11k!!!!!
I actually have caught up for today. Of course, when it hits midnight, I won't be, but that's ok. I also have a chapter deliniation here, which is rare for me. It's been awhile since we've had another person's perspective besides Gen so a new character makes his entrance.
Chapter Nine: Heart of the City
Rowan Corbin was not happy. He gave up on the screwdriver and put it between his teeth for later while he picked up a nanowrench and laser. "Every time," he muttered to himself. As the main fix-it guy of the operation, he figured he had a right to be sulky. After all, whenever somebody broke something, who did they turn to? - Rowan. He never got to invent anything of his own. He was always too busy fixing everyone else's mistakes and cleaning up other people's messes. Rowan sighed and leaned back in his desk chair to wipe his brow for a second. This Dynamic Headset was just one of the projects he had waiting for him to fix. It would be late night before he was done and then he'd get home, woof down supper, and come back tomorrow morning to do it all over again. Sometimes he wondered if it would be worth it to complain to the big guy. No, he shoved that idea to the side again like he did every time he thought of it. What the big guy said goes, no questions asked. Rowan was about to start back in on the transponder section when he heard the garage doors opening. "Oh give me a break," he threw down his tools, spit out the screwdriver in disgust, and huffed his way over to the doorway to the garage. He stood against the doorway, looking as upset and sulky as he could. The black looking vehicle was just touching down onto the landing pad. As the door slid open, Rowan made a pointed snort of annoyance. "What didya break this time? eh?" The figure who got out didn't reply to his ire but Rowan didn't expect a reply. The Enforcers never spoke unless programmed to anyway. But he still got satisfaction with bullying them as much as he could get away with. "Alright, let’s see it, I've got 20 more projects to do tonight and I've got to eat sometime." He marched over to the open door of the car while two of the Enforcers slid out a Hover Slab. At first, Rowan was taken aback. In the bluish light of the garage, he could see the girl laying on the slab. "what's this? You're bringing me people now?" he questioned with a frown. As an answer, the figure who's lapels designated him as the Enforcer Controller (E-C) for this group pulled out his all purpose scanner and scanned over the girl on the slab. Rowan tried not to look too closely, the girl's eyes were fixed on him and the fear in them was making him very uncomfortable.
The E-C handed him the Scanner and Rowan glanced at the readout. "Hmm, this is a new one. She's one of you is she?" He looked back at the girl up and down. "Wouldn't know it to look at her." He motioned to them, "Ok, bring her in and set her on the bench. I can finish the others later." The Hover Slab didn't need much carrying, just someone to guide it into the shop. Rowan walked ahead, still studying the slim tube's readout. What all the numbers and words on it was telling him was that the girl was actually one of the changeling group. It wasn't really his job to watch over them, that was left to the guy upstairs, but he did have some preliminary training on what to do if one of them went haywire. Right now, the girl was secured by an immobilizer beacon. They were to be used only in emergencies if one of the Enforcers or changelings in general stepped out of line until they could be fixed. But they'd never had to use one till now. Rowan gathered up a couple of tools that he might need and wondered to himself if this was going to be the start of using them on a regular basis. "Once again, I'm cleaning up someone else's messes," he grumbled, taking the video feed block from the outstretched hand of the EC. "These are the (need a title)'s kids, not mine. If I can't do anything here, I'm not going to have any choice but send her on to the big guy. And he's not going to be happy about that sort of interruption." The three black clad enforcers left without acknowledging his rant, got into their vehicle, and left. "Once again, I am also left with speaking to myself," Rowan sighed and pulled up a chair to the side of the Hover Slab. "Ok, lets see what we've got here." He lowered a contraption down from the ceiling and took an x-ray snapshot. As it came up on his flat computer panel, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Yeah, this is definitely a new one by me." He looked down almost with pity at the girl on the table. "They really were sloppy with putting you together, girl." On the screen was a shadowy outline of the girl's form. In the middle of her torso was a long rectangle that was lighter than the rest. It looked like it was tangled in with the rest of her insides, like a square in a bowl of spaghetti. "Your computer chip is sure tangled in there. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get at it that easily," he looked down at the frightened brown eyes and mentally kicked himself. "Why am I talking to you, you can't even understand me." He picked up another scanning device and ran it back and forth over her torso. "Changelings don't understand nothing but programming. Sure is easy to forget that when you all look so human." He stopped mid-scan, still transfixed on her eyes. It looked like she was trying to speak but couldn't. "Stop looking at me like that! I'm just the fix-it guy. So just lay there and I'll have you up and running right in a jiffy. No worries." She's just a machine, just programming and sludge, Rowan thought to himself as he began his work. He started by bringing out his DNA window. It was a sort of expandable frame that when activated would disrupt the DNA of changelings so the skin would melt back from the inside of the window. It was the easiest way to reach the main control computer chip. Rowan activated the blue cross lasers and slowly lowered it onto the girl's stomach. At first it wasn't working and Rowan worried that his unit was out of order. "Oh, don't tell me I have to fix you too?!" he ranted at it as he turned a few knobs to boost the power. "Nothing works in this place." Finally, the black outfit began to melt down inside the window and Rowan got his nanowrench and laser ready. But as the chip was exposed, it was not exposed entirely. Rowan had never seen anything like it. On a normal changeling, the skin would just melt away clean and leave you with a totally exposed computer chip to work on. But inside this girl, there were extra lines and wires of her being that were criss-crossing across the computer chip that were not letting go. It was covering the computer chip in a tightly knit web. Rowan couldn't even begin to find a good spot to start working, everything was obscured. He'd already boosted the power once, he wasn't sure he wanted to do it again. As he looked at the mass of lines, it seemed to him that this particular changeling had actually integrated the chip as part of herself rather than have it floating around free inside of her like the others he had seen. He frowned and leaned back in his chair. "Well, that's sure a pickle there," he said more to himself than to her. He started rummaging around his desk behind him, "Where is that other thing..."
While he had his back turned, Gen was frantically trying to think of ways to escape. That ball was still lodged in her back and now she was splayed open like some sort of freaky unbloody autopsy. She could see that she didn't have any organs or anything, just the same black stuff her suit was made of. Apparently she was that way all the way through. Now she was really scared. Was she to be taken apart and put back together again? She had no idea who this strange guy was who hated his job but she wasn't sticking around to find out. Desperately she tried moving each appendage in succession and then, when that didn't work, all at once. Nothing happened at first. She felt like she was encased in ice that wasn't there. I...will...not...be...held here! The thought burned in her mind and as she strained mentally, a electrical charge was building up inside of her body. If Rowan had been watching his monitor he might have caught it in time, but as he turned back around with the right tool he'd found, Gen broke free of her bonds with an releasing explosion of energy. The ball of metal went flying out of her neck and crashed away somewhere in the bench of tools. The DNA window was thrown towards Rowan along with a wave of energy that pushed him back, rolling chair and all, back against the wall with a crash. Gen was on her feet much to her surprise. She was also surprised that she could move again, albeit it was slow starting again after being paralyzed. But as fast as she could, she lit out the first door she saw. Unfortunately, it was the garage door and the garage was empty with the large garage door closed. Gen could hear the other guy trying to pick himself up off the floor from his tipped over chair and knew she didn’t have much time. She ran over to a console and started pushing buttons. Lights flashed and different things turned on and off but finally she hit the right one and the large door slid open with a clang. A breeze caught her hair as she ran up to the opening and right up to the edge. She slid to a stop and grabbed the side wall for support as she looked down, down, down from about 20 stories up. “Oh, goodness…that’s high,” she told herself nervously. Should she jump? She made it last time she jumped from a building.
“Hold it, miss!”
Gen whirled to see the man holding a large gun of sorts. It had a really wide tube for a barrel. There was no way of telling what it would shoot, but Gen was fairly sure she could get out the opening before he could shoot her. “Don’t do it, miss. I don’t think even you could survive a fall like that.” Gen couldn’t believe he actually was trying to talk her out of it. “Lot of good you are,” she threw back at him. “Now you talk to me, I’m no longer some thing to be tested and prodded. How could you do this to people?!” Her words were very convincing, but Rowan tried to ignore them. “It’s just my job, miss. And if I may say, you’re not exactly people. You’re just an invention.” Gen couldn’t believe her ears. She took her hurt filled eyes off of him and looked back at the vast chasm before her. Worth a shot, she thought.
Before she could think further, Rowan pulled the trigger to his weapon. Instead of a projectile, it shot out a netting that trailed a rope back to the gun he was holding. It wrapped around Gen with lightning speed and she tumbled back into the room away from the edge. Gen tried to struggle but the netting was more like wiring and was draining away her energy. She could see the blue energy pulsing through the netting and felt herself getting weaker as she struggled. Before she could concentrate enough to try and phase through the net, she was too weak to move and had blacked out from the exertion.
Chapter Nine: Heart of the City
Rowan Corbin was not happy. He gave up on the screwdriver and put it between his teeth for later while he picked up a nanowrench and laser. "Every time," he muttered to himself. As the main fix-it guy of the operation, he figured he had a right to be sulky. After all, whenever somebody broke something, who did they turn to? - Rowan. He never got to invent anything of his own. He was always too busy fixing everyone else's mistakes and cleaning up other people's messes. Rowan sighed and leaned back in his desk chair to wipe his brow for a second. This Dynamic Headset was just one of the projects he had waiting for him to fix. It would be late night before he was done and then he'd get home, woof down supper, and come back tomorrow morning to do it all over again. Sometimes he wondered if it would be worth it to complain to the big guy. No, he shoved that idea to the side again like he did every time he thought of it. What the big guy said goes, no questions asked. Rowan was about to start back in on the transponder section when he heard the garage doors opening. "Oh give me a break," he threw down his tools, spit out the screwdriver in disgust, and huffed his way over to the doorway to the garage. He stood against the doorway, looking as upset and sulky as he could. The black looking vehicle was just touching down onto the landing pad. As the door slid open, Rowan made a pointed snort of annoyance. "What didya break this time? eh?" The figure who got out didn't reply to his ire but Rowan didn't expect a reply. The Enforcers never spoke unless programmed to anyway. But he still got satisfaction with bullying them as much as he could get away with. "Alright, let’s see it, I've got 20 more projects to do tonight and I've got to eat sometime." He marched over to the open door of the car while two of the Enforcers slid out a Hover Slab. At first, Rowan was taken aback. In the bluish light of the garage, he could see the girl laying on the slab. "what's this? You're bringing me people now?" he questioned with a frown. As an answer, the figure who's lapels designated him as the Enforcer Controller (E-C) for this group pulled out his all purpose scanner and scanned over the girl on the slab. Rowan tried not to look too closely, the girl's eyes were fixed on him and the fear in them was making him very uncomfortable.
The E-C handed him the Scanner and Rowan glanced at the readout. "Hmm, this is a new one. She's one of you is she?" He looked back at the girl up and down. "Wouldn't know it to look at her." He motioned to them, "Ok, bring her in and set her on the bench. I can finish the others later." The Hover Slab didn't need much carrying, just someone to guide it into the shop. Rowan walked ahead, still studying the slim tube's readout. What all the numbers and words on it was telling him was that the girl was actually one of the changeling group. It wasn't really his job to watch over them, that was left to the guy upstairs, but he did have some preliminary training on what to do if one of them went haywire. Right now, the girl was secured by an immobilizer beacon. They were to be used only in emergencies if one of the Enforcers or changelings in general stepped out of line until they could be fixed. But they'd never had to use one till now. Rowan gathered up a couple of tools that he might need and wondered to himself if this was going to be the start of using them on a regular basis. "Once again, I'm cleaning up someone else's messes," he grumbled, taking the video feed block from the outstretched hand of the EC. "These are the (need a title)'s kids, not mine. If I can't do anything here, I'm not going to have any choice but send her on to the big guy. And he's not going to be happy about that sort of interruption." The three black clad enforcers left without acknowledging his rant, got into their vehicle, and left. "Once again, I am also left with speaking to myself," Rowan sighed and pulled up a chair to the side of the Hover Slab. "Ok, lets see what we've got here." He lowered a contraption down from the ceiling and took an x-ray snapshot. As it came up on his flat computer panel, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Yeah, this is definitely a new one by me." He looked down almost with pity at the girl on the table. "They really were sloppy with putting you together, girl." On the screen was a shadowy outline of the girl's form. In the middle of her torso was a long rectangle that was lighter than the rest. It looked like it was tangled in with the rest of her insides, like a square in a bowl of spaghetti. "Your computer chip is sure tangled in there. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get at it that easily," he looked down at the frightened brown eyes and mentally kicked himself. "Why am I talking to you, you can't even understand me." He picked up another scanning device and ran it back and forth over her torso. "Changelings don't understand nothing but programming. Sure is easy to forget that when you all look so human." He stopped mid-scan, still transfixed on her eyes. It looked like she was trying to speak but couldn't. "Stop looking at me like that! I'm just the fix-it guy. So just lay there and I'll have you up and running right in a jiffy. No worries." She's just a machine, just programming and sludge, Rowan thought to himself as he began his work. He started by bringing out his DNA window. It was a sort of expandable frame that when activated would disrupt the DNA of changelings so the skin would melt back from the inside of the window. It was the easiest way to reach the main control computer chip. Rowan activated the blue cross lasers and slowly lowered it onto the girl's stomach. At first it wasn't working and Rowan worried that his unit was out of order. "Oh, don't tell me I have to fix you too?!" he ranted at it as he turned a few knobs to boost the power. "Nothing works in this place." Finally, the black outfit began to melt down inside the window and Rowan got his nanowrench and laser ready. But as the chip was exposed, it was not exposed entirely. Rowan had never seen anything like it. On a normal changeling, the skin would just melt away clean and leave you with a totally exposed computer chip to work on. But inside this girl, there were extra lines and wires of her being that were criss-crossing across the computer chip that were not letting go. It was covering the computer chip in a tightly knit web. Rowan couldn't even begin to find a good spot to start working, everything was obscured. He'd already boosted the power once, he wasn't sure he wanted to do it again. As he looked at the mass of lines, it seemed to him that this particular changeling had actually integrated the chip as part of herself rather than have it floating around free inside of her like the others he had seen. He frowned and leaned back in his chair. "Well, that's sure a pickle there," he said more to himself than to her. He started rummaging around his desk behind him, "Where is that other thing..."
While he had his back turned, Gen was frantically trying to think of ways to escape. That ball was still lodged in her back and now she was splayed open like some sort of freaky unbloody autopsy. She could see that she didn't have any organs or anything, just the same black stuff her suit was made of. Apparently she was that way all the way through. Now she was really scared. Was she to be taken apart and put back together again? She had no idea who this strange guy was who hated his job but she wasn't sticking around to find out. Desperately she tried moving each appendage in succession and then, when that didn't work, all at once. Nothing happened at first. She felt like she was encased in ice that wasn't there. I...will...not...be...held here! The thought burned in her mind and as she strained mentally, a electrical charge was building up inside of her body. If Rowan had been watching his monitor he might have caught it in time, but as he turned back around with the right tool he'd found, Gen broke free of her bonds with an releasing explosion of energy. The ball of metal went flying out of her neck and crashed away somewhere in the bench of tools. The DNA window was thrown towards Rowan along with a wave of energy that pushed him back, rolling chair and all, back against the wall with a crash. Gen was on her feet much to her surprise. She was also surprised that she could move again, albeit it was slow starting again after being paralyzed. But as fast as she could, she lit out the first door she saw. Unfortunately, it was the garage door and the garage was empty with the large garage door closed. Gen could hear the other guy trying to pick himself up off the floor from his tipped over chair and knew she didn’t have much time. She ran over to a console and started pushing buttons. Lights flashed and different things turned on and off but finally she hit the right one and the large door slid open with a clang. A breeze caught her hair as she ran up to the opening and right up to the edge. She slid to a stop and grabbed the side wall for support as she looked down, down, down from about 20 stories up. “Oh, goodness…that’s high,” she told herself nervously. Should she jump? She made it last time she jumped from a building.
“Hold it, miss!”
Gen whirled to see the man holding a large gun of sorts. It had a really wide tube for a barrel. There was no way of telling what it would shoot, but Gen was fairly sure she could get out the opening before he could shoot her. “Don’t do it, miss. I don’t think even you could survive a fall like that.” Gen couldn’t believe he actually was trying to talk her out of it. “Lot of good you are,” she threw back at him. “Now you talk to me, I’m no longer some thing to be tested and prodded. How could you do this to people?!” Her words were very convincing, but Rowan tried to ignore them. “It’s just my job, miss. And if I may say, you’re not exactly people. You’re just an invention.” Gen couldn’t believe her ears. She took her hurt filled eyes off of him and looked back at the vast chasm before her. Worth a shot, she thought.
Before she could think further, Rowan pulled the trigger to his weapon. Instead of a projectile, it shot out a netting that trailed a rope back to the gun he was holding. It wrapped around Gen with lightning speed and she tumbled back into the room away from the edge. Gen tried to struggle but the netting was more like wiring and was draining away her energy. She could see the blue energy pulsing through the netting and felt herself getting weaker as she struggled. Before she could concentrate enough to try and phase through the net, she was too weak to move and had blacked out from the exertion.