The fall of the space station.

[notawastedlife]

The space station hung in space above the world, a white dot in an expanse of blackness, a mirror to the islands below, swallowed up and surrounded by blue ocean as they were. Inside, it bustled with fresh motion as people walked, talked, worked; every few minutes, in rooms and corridors, someone passed the hidden mechanisms of an Aperture Science

Comments

NEUROTOXIN

[notawastedlife]

The click of the nozzles snapping into place could have been missed, if one was otherwise occupied. It hadn't been very loud; softer than the sound of a trigger being pulled, perhaps, before the gunshot.

The hissing was a little louder, as purple gas began to spew forth from each in a sideways spray, condensing at the ceiling but slowly, surely beginning to fill each room.

Even louder was the sudden crackle of speakers that had formerly carried the synthetic, modulated voice of GLaDOS, now delivering a voice more alive if also notably more tense. "This is Tony Stark. The AI in control of this station has lost it and is currently trying to flood the facility with deadly neurotoxin. If you can get to the emitter controls and work fast enough-" this sounded as if he was addressing someone in his general vicinity, as well as the station in general "-you may be able to shut them down. If you can't, and you're in an area that is filling up with purple gas..."

There was a pause. "...don't be."

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[groovytechchick]

Claudia could have cheered, though Eli's ducking quickly reminded her that they weren't out of danger yet. Stupid space station! Totally wasn't what she'd thought it would be.

"Right!" she dashed over to the cannister he'd pointed toward and pulled it from the wall. "Nearest vent," she demanded as she quickly looked the cannister over, making sure there weren't any surprises attached to it.

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[math_boy_eli]

“Uhhh --” He thrust a hand up, pointing. “There! No, wait, crap.” He turned 90 degrees without taking his eyes off the console, trying to line himself up with the map. “There! Over there. You got it?”

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[f4rr3ll]

Matt had been taking a bit of a breather from poking around in the ship's computer systems, and from exploring and trying not to accidentally go out the wrong door and ending up in Outer Space. He was kind of zoned out, actually, as he sat on the floor in front of the computer terminal he'd been working on.

And then a disembodied voice floated through the ship, the same computer voice that had freaked him out the first time he'd been on the ship. And it turned out that his instinct had been right: never trust a computer that talks back to you. Because this one was going to kill them all, apparently.

"Oh, shit," Matt said after Tony's announcement. He'd looked up, and, yep, purple gas. "Oh, shit, oh, shit," he repeated, trying not to panic as he stood up and charged over to the computer terminal. He immediately started typing, trying to navigate the system to something that would shut down the emitters. "Come on, Matt, think," he muttered to himself, fingers pounding against the keyboard.

[spirited_hero]

[f4rr3ll]

Matt looked up at the ceiling, and at the gas slowly seeping out of the ventilation system. "Death gas is totally not how I wanted to go out," he said, trying to keep the note of panic from creeping any further into his voice. "I'm trying to hack this piece of shit as fast as I can." He paused in pounding on the keyboard to pull the top of his t-shirt up over his nose and mouth. Not like it would do much good, but it might keep him from dying for an extra thirty seconds.

[spirited_hero]

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[niceofyoutoask]

"Get your head down!" Lipton commanded, voice slightly muffled through his sleeve, coming up behind Matt and and clapping a hand to his shoulder. There was the dilemma, of course, of needing to get the hell down and the kid hopefully being able to actually stop the stuff with his machine knowledge. "And cover your mouth!" He was less certain about preventative measures for nerve gas as he was about chlorine and mustard, but he figured any sort of gas you didn't want to help along by breathing it in.

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[f4rr3ll]

Matt ducked as the hand clapped against his shoulder, crouching down a little further. "Yes, sir," he said, more out of instinct than anything else. He paused in his typing at the console to pull his shirt up over his nose and mouth. "I think I can shut this thing down," he called out, voice muffled slightly by the shirt.

Re: NEUROTOXIN

[niceofyoutoask]

"Yeah?" Lipton said, hunched back to the console as he kept his eyes on the rest of the room. "You gunna be able to do it soon?" It didn't need to be said that they were on something of a timeline here.

[drownondryland]

For a moment after the announcement, Meredith doesn't move, paralyzed by the words, half-convinced she's misheard both Tony and the ship. The purple gas is proof enough, though, and she makes a dash for the door. Just leaving the room, however, doesn't do much of anything, because it's filtering in from everywhere as far as she can tell and it's all she can do to keep a level head. The sensible thing to do, she knows, would be to keep low to the ground, but she's too intent on finding Sean, no matter how upset she's been with him. They shouldn't be up here and they are because of her, because she wanted to check some stupid notes that could have waited another day.

[Open to all. :D]

[niceofyoutoask]

Lipton didn't hesitate to grasp Meredith by the arm, quickly ready to let go as soon as she turned towards him. He was hunched down, and removed his sleeve from in front of his mouth long enough to shout concisely at her over the noise of the panicked action around them. "Ma'am, you need to get down, and stop moving! Cover your mouth!" She'd told him ages ago not to call her Ma'am, but it slipped out automatically.

[drownondryland]

At a time like this, Meredith couldn't bring herself to be particular about labels. The sudden tug startles her enough that she obeys, dropping down next to him and bringing the top of her shirt over her mouth. "I have to find my boyfriend," she says, painfully aware of how ridiculous, even trite, that might sound when there's some unknown chemical in the air, but it's the danger that makes it that much more important. "There has to be a way past this stuff."

[niceofyoutoask]

Lipton shook his head, leaving his sleeve over his mouth now that he had her attention and the muffling wouldn't matter as much. "The more you move, the more it affects you. It's best to stay low and wait it out."

He could sympathize that she was looking for someone - and he was suddenly impossibly greatful that Jane hadn't come up for any reason. But he knew about poison gas, had read and taught from the training manuals during their training, and knew that those who tried to outrun the gas were more wounded than those who were still. "It's coming from every room, Ma'am, there's no where to get past to."

[drownondryland]

"If we wait it out, won't it just fill the room eventually?" Meredith asks. She knows he's right, though, that this is their best chance. If there's a way to turn off the nozzles, she doesn't know what it is and other people, people who are better equipped for this kind of problem, are working on it. The best thing she can do is keep still until the air clears and she can find Sean or help anyone affected. Ducking as low as she can, she shakes her head. "This is insane. How did we not know it could do this?"

[niceofyoutoask]

"The canisters it's coming from must have a limited supply - someone'll either figure out how to shut it off, or it'll run out by itself." Lipton explained, voice steady. He was a good man in a crisis, but even in the midst of a gas attack he was torn between wishing more of Easy were here, and being glad they were away back home and safe.

Lying on the floor, unconsciously going to army crawl position, he have a humourless half-smile. "Don't know much about sentient computers, but they're probably able to lie and keep things hidden just as well as the rest of us."