Sunday, 9am: The Centre
[continued from here]
After a few smoke bombs, some sirens, and a few small contained fires....
"I like the ones that don't go boom better," Xander decided, moving down the hallway through the rolling clouds from the last smoke-bomb he'd set, trusting Bridge to be able to follow without actually having to see him.
"I'll remember that the next time we need to make smoke bombs for something," Bridge says. He's being entirely serious.
Emily had been scared ever since the bad men had taken her from her parents. The fear had only gotten stronger since the alarms had started and the big scary men had grabbed her and started to drag her down the hall.
"Stop it! You're hurting me."
Which was a sound that was both welcome - because it meant they were where they needed to be - and guaranteed to set Xander's teeth on edge. "Hey guys?" he aside, moving through the smoke towards them. "You wanna take it easy with the little girl." He was... really bad at making it sound like a question.
Sweeper #1 didn't change expression, just tightened his grip on Emily's shoulder. The other gave Xander a bored look and said, "We have to evacuate. If she won't move, we'll carry her." Said more directly to Emily. "But Mr. Raines won't like it if we have to do that."
The mere mention of Mr. Raines was enough to make Emily visibly shudder. "I'll move," she said quietly.
"He won't like it if she goes down from smoke-inhalation either." Xander shot a quick look towards Bridge, then stepped closer to them, pointing down a corridor that wasn't the smoke-choked one they'd come up. "That way's clearest."
And that'd be Bridge moving closer as well, grabbing the arm of the guy with the grip on the little girl and twisting it away from her before aiming a kick at his midsection.
Emily didn't quite know what was happening but she tried to pull away from the scary man.
The Sweeper Bridge had kicked folded up around his stomach, groaning but lashing out at Bridge as he went down. The other Sweeper went for his gun, moving forward to try and get between Bridge and Xander and his charge. "The hell--?"
Xander took a hard swing at the guy's gun-arm with his tool-bag - there was a reason there were still actually tools in the bottom of it, and not just because they might have to sneak off through the air ducts at some point. If their cover wouldn't let him carry an axe or a sword, he was damn well going to have something he felt comfortable using as a weapon.
The Sweeper's curse was swallowed up in a yowl of pain as he slammed into the wall, gun skittering to the floor and landing out of reach. He crumpled, then started to raise one hand to trigger his radio link. "HQ, we--"
"Nuh uh," Bridge says, ducking the first guy's swipe and moving over towards formerly-with-a-gun guy's side. "Don't think so," he says, plucking the radio from his hands.
Warily Emily watched what was happening. "They're not nice," she said.
"We were getting that impression," Xander said, giving her a small smile. Then he ducked down beside guy-who-used-to-have-a-radio and reached into his tool-bag for one of things that wasn't helping to turn it into an improvised blackjack: a handful of cable-ties. He reached for the Sweeper's wrist.
Too shaken up to protest much, the Sweeper winced as Xander proceeded to restrain him. The other one was now trying to push up onto his knees, still shaking his head, looking dismayed. "Christ, we're so screwed. Who the hell are you people?"
Feeling a little braver, Emily ventured a smile. "The good guys."
It was a good thing she was right, Xander thought, considering the number of not-so-good guys who were just as likely to pull a stunt like this. He didn't for a moment believe that the Centre didn't have competition.
"Close enough," he said, standing up and moving towards the other Sweeper.
Said other Sweeper was swaying to his feet, and then powering a fist toward Xander, not really aiming, but putting enough muscle behind it to make a dent if it connected.
It hit him hard on the shoulder, not knocking him down, but only because his back hit the wall first.
"Hey!" Well, that just did it. Getting angry just isn't in Bridge's nature, usually. Kidnapping and possibly experimenting on a little girl is more than enough to push him into the rarely-seen realm of pissed-off-ness, though. And adding hurting Xander on top of that? Is why *Bridge* is the one making a fist now, and aiming it for other Sweeper guy's nose.
Which broke with an audible snap, leaving the Sweeper clutching his face, eyes streaming, staggering into the wall next to Xander, nearly tripping over his already-restrained partner.
Xander blinked and pushed off from the wall, avoiding a collision with the Sweeper. "Ow. And then add a w." He turned to quickly secure the man's wrists while he was still out of it, despite the silent scream of protest from his own shoulder.
Satisfied that both the Sweepers are taken care of, Bridge looks back and forth between the girl and Xander. "You okay?" he asks, well... both of them, actually.
Emily nodded shyly. "Are you here to rescue me?"
"That's the plan," Xander said, offering her his hand and a grin. "Assuming you feel like being rescued today? I mean, if tomorrow's better for you..."
Over her head, he gave an I'm okay nod to Bridge. His shoulder would be hurting like frak tonight, but there was nothing busted.
"Now please," she said, nodding her head quickly. "I don't like it here. At all."
"Neither do we, kiddo," Bridge says. "Now it's time to do our very best tree impressions and leave. Except let's not actually turn in to trees, because that's been done and it never ends well, trust me."
Emily giggled and reached for his hand. "You're silly."
"Thanks," Bridge says with a proud grin, taking her smaller hand in his as the three of them start on their way back out of the Centre.
Parker was starting to flick her lighter off and on, idly, and tap her fingers on her steering wheel. "Angelo?"
"Working." The sound of computer keys came over her phone, and then a grunted: "Safe. No fears. No worrying."
Security didn't know they were inside yet. Didn't know they were about to lose two Pretenders at once. Parker felt the burn of her ulcer acting up, and said, "Okay. Okay. I'll chill." Or she'd try, anyway.
Ten minutes to go. She did not want to call Wyatt for back-up. She did not want to have to call in every other person she knew to go in and retrieve the three people she'd brought into this mess.
They'd be here. They'd be here soon.
Jarod's nerves were slowly ratcheting up with every minute they were still inside the Centre, without knowing where Emily was. He wished there'd been a way to stay in communication with the others when he'd snuck in.
No one stopped them on the way to the parking garage, and he pointed down a side hallway, then whispered to Isabel, "We can wait for them there. If they don't show up soon, we should go looking for them."
Isabel nodded, her own nerves on edge. "They'll be here soon," she promised.
Xander wasn't walking slower because he missed the feel of a small hand in his. Much as he might like to, this was so not the time. Still, short people. Smoky hallways. It took a while to get there.
"This way," he said finally, though, pointing down the hallway that led towards the garage.
Bridge twists open the door leading out to the garage, *his* other hand still holding on to *Emily's* other hand. "It's been a while. They probably beat us out here," he says, stepping through the doorway.
Jarod heard them before he saw them, then relaxed against the wall for a second before stepping forward. "Hey. You guys made it. Thanks. I mean, really. Thanks." He smiled at Emily, hope and eagerness and fear hitting him all at once. "Hi, Emily."
The next words stuck in his throat.
"Hi," Emily said shyly, still holding onto Bridge and Xander's hands. "Are you here to rescue me too?"
"Yeah. I used to live here." Jarod hunkered down to her height, and smiled tentatively at her. "I saw you for a couple minutes, about a year ago. I'm Jarod. Your brother."
He held his breath, not sure what he was hoping or fearing her reaction would be.
She studied him carefully. "I always wanted to meet you."
"Me too." Jarod smiled dorkily at her. "Me too. Last year--" His face darkened, remembering the meeting thwarted by Sweepers and Centre personnel. "Was too close." He straightened up. "And we need to go before it gets dangerous again." Hesitantly, he held out one hand. "We have a friend of mine, waiting with a van."
"To get out of here?" Emily grinned, letting go of Xander and Bridge's hands and reaching for Jarod's. "I like that idea."
Jarod's fingers closed around hers, and something caught in his throat. "Okay." He grinned at Xander and Isabel and Bridge, wondering if they understood what this meant to him. "I can never pay you back. But thank you."
In a corner of the parking garage, Parker was checking her watch every minute now, instead of every other minute. Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel as she waited for the escapees to come barreling out to the van.
Thirty-nine minutes.
Forty.
Forty-one.
"Come on, guys, come on already..."
Isabel took the lead as they made their way back to the van, having Emily with them meant she was slightly more likely to TK someone if she needed to to keep the little girl safe.
"Come here often?" she asked Parker as she opened the side door and climbed inside.
"More often than I like, and Jesus, cutting it close much?" Parker's mouth snapped shut when she saw Emily, then she darted a glance at Jarod, before saying, "Ready to blow this popstand, kid?"
Emily nodded as she climbed into the back of the van. "Yes, please."
"The sooner the better," Bridge agrees, following Emily in to the van. And, yeah, looking worriedly over at Xander, because walls had definitely not been his friend today.
"I'm good," Xander said when he caught the glance. And he was, more or less; he might ache like hell tonight, but what they'd done here outweighed that by so much it pretty much sent the sore shoulder zooming off into space.
If it made him thinky about other things, like how much he did miss the feeling of a small hand in his, well, there was time for that later.
He did reach into his pocket now, though, glancing down for a moment and slipping the patch back over his eye.
Jarod checked out the rear window for pursuit, and saw the four decoy vans they'd arranged for shoot off in other directions once they passed the first intersection. Only then did he relax, finally able to breathe.
They'd escaped. He was now blatantly on the run from the Centre. And he'd finally met his sister.
Which brought up something else. "Emily?" He leaned forward to talk to her. "Do you know how to contact our parents?"
"I do," she nodded. "They're going to be worried about me."
Parker gripped the steering wheel extra-hard, and didn't turn around to look at Jarod. Well. She'd known this was coming, hadn't she?
"Then there's nothing left to do but get you guys to the airport." She swallowed a sigh. "And say good-bye."
[pre-played with the lovely needsaparrot, bridge_carson, and izzyalienqueen, with extra thanks to the last for playing Emily. NFI, NFB, OOC=<3, and,
Concludes here.]
After a few smoke bombs, some sirens, and a few small contained fires....
"I like the ones that don't go boom better," Xander decided, moving down the hallway through the rolling clouds from the last smoke-bomb he'd set, trusting Bridge to be able to follow without actually having to see him.
"I'll remember that the next time we need to make smoke bombs for something," Bridge says. He's being entirely serious.
Emily had been scared ever since the bad men had taken her from her parents. The fear had only gotten stronger since the alarms had started and the big scary men had grabbed her and started to drag her down the hall.
"Stop it! You're hurting me."
Which was a sound that was both welcome - because it meant they were where they needed to be - and guaranteed to set Xander's teeth on edge. "Hey guys?" he aside, moving through the smoke towards them. "You wanna take it easy with the little girl." He was... really bad at making it sound like a question.
Sweeper #1 didn't change expression, just tightened his grip on Emily's shoulder. The other gave Xander a bored look and said, "We have to evacuate. If she won't move, we'll carry her." Said more directly to Emily. "But Mr. Raines won't like it if we have to do that."
The mere mention of Mr. Raines was enough to make Emily visibly shudder. "I'll move," she said quietly.
"He won't like it if she goes down from smoke-inhalation either." Xander shot a quick look towards Bridge, then stepped closer to them, pointing down a corridor that wasn't the smoke-choked one they'd come up. "That way's clearest."
And that'd be Bridge moving closer as well, grabbing the arm of the guy with the grip on the little girl and twisting it away from her before aiming a kick at his midsection.
Emily didn't quite know what was happening but she tried to pull away from the scary man.
The Sweeper Bridge had kicked folded up around his stomach, groaning but lashing out at Bridge as he went down. The other Sweeper went for his gun, moving forward to try and get between Bridge and Xander and his charge. "The hell--?"
Xander took a hard swing at the guy's gun-arm with his tool-bag - there was a reason there were still actually tools in the bottom of it, and not just because they might have to sneak off through the air ducts at some point. If their cover wouldn't let him carry an axe or a sword, he was damn well going to have something he felt comfortable using as a weapon.
The Sweeper's curse was swallowed up in a yowl of pain as he slammed into the wall, gun skittering to the floor and landing out of reach. He crumpled, then started to raise one hand to trigger his radio link. "HQ, we--"
"Nuh uh," Bridge says, ducking the first guy's swipe and moving over towards formerly-with-a-gun guy's side. "Don't think so," he says, plucking the radio from his hands.
Warily Emily watched what was happening. "They're not nice," she said.
"We were getting that impression," Xander said, giving her a small smile. Then he ducked down beside guy-who-used-to-have-a-radio and reached into his tool-bag for one of things that wasn't helping to turn it into an improvised blackjack: a handful of cable-ties. He reached for the Sweeper's wrist.
Too shaken up to protest much, the Sweeper winced as Xander proceeded to restrain him. The other one was now trying to push up onto his knees, still shaking his head, looking dismayed. "Christ, we're so screwed. Who the hell are you people?"
Feeling a little braver, Emily ventured a smile. "The good guys."
It was a good thing she was right, Xander thought, considering the number of not-so-good guys who were just as likely to pull a stunt like this. He didn't for a moment believe that the Centre didn't have competition.
"Close enough," he said, standing up and moving towards the other Sweeper.
Said other Sweeper was swaying to his feet, and then powering a fist toward Xander, not really aiming, but putting enough muscle behind it to make a dent if it connected.
It hit him hard on the shoulder, not knocking him down, but only because his back hit the wall first.
"Hey!" Well, that just did it. Getting angry just isn't in Bridge's nature, usually. Kidnapping and possibly experimenting on a little girl is more than enough to push him into the rarely-seen realm of pissed-off-ness, though. And adding hurting Xander on top of that? Is why *Bridge* is the one making a fist now, and aiming it for other Sweeper guy's nose.
Which broke with an audible snap, leaving the Sweeper clutching his face, eyes streaming, staggering into the wall next to Xander, nearly tripping over his already-restrained partner.
Xander blinked and pushed off from the wall, avoiding a collision with the Sweeper. "Ow. And then add a w." He turned to quickly secure the man's wrists while he was still out of it, despite the silent scream of protest from his own shoulder.
Satisfied that both the Sweepers are taken care of, Bridge looks back and forth between the girl and Xander. "You okay?" he asks, well... both of them, actually.
Emily nodded shyly. "Are you here to rescue me?"
"That's the plan," Xander said, offering her his hand and a grin. "Assuming you feel like being rescued today? I mean, if tomorrow's better for you..."
Over her head, he gave an I'm okay nod to Bridge. His shoulder would be hurting like frak tonight, but there was nothing busted.
"Now please," she said, nodding her head quickly. "I don't like it here. At all."
"Neither do we, kiddo," Bridge says. "Now it's time to do our very best tree impressions and leave. Except let's not actually turn in to trees, because that's been done and it never ends well, trust me."
Emily giggled and reached for his hand. "You're silly."
"Thanks," Bridge says with a proud grin, taking her smaller hand in his as the three of them start on their way back out of the Centre.
Parker was starting to flick her lighter off and on, idly, and tap her fingers on her steering wheel. "Angelo?"
"Working." The sound of computer keys came over her phone, and then a grunted: "Safe. No fears. No worrying."
Security didn't know they were inside yet. Didn't know they were about to lose two Pretenders at once. Parker felt the burn of her ulcer acting up, and said, "Okay. Okay. I'll chill." Or she'd try, anyway.
Ten minutes to go. She did not want to call Wyatt for back-up. She did not want to have to call in every other person she knew to go in and retrieve the three people she'd brought into this mess.
They'd be here. They'd be here soon.
Jarod's nerves were slowly ratcheting up with every minute they were still inside the Centre, without knowing where Emily was. He wished there'd been a way to stay in communication with the others when he'd snuck in.
No one stopped them on the way to the parking garage, and he pointed down a side hallway, then whispered to Isabel, "We can wait for them there. If they don't show up soon, we should go looking for them."
Isabel nodded, her own nerves on edge. "They'll be here soon," she promised.
Xander wasn't walking slower because he missed the feel of a small hand in his. Much as he might like to, this was so not the time. Still, short people. Smoky hallways. It took a while to get there.
"This way," he said finally, though, pointing down the hallway that led towards the garage.
Bridge twists open the door leading out to the garage, *his* other hand still holding on to *Emily's* other hand. "It's been a while. They probably beat us out here," he says, stepping through the doorway.
Jarod heard them before he saw them, then relaxed against the wall for a second before stepping forward. "Hey. You guys made it. Thanks. I mean, really. Thanks." He smiled at Emily, hope and eagerness and fear hitting him all at once. "Hi, Emily."
The next words stuck in his throat.
"Hi," Emily said shyly, still holding onto Bridge and Xander's hands. "Are you here to rescue me too?"
"Yeah. I used to live here." Jarod hunkered down to her height, and smiled tentatively at her. "I saw you for a couple minutes, about a year ago. I'm Jarod. Your brother."
He held his breath, not sure what he was hoping or fearing her reaction would be.
She studied him carefully. "I always wanted to meet you."
"Me too." Jarod smiled dorkily at her. "Me too. Last year--" His face darkened, remembering the meeting thwarted by Sweepers and Centre personnel. "Was too close." He straightened up. "And we need to go before it gets dangerous again." Hesitantly, he held out one hand. "We have a friend of mine, waiting with a van."
"To get out of here?" Emily grinned, letting go of Xander and Bridge's hands and reaching for Jarod's. "I like that idea."
Jarod's fingers closed around hers, and something caught in his throat. "Okay." He grinned at Xander and Isabel and Bridge, wondering if they understood what this meant to him. "I can never pay you back. But thank you."
In a corner of the parking garage, Parker was checking her watch every minute now, instead of every other minute. Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel as she waited for the escapees to come barreling out to the van.
Thirty-nine minutes.
Forty.
Forty-one.
"Come on, guys, come on already..."
Isabel took the lead as they made their way back to the van, having Emily with them meant she was slightly more likely to TK someone if she needed to to keep the little girl safe.
"Come here often?" she asked Parker as she opened the side door and climbed inside.
"More often than I like, and Jesus, cutting it close much?" Parker's mouth snapped shut when she saw Emily, then she darted a glance at Jarod, before saying, "Ready to blow this popstand, kid?"
Emily nodded as she climbed into the back of the van. "Yes, please."
"The sooner the better," Bridge agrees, following Emily in to the van. And, yeah, looking worriedly over at Xander, because walls had definitely not been his friend today.
"I'm good," Xander said when he caught the glance. And he was, more or less; he might ache like hell tonight, but what they'd done here outweighed that by so much it pretty much sent the sore shoulder zooming off into space.
If it made him thinky about other things, like how much he did miss the feeling of a small hand in his, well, there was time for that later.
He did reach into his pocket now, though, glancing down for a moment and slipping the patch back over his eye.
Jarod checked out the rear window for pursuit, and saw the four decoy vans they'd arranged for shoot off in other directions once they passed the first intersection. Only then did he relax, finally able to breathe.
They'd escaped. He was now blatantly on the run from the Centre. And he'd finally met his sister.
Which brought up something else. "Emily?" He leaned forward to talk to her. "Do you know how to contact our parents?"
"I do," she nodded. "They're going to be worried about me."
Parker gripped the steering wheel extra-hard, and didn't turn around to look at Jarod. Well. She'd known this was coming, hadn't she?
"Then there's nothing left to do but get you guys to the airport." She swallowed a sigh. "And say good-bye."
[pre-played with the lovely needsaparrot, bridge_carson, and izzyalienqueen, with extra thanks to the last for playing Emily. NFI, NFB, OOC=<3, and,
Concludes here.]