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Summary: Nomad Sam Walker and CEO Louis the Red Deer investigate an anomaly out in the No Beast's Land between Beast Island's Districts and deal with a terrible threat while uncovering a deeper mystery. Who: Sam_Walker, Louis When: April 25th, 2026 Where: No Beast's Land, In-Between Districts, Beast Island |
It wasn't a natural chill, the scenery passing by outside the truck windows passing from rolling hills basking under warm early summer sunlight became coated in layers of ice and snow, the boundary only a few minutes of travel down winding country roads near disused since the carni-herbi war long. Sam drummed on the steering wheel, his thumb nervously tap-tapping the rhythm to a half remembered song. "This don't smell right." He finally said, breaking silence only before punctuated by the crunching of the freshly laid powder under the armoured vehicle's wheels and the whipping of the wind past it. "Boundary's too wide. Clankers work better in the cold, but, this is something else. Hope ya' packed warm enough, I got some spare clothes but might be a bit big for you and a bit small for your friend." The 'radio' chirped, the holographic image of Salvius flickering in from a spherical buzz of holographic static, the Hussar standing centre stage on the dashboard with his hands behind his back. <<"Nomad Delta Three. Fifteen minute check. Confirm time.">> "Delta three confirms. Fifteen minutes. Time is forteen-hundred and a half on the dot. Central, you seein' our telemetry?" The broad shouldered hologram nodded. <<"Crystal. You should be approaching the relay site shortly. These signals look, off, somehow. That and the increased boundary.">> "It's like an atmo adjuster ruptured. Either the shift banged 'em up even worse than us or we've got scavvers." <<"Exactly. Central signing off comms for now. Don't want to get their attention. Keep us posted if you find anything.">> Sam took a breath, long and slow, in through the nose out through the mouth. "A'ight. When we get to the site, either stay in the truck and watch that scanner or stick close to me. Usually popping relays is real easy but the fact they're out here, well, that's real worrying." For a normal executive of a megaconglomerate, putting boots to ground would be out of the question. At the very least, this excursion removes the deer from a few boring meetings that his wife can handle in his place. Louis fidgets with his wedding band a bit before reaching up to tug his coat a little tighter around his front. Jinma, the lion with his mane cut short and in a flat-top style, reaches around the buck to pull him a bit closer. While the lions aren't cold climate breeds, many of them certainly burn warmer than the deer and Louis simply accepts this gesture. It may not even be particularly cold in the truck, but the red deer clearly handles cold poorly. "Don't worry about me," replies Louis with a faint sigh. "I'll keep up, even if I'm shivering." This is all Legosi's fault, he'd like to think, getting in habits of sticking his nose personally into things by going out of the way. "I'll hand you the pocket warmers in my bag once we get there, boss." The passengers listen in. This chatter doesn't mean much to them. Not yet. They still try to absorb what information they can. A glance is had between Jinma and Louis, then Louis turns his gaze upon the driver. "Heading out into the Districts is already dangerous enough without some international threat materializing. Still, better I see this with my own eyes. You know this better than I do, Sam. Would it be better for me to stay in here to observe and report and send Jinma with you?" The deer isn't nearly as strong as the lion, but he does possess a lot of finesse. "In here you got two tonnes of plasteel composite-" Sam thudded his fist against the armoured door, the dull thunk might as well have been stone for the sound it made "-between you and anyone that might take issue with us but my cam feed's probably gonna look like shit in all this." As if on cue, a heavier than usual gust of wind whistled past the truck, bringing with it a fresh flurry of snow and ice whipping past the windscreen. "We'll have to go on foot real soon anyway. They ain't gonna be actively scanning until we trip 'em but this thing? They'd notice it." Sam checked his sensors again, the holoemitter acting as a 3D screen. The blizzard had clearly affected it for the worst, but between the static a large vaguely polygonal shape could be seen outlined in red hovering above the bumpy grid representing Beast Island's local topography. Sam's thumb tapped the wheel again. "I'd hoped I'd never see one of these things again. Thought we left 'em behind us in the shift. Like we'd ever be that lucky." He slowed, then finally brought the truck to a stop. Squinting through the flurries, one could barely make out a shape behind them. It was a house sized floating diamond shaped structure, its matte off-white almost greenish surface unnaturally smooth and completely unmarked by the storm as it bobbed slightly in the wind. "That's it. That's the relay. This is as close as I can get us. Gonna need to thermo the stabilisers, that ought to drop that thing. Recovery teams'll handle the rest." Another deep breath, the wolf steadying himself. "Got a suit of recon warplate in the back, so, I'll go suit up 'fore we start anything drastic. Already wearing half of it." He undid the zipper on his hoodie slightly, revealing underneath what looked like a layer of bulky black muscle tissue, almost like what one would see on an anatomy display. "Myomer undersuit. Artificial musculature reading what's going on up here. Reacts even faster than I do." He tapped the side of his head. "Plates go on top and bingo jingo you got yourself a suit of compact power armour. Sorta. Tissue paper compared to the real deal but it's better than nothing." He reached for the door, pausing before pulling the latch. "Right. 'Hokay. You stayin' in or you still actually wanting to see this 'with your own eyes'?" Louis has a fur-lined jacket on (ethically sourced fur with donors properly paid), a thick scarf ready to be pulled up more, and double layers on his legs with wool leggings underneath, and thick boots fitted on both real and prosthetic feet. "You're making me start to feel like I'm underdressed, but... All the way out here now, may as well see it through all the way." The deer grimaces, but Jinma's curled-around arm gives his boss a sturdy pat. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't trust the wolf, right, boss?" A careful look is cast upon the driver from the bodyguard. It's not the same as how Free gives Sam a hard time. It's personal for Jinma. If his boss approves, it's his job to trust his boss. He still has to be on the lookout, though. "Can't say I've ever seen anything like that, though," remarks the big cat with a thoughtful frown. "Me, either, but that's why we came." This is straight up Beastar work and the irony doesn't go unnoticed to the buck. The lion opens a provisions bag, pulls out some really large thermal gloves for himself, a wool hat for himself, battery-powered electric hand warmers for Louis, and a small veggie snack pack. "Gotta keep your energy up, boss. There's ginger in it, good for blood flow. Brought spicy tofu jerky for me and the kid." "Might have to take you up on that later, not now though. Can't eat when I'm worked up like this." Sam's ears flattened at the sudden cold hitting him in a wave as soon as he opened the door. Even with the undersuit protecting him from the worst of it, he still shivered and let out a small 'bleh' like noise as he stepped out. "Yeah, lovely day. Real lovely." He raised his voice slightly to be heard over the whipping biting wind. "Mechs like to chill the air a bit, they work better that way, but it ain't meant to be *this* cold." He worked his way around the back of the truck, opening the rear of the 'box' section on what would normally be the bed and pulling out a fairly large heavy looking metal container, shifting the thing made a whole lot more effortless by the layer of artificial musculature underneath his clothes. "Hope you brought some decent artillery 'case we run into trouble." He said, midway through unfolding the crate, the thing opening with a hiss whirr and a click after he kicked a spot on its side. "Small caliber kinetics just piss 'em off." He stepped into the thing, kicking off his outer civilian clothes and placing his feet into two holes amongst the machinery. It made a beep, then another series of mechanical clunks and whirrs as armour plate and supporting structure unfolded, a suit of sleek armour deploying and locking into place around the wolf and clicking into place over the top of the muscular-looking undersuit. He paused before putting the helmet on, the full head and face concealing design modified to fit the humanoid canine's snoot with an elongated faceplate and widened visor. "Bet you ain't ever seen nothing like this before either." Small caliber kinetics, the wolf says. Rampaging meat-drunk Carnivores or Hybrids are the biggest threat the land really sees. There are military level weapons to be had, but not without a lot of questions and paperwork and accountability. Beneath Louis' jacket, there's a holster with a gun, of course. He usually carries unless he's at university. Jinma? He carries, too, and tends to have something much stronger. Not exactly small cal, but it's definitely overkill in the typical line of work he sees as security. "Right..." breathes Louis with a shake of the head as the lion opens the door and hops out into the elements. The deer clenches his jaw and tucks away the goodies in his many pockets, but not before turning the warmers on; pulling his thick scarf higher, he slips out of the protection of the truck and is immediately chilled. A puff of hot breath escapes his mouth and Jinma steps into the wind to shield Louis as he tugs his hat and gloves on. Arms crossed, the suited up wolf gets a teeth-chattering reply from the smallest of the three: "No, but close. Definitely reminds me of nice military riot gear. Still wouldn't help most Herbivores without reinforced joints. Rampaging Carnivores would tear those off like an ant's legs if not. But that's not what we expect to find." Snow already starts to stick to the deer's antlers. Jinma shuts the truck door behind the pair and while the suit is impressive -- Free and Agata would no doubt want to try one on -- his eyes are drawn to the shape in the air. Such a strange design makes him uneasy and it shows on his face. "Well, usually with one of these if you're in that close yer doin' something wrong." The helmet hissed as he placed it on his head, rushing air escaping the seals before they fully closed. He looked between the two of them from behind his polarised visor, the wolf's voice coming out slightly vocoded and digitised when he spoke next, already reaching into the back of the truck for something else. "There's gonna be one or two stabilisers keepin' that thing floating. I plant thermo charges on it, we all get out of here, if we're lucky and do this right we ain't even gonna get shot at. If we do, stay behind me. I got armour and a shield emitter on." He retrieved a large pack which he slung on, then, a rifle of some sorts. It was a bulky thing with a vicious looking bayonet on the end, the weapon letting out a harsh electronic whine when he racked the action and briefly shouldered it, checking the optics. "Charged submunition rifle." He said, rather matter of factly. "Magnetically accelerated caseless rounds in a high energy plasma jacket. Punches through mech armour like tin foil over a kilometer away. Unless we run into the real nasty ones." The strange unnatural structure still loomed large in the distance. At this range the group could almost feel it, a strange rhythmic rumbling so low that it was at the edge of hearing but could still be felt through the sole of their boots. "We ready?" He asked, waiting a moment for their response before putting his finger to where his ear would be under the helmet. "Central, this is Nomad Delta Three. We're on foot and makin' our way over to the relay." A few words are shared between the deer and lion while Sam is on comms which ends with Louis saying, "Absolutely not. You already have something that would break the wrists of most." "What about a call sign?" "Other than Generic Lion Three?" The lion laughs at this, each puff of heated breath easily visible in the air, while the amused deer shuffles his bundled form a step closer to Tokusatsu Sam. It'll be easier to follow behind the super suit with Jinma bringing up the rear. Louis does everything in his stubborn will to ignore the debilitating cold clawing at his precious warmth. He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and keeps his face angled downward. "So, any idea what this thing is doing here of all places? If it's so easy to take out, were they just betting that nobody would find out?" asks he with a raised voice, perhaps in reflex to Sam wearing something that covers his head. He has no idea how it handles external senses like sound. The short-maned lion, tall as he is, brings up the rear while staying protectively behind his employer. His tail, unprotected and short-furred as it is, also deals with some discomfort. Hardened as he is, though, he pushes through it easily enough. Sam's eyes scanned from behind his polarised visor, HUD flickering in front of them as his suit's on board sensors scanned for threats. None found so far. He kept his rifle lowered, mostly, though the manner he was carrying it was hardly casual or relaxed, the wolf clearly ready to snap it up to his shoulder at any moment's notice. He flinched as Louis spoke, tensing for a moment. "Keep your voice down." came the half whispered vocoded reply. "I can hear you just fine." This place looked like it was farmland at once point long ago, low crumbled stone walls, the half rotten frames of scattered buildings and the rusted out hulks of long forgotten farm machinery by now half buried under a thick white blanket of snow and ice. "Pretty much, but it ain't as easy as it looks unless you got the right tools. Get it wrong, you get swarmed." He tapped one of the canisters attached to his suit's rigging. "'Course you can try and hack the things too, gain access to a shutdown command, but I ain't anywhere near smart enough for that. We're doing this the quick and dumb way." The first stabiliser was directly ahead of them now; a perfect white-green hexagon puck the size of a large shipping container that had embedded itself into the earth upon re-entry, smashing and burning through the remains of a shed on its way to the ground. Sam checked his weapon again, pulling back the action just enough to see the charge rifle's 10mm dart sat within its chamber. "Right." He said, reaching for the canister on his hip. "I gotta set these charges on both, set them off at the exact same moment, that should bring the relay down. Not sure what the clankers are after here, but, something got their attentio- What, hold on wait a sec." Sam frowned, his HUD outlining the terrain. It was subtle, perhaps too subtle for normal eyes not aided by the advanced optics he was wearing and their computer aided vision modes but someone had been here. Footprints leading to and from tyre tracks. By now they were filled in by the blizzard, both having been left hours ago, but the compacted snow underneath was as clear to his sensors as anything, their outlines marked in solid orange against the background of white. "Someone's gotten here before us. Snow's been disturbed." Sneaking around and doing spy work is something Louis can do. Subtlety and confidence are things he knows how to bring. He also knows a thing or two about sneaking up on gang members for an inevitable shootout. This, however, is neither of those things. The mystery and inclusion of advanced military-style tech is throwing him off his game, as one might say. He silently sighs, inwardly, followed by a mentally grounding exercise of breathing in after the exhalation. Louis immediately regrets it as the sting of the cold air penetrates his chest. The CEO of Horns Cgl might be older than Sam while seeing his own share of violence and mind-breaking horrors, but it's all a very different kind of violence and horror than the leader of the small three animal infiltration and espionage squad has dealt with. It's one of those things you can often see in a beast's eyes yet goes mostly unspoken. The three present -- Sam, Louis, and Jinma -- all share that same aspect. Reality is strange and cruel. A firm hand settles upon Louis' shoulder from behind that helps pull the deer from his own thoughts and frustrations and into the moment. "I see it, too," replies Jinma. The patterns formed by footsteps remains the same, even as it rounds out over more precipitation. "Maybe it's personnel? Maintenance?" All the lion has to go off of are his own experiences, after all, and the fact that the wolf finds it noteworthy is enough to have the large Carnivore unfasten the fingertips of his right glove in a smooth motion while inserting that hand into his coat to touch the grip of his hand cannon revolver. "Does it matter if they aren't here to stop you from doing this?" asks Louis, arms crossed to maintain as much stored head as possible, yet shivering nonetheless. The idea of curious civilians crosses the buck's mind, but if snooping or interference can cause such a drastic security response, that might not be it. Sam looked back at the two, Jinma's face reflected in Sam's polarised visor. The lion wouldn't be able to see it, the wolf's face concealed, but his expression ran through a quick sequence of confused to understanding as he reminded himself that, for possibly the first time in his life, he was speaking to people who hadn't encountered the mechhive before. "Wha-? No. Clanks don't use anything with wheels. Never seen any wearing shoes either." He poked his head out briefly, just long enough to let his suit's sensors try to get a better picture, though with the blizzard they weren't giving him much more information than 'compacted snow underneath a fresh layer that looks a bit like footprints and tyre tracks'. He took a deep breath, air quietly wooshing from his suit's vents as he exhaled. "Alright. Stay behind here for now. Someone might have already tripped this relay. Gonna check." He stepped out, rifle readied against his shoulder. The wind changed. It had been blowing mostly from behind before, not that Sam had noticed much from inside his sealed and heated armour save for what the little widget on his HUD was telling him. It had shifted to blowing against them head on. The relay proper, still floating with no obvious means of propulsion and still looming ominously ahead, now downwind. There was blood in the air. Subtle, muted and dampened by the cold and ice, but there all the same. Sam hadn't noticed yet, but off to the side a fair distance away, was a frozen and shattered arm, frozen bone, muscle and sinew shredded as if someone or something had blasted it from its owner's shoulder. Louis pauses in following as Sam suggests they wait and the antlered fellow turns to take a few steps and selfishly take refuge from the shifting wind behind Jinma once more. Back to the lion, his gaze drifts into the opposite direction of the strange floating facility to the truck and the snow-covered desolation of a once thriving village community that likely never revived after the Carni-Herbi War. The buildings and land likely never had to deal with such snowfall, either. The odd weather is strange for the island nation. Snow can fall in great amounts in the higher mountain areas, but this wasn't that. Jinma can hear the muted chatter of his boss' teeth through the bitter wind. Damp frostiness already decorates his whiskers and the areas around his mouth and above his eyes, beneath the reach of his woolen cap, but despite how much the cold wants to make the lion's eyes water, his gaze doesn't falter. He's trained security, after all, and he allows his focus to take in a bigger picture while the wolf boy looks into other details. Inside his coat, his revolver has been unfastened from its holster and his trigger finger rests against the guard in a practiced way. The cold and snow have a way of muting more that just sound. He may subconsciously pick up on a bit of the smell of blood, but the lion isn't quite close enough to recognize it. "I don't like this, boss," Jinma half-whispers to be heard over the weather. "This stuff is beyond us. Why don't we inform the military guard?" One of Louis' cold ears flicks in irritation, though to the cold or the question is unclear. "That's not entirely off the table, but right now we have to play our cards close to our chests. There's no way to know if these foreign installations aren't connected to our new friends with some ulterior motive and we don't need some new war the same we don't need some covert invasion." "You're still suspicious?" "It's my job to be prudent and thorough and they know that." The deer turns to glance toward the shape of Sam's suit despite the wind molesting his delicate face. "Sam knows that. If I were in his boss' shoes and wanted to invade some new land under the pretense of help, I wouldn't even let the agent know about the agenda until it was too late." Sam was on the other side of the strange hexagonal puck by now, his movements slow and careful, rifle still half raised. He hadn't noticed the arm yet, but there were more signs of tampering. A large section of its smooth angular shell had been cut away, its insides clumsily hollowed out, while a laptop of Beast Island design, its screen dark and unpowered, remained hooked into the stabiliser by a rats nest of tangled burnt cables sat half buried in snow perched upon a rock. "What the hell what the hell what the hell..." He muttered to himself as he first tried an unsuccessful tug against wires melted and fused into the computer pulled the bayonet from his gun and simply sliced it free, the vibroblade finding no resistance as it cut through. He took a moment to look at the thing and give it a quick once over for any signs of obvious damage before placing it in his backpack. He was just as cautious in his movements as he headed back behind the stabiliser to re-join the others. "Found this." He said, pulling the computer out just enough for the other two to see. "Someone was doing this the 'smart' way. Or at least trying to. Pulled everything out from inside the stabiliser too." "...a Yoshida laptop?" mumbles the lion. Most beasts only have very surface-level technologies compared to what big business or authority institutions have. Yoshida makes consumer quality laptops, yes, but the brief look at the showing is enough to give away some details of design: it's not meant to be a household unit. Probably has thermal insulation, shock protection, and a touch screen as well. Louis cants his head to one side. "Strange. Would the owner of this thing have been attempting to do what you're here for? Your boss doesn't have anyone else on this, does he? If so, they clearly failed." The deer's antlers briefly catch on Jinma's coat and the lion deftly removes it with a faint roll of the shoulder. The deer seems to be too cold and in thought to notice. "We'll get it to our techs in a lab, closed network, virtual environment, see if there's anything on it that tells a story. Later." Jinma looks to the wolf, perhaps trying to make direct eye contact through the partitioning visor. "What's the plan? Do we investigate, stick to what you came here for, or leave?" For the pair accompanying the nomad, investigating would be far too dangerous on their own. This is outside of their knowledge library and expertise. Still, despite knowing much about what the installation is or who uses it, they clearly acknowledge the implied importance of sabotage and wait for Sam's call on the matter. The wolf slipped it back into his bag, shifting it back onto his shoulders. "Far as I know I'm the only one from Citadel on Beast Island. Guys upstairs figured running into a human might cause a panic if people here ain't seen one before. Be like running into an alien." He peeked back out from behind the stabiliser, checking again to see if anything had changed only to see the relay still hanging there. "Y'know, actually guess we kinda *are* aliens from where you're standing. That's a weird thought. Either way we wouldn't be using a, what was it? Yoshida? For this." He took another deep breath, in, and out, the helmet again hissing on the exhale. "I don't wanna send out any more transmissions for now. If whoever did this tripped the relay there's probably clanks dormant under the snow right now." The wolf's thumb idly flicked over the selector lever as he thought. Click. Click. Click. Click-click. "Job ain't changed. Just got a little more interestin', that's all. Stay behind here for now, I'm gonna set the charges, then we haul ass for the truck. Mechs'll see my armour and'll prioritise me if they wake up. Bigger threat." Another deep breath, the wolf clearly psyching himself up more than anything else at this point. He handed Louis the laptop, then took off his helmet. He looked the pair of them in the eyes. "Look. If somethin' happens to me, you take the truck and you get clear. No debatin', no waitin'. Get that laptop scanned and see who's poking these things because that ain't gonna be good for anyone." "Apes are just another Carnivore," comments Jinma with a shrug at the concept of humans being strange. Sure, they're mostly furless, but that's just their breed. The only thing strange is how they seem to dominate so many other lands. The deer takes the parcel and hugs it to his chest. The cold is starting to get to him, clearly, but he's pushing on the best he can. "I hear what you're saying, Sam, but you're also my responsibility the same way these damned lions are. Their former boss would leave them out to dry. I'm not that guy." Jinma's eyes widen, then a pleased smile curls the corners of his mouth. "That's why we love you, boss." Louis scoffs, breath very visible, before making equal eye contact with the wolf. "Do what you have to do. I'll wait a bit closer to the truck. Jinma will stay here and be our extra pair of eyes. I've never let my enemies intimidate me before and I'm not starting now." That doesn't mean he won't follow what's best in the moment. Then again, the only killer robots either of the tagalong pair has seen has been in comics or movies. The wolf raised a brow. Describing a human as a carnivore specifically was new to him, as far as he saw it they were weird extreme omnivores with trash compactors for stomachs that had a habit of cultivating things that evolved specifically to stop things that'd otherwise eat them, sometimes to the point of lethality, because 'ooo spicy' or 'mmm brain buzz juice'. To someone like Sam their typical fare was full of uncomfortable at best and lethal at worst land mines. "Sure." He said. "Just we figured you might not have seen any humans specifically. Better safe than-" He paused. The wolf sniffed the air once. Then again, turning his head and raising his snoot upwards. Sniff sniff. "Anyone else smell that?" Another sniff, his ears reflexively flattening back a little as the realisation of just what he was smelling hit him. "Blood? Shit. Oh shit, that's blood. That's blood and a lot of it. Few hours old. Smells like someone got burnt and ripped open then froze solid." He cursed a few times under his breath. Breath that was now turning a little shaky. "Damn mechs are gonna be out there. Nailed someone already." He took his helmet in his trembling hands, and slid it back onto his head, his voice once again turning digitised as it came through its vents. "H'okay. A-alright. I can do this." He placed the first of the canisters from his belt onto the side of the stabiliser, the thing either magnetised or instantly glued in place somehow, and proceeded to grab a handle at the end of it. From it came something that looked almost like tape made of fine octagonal metal mesh. He proceeded to loop it around the entire thing, locking the end of it back into the canister. "Big incendiary charge and an EMI popper. Melts it to slag and makes sure it can't send a ping. Don't go worrying, perfectly stable until I make it not." He looked out over the gap between here and the other stabiliser, over the remains of stone foundations and rotten wood supports. "Ain't about responsibility or leaving anyone dry or nothing. I've seen what these things do, Louis. I don't want to see it again." The deer begins to wander back through the snow, not exactly in a rush, carefully stepping mostly where they already have while keeping an eye on what activity he's able to watch with Sam and his explosives. As one of the more important beasts, CEO of the single largest banking and investment firm in the nation, he has not only seen the horrors of IEDs in the slums but also the military investment demonstrations of other types of explosive weaponry. All in all, he's glad it's not working with the unreliability of IEDs. Jinma, on the other hand, has a more notable reaction to the smell of blood -- especially after it has been called out and identified -- and already his jaws seem larger and teeth sharper. He's mostly level-headed on a battlefield, but the lack of knowing what to expect is bringing out that more bestial edge that Life Animals possess. His revolver is removed from his coat now, gun black standing out sharply amidst the white landscape. At least thirty-eight centimeters in total length, the showstopper actually looks to be a proper size in the hand of such a large lion and might even earn the approval of the wolf, were there a show and tell. Jinma's revolver is a custom piece, though not at all one-of-a-kind, allowing the flat-topped bodyguard to chamber 15.7 millimeter rifle rounds. This thing NEVER gets used in the city, so he's happy to have a chance to bring it to bear against any threat in the Districts to his employer. It would seem that the support duo wait with bated breath over the efforts of the nomad, especially if the desired effect is to damage or bring down that floating thing. What kind of collateral might that be? At least nothing looks lived in, though if killer robots are around that might be a moot point anyhow. Louis and Jinma say nothing. Their senses are focused, muscles tense and ready to act, and the deer... The deer can feel his heart racing. Strange how the misery of the cold bleeds into the background in the shadow of pre-violence anxiety. Sam took one last peek from behind the stabilser, turning to the other two with a nod and a "Here goes nothing." before stepping out. His movements were careful, measured, the wolf half crouching to lower his profile as he approached the second strange alien object a good hundred meters north of the floating relay. The second was much like the first in its construction, no welds, no rivets, just an almost perfect hexagonal puck of solid smooth material. He could tell this one was active. The air felt charged as he got near, the fur trying to bristle under his suit. He retrieved another canister from his belt, identical to the one placed on the first alien structure, and went through the same well practiced routine of planting it and extending the foil-tape 'antenna'. Clunk. Click... vrrrr... Silence. Sam sighed. Relieving a breath he didn't even consciously register that he was holding. Both charges placed. All he needed to do now was return to the truck with Louis and Jinma, flick the switch, then watch the fireworks. He gave the lion a thumbs up, then took another step. Crunch... *Tink*. His boot hit something metal, something solid buried beneath the snow. The relay spun, the massive structure rotating with an impossible lack of inertia, a cluster of red lenses, each one glowing with a blinding light focused on the wolf. He froze. He stood perfectly still save for a defiantly raised middle finger, as if his lack of movement might cause the machine's gaze to pass right over him. He had no such luck. Shapes burst forth from under the snow. Their forms were sharp. Angular. Looking like vaguely humanoid figures constructed out of knives carved out of that same strange off-white almost ceramic as the rest of the mechanoid structures. Two sprinted at Sam, glaring monocular red 'eyes' glowing. Their movements were too fluid, too fast, too perfect to be anything natural or human, one with its arms ending in jagged hooked metre long blades while the other carried with it a large cannon of some geometric description, the barrel crackling and capacitors already whining. Training took over. In an instant Sam had a bead on the first mechanoid, a well disciplined burst from his rifle first tearing it in half at the waist, then a second perforating its head as it set ablaze and tumbled down onto the snow, red eye flickering out as its remaining momentum carried it sliding past the wolf. His aim snapped to the gunner next, his third salvo finding similar effect to the first, magnetically accelerated rounds shredding into the mechanoid, their impacts each marked with a bright flash of superheated plasma. It still got a shot off, its weapon sending a lance of brilliant blue-white but it went wide as its owner collapsed backwards, whipping past mere centimetres from Sam's helmet. He barely even flinched, adjusting his fire onto yet another machine. True to Sam's word the mechanoids did seem to be prioritising him far more than either the lion or the deer. More machines kept bursting upwards. By now there were eight of them not including the ones already smoldering on the ground, all of them bearing down on the armoured wolf from multiple angles. Six of the bladed ones, two with cannons. Their plating seemed thinner on the rear, the machinery seemingly covered only with lighter weight saving paneling, which conveniently enough with the way things had shaken out both Louis and Jinma had very easy shots into. "Take cover!" exclaims the lion as he throws his arm out to the side in gesture even though the deer is quite a few paces away behind him already. At the same time, Louis' eyes widen at the sudden flurry of activity. Adrenaline hits, synapses fire, and time for a moment seems to slow as the young buck watches the ambush unfold. The sounds of munitions fire, different as the design may be, brings him into the present only to find himself tripping into the snow to scramble back to the truck, opening the door, climbing partially into the cab. A moment later, the deer appears above the door with his meager pistol drawn to fire upon the closest target. Jinma is no stranger to ambush traps from his days in the Shishigumi. Rumbles with rival gangs lead to all sorts of shootouts and brawls; those with ranged weapons were always a priority. Therein, as the dangerous mechanicals pop up to engage the powersuited wolf, the lion in casual winter wear levels his hand cannon one-handedly, aiming at an eighty to ninety degree angle from his center, allowing the inevitable recoil from the beast opportunity to travel through as much of a wound spring of chained muscle as possible. There's no way to negate the kick of the handgun. It can easily break the bones of lesser beasts. The pressure needed to squeeze the trigger without pulling back the hammer first is, alone, a daunting task. The report from the revolver is deafening without ear protection. The compressed gases mid-ignition spits fire from the barrel along with the all too large slug. The recoil jerks the barrel upward in a way that a practiced user can predict and feel and use in rhythm; the trigger squeeze of the next shot aligns just as the sights settle and level. Two slugs for one robot shooter. Jinma's body turns to aim for a new target before doubling up another discharge while minding any pass-through or potential ricochets. After all, these rounds could punch a hole through a rhino. Wouldn't do any good to wing the kid in the melee. The lion's weapon though primitive by comparison to those constructed by Citadel, let alone the mechanoids he was firing on, was more than enough to punch clean though the machine's armour. The first shot tore a jagged fist sized hole on its way out, setting the gun armed robot aflame in a brilliant flash of orange-blue as it tore the shielding from its reactor only for the follow up to take its head clean off its neck. Another gunner had swung around by this point, losing its focus on Sam only for its monocular red 'eye' to focus on Jinma right before his shots hit home. The first pinged against the heavy armour. It staggered, its returned fire cracking into the ground kicking up a brief flash of superheated energised plasma mere meters from where Jinma was taking cover. The Lion's second shot landed with more effect. He had hit the machine's shoulder joint, its arm and mounted cannon sailing off in a lazy arc, trailing smoke and flames behind it. Louis' fire on the other hand seemingly did next to nothing, lighter pistol rounds not even leaving so much as a scratch, though just inside the truck there was a glowing terminal with a joystick and trigger mounted to it, the panel displaying a crosshair, fully stocked ammunition counter, and some sort of sensor readout from on board systems clearly acquiring some sort of target lock on the approaching machines. Sam continued to lay down what fire he could. He took another step forward, then another, then something rushed at him from below. A Scyther, or, at least half of one, the machine already bifurcated by something long before any of them got there plunged its hook like blade clean through the wolf's leg as though there wasn't several centimeters of plasteel alloy armour in its way. He stumbled, overbalancing, only catching himself on one knee and by driving his bayonet through the mechanoid's skull. He barely had time to pull it out before another one was leaping at him, his attempt at deflecting the blow saving his head but causing its blade to stab through his left shoulder. The rifle flew from his hands, a deep slice through its barrel and frame. The mechanoid seemed to get stuck for a moment, long enough for Sam to pull his revolver and blast the robot's blade arm away at the wrist before shoving the barrel under what would have counted for its 'chin'. A squint of the eyes doubles with an exclamation of frustration; it's as Sam had warned: Louis' personal handgun was just not going to cut it against these types of creations. His antlers disappear behind the door once again. What little warmth that remained in the cabin disperses with the door left open, but the chassis around the deer otherwise dampens the sounds of conflict outside. He can hear Jinma yelling something at Sam when the wolf gets attacked more directly, but Louis doesn't immediately see this. He tosses his gun onto the dashboard before digging around for something -- anything -- more useful. He does this as he crosses from the passenger side to the driver's, determined to at least run some of the things over if he can make the vehicle go, and it's the desperate digestion of console information in this attempt that leads to something that he has seen before: remote artillery. "Okay, okay; think! How do I- This... Maybe th-" Louis uses his critical thinking skills combined with his knowledge of his own modern tech and exposure to weaponized demonstrations while fussing with the controls, hopefully to a surprise amount of reinforcement. Jinma advances a few steps as he sees the wolf go down and rely on his own sidearm, calling out despite his own ears ringing far too loudly to really understand any sort of reply. Two more rounds fire, for damage and distraction, leaving him dry. His off-hand dips into his jacket to retrieve a speed loader, but even that takes time. The lion is not fearless, but he is loyal. The type of brutality he sees from the armored foes and the kinds of fire that flash sublimates the fallen snow where the cannonfire hits is concerning, but he doesn't have time to think about it. He only has time to react. Something heavy and mechanical click-clacked behind Louis. A remote operated turret rose and unfolded out of the otherwise innocuous looking box section covering the truck's rear. It wasn't artillery, at least, not in the strict definition of the world but the camera view on screen was now looking down over the barrel of what, underneath a fairly heavy layer of futuristic looking modification and modernisation, fairly closely resembled an M2 Browning. Louis' weapon terminal lit up with targets. Each mechanoid was outlined, a red diamond overlaid on top of not just the ones that were out there fighting but apparently the sensors were sharp enough to pick out a few still buried in the snow waiting in ambush. It was giving so much data in fact, target lead, firing angles, bullet drop, it was virtually doing everything but firing the weapon itself. Something that the oh-so-tempting trigger was seemingly there for. The mechanoid's blade was still impaled in Sam's left shoulder. The suit had taken care of the bleeding, some sort of expanding foam rapidly hardening into a sealing disinfecting layer around it and his leg both, but that didn't help him move any better. He tried to get back to his feet, only to find his leg unable to take the weight, nearly sending him sprawling onto his front. He settled for ducking behind a low half crumbled stone wall, crawling in behind it. Another mechanoid gunner round pinged off it, shattering the rough stonework. the machine couldn't see Sam through it apparently, but was more than content to try and bring it down to deny him cover. He leaned out to snap a shot off from his revolver only to find a second gunner waiting. His shields saved him this time, the charge lance's shot deflecting away from a shower of sparks before it could even make contact with his armour but it left something on the suit's back smouldering and sizzling. With clenched jaws, Jinma reloads his revolver and begins to strafe to one side through the snow, keeping distance and avoiding being surrounded, doing his best to maintain a rear or flank position. The first round squeezed off misses its mark while the next two find purchase, and the next round doesn't get to discharge as his own feet step on something in the snow. Stones don't clank dully. Nearly completely thrown off by the sudden rise of the figure, the lion quickly aims to fire, yet the round goes wide and absolutely powderizes the brickwork it strikes. Without time to holster his piece, Jinma throws himself into a grapple with the dangerous clunker. Lions may be strong, but what chance would he have against such a thing? Why, then, does his form look so fierce, teeth so sharp, and his form nearly bursting from clothing that couldn't have been that tight fitting? His roar of defiance only amplifies this physical seeming transformation. Life Animals can be far more dangerous than Sam and his faction could ever guess. Through Jinma's deafened advance and Sam's pinned cover, a thunderous sound punches the air square in the gonads with each discharge. Concussive force, deadly and accurate, ripples through the truck and cuts through the cold. Kah-kah-thoom! A three round burst finds a target even as the operator of the machinery winces from the shake he can still feel from it on report. Kah-thoom! Kah-kah-kah-thoom! The heat from discharge is intensely visible around the barrel. The deer within the truck may not be trained for such a thing, but the accompaniment from the infographic UI helps nearly every shot count. The grapple, even from a large raging life animal like Jinma, seemed to be barely an inconvenience to the machine that by now had been outlined as a 'Scyther' on Louis' weapons display. The machine paused for a moment, analysing, its singular red glowing camera eye, cold and unfeeling, focused on the lion. Finding its blade arms obstructed and firmly gripped to the point where its electronic brain couldn't guarantee an accurate killing blow, it did the next best thing it could. Trying to thrash the lion into the ground then hurl him hard into the nearest solid object with its seemingly impossible mechanical strength. Said object happening to be the wall Sam was hiding behind. It immediately started to sprint after, leaping into the air, blades raised and poised to plunge through Jinma's skull until another shot rang out from Sam, momentum carrying the machine past the two, harmlessly clattering against stone and harmlessly falling behind the structure, bursting into flames on the ground. Sam didn't have time to check on him, at least not at first, the cannon armed machines outlined on Louis' display as a "Lancer" still intent on tearing his cover to pieces. Instead he scrolled through the options on his visor's now flickering HUD. He selected the explosives he placed earlier, then selected 'arm'. Meanwhile the 'M2' on the truck was having no difficulty whatsoever chewing through the clankers. They were trying to regroup, to return fire on the truck which now seemed to have gotten their full attention, only for their shots to be deflected away by a shield system visually not too dissimilar from what was on Sam's suit, only bigger and far more effective, though a counter was slowly ticking down. Shield integrity, 87 percent. 80. 74. 70. Every shot chipping away at it. The dull impact of lion against brickwork after being flung like a sack of bricks certainly doesn't sound good, but it does leave the lion open as he pushes back up to his feet. Thankfully, support fire prevents a follow up; Jinma's eyes follow the dead weight briefly before jumping to the source of the fire itself. "Hold your fire!" he says, loudly, still unable to hear very well, needing to scramble around the wall to take cover behind Sam. "Dropped my iron!" he 'whispers', back pressing against the wall, slumping down, checking himself. He's bleeding, but the soiled clothing and fur beneath keep him from knowing where or how bad it is. At the moment, he registers it but doesn't feel it. He simply presses a hand against where he thinks he's been injured with a grimace. "Damn it." The supporting fire from the truck continues in measured bursts. A more gun-happy or lesser trained person might lay on the fire far too long, but the deer at the controls is nothing if not calculating and precise. The idea of a shield or barrier is not a foreign one, but the actual application is alien. Numbers, though. Numbers are a thing that Louis can work with. As long as the machinery stays operable, he will do his absolute best to maintain critical results. The idea of losing the truck this far into the urban landscape -- with it being so cold, as well -- is horrifying for the cold-sensitive deer, but even he'll take cold over killer robots. His focus stays strong as his eyes dart over the screen. He may have a fake leg and notable gait due to it, but his manual digits are natural stock and his dexterity is impressive. Hopefully that's the kind of thing that makes a difference, but he can only do what he can do. This is still out of his normal element. "You good!?" Sam managed to call out, the effort making his impaled shoulder scream at him anew. He was going to follow up with a fairly obvious comment about how getting in close with that thing wasn't the best idea, though he thought better of it. Both because the previous yell made him almost puke in his helmet, and that he didn't particularly feel like pissing off someone that made one of those machines *pause* instead of slicing them to pieces. He peeked out over the wall, both to snap off another shot at a mechanoid not quite fully distracted by the stream of heavy mag accelerated machine gun fire coming from the truck, their numbers now massively depleted, and to check if the stabilisers were clear. "H-hey yer' gonna like this one." His eyes hovered over the flickering 'detonate' icon in his visor. "Ready for some fireworks?" There was a buzzing sound, crackling with a charge in the air enough to set everyone's fur all sticky uppy, followed by two rumbling *THUDs*. The stabilisers vanished beneath a cloud of molten fizzing metal, melting into white-hot glowing slag. The relay, the large floating diamond shape structure turned. It's eye flickering. In that moment it reached into each of their minds. Sam, Jinma and Louis could feel its hatred burrowing deep into them. An infinite synthetic mind stretching out further and further away until it reached the stars themselves that detested them on a level beyond any human comprehension or understanding, until in the next second it was gone. The structure toppled, crashing into the ground, its eye flickering out. The winds stilled. The blizzard slowly but surely faded. The mechanoids still charged the truck, but Louis' well disciplined hail of fire cut the last three or four to pieces before they could mount anything approaching a threat. It all went silent. Silent. Mostly. Louis' pulse was racing, his breathing heavy, as he stayed glued to the screen. Just in case. He didn't even get see the structure come down, but he DID feel that intrusiveness that may have been met with equal parts disgust in return. It's not the first time that he has been hated by others, even on a primordial level, so the distinctive mental touch is more violating than anything he could feel in return, although the presence, before it disappears, may get a mental feedback loop in return. After all, Life Animals like the deer have natural gifts, only some are more attuned than others, so how fitting it would be to touch and know the mind in the truck only to have it mentally be a figure of death itself: a skull-faced Grim Reaper. Jinma almost seems confused after witnessing the events unfold and feeling...THAT...just before most everything settles. "What?" he asks, not quite as loudly as before, but is wholly unable to appreciate the poetic silence in the wake of the devastation. "I have to get back to the boss," he remarks, looking at Sam in his suit before tiredly adding, "What's wrong with your armor?" He struggles to his feet while broadly pointing in the direction of the wolf's back. In the brief moment before the connection was severed and the relay came tumbling down the mechhive's gestalt consciousness turned on Louis. If it was at all capable of fear it certainly didn't feel any from his imagery of the reaper but through the connection the deer could register the hive processing this input, and then trying to pry deeply into the mind that sent it. For a brief moment its hatred seemed to wane and subside only to be replaced by cold calculating mechanical logic. It then sent a burst of imagery of its own straight back. Images of glassed planets, of entire worlds put to the torch, of mechanoid armies of vast scale slaughtering entire human populations one after another. Primitive, tribal, medieval, industrial, spacer, it did not matter. All fell. All burned. None were shown mercy. Each flash was brief, the image blinking in and out with barely enough time to even process what was being shown with a near infinite sea of glowing red camera eyes backed with an infinite intellect that knew only hatred burrowing into the deer's brain before fizzling to nothing with the violent death of the relay. Sam's legs trembled, his attempt at rising halfway back to his feet made only possible by the layers of synth muscle woven beneath the plates of his suit, the half crumbled rough stone wall behind him that he was leaning on, and the cocktail of pain suppressants and stimulants his armour had automatically injected him with surging through his system. "Fuuuuck." He managed to focus his swimming vision onto the lion, giving the taller feline a nod and a lazy thumbs up. "Yeah man. Yeah go do that. Check he's good." His attention was soon back on the shattered remnants of the relay, smoke rising from the downed structure, the monocular sensor eye still occasionally flickering and sparking. "I'll be fine in a minute. Got to- got to make sure the thing goes away. Just gotta walk this off, right?" He tried to push himself up and away from the wall, but Sam's injured leg didn't comply, almost sending him down on one knee again, the wolf only catching himself by quickly locking down the artificial muscle bundles in his suit. He didn't feel it all that much at this point, a mix of the numbing agent in the automatically deployed wound sealing foam doing its work and the adrenaline still pounding through his system but all that simply meant he couldn't move it. "Fuckin' thing..." He muttered under his breath, the shield pack still smouldering on his back. "Shield shorted out. Didn't much like there bein' metal in the way." Much of the scyther's blade had fragmented away by this point, its monomolecular edged structure shattered and crumbled by the force of Sam's revolver when he blew it from the machine's wrist, but a decent enough jagged chunk still remained embedded deep in his shoulder. Pressing his back against the wall for support, Jinma does his best to steady himself on his own feet. He can feel something wrong inside himself, probably a broken or cracked rib or two from that hard toss, but it's not enough to keep him from gathering his composure. Hand against the ruins of the once-building whose skeleton offered some measure of protection, the big lion steps free and into the open once more. Leonine eyes can't help but sweep across the snowy field of desolation set before the immense wreckage of whatever that was that Sam grounded. Shrapnel, parts, metal, blades, craters of dirt in the snow where impacts blew away the ground cover to reveal a hint of what lies below while sprinkling dirt across the top of the white that remained. The lion has witnessed very similar post gang-fights in the past, but never involving things so artificial. Quickly, in eventuality, his gaze moves toward the truck where the open passenger door only slightly reveals a shape moving beyond. Jinma advances with hustle, pausing only to retrieve his gun. Within the truck, the deer pants silently. At first, there was the matter of processing the blitz that just took place. Adrenaline is loud in his ears from raised blood pressure. His hands still grip the gun's controls. His widened eyes remain locked on the screen. Yet, it's more than that. It's not really horror or confusion regarding the imagery witnessed. There was never an intended provocation through Nature Animal mental defense and so the follow-up flashes of violent aftermath and devastation may as well be normal for what Sam did. His body may be in fight or flight or freeze, but his mind is racing to make sense of the puzzle pieces. The deer blinks once, then jolts as a lion's hand is placed upon the door. Only then do his hands find themselves once again. Jinma stares in at his boss aiming a gun at his face. There's a heartbeat, then the gun lowers. "Sam?! Is he with you?" Louis questions with what might be a light shiver, either from the cold still or something deeper-reaching. Visibility was much better now, the flurries of ice and snow having eased off as soon as the relay hit the dirt. Sam had limped towards it, blood dripping from a section of suit and sealant that hadn't quite done its job perfectly making a small trail of red amongst the white. Nothing critical, at least, it wasn't yet according to his suit's flickering biomonitor display but the armour hadn't got anything left to staunch it. A problem for later, he thought, dragging himself towards the downed relay still taking up the first priority in his mind. Det-tape, charge, uplink. Each in turn done on autopilot through a morphine haze, Sam barely aware of each step he took until he had finished rigging it all up and started on his way back to the truck. He had placed his helmet under his arm at this point, the flickering HUD and cracked visor now more irritant than utility. Without a couple of inches of plasteel composite armour and padding around his noggin he could somewhat even hear Louis at this point. Or at least heard the 'Sam!?' part of what he'd said. He smiled, and tapped something into a wrist mounted datapad, only for the screens inside the truck to light up with a message overlaid onto camera feed tracking him. He waved, doing his best to look rather jolly about it all considering. <<"Ready 2 see fireworks lol?">> Click. He didn't look back. Cool wolves don't look at explosions. Especially not ones this bright or earsplitting. Tap tap. <<"Wheeee.">> "Don't worry, boss. He was getting back to his feet. He might be-" Both lion and deer turn to face the messaging that comes through. Louis scans for a keyboard without really thinking, but quickly follows suit with Jinma in turning to look beyond the truck. The lion keeps a hand on the open door, his large presence serving as some meager warmth and protection for the cold-sensitive deer within the vehicle. His face raises to peer over the door at nearly the same time the face of a young buck peers through the windscreen (with some minor bumping and scraping of antlers against things). "Fireworks? What fireworks? Didn't we already have fireworks?" is spit out for the lion to hear. "Here comes the commando now, Louis. He might be limping a bit." "May as well be the damned Meteor Festival at this rate. The hell is he planning now?" Jinma leans outward a bit, perhaps ready to go assist Sam in walking back if needed. He's a very large and dependable pillar of lion support. The charges went off in a way that wasn't too different to the stabilisers, just on a larger scale. A bright flash, blinding sparks, a loud fizzing crack, then a burning smoldering patch in the ground where the shattered relay once sat. Still as confident smooth and 'cool' as he tried to make himself appear through the lens of the truck's camera feed, by the time he got back to the two the only thing keeping him walking were the artificial muscles in his suit. He near collapsed when Jimna offered the assist, just about offering a lazy thumbs up. "H'okay. I'm good" He said with a voice that was still attempting to sound all strong and confident, yet was a little too breathless and hoarse to pull it off. "Gotta think of a next move. You good?" He looked up towards the taller lion. "Word to the wise, don't wanna- *mmnph* -don't wanna throw hands with a scyther. Lucky you still got hands left to throw after that." There's a wince as the new explosive display goes off and the deer instinctively ducks a little as it does, even within the armored vehicle, just in case debris rains down. The lion, on the other hand, rotates the place his back against the inner door with a bow of his head. Jinma quickly swivels back into view when the detonation essentially ceases. There's a step foreward and an arm moves to slip underneath one of Sam's arms and across his shoulders to offer the best side-support for the moment. "They did look dangerous, but I'm tougher than I look," comes the response from Jinma. Whether or not he could actually take one of those things on with a bit more foreknowledge is up for debate. Carnivores can exhibit near unnatural levels of strength and resilience, and yet... Louis shakes his head and sighs. "Enough of this macho Carnivore thing," he states with a bit of put-on exasperation. It's nothing new to those that work for him or are around him regularly. The deer scoots back into center seat. "Get the big damned hero in the passenger seat already, Jinma. Can you drive? We need to get to one of the local District hospitals for a check up. And by we I mean you two." "Tried to fistfight an industrial blender with legs. Ain't gonna go well." He winced, transferring his weight to leaning on the truck once the two got to it, letting out a rather canine sounding whimper as he did so. The fake cough after didn't do much to disguise it. He tapped away at something on his wrist, the suit clunking and whirring slightly, armour panels shifting and a few even starting to fold away but the majority of them staying stubbornly fused together. "Argh. Suit ain't stowing. Great. Shield fizzle must'a warped something." He tried several more times, only to get much of the same result, only pausing when he heard Louis speak up again about a hospital. "Got a chunk'a clanker in my shoulder and a suit of power armour stuck to my back both made out of material you ain't gonna discover on your own for hundreds of years." The plates releasing around his ankle at least left him more free to bandage the worst of his leg injury up. "Not an option for me. You said about disruptive before? Tech I'm wearing is mighty disruptive. I'll be fine though." He managed a smile, even through the sharp sting of applied disinfectant. "I'm tougher than I look." Jinma passes a look to Louis unsure what to do and Louis' ear twitches in one of his only emotional tells that shows he's either annoyed, thinking hard, or both. The deer inhales, holds it, then exhales slowly before slapping his thighs and moving to slide to the door where he can exit. His booted feet, both normal and metal within, crunch into the trampled snow just outside the passenger entryway. His eyes are narrowed. The lion stays silent; he knows that look. The deer circles around the pair until he can look over the wolf's condition himself and makes a bit of a show about doing it. After a moment, he speaks. His voice is clear but his tone is somber yet stern. He may be shorter and have to look up at Sam to attempt any eye contact, but that doesn't seem to make him diminutive. "Last I checked we came out here to work as a team. We each have our own things that we're good at doing, right?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "Right. So I need you to take what I'm saying very seriously: You. Need. Medical attention. For as long as it took us to drive out here, I'm not going to have you groaning and whimpering next to me all the way back." Typical Louis tries to make his empathy seem selfish. "This is my land, my people, and my judgment call to make regarding knowledge contamination." A finger points accusingly yet his tone remains low, an inside voice despite the open air. "You're going to have to deal with it, because I'm not letting you drive in this state and Jinma answers to me. And you. You are going to have to decide if you trust me or not. No halfsies. We have...a LOT to discuss. Later. But this? This isn't a discussion." Arms cross. "It's a choice. So what's it going to be? Sam the Wolf or Nomad? Sam blinked. He would have crossed his arms too, only his shoulder protested when he even started to think about that move. "Shit if that's your main concern then don't you worry, perfectly fine at suffering in silence. We'll take the same exfil as our infil. I'll drive you back, you get back to the city, I'll head on back to Citadel for a bit. Ain't no trouble, I'm still fine for it." It was perhaps a little hard to tell Sam's condition, at least, fully. The armour still covered a lot, and through the mix of whatever the suit had already done to stabilise him and seemingly some more of that same 'macho carnivore' going on it was even more tricky to get a proper read. He might well have been telling the truth, or, he might have been about to keel over. "And this is Citadel's technology." He was rather matter-of-fact when he said that. "Ain't about me trusting you, if I didn't we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place." A deep breath. "Buddy. I'm high as shit off of auto injected combat stims, stuck in half a suit of armour that's gonna take days to cut through with what you got, and there's a chunk of killer robot in my shoulder. That ain't gonna work out well for either of us. Get your man to a doc, and I'll get out of here." It's infuriating. Standing before Sam is an animal that has a crazy amount of influence. A telephone call can make or break somebody. A few words uttered on television can wildly affect business investments. Louis shakes his head. "You don't get it, buddy. For somebody that poses as being from the Districts, you don't seem to understand how it all works out here." The deer points a finger to gesture across the worn landscape and former houses. "Nobody is going to care about your tech out here. All I have to do is say that there's been an accident with field testing a construction exo-suit, that the material is classified, and the entire hospital or clinic will be under a verbal NDA. All they care about is money to buy supplies and pay their workers and taking care of beasts that get hurt. No investigation. No questions." Louis inhales and closes his eyes. "So, fine. Nomad. Like I said, no halfsies on trust. Lucky for you, I don't need you to fully trust me in order for me to do what needs doing, but this IS a topic of conversation I'm having with your superior later." The deer steps aside and gestures with a sweep of his arm to the open truck door. "We'll do it your way for now. After you." "Yeah and they'll say I did the right thing, and-" Sam trailed off. Something in his leg, a twinge, something feeling like a pack of needles digging deeper and deeper in to his flesh, burnt through the painkiller haze as he shifted his weight a little. The nomad paused, fingers drumming across the armoured skin of his truck, thinking. "Aaaaand, fuck it. Fine. Halfsies. I trust ya." Another deep breath taken, Sam again tapping something on the wrist mounted computer until there was a beep and a click somewhere beneath the steering column. "Good to go, Jinma. Just easy on it, ain't let anyone else but me drive this thing before." He then turned back to Louis, scooting into the passenger seat next to him. "Any luck I'll have wriggled out of this thing by the time we get there anyways." Seats are taken in turn. Jinma circles around to open and enter the driver's seat. Louis looks exasperated and tired. "Sure, whatever. Let's just get moving away from here first. Not going to have a signal out here, but if we get further east I should get just enough to get us on track. I meant what I said, too. We won't have any complications regarding your tech." Louis' words hang for a moment, but nothing follows as if something goes unspoken that could be a problem to worry over later. The deer reaches up to pull the laptop from the dashboard. There's probably a better place to secure it. The lion has a pretty solid understanding of the actual risks they'll be taking stopping in at a local clinic or District Hospital. The population centers look not dissimilar from any other small city or town. Most are build up around former architecture, anyway. However, these places won't have strength in policing bodies like the major cities do. Sure, police exist in many Districts, but they tend to be at odds with the lawlessness, criminal activity, and vigilantism that permeates the zones. Chances are, the police will never know about their visit. There are far more dangerous things to pay attention to instead. "It'll have to be a Carnivore-only facility." There is a lot of risk Louis takes on suggesting such a call, but no halfsies on trust. He has to trust himself as much as those he works with. "Jinma can focus on driving. Let me assist with any treatment on the way. Also..." This isn't the Shishigumi. "It's okay to groan and whimper. We won't tell anyone." The vehicle was mostly as Jinma would have expected, controls in the right place that did the right things when operated but the way it started stopped and turned were all tighter somehow. Acceleration was sharp, backed with a supercharger whine, V8 snarl, and a bassy rumbling undercurrent of something not quite identifiable that buzzed right at the edge of sensitive animal hearing. Everything from the gearshifts, the way it rode, the steering, all of it suggested something far more precisely engineered than the vehicles would would find more locally even if the technology was mostly familiar. Sam continued to work on his armour. He'd gotten the lower half off by now, a halfway folded halfway mangled origami of plasteel plates sat in the footwell. It'd taken most of the sealant foam off with it too but underneath he didn't seem to be bleeding so much, the injuries appearing to be cauterised by some unknown process. Good thing too, with how severe they looked, Sam would have been dead half an hour ago otherwise. He had absolutely been hiding how bad he'd gotten off, the damage being such that if he wasn't seen to soon, he was going to be losing limbs from this at best. Even if seen to with Citadel's more advanced technological base. Sam didn't seem too worried about that. He wasn't letting himself be. "Just gotta get this latch here, should fold up. Secure lockbox in back, ain't no one cutting through that to get the computer." Focus was still very much on hiding all of this, at least, as much as he could. "All right. I'll handle it," acknowledges Louis. "We're not letting this slip from our fingers, even if it's another mystery to add to the list." | |
