[Chloe] Jailhouse Blues

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

Who: Chloe Sullivan
When: Evening, Day 28
Where: The Jail aka the Other Bunker
Invited: Faith, Locke, Daniel, Sam Tyler, et al
Status: Complete

Tropical islands sounded like a wonderful place to live, or at least to visit. And maybe they were, if you were on the beach or in a hotel with climate control. Or even a quaint thatch-roofed hut with a lazily turning ceiling fan and open windows. But in the jungle? In the rain? Not so much.



Within moments of leaving the shelter of the bunker, Chloe was soaked. The air was incredibly humid and uncomfortable. The rain was lukewarm and fell is steady sheets. The ground squelched with every step she took, sucking at her sneakers. Even when they reached the edge of the clearing and the shelter of the trees it didn't improve much.

The trees deflected most of the rain, reducing it to a thin drizzle and an occasional waterspout where it collected in the crook of a tree and poured to the ground. But the humidity was if anything even worse, and the air was utterly still. It felt thick, heavy and oppressive. (No wonder we took over the bunker,) Chloe thought miserably.

Her good mood in the cafeteria, buoyed by flirting with Faith, had evaporated. Even the sight of Faith walking ahead of her, equally soaked and with her shorts and tank top concealing absolutely nothing didn't help much. Chloe's journal made the beach sound much more inviting, though she supposed that it wasn't much better in a rainstorm like this.

Lost in her thoughts, Chloe almost stumbled into Faith when the slayer stopped abruptly. Glancing past her, Chloe saw Daniel standing with his fist upraised in an obvious signal of some sort. Beyond him Chloe saw only more jungle save for a hint of a structure mostly concealed by foliage. Daniel conversed quietly with Locke for a moment, throwing in a lot of gestures that seemed to mean something to him.

Locke skulked off to the right and disappeared. Daniel glanced back and beckoned Faith closer. She complied, Chloe following along. "You know where the rear exit is," Daniel said to Faith. It wasn't a question. Faith nodded. "Good. I want you to go around that way. As soon as John gets back, we'll go in the front."

"Can do," Faith said and slipped away to the left. Leaving Chloe with Daniel. Neither of them spoke for the several minutes that passed before John returned.

"No tracks," Locke said. "Any that were here have been eliminated by the rain."

Daniel nodded, looking not at all surprised by that.

"And the external cameras have been smashed," Locke added.

Again Daniel didn't look surprised. Chloe felt a nervous fluttering in her stomach. Clearly Daniel had suspected worse than she had. She'd hoped it was only the rain screwing up the electronics. But that was not the case.

The three of them crept closer to the bunker, close enough that Chloe caught a glimpse of the wrecked cameras over the door. She lurked behind a tree at Daniel's insistence while he and Locke moved up to either side of the door. They listened for a moment, then burst into the bunker in a coordinated effort, throwing the door wide. Chloe waited only a moment, then followed.

She stopped in the doorway, staring at the guard post. It had been thoroughly trashed. Everything breakable was destroyed, including the internal surveillance cameras. Papers had been scattered, torn and trampled. Muddy prints--shod as well as barefoot--covered the floors, along with spilled food, drink, and smashed and broken plates and glasses. A few dark smears that looked a lot like blood were visible here and there as well, on the walls mostly but also spattered on the floor.

Faith was standing at the far end of the narrow corridor visible through the open door separating the guardpost from the cells. More footprints were visible on the floor there. Faith looked annoyed, but not alarmed. Chloe moved up behind Daniel Jackson so she could see into a couple of the cells.

The prisoners were missing. And so were Veronica, Quentin and Aidan.

Comments

[Radek]

[tweets.livejournal.com]

Having joined in, Radek found himself lurking near the back of the group. Daniel's signals did mean something to him, he mused, as if he'd worked with military types before. His hand crept to the dogtags that encircled his neck and he found himself glancing around warily. He might not be a fighter-type, but he knew better than to interferre with the ones who were.

There was something about this Daniel that felt oddly familiar, as if he'd known someone like him, or maybe even met the man before.

He glanced to Sam and Gene at his side and was relieved to see the two men alert, just as he expected police to be. He nodded in appreciation and turned his eyes back to the task of helping keep watch.

As they moved closer to the second bunker, Radek stopped as he broke a branch loudly in the clearing. He winced as eyes turned on him and shrugged a little helplessly. "Sorry" he mouthed.

[Sam Tyler]

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

Hunt, unsurprisingly, muttered something uncharitable when Radek snapped a twig. Sam gave the DCI a look but didn't say anything. Hunt was his superior officer, after all. "S'alright, Radek," Sam said quietly. It was since the exterior and interior had been cleared.

Sam hesitated at the entrance. He wanted to examine the scene inside, but was reluctant to leave Radek at the door.

Then Locke appeared in the doorway wearing a somber expression. "They're gone. Everyone."

"Rubbish," Hunt grumbled.

Locke gestured inside. "See for yourself. I've tried to make sense of the tracks, but it's a mess. I'll keep an eye out here."

Hunt nodded and stepped inside. "Finally, somethin' familiar to do in this bleedin' place."

"Thanks, mate," Sam said, then followed the DCI.

Locke's description was apt. Mud, water, and in some places blood, obliterated most of the footprints. Sam caught glimpses of a few that were Aiden's or Veronica's, and a handful for men with Quentin's build.

Hunt hustled everyone but Sam out of the former jail. Although neither of them remembered the other, they found themselves working together. Bickering and getting on each other's nerves, but working.

Twenty minutes later Sam and DCI Hunt joined the others outside. They reported what little they could puzzle out. Three to six people broke the outside cameras, presumably after Quentin, Aiden, and Veronica had entered the structure. The intruders suprised the three, a scuffle ensued, and little blood was shed. Blunt objects bludgeoned the computers and brought down the force fields. There was no sign of firearms or energy weapon discharge. Everyone either walked out of the jail or were carried. No one was dragged.

"As far as we can tell. Difficult without a proper forensics team," Sam concluded.

OOC: Sorry this is so weak. I'm not inspired tonight. :(

[Chloe]

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

"Can't we follow them?" Chloe asked. She didn't remember much about Veronica, but her notes had made it clear that the two of them had spent a lot of time together. They'd been friends before the amnesia hammer came down. "Can't you track them?"

"...we can try," Locke said dubiously. He raised to a hand to indicate the rain that was still falling around them. "But any tracks around this building are long since washed away."

Chloe glanced down at the ground at her feet. A thin layer of free standing water over thick mud, droplots dancing as the rain fell on it. She balanced on one leg and pressed one foot into the mud, then lifted it. The soil sucked at her shoe when she lifted it, and almost immediately the footprint began to dissolve. Water filled the hole and the muddy edges began flattening, oozing into a featureless mass.

"They can't have gone far!" Chloe said, anxious to do something.

"Perhaps not," Daniel Jackson replied. "But we don't know which way they went, or even if they're all together. If any of our people escaped, they might be making their way back to the bunker."

He didn't sound hopeful, and Chloe knew why. Unless an escapee had gotten lost, they should have run into her. Or him. He looked around and Chloe knew he was thinking about the gathering dark. And probably the possibility of an ambush.

"We can't just leave them!" Chloe said, though she feared that that might be just what they did.

Redirect: Joining the Threads

[fikgirl.livejournal.com]

Joining this to Radek's response down here (http://community.livejournal.com/crossing_lostrp/138278.html?thread=4312614#t4312614).

[Radek]

[tweets.livejournal.com]

He hesitated, the faint whiff of ozone reaching him now that the bunker was open. "Are there computers? Are they .." he hesitated, looking for the right word "Injured?"

[Daniel, Faith]

[fikgirl.livejournal.com]

Something about this didn't sit well at all with Daniel. It filled him with unease and a nagging sense of hopelessness. The feelings were familiar and jarring, pulled out from somewhere deep within him. More frustrating even was the inability to identify their source and only accept them as they reared up.

"I don't want to leave them," Daniel's mouth tightened into a hard line. He forced air from his lungs. The exhalation was loud even against the backdrop of jungle sounds. "The last thing I want to do is leave anyone, but we don't have a lot of other options. Unless someone here is good at tracking non-existent tracks and trails." The wild waving of one hand toward the jungle illustrated his point.

"All we do know is that we don't know anything. Someone – several people – came and attacked in an effort to either retake the jail or take our people. It could have been The Others that you wrote about, that I wrote about. It could be another party of hostiles. We don't know . . . and there's nothing we can do about it."

Though Daniel amazed himself at his ability to keep his voice level and firm, equal parts sympathy and lecture, he faded at the last. His chin dropped to his chest. Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and his thumb. Another unfamiliar and yet familiar habit of calm and comfort.

"So we branch out." With his eyes closed, Daniel still recognized Faith's throaty tones. "Take teams, go in four directions. See what we see."

"No." The word fell with cold finality. "We don't have enough people, we don't have enough resources and we don't have enough information. Without knowing what we're looking for or what we're going to find, I'm not going to allow anyone else to put themselves at risk."

"Gonna allow?" Faith's voice rang with challenge.

Daniel held her gaze. There was a predatory glint there and the gleam of defiance. "You're right, Faith. I probably can't stop you, or anyone else, but I'm going to ask you to remember that there's an entire bunker of people back in the other direction. We have to think about them now. Now is time for the hard choices."

A heartbeat passed. Then another. Faith jerked her gaze away with a huff of indignant frustration and stormed a few feet away from their position. Daniel barely flinched when she yelled and launched a flying kick at a young tree.

"Everything's destroyed." Daniel answered Radek's question over Faith's show of destructive frustration.

[Sam Tyler]

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

"'e's right, Rachel," Hunt told Radek. "Looks like football hooligans 'ad it out in there." Before anyone could comment the DCI turned to Daniel. "Although I can't remember a bleedin' thing, I'm guessin' you sound just like the ponces in headquarters. Still, you're right, Danny-boy." The older man's brash demeanor vanished. "There's nothing more to be done here. We need to get back to the bunker before nightfall."

Sam stared at his superior for a moment, pleasantly surprised by his change in attitude. "Right." To Radek he added, "We can come back tomorrow and see if any of the electronics can be salvaged."

[Radek]

[tweets.livejournal.com]

Radek felt his eyes glued to the angry retreating back of Faith. It wasn't through desire, but through abject fear.

He turned to Hunt, about to correct him "It's Radek, or Zelenka." he said very quietly. "But there may be something useful."

He shivered, moving closer to Daniel so he didn't have to speak too loudly. "I would like to see if there are some recoverable drives, we might be able to pull something off them, if we can make the hardware work. Can I come back tomorrow?"

[Daniel]

[fikgirl.livejournal.com]

"Tomorrow sounds fine," Daniel agreed. "We certainly should see what, if anything, is salvageable from this wreck."

More loudly, so that his voice carried to everyone, including Faith who stopped abusing defenseless trees and had dropped to a defensive crouch, "Let's head back so that we make it before dark."

[Chloe]

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

"And look for Veronica!" Chloe added emphatically. "And Aidan. And Quentin." Not that she really thought they'd overlook that task, but--it needed saying.

"Don't worry, C," Faith said in Chloe's ear. Chloe flinched, startled by Faith's sudden presence. Damn but Faith could move quietly when she wanted to! "We'll come back for them. We'll find them."

"...yeah," Chloe said. She felt depressed now. She knew Daniel was right. There was no way to track them. It was still raining. It was getting dark. And there were an unknown number of bad guys lurking...somewhere. Enough bad guys to overpower Veronica, Aidan and Quentin along with all the prisoners.

(Unless they were working with the prisoners,) Chloe thought. She chewed on that idea for a moment, then dismissed it. As far as they could tell nobody on the island--even new arrivals like John and Erin--could remember who they were. So any sort of scheme to break their buddies out of jail seemed rather unlikely. Hard to rescue your friends if you don't even know you have friends, or who they are, or where they are....

"If we're going," Chloe said to Faith, "let's go." Standing the rain wondering what had happened to their comrades was just too damn depressing.

[Methos]

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

Adam remained quiet while he hung back, and watched the quick surveys made around the bunker and through it. He listened to Daniel and Faith argue about going on or going back, and he waited until Daniel had drawn the group to listen to his words before speaking himself, "The rain has made the ground too muddy to track by, but in this jungle there's a lot of foliage. Anyone notice a fresh trail cut to or from the bunker scouting around it? Even if it didn't take that many people to cause all the damage to the bunker inside and out there were people who got in, and people who have gone out. They went away from here in some direction. If they didn't cut a fresh path in or out they might have come by an old one."

Adam let himself stop at the thought that whoever had smashed things might have come by a familiar path rather than swarming in out of the jungle. He did agree with Daniel that they needed to think about the safety of their fellow castaways, and that they needed to get back before dark. Adam just wanted to be sure they hadn't just looked around they'd thought about what they'd seen. People were missing and there was blood on the ground. He had a strong feeling if they weren't careful there would be more bleeding.

OOC !!

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

Radek!?
Yay!

Re: OOC !!

[tweets.livejournal.com]

~Grins~ Radek's been here a couple of weeks!!! Brought him in because there's a Rodders!

Re: OOC !!

[lost-mckay.livejournal.com]

*laughs*
Okay, I'm slow.
Welcome Dr. Fumbles McStupid. ;)
In the throes of amnesia, he's alittle ... quieter, but I am
so looking forward to playing opposite you. :)