will be clean, and much less institutional."

She leads the way up the front steps, scanning the woods for any sign of observers before she unlocks the heavy bolt and pushes the door open.

"I could kiss you," he says fervently. He feels gross. Even if they don't fit quite right, surely they'll be better than what he's wearing. "I'll take them, as long as he's not, I don't know, half my size."

And, noting her scan, he adds, "We're alone. I think."

"It's not that bad," she assures.

She considers him thoughtfully for a moment before stepping inside the cabin. "You do not hear anyone?" she asks, biting back the questions that want to follow, about range, about just how keen his hearing is. If he's telling the truth, he won't know. If he's not, it's the wrong time to push.

"No one. There's a rat over there. I think it's a rat." He points in the direction he feels the little point of sensation, then follows her inside with some relief. The walls don't exactly cut off the sensations, but having a door closed behind him gives him an illusion that it might. "It's small, probably not actually a spy or an assassin."

"I have never heard of a rat assassin in real life," she allows, giving him a small, lopsided smile. "Come, I will show you to the bathroom."

She leads the way further into the cabin. It's only one floor, so it doubles as a tour, with her pointing out the kitchen and the two bedrooms as they pass.

He takes note of everything. It's not big, but it's bigger than pretty much every place he's ever stayed except his original home, so it's nice that way. It's also quiet. He can hear electricity buzzing and the occasional settling creak of wood, but it's-- bearable.

He stops outside the bathroom, feeling disgusting and exhausted but not quite as overwhelmed now that he's inside and there's only one point of sensation he can "feel", Yelena. "Want me to get the clothes before I go in?" So she doesn't have to slide them under the door or something.

"Okay," she says, giving him a crooked little smile. "In the bedroom on the right." The one that doesn't have a small duffle bag sitting on the bed, suggesting she'd planned to stop here even before finding him in that box.

She reaches out to squeeze his arm gently. "I will be in the kitchen if you need anything. Take as long as you need." A brief pause, and then, "Is there anything you don't eat?"

"No, I haven't found anything yet," he promises, then ducks his head and slips into the bedroom to rifle through drawers until he finds the spare clothes.

Then he disappears into the bathroom. He tries a shower first, hoping to get it over with quicker, but the sound of it leaves his whole head ringing, and putting his hand under the patter makes his skin-- not quite hurt, but it's not happy either. So he switched it to the bath. It's loud at first, but a more solid sort of sound, not hundreds of little pings but one big boom, and then he can turn it off and it's just the sound of water sloshing against the sides.

It's also more bearable to sit in and scrub than to stand under a spray.

And then sit in and try to decompress.

He doesn't take too long, though, because he's also exhausted and doesn't want to fall asleep in there. He finally climbs out, dries off with whatever towel is available, and finds out how well a strangers' clothes fit. Not too badly. The pants are a little short, but nothing is too tight. He pokes his head out, hair still damp.

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Hybridization - for makingitworse

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