Night 58: Recreational Field

[promisedawhale]

[from here]Stepping outside sent chills all over Brook's body for how cold it was. He'd welcomed it when there was snow for him to play with, but given the absence of the white powder this evening, Brook only shivered and crossed his arms to rub away the sensation

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[touchedgod]

The voice arrested his descent into frustration. An American voice. What light was there caught the shape of the gun. Even if it hadn't, the stranger's posture gave the weapon away. The shadows couldn't hide Billy from bullets, and glass ground uneasily from somewhere nearby. Billy didn't need to question the noise this time. The man could kill him if he wanted. His coat cast a a shredded shadow across the ground, but Billy was only watching the gun.

A warning was more than he had expected. More than he had been given in a long, long time. He didn't know what to say. He was dumb in the face of chivalrous enemies. His fingers closed around a weapon that he didn't have. He missed it, the security, even if he'd be bleeding on the ground before he could get a shot of his own off. He'd die here, a casualty of someone else's war, or maybe it really was an obscure branch of his own, but he'd at least be armed with Dane's gun. He could go down pretending to be a soldier. Ridiculous, but he didn't think Dane would mind.

Billy shed his cover, and came out with his hands raised, reaching halfheartedly to the still intact sky. "I'm not armed," he yelled back. He was impressed by how collected he sounded. "But I am lost."

[tasteoftruth]

Two hands up just meant he was probably hiding a weapon in his waistband. Badd kept his gun trained on the convict, though he was obediently aiming low to reduce the risk of hitting vital organs. It was hard to see him in the shadows, just a badly defined dark blob of a man, but there was enough shape for Badd to have something to aim at.

Still, points for honesty.

"You bet you're lost. That was the out door. You want the in door." Badd flicked his gun to the side to indicate the door in question, then turned his aim back to the prisoner. "Go back to your cell and sit quietly until we get a handle on things and you might get a shorter sentence instead of a very short sentence." He made himself sound annoyed, as if he was just a misplaced word away from firing on him out of sheer irritation. Inwardly he was glad that this one didn't seem to be pressing his luck. Maybe he'd just go inside quietly and not bother Badd with filing a weapons fire report.

[touchedgod]

His problems continued to mount. The jumbled bits of information he had gleaned from the staticy radio voice or the intercom were joined by allusions to imprisonment, which was not an unrealistic threat to Billy's progress. Still, he was astonished. That hadn't been some police cell, and from what Billy had seen of the building, it didn't much look like a police station either. It had been quite some time since the authorities were the worst of his worries. But how do you tell someone that their concerns don't matter? Exposing the big picture, begging them to realize how small they are, and convincing them that one convict who was not a convict was someone they should just let slide.

Across the city, across the world, people felt the times dying. It's last rattling breaths left the world shaking. In their own ways, they panicked and scrambled to avert it, just as Billy had. Was this someone else's gambit to save the world? He was in another soul's desperate attempt to avert disaster. Maybe it was this man's, maybe not.

"Wait." He tried for a firm but gentle tone. Anything to take the homicidal edge out of the other man's voice. He wasn't sure if it had hit the note he wanted, or if there was a tremor in his own words now. "I'm not a prisoner."

It was a bad excuse, the kind of excuse he might get shot for, even if it was honest. Honest so far as he could recall. "I was with Officer Collingswood," he added in a rush, the words flooding out of him naturally. "I'm a consultant. I need to find her."

[tasteoftruth]

And the honesty was too good to last. Apparently the prison here had decided to assume Badd was an idiot and come up with some lazy excuse about how he wasn't really a criminal, it was a simple misunderstanding, just let me through and I'm sure you won't get in trouble for it later.

Badd tilted his head to the side. It was probably impossible to see his expression in the darkened yard but in the light his face would give the impression that he had been given enough b-s today and was not eager for more. As the bard said, criminals were a cowardly lot. Badd had yet to be surprised by the bizarre lengths they'd go to in order to get out of taking responsibility for their actions like adults.

"Really," he said in a dry, disbelieving voice. "So on your way out of the building you just decided to knock out a prisoner and take their clothes? You're wearing the same outfit as the last set of idiots I chased out of here."

He really shouldn't be having this conversation. If the prisoner took a single step forward Badd would fire, and really he should have started firing already. But it would be nice to end this without paperwork--er, bloodshed.

[touchedgod]

Billy's hands dropped to the breast of the uniform. It was like no prisoner's uniform he had seen. The blue shirt had the starched look of the most general of military costumes. While it fit well enough, Billy couldn't feel any connection to a thing that suggested he could pass as an enlisted man. He imagined his narrow shoulders, and the hair that had become less and less well tended to. He exhaled with a shaky gasp.

"I don't know." He was pleading, he realized. "Maybe I am a prisoner, but I don't remember being arrested, or what I did to get here." Another half-truth. It was less that he hadn't been arrested, and more that this was simply not how the situation should have played out, even if he had been dragged unconscious into the back of a squad car sometime between his last memories and now. He anxiously looked back at the unwavering muzzle of the gun. He didn't have time for this. No one had time for this. But the control was with the weapon. The man's refusal to relax even a little was starting to creep under Billy's skin. An extended conversation didn't seem to be much discouragement from considering filling Billy with holes.

"Can you help me?" he asked the gun, or the man behind it, wondering which would answer him. He remembered Dane holding his hand to the crawling warmth of a gunfarmer wound, and tried to imagine his own corpse incubating the next generation. Would a gunfarmer have waited this long? No, not if they knew who he was. "I just need to know where I am, or what day it is."

[doneinthree]

[from here, with Wichita in tow]

Cold, but not as cold as it had been the last few days, and certainly not as cold as it had been on Delta Vega. The snow appeared to have melted since a couple nights ago, and Kirk's boots sank into manicured grass of the rec field as he headed in the direction of the shed.

He didn't get far, because right in front of them was a scene which killed whatever pick-up line he was considering trying on Wichita next. Two men, silhouetted by the dim moonlight, facing each other with the metallic gleam of a twentieth-century-style gun between them. A gun held in the hand of the taller man, pointed in the direction of the rest of them.

-where I am, or what day it is, the second man was saying, and Kirk immediately recognized his confusion for what it was. A brand new patient, without enough sense to know what he was facing here. As far as he could tell, the armed man was human, but that tattered coat definitely didn't suggest a soldier.

Special Counselling. Awesome.

"Excuse me!" Hiding in the shadows didn't even cross Kirk's mind - he wouldn't have been able to manage it, anyway, not with the bright gold of his shirt practically making him a beacon in the dark. The only thing he was worried about was his companion, and he shot Wichita a serious look and muttered, "Stay back," before ambling over to the second man's side.

The odds were not good. Between the three non-brainwashed prisoners, their only weapon was Kirk's metal pipe, and he was pretty sure that wasn't going to deflect a bullet. But hell, the worse the odds, the better Kirk kept his cool. "This is really unnecessary, isn't it?" he called out, letting his voice carry. "I mean, we're all on the same side here."

[zombiefree]

"Jesus." No, Wichita still wasn't at all used to this cold. She was longing for California sun again even as she followed Kirk, knowing that getting a weapon was more important than letting the cold get the best of her and running back inside. She could handle this. Even though her hands were balled up into fists, and her pace doubled just so they could move along a little faster, she was sure she could--

Oh, good. A guy with a gun. And-

Oh, even better. Riverside was yelling at him. She almost forgot she was traveling around with one of television's greatest damn heroes. Though then, he kind of wasn't in these situations, not really. If she was remembering right, people died on that show all the time. God, had she really managed to sign herself up to act as a Red Shirt on another 'away mission'? Sure, he'd save the damsel in distress, but she'd likely get eaten by a tribble or some shit before then. Go freaking figure.

'Stay back'. Yeah, no problemo, Cap. Good luck with this one.

Wichita watched him move towards the other guy rocking the same uniform she was, and she slowly crept back, more importantly just away, trying to get out of sight. Screw that, she wasn't going over there. Not when the shed was right there, a few yards out, and it didn't look huge but maybe she could hide in it. That was better than standing there in plain sight.

Time to test out that cardio rule. Riverside hadn't even finished with his big entrance before Wichita was off, moving from zero to sprinting as fast as she could manage it, and she wasn't looking back. Her goal was clear, but that didn't matter, there was no point in being subtle when she knew that gun could be turned on her at any second.

[tasteoftruth]

See? This was why he shouldn't be getting chatty. Two more prisoners had just crawled out of the woodwork. Badd narrowed his eyes at the one in the yellow shirt. Definitely not a guard, but not wearing prisoner clothes either. He'd hate to throw a civilian back into general population.

Buuut it was more likely that the guy had found a janitor's closet and stolen someone's old shirt. Badd would not be susceptible to any more sweet talk or pathetic excuses, he got enough of those during his regular workday. "Getting really tired of everyone's bull--"

Movement. The third one, the one who hadn't announced herself like an idiot, had decided to make a break for it. Badd whirled and fired a shot in her direction before taking off running after her. The movement was barely conscious, more like the trained instincts of a hunting dog than anything human. He saw threatening movement, he chased it, he attacked it, he tried to tear the life out of it.

[doneinthree]

[switching posting order with Billy!]

Kirk saw him turn, saw Wichita moving like a dart from the corner of his eye. "Wich-!" The echoing gunshot cut off the rest of his shout, and Kirk's eyes barely took her in for a second before landing back on the gunman, seeing him run. He'd been fully prepared for several things to happen. Himself getting shot, the glasses guy getting shot, glasses guy fleeing... A sane conversation honestly hadn't ranked even in the top five of the list; all Kirk had wanted was to throw the gunman's attention off of Glasses, hoping to buy time.

Well, he got it. Regardless now of whether or not they were all on the same side, right now Kirk had to assume the guy had been brainwashed into doing anything for the Institute, and he didn't doubt "killing fellow prisoners" would be on that list. Kirk allowed himself only enough time to utter a single swear word before acting.

"Come on!" Without waiting for a response, Kirk grabbed the wrist of the bespectacled man beside him, and ran after them.

[touchedgod]

The gunfire was almost drowned by the splintering of glass just before it happened, but still too late. The sudden headache spoke to him in the way it always had, and Billy didn't have the time to question it, let alone hope that it would even think to answer questions. This sad thing that mistakenly loved him, and now urged him on and sped his feet as the other man seized his wrist. Dreamlike, Captain Kirk dragged him into action, but it only took a startled second before Billy was running with him. The questions he might have had for his angel or his hero were left behind.

He had some time for calm observational clarity before the guard (what else could he be?) had shot. A young man, movie star handsome and bizarrely familiar, had stepped out to join him. Billy was still dumbstruck by his dedication to being in character. Nuances aside, casually going to assist some stranger being held at gunpoint was befitting his perfectly pressed golden uniform. Billy had just stared. He listened to the words, and registered that it was some half-realized rescue attempt. Never, even in the deepest of his sorrows, had he imagined this kind of childish fantasy. The squid's possession of his dreams hadn't allowed Simon's room to creep into Billy's subconscious, but it was hardly as though Star Trek hadn't played a role in his reality.

Kirk said something else before taking Billy with him, but he had missed it. The words were lost, and so grinding glass told him all he needed to know. Go. Go. Go go go. They were aiming for whoever had been shot. Before, it had been simply a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, but now it was a woman.

[zombiefree]

The flaw with initiating Rule #1 in this situation, Wichita quickly realized, was that zombies didn't carry guns, while this man certainly did. She was confident that she could run faster than a zombie if she had a head start but she couldn't run faster than a bullet. But that didn't matter! At least, she didn't think it would. Because she didn't expect him to shoot first, then chase. That wasn't in the game plan. In fact, she didn't actually believe it was a possibility until she felt someone punch her right in her shoulder with enough force to make her cry out with the shock of it.

Wait, mm no, she didn't get punched. This was more direct, a sharp crack of pain that ran from her shoulder, down her arm into her fingers, and up her neck, all at the same time. Which was a tiny bit more painful than a punch. They must have thrown a brick at- no, what was it?

Ah.

Yeah, that was blood. It was cold enough outside to make it clear that the warm, sticky fluid that was drenching the back of her shirt was blood, and that must have meant that the reason why it hurt so much was because she managed to get herself shot. It was weird how time flashed forward so fast when she just needed a little more of it, and how it slowed when she'd much rather have it move right along. Which was exactly what was happening then. Time must have shot forward when she tried to, because how did she manage to only make it a few feet before there was a bullet lodged in her arm? And now that it was there, she felt everything sort of shift oddly, so slow, in that her body was still in RUN mode, but she couldn't actually do that anymore.

The force of it made her trip, though somehow she wasn't lying face first on hard ground just yet. Maybe it was her 'fight or flight' instinct still rearing it's flighty head, because she stumbled forward a few more steps before finally stopping, her left hand moving to hold onto her right arm because -- ow fucking fuck it hurt!

She was in shock, maybe, because nothing else seemed to matter. Just that she was hurt, and this was different than home, so much different and maybe worse, somehow. Worse than sick people trying to see what your heart tasted like. Which was really hard to accept quickly, okay. So she wasn't trying to. She was mostly just trying to figure out if it'd be worth trying to get to the shed, at this point, when her right arm was useless and she wasn't sure she'd make it that far anyway.

[tasteoftruth]

One down. Badd didn't know if this meant she was out of action or just wounded enough to stumble, but he had two other up and running targets to deal with. Normally he'd have backup to make sure she wasn't going to whip out a gun and shoot him in the back while she lay bleeding on the ground, but when you were alone you did what you could.

The gold one made the most obvious target, and seemed to be most aggressive. Stupid, maybe, trying to be a hero for his fellow crooks, or just the kind of idiot who'd charge an armed police officer and assume he'd get out alive. He'd target that one. The dark one was more submissive, but a criminal could turn on you in a moment. By definition they were liars.

Badd's assessment of the situation took place so fast that it was barely conscious. His brain added up factors, measured distance and bullet trajectory, picked his target and pose, and then went about the business of handing out instructions to the rest of the body.

No fatalities. But also no promises. He shifted his weight to his other leg, pivoted, and fired two shots at the men running towards him.

[touchedgod]

[Switching order with Kirk again!]

The gun fired, Billy clenched. Tension ran through his gut and out into time itself. It was unpolished, and spoke nothing of the careful, conscious way he had been arresting time lately. This was just some instinctual, barely realized lunge at the clock's throat, the kind he often hadn't even noticed he was doing weeks ago. Even now it took a second for Billy to realize he was still moving as nothing else did, pulling the would-be Captain with him. In the next moment, he caught on, and he was the one with a firm grip on the other man, dragging him out of the bullet's path, just barely out of the trajectory.

The woman was on the ground ahead of them, and she grew more distinct as they got closer. Dark hair, longish, and dressed in the same uniform as Billy. There was time to look. Not much, but a little. He was in an unnatural second, busy with movement, but only his movement. It gave him a feeling of being in control, or even powerful, which was ridiculous. It was ridiculous last week, and it was even worse right now. As soon as it ended (he could feel his grip slipping, and the splintered seconds healing) the man with the gun would still be waiting and readying a second round of shots.

They would have to take the offensive, or get under cover and engage in what would probably be a very short one-sided gunfight. Neither prospect chilled Billy anymore. They were simply the things he had to deal with now, and it didn't matter how good or bad he was at it. It wouldn't even be as if it were the first time he'd be doing this without Dane. Billy was glad, suddenly, that his frozen moment was over.

Time lurched, stretched its arms, and caught up with them.

[doneinthree]

Two shots rang out in the night. Kirk had been shot at before. Granted, last time he'd had plenty of cover and a phaser in his hand to fire back, but the essential strategy remained the same: don't get shot. Spock could've explained the exact differences between a metal bullet and phaser fire, but Kirk was sure that either way, it would hurt like hell. No time to dodge, not if he didn't want to risk his companion getting shot. He moved as fast as he could, angling his body lower, only to realize too late that the gunman was aiming low in the first place.

The snow-covered field shifted; pain exploded from his upper arm as a bullet tore through it, and the grip of the glasses-wearing man was suddenly hard on him, and they were still running. Something had happened, but Kirk wasn't going to question it. Wichita was right up ahead, and they had less than seconds to lose. Aiming low or not, he did not believe the gunman had been brainwashed to give a shit about the patients' lives.

"Grab her!" Kirk yelled to Glasses. His plan was desperate, stupid and probably not a little reckless, but he didn't see anyone else coming up with ideas. His companion's other hand closed on Wichita's arm, and Kirk brought his metal pipe up and slammed it down on the silver ring on his finger.

The red stone shattered.

[to here]