Into the Black, Part IIIc: Team Alpha

[bring_a_sponge]

"Stick close," Zed mutters, as he leads the way down the hallway.

"No damn cover here at all," he continues. "Asses hanging right out in the open."

You better believe he'll remember this moment at renovation time.

Comments

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

"Gee, that sounds familiar," Peter snarked, and glanced over at Ray, "Just like old times, huh?"

He glanced around, at the team. Sheesh, he hoped they were trustworthy. Hell of time to expect somebody to get your back. Busts and family had been keeping him out of the Bar more and more these days, and seemed like more new faces. And less of the old.

[gone_byebye]

"Sounds like the incident that occurred at Case Western Reserve University in May of 2003, actually," Ray observes quietly. "The Cleveland police still froth at the mouth if you mention the Weatherhead building to them. No interior walls with sufficiently sharp angles for taking cover at all, thanks to an architect who'd been taking his structural cues from the same First Nations designers responsible for the Museum of Civilization in Hull. Be careful. The Case incident ended with two people dead."

He's moving warily- maybe a new thing for this Peter to see. It's a habit he's picked up along the way, though, and he's getting better at it.

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

Peter grimaced at that. "Been in a few museums that were open like this." He kept quiet on the dead part. The wariness was new, but Peter secretly approved of it. Anything to keep them in one piece, and survive to fight another day.

Right turn

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed's game face isn't showing it, but he's in a near-permanent state of pissed off. Nothing here looks any different from usual, but dammit it feels different. A subtle shift in the air. And he knows why.

They're coming up on a cross hallway now. He turns back to his team and gestures to the right. They'll be going down that way--provided nothing is coming at them from the left.

But first, he touches his earpiece and with the low rumble that passes with him for a whisper, says "Comm check."

"That low rumbling sound you're hearing. Part of the lockdown procedure. The atmosphere in here is pressurized. Can't feel it as much down here, but nothing gets out until normal status is fully restored."

"All right. Let's get round that corner. Stay sharp."

Re: Right turn

[sime-channel.livejournal.com]

"There's something down this way." Suzi says after a second, "But I'm not sure what." Her voice is very quiet, and doesn't shake. Her hands are, though.

Re: Right turn

[livewithrats.livejournal.com]

Krycek, very near the other two, turns and glances down the hall with a squint.

He's very armed, and very, very ready.

"Can't make it out. Zed?"

Trash can

[bring_a_sponge]

The hallway looks clear. Zed is straining for sounds of anything amiss, but nothing. Nothing.

What the hell is bugging him then?

They're nearly at the right-hand door. Zed gestures toward it.

"This is the door to our shooting range. That's where we're going. The main command room is through a door on the opposite wall. We put it there on purpose to make it hard to find. If the damn Oil hadn't compromised any Agents, I wouldn't be worried. But now we might get there and find the Oil waiting for us. But--."

Zed stops and stares at a trash can ten feet farther down the hall. "I don't remember that being there."

And that's when the trash can moves.

"Aww, SHIT."

Re: Trash can

[sime-channel.livejournal.com]

Suzi has an instinctive and immediate reaction. She squeaks and attempts to make herself VERY SMALL and DIRECTLY BEHIND RYAN.

Re: Trash can

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan looks towards the trash bin, eyes narrowing when it moves. His shield generator is already on, so the next thing he does is step up past the door to the shooting range. He should be blocking enough that those who want to get through the door can.

"If it's safe, get inside, Suzi," he orders tersely.

The bin has started firing, bullets flying everywhere. Damn, that's loud! He flinches as the first few bullets ricochet off the shield, but recovers enough to start firing back. The Deatomizer recoils only slightly as it releases a blast.

Shooting gallery

[bring_a_sponge]

The thunder of bullets and metallic reverbs from the alien weapons still echo through the air. There are heavy shadows everywhere, here in the shooting gallery.

Most of this room is taken up by a mock-up of a city, with lots of windows and doorways. Cardboard images of strange aliens and human bad guys stand motionless at various places in the display. A small table is right in front, probably where the guns would be placed right before a test. One-way windows are set up high on the opposite wall. Probably an observation room where agents could watch how well the recruits are doing.

Right beneath those windows is a door, but it blends so well into the city scene, you'd miss it if you hadn't been told it was there.

Re: Shooting gallery

[sime-channel.livejournal.com]

"OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL OIL!" Why, yes. Yes, she is hysterical. Yes. Uh huh.

Opening the door

[bring_a_sponge]

As Team Alpha break for the far end of the room, the remaining Black Oil rises from the floor with a loud, wet slithering noise, punctuated by the whip-cracks of tendrils slicing through the air, preparing to strike. Venkman, Ryan, and Krycek have bought them valuable time, but the Oil is already cutting off any hope of escape back to the hallway.

Zed reaches the inner door first and slams his hand against a control panel. Agonizing seconds pass as the damaged access control system tries to scan hist print.

Zed calls out, “Oracle, as soon as we’re in, I’ll need you to access subcontrol panel seven R delta. You’ll be able to—“

With a whoosh and a grinding noise the battered door to the command center slides back to reveal a room crammed with high-tech surveillance and monitoring stations.

Zed barks a command to follow him in, and rushes inside, clearing the way for the rest of the team to follow—-and then stops dead in his tracks.

“K! Should have known we’d find you--.”

Without a word, and with eyes hidden behind shades, Agent K looks up from a control panel and punches three buttons in quick succession.

--And a split-second later, seven high-velocity cannons drop from the ceiling, aimed directly at Team Alpha.

“K--!?”

Re: Opening the door

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

Jaw drops wide open. W T F ? ! ?




"K, man, what the fuck????"

[k_in_black]

K whips off his shades to reveal his normal brown eyes, without a trace of black.

“All of you, get down!” K roars, punching the final button in the sequence.

Zed dives to the floor as, with a massive whine, the cannons prepare to fire through the doorway...

[sime-channel.livejournal.com]

Of everyone in the room only Captain Richard Ryan has failed to see Suzi move this fast before. Failed to see because She's gone from a standing start to roughly ten times the speed of an Olympic runner at peak in order to do as she's told and get out of the way.

...She's hiding now, 'kay?

[bring_a_sponge]

“Good job, people," Zed says, as the cannons run out of ammo and spin down. "Oracle let the other teams know we’ve retaken central command.”

But a voice calls out. “Let us save you the trouble, ‘Oracle.’ Because none of you are in command of anything.” The voice might once have been human, but now it’s anything but.

K and Zed stare in shock at the door leading in from the hallway, where three Agents are confidentally walking into the shooting gallery.

“Agent N,” Zed growls.

“As if that name could mean anything to me now, meatsack. I’m no longer just ‘N’ any more than these are just Agents ‘Y’ and ‘T’. We are all much more than that.”

“But all any of you are is dead.”

N stands there with a mocking grin, but tendrils of Black Oil are already spilling out of the mouths and ears of what once were Y and T. And as the blasted Oil scattered around the room begins to recover, the three hosts prepare to attack.

[twiceahero.livejournal.com]

"Oracle to all to all teams, Alpha is in control of central command. Estimate internal surveillance will be under our control within one minute, internal defenses in three."

She's seen her team, they can hold off the incoming Black Oil. The best things she can do right now is take over the security systems. She finds her designated console and gets to work.

Oiled

[bring_a_sponge]

Ryan's grenade blew the confidence--and quite a few other parts--right off the three Oil-infected agents.

N staggers back up, glaring with fury at Ryan. Most of N isn't even human anymore, but only held together by tendrils of Black Oil. "You'll pay for that, you bastard!!" He draws a blaster and aims.

Seeing Ray's lightsaber, Y swings what's left of his arm, and sends several ropes of Oil straight for the Ghostbuster.

Meanwhile, T charges headlong for the doorway, straight for Venkman and Bill, a wave of Oil rising up in front of him like a small tsunami.

Zed hurries over to the control panel to help Oracle begin retasking the headquarters defenses, while K draws his blaster and prepares to join the fight.

Meanwhile, the rumbling in the distance.... doesn't seem quite as distant as it did....

Re: Oiled

[sime-channel.livejournal.com]

Suzi is still screaming. Loudly. She's got good lungs, that Sime, and no intent to stop until the oil is gone.

Actually the approach of more oil can probably be judged by the shrillness increase.

[bring_a_sponge]

Zed nods, "Initiate Omicron. Once it's up and running--" Zed pulls out a key and opens a locked, black box on the wall. Pulling a folder from the box, he opens it and hands Oracle the sheet of laminated paper inside. "--Give the prompt this code sequence. I'll be over here getting the defense systems prepped. Once they're online, you're getting them too." Zed eyes the fight. He wants a piece of those bastards.

K meanwhile runs out, blaster firing into every nearby cluster of Oil. He pauses by Venkman and grins. "Good seeing you. We just can not keep you gents away from Black Oil."

The lethal spray of Ryan's XT shot thuds heavily into N, shredding him from blaster to waist. The top half of the former Agent falls backwards to splash into the Oil behind it. What is left standing of N surges upward--pure Oil now--and begins throwing tendrils, which reach out for the Captain.

T stumbles as Peter's thrower scores a direct hit with the proton stream. The once Agent grunts in rage, spewing more Oil in front of him, and Peter can see the Oil popping as the protons make it burst apart. All T can do is thrust out with his arm, forcing the still-oncoming wave of Oil to crest as it nears Peter, K, and Bill.

As for Ray, the lightsaber is ripping through the Oil, leaving seared trails of burnt, crisped ooze in its wake. Y is screeching in rage--an awful, alien sound--but is forced to fall back several steps, fearing the neon hum of the saber as Ray advances.

[sime-channel.livejournal.com]

She'd like to stop screaming. She really would, and she knows that she's not helping anything. So, from her spot under whatever it is that she crawled under, Suzi has her hands shoved in her mouth to try to muffle herself. It doesn't work well, but it works a little.

[bring_a_sponge]

"Good job," Zed grunts to Oracle, one pro in his field to another in hers. The surveillance systems are back online, and Zed is scanning the initial data coming in when--"What the hell?" He runs over to another control center. "Oracle I need confirmation. Are you reading twenty MiB signals in the Deneuralyzation Room?"

What's left of N is getting pounded to splattered bits by Ryan but its thin tendrils are still reaching out for the Captain, still hoping to take him down with it. The Oil pooling in N's eyes glistens with hate and hope of triumph as two of the tendrils sweep down, right at Ryan's shoulders.

T has been blasted by the devastating punishment from Venkman, K, and Pardy. T turns to get out of the way, but--ironically--slips on the Oil beneath him and staggers right back into the heart of the proton stream, just as another shot comes from Bill. T bursts apart as the Oil within him explodes. The wave of Oil breaks and collapses, spilling over the threshold of the command center, only to halt about a foot inside.

A lucky shot from Ray, meanwhile, catches Y off-guard, and the former Agent screeches with rage as he loses an arm. Y tumbles to the floor in shock, but the Oil down there scatters away from him in its haste to escape from the saber. Deprived of a recharge, Y staggers slowly to his feet, the Oil within him flowing freely down his face. "You may win, but we're taking one of you with us!" And with that he hurls himself at the Ghostbuster.

The room is shuddering violently now. Marvin is badly hurt, thanks to the Bunny, and the steady pounding its taking from the MiB defenses, but he's still coming on fast.

[captainryan.livejournal.com]

Ryan sees the tentacles coming. He moves to dodge, but the room gives a particularly violent shudder and he stumbles instead.

Oh, this is going to hurt.

The shield protects him from actual contact, but the Oil slams into his shoulders, sending him sprawling across the floor. He lets out a snarl and rolls to bring the XT to bear, firing once.

Only once because the weapon just went click in his hands. Shit. That's not good. And now he's up and running, sprinting really, and damn, can he ever move, while his hands scrabble at his pockets for the extra shells he stored there.

[bring_a_sponge]

As we were saying, over there with the Omegas, Unipods are big. Really, really big. And their teeth aren't small either.

So here comes Marvin! Smashing through an entire wall of the shooting gallery, and crashing through the level above it too.

Right in front of N, who screams, "NOT ME, YOU GODDAMNED--."

CHOMP.

Exit Oiled!Agent N.

Unfortunately, Marvin doesn't seem likely to stop there. But before anything else can happen, Team Alpha hears a tremendous CRASH as a wide section of the floor up there on Level D gives way and pancakes alllll the way down to sublevel C.

Hmmm, wonder who made that happen?

Zed roars into his comm, "MAXWELL!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!"

[gone_byebye]

...worm.

Big worm.

Big damn worm.

Big damn worm with teeth oh GOD NO OH GOD-

"EVERYBODY SHUT OFF YOUR SHIELDS RIGHT NOW!" Ray yells over the communication system. "Complete and total Holtzmann shutdown IMMEDIATELY! The shields are attracting the worm! Shut them off now!!"