(no subject)

[aluminumandash]

[ RE419S | TEXT | 001 ]

[ After the message (warning?) has blared two successive times, Rust waits about an hour and sends: ] Progress on locating unauthorized transport?



[ OOC: Threadjack to your heart's content! ]

Comments

TO994M; voice

[cactusy]

I got a feeling that it might be us.

[aluminumandash]

[ He gives it up to an hour, depending on how quick she was to respond. Time enough for another round of alerts. Then: ] Porous fucking transport.

Or did you turn up dry?

[cactusy]

[Her next comes pretty quickly - just a minute or so after his.]

I wish.

[Her poor soaked gun!]

East of the mountains, west of the beach, there's something mechanical. Sounds kinda like a helicopter. You picking up on that?

[It's likely not so easy to hear over the walkie, and certainly not prominent enough for the text transcription to pick up, but if he listens to her audio he'll find that there is indeed a thrumming sound audible in the background of her feed.]

audio

[aluminumandash]

[ No delays now; he brings the walkie closer to his ear, shuts his eyes a long moment. ] Mm. Yeah. [ Doesn't sound good. ] You feel it? In the air, your chest?

audio

[cactusy]

Way too far away for that. But, uh...

[She thinks it might be getting closer.]

I'll let you know if that changes. A helicopter might mean meeting our mysterious hosts.

audio

[aluminumandash]

Chopper'd need somewhere to land. [ Unless they're not out to meet anyone, but she's sharp enough he'll leave that to implication. ]

I'll be here.

audio

[cactusy]

[About an hour later, she finally resurfaces.]

It was a big-ass drone. Unmanned.

audio

[aluminumandash]

[ It takes him a second or two to realize she's not describing the sound. ] A what? [ A pause; a crackle. ] You alright?

audio

[cactusy]

I'm fine. Do you not know what a drone is? Like a-- mini-helicopter that's operated remotely.

audio

[aluminumandash]

Fancy. Any insignia? What's, ah, what's the range? [ And, well: ] What'd it do?

audio

[cactusy]

No markings that I could make out, but it was moving at a good clip, twenty, thirty feet off the ground. Hard to tell for sure. Could have been scouting, could have been a delivery drone - it had a claw attached to the bottom.

voice | HO125E

[trialbyliar]

[He's been silently just stalking all these conversations – he heard those sounds in the distance, and he definitely doesn't mind getting some extra info before poking around potentially dangerous shit himself – but this news is intriguing enough for him to dig for details. In his own way.]

Ooh, like a big mecha? That's super cool!! Hey, hey, what'd it look like? Did it talk??

voice | HO125E

[cactusy]

... No, it didn't talk.

[Shaw, you are from a world with sentient AI, so maybe cool it on judging the folks who actually know they're from sci-fi canons.]

Not a mecha, not a robot, just a regular old drone. A yard wide, maybe a little more. Four rotors, one claw.

[trialbyliar]

[Well, the good news is it doesn't sound like any kind of Exisal. The last thing anyone needs right now is something like the fucking Monokubs.]

Boooring. So it's just got a claw like one of those crane games? What, is it pocking stuff up? Oh, or maybe that's for grabbing people...

[cactusy]

Probably too small to grab people.

[Probably. It'd be an unwieldy job, but if the crane were strong and could extend its claws far enough to wrap around a torso...]

audio | callsign: DI481O | /treadjacks!!!

[salamanca]

If it's us, interesting that not all of us are hearing it, eh?

[cactusy]

Not really. Probably hard to wire a whole peninsula or island or whatever this is; I'm guessing they only put speakers in certain places. High-traffic areas, maybe.

[Not that she's seen much sign of any traffic yet.]

[salamanca]

Sounds like you've already given this a lot of thought. [ He sounds impressed. ] Any guesses who "they" are, Miss...? [ The voice sounds female; he prompts for a name. He suspects she has no idea who "they" are, but you never know! Can't hurt to ask. ]

[cactusy]

Only guesses that don't make any sense.

[The idea that people might want to kidnap her isn't surprising! The idea that they'd dump her in the middle of a tropical wilderness with a bunch of other people and give them all fancy walkie-talkies very much is.]

-- And it's Shaw. You?

[salamanca]

[ There's a light laugh, but it's not a happy one. Kinda sad, even. Deliberately, he tries to hide his natural accent, letting himself deliberately take on a more Americanized one. ]

Yeah, yeah. I hear that.

[ Surprisingly, it's not all just an act to ingratiate himself to her! He does understand what she means. He, too, can think of someone specific who would very much like to kidnap him, but the idea that the person would leave him on the beach, even soaking wet and half-dead, instead of just shooting him in the head or worse, doesn't stand to reason even a little. ]

Miss Shaw it is. Lovely to speak with you.

[ Have a fake alias, everybody. ]

De Guzman. It's my pleasure.

[cactusy]

[When dealing with civilians, Don't explain a fucking thing is always a safe road to take: at best, having too much information will freak them out and make them really annoying to deal with, and at worst it'll put them in danger. But that laugh? Tells her that it's not that she shouldn't explain because he's a random innocent who isn't prepared to hear it, but that she doesn't need to explain because he already knows.

She can't help but wonder how many people here are in the same boat. Even happy sunshine Mr. Rogers might be a cop or spy or international arms dealer. (That goes double for people trying to hide their accents, but she'll keep that thought to herself for now. Even if there weren't several possible mundane explanations for it - it's not like her own university lit professor mother hadn't Americanized her Iranian accent under certain circumstances - outing undercover folks without a damn good reason for it is gauche.) ]

Yeah.

[Just look at how effusive she is.]

We could all go around listing off our enemies and seeing if we have any names in common.

[It's said dryly, but. Maybe it's not the worst idea to start off with?]

[salamanca]

[ He can't tell if she believes his fake American accent or not. His normal accent isn't even very strong; it's faint and background anyway. Something he's done on purpose all his life anyway, simply in a quest to sound educated, smart. This is just the natural next step up from that, pushing it one bit further.

Whether she believes him or not, she doesn't say anything about it, for which he's grateful.

The effusive "yeah" is noted, and he does his best to sound concerned. ]

--Miss Shaw? Is everything okay?

[ Her idea of naming enemies and seeing who they have in common is an interesting one, and maybe even a logical one. But naming his enemy as an enemy, with no proof, would be deadly for him, so it feels like a trap too. He considers it. ]

Wow. You really think one person could do all of this?

[cactusy]

Who says an enemy has to be a person?

[Organizations and governments count, too! As to the first question, she doesn't even answer it; she's obviously fine (lol, no). ]

[salamanca]

[ He takes note of the fact that she didn't answer his first question, but otherwise doesn't pry.

He does react to what she actually types, though. ]

You've have an enemy that's bigger than just one person? You must be important. Remind me not to mess with you!

she's still on audio, btw!

[cactusy]

Are you not? Hard to imagine anyone going to this effort for someone who isn't.