It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Tamsin was restless. She didn't do restless very well. She just didn't. So it'd led to her roaming the campus just about every day, helping people where she could and just mingling where she couldn't.

She was also doing a hefty dose of avoiding most of Kitty's friends -- Laura seemed to want to torch her. Morgan and Ruth? Well, violating his training be damned, there were days where she was pretty sure Ruth's seeing eye dog was about to get sent after her. But she knew she deserved the enmity, so she dealt with it as best she could.

And dealing with it the best she could included regular sweeps of the campus -- not to be confused with her aimless roaming -- for Gwen and Owen and the other de facto people in charge.

She always had her gun with her; today was no different. As she walked, she periodically checked the back of her pants to reassure herself that it was still there. Not that it wouldn't be, but it was a comforting presence for her.

[ooc: Feel free to run into her wherever you want on campus.]

Dani was pretty sure that she had never had a worse experience travelling via their good friend Gateway. She had never felt like she was being shaken to death any of the other times she had used one of his portals to travel.

Sitting up, she took in the surrounding area. "Damn it. Left one Apocalypse and got dumped right into another."

She slowly got to her feet, checking herself for injuries. After she deduced she was unharmed, she frowned in concern at the bodies in varies stages around her.

"All right people," she barked. "Talk to me and let me know you're okay." She paused. "Sorokin, you ask me for mouth to mouth and I will kick your ass."


[OOC: Open for any of the transplanted X-brood or anyone that may happen to seem them get dumped here.]

Eden had seen destruction before. Been the cause of it before...

Nothing like this.

It must have been days already, and she hadn't seen another soul. Just the lights. Now having seen the glimmer in the distance the night before, she was carefully picking her way across the desolate city towards them, now with a little more hope in finding other survivors.

She shrugged the pack she'd grabbed from a deserted outdoors store (no one was coming back to claim it, she was sure) more comfortably on her shoulders as she walked, keeping an eye out for anyone, or anything.

Far beyond the point of being fussy, here.

Somehow, and please god, don't ask them how, Gwen and Owen had managed to get the Rift to trigger a power surge and the electricity in the school buildings came back on. The power kept flickering, but so far, it had stayed on -- much to their relief.

Unfortunately, this burst of electricity had done nothing to help phone lines or anything like that.

As darkness descended agin for another night in Boston, the lights at MIT remained on -- attracting the attention of any one in the area.

Inside the basement lab, Gwen was leaning against the wall, watching as the energy from the Rift fluctuated. Owen was sitting on the leather couch, and she thought he might have fallen asleep. This didn't surprise her as they had been trying to take shifts around the clock to keep an eye on the damn thing and see if they could harness the energy of it somehow.

It had been a very long couple of weeks and Gwen wasn't sure how long it would be before she and Owen collapsed from exhaustion. They didn't dare sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time because who knew what would happen. Leaving the Rift unattended was dangerous, they both knew this.



[[OOC:

1) Yay power! Yes, the power is currently on at MIT. However, this is, alas, a temporary thing. The power will remain on for three days and then the power will go off again.

2) This post also doubles as a meet-up as requested for Jack to meet up with his team.

3) This post can also be for Stargate people and/or the Doctor to make contact with Torchwood

4) Did I forget anything?]]

Jo had set up housing for herself in one of the dorm rooms on the M.I.T. campus and was currently out patroling the grounds near there -- and near the basement lab wih that weird glowing thing that the two science people were working with. They had had a few cases of people trying to loot or mess with them and therefore they decided that the should take turns keeping watch to make sure they weren't caught off guard. She had no issues believing that there were good guys and bad guys - human and not human.

It seems that whatever apocalypse had happened didn't change things when it came to good and evil. The good guys were still trying to survive -- and the bad guys were still doing their damnedest to make it even more difficult for them.

Shifting her gun at her side, Jo started to make another circle of the dorms.

At least this gave her something to do besides freaking out that she couldn't get any news about her mom or Bobby.

Tamsin had been through a lot in her life -- powers activating at the age of twelve, going to Xavier's, dating John, leaving to become part of the Brotherhood, losing John to someone else -- but this? Took the effin' cake.

The portal or whatever it was that'd sucked her in had deposited her on a college campus. It'd taken her maybe five minutes to realize that it was MIT. But it was like a bizarro version of MIT. There was nobody there. Nobody. And she knew enough about MIT to know that there should've been people over all the place, especially in the middle of the afternoon.

She drew her gun, keeping it at her side as she moved through the campus. Maybe she was being overly cautious, but better that than dead.

She was exhausted.

She was exhausted and heartsick. She and Owen had come here in an attempt to shut down the rift that had been torn open, but nothing that they had tried to do had worked. After weeks of working on this, they had managed to contain the energy expanding out from the rift, but hadn't been able to close it.

Which meant that the portals all over the world kept opening and people kept disappearing into them to be taken only God knows where.

The M.I.T campus was empty except for her and Owen and -- though she wouldn't admit it -- it was more than a little creepy.

What was almost worse than all of the people seeming to disappear off the planet was the fact that all of the electrical devices and telephones no longer worked -- and they had no way of getting in touch with the hub in Cardiff to find out about their friends. They had no way of knowing the fates of Jack, Tosh or Ianto.

When Owen dropped down on the couch next to her, she gave him a sad smile and shook her head, burying her face in her hands.

"All of those people... gone."

"It sucks," he said tiredly, mirthlessly giving her a smile of his own, resting a hand on her back. It was as reassuring as he could be, really. "I can't think of a single thing to explain it. Well, nothing beyond 'the universe hates us' but that's kind of my default attitude so it doesn't count."

Oh, help, Owen rambling. Not good.

She appreciated his attempt at comfort.

"Jack would say that it's not the universe's fault that the people messed with things they didn't know enough about." She sighed. "We can't leave the rift now," she said, sighing again. "We have to keep an eye on it -- at least until we can figure out if there's a way we can get back home or the rest of them can get out here so we can close the bloody thing."

Stuck in America. Lovely.

"Great," Owen said, clearly echoing her sentiment. "Just where I always wanted to live. Except, you know, not. And we're stuck here on the college campus, too, aren't we?" Because really, he didn't think trying to find somewhere off-campus to stay was a good idea, considering the rift's instability and potential for badness.

Gwen nodded tiredly. "Yeah. We probably should pretend to try to take care of this thing since it's kind of what we do."

"Yeah, we should." He sighed. "Except I don't know what to do about it. We've kinda reached our limits. If Tosh were here, it'd be different, but..."

"I know," Gwen sighed. "But right now... we're the only ones." And oh, did that hurt to actually say out loud.

"It's like some demented horror movie or something, minus the shite jumping out at us and attacking." So far, anyway.

"You realize that's going to happen now, right? Weevils and all kinds of things." Because, let's face it. That really was their luck sometimes.

"I actually wouldn't mind Weevils right now," Owen admitted. "Because Weevils we know how to deal with."

"Never thought we'd be wishing for Weevils to attack," Gwen agreed. "But, yeah, you're right. They're something we know how to handle. This whole destroying the world thing... not so much."

Millions upon millions of people lost, because of some kid's science experiment. The irony there was astounding.

"I could really use a drink right now." What? He was only saying what she was thinking! Not that it was something they could actually do at the moment. They had too much else to worry about.

Gwen nodded, bumping his shoulder with her own. "I'm sure we can find plenty of alcohol here. It is a college of sorts, after all." She ran her hand through her hair. "We can raid some of the rooms nearby for supplies and take over the rooms closest to here as our living quarters. This space will be our main office since it's where we have to keep this damned thing contained."

Look, planning things out tactically was what was keeping her from falling apart at the thought of everyone and everything they had lost.

"Do I get to loot people's personal items?" He might or might not have been kidding on that one.

She smiled faintly. "We'll need them more than those that are gone will. And besides, it'll be nice to have supplies on hand if any survivors turn up here."

"Plus some of the nicer things can be used for trade, if we find others or if they come to us," Owen reasoned.

Gwen had to admit that was a pretty sound idea. "Bartering will be more important than old money now. Money is going to be practically useless."

"So... scrounging up food sound like a plan right now?" He slid his fingers up Gwen's back to toy with the ends of her hair. "Then we'll get back to work. We'll be useless if we don't feed ourselves."

She nodded, leaning against him for a moment. "That sounds like a good plan." She squeezed his hand before they got to their feet.

The world was a mess right now, but she had to hope that they could create some normalcy for themselves.

And find other survivors.


[[OOC: And... the Apocalypse is a go. Feel free to start posting reactions to the chaos, or travel posts or arrival posts. Gwen and Owen have set up housing in M.I.T., but you don't have to have that as your characters' only choice for living arrangements.]]

Sarah Jane and "Mr. Smith" have taken over one of the rooms off the student lounge that's become one of the official/unofficial meeting places for the... compound? HQ? Group? Whatever you'd like to call it.

She's currently fiddling with a circuit board and a soldering iron. Periodically the soft sizzle can be heard of the hot metal burning off the flux accompanied by a faint acrid smell and a thin curl of smoke rising up past Sarah's intent face.

[ooc: Open

One of the student lounges had been cleaned up and a table was set up with snacks. A couple of buckets filled with ice, sodas and beer were strategically placed around the room. After people had gathered, Captain Jack Harkness stood up. He held up his beer bottle. "Congratulations, everyone. I know it doesn't feel like we've accomplished much," he glanced out the window at the empty streets, "but we're still standing and this city's still standing and that's a hell of a lot in my book.

"Tonight, I want you to relax. We've been so busy we haven't had time to get to know each other. But we're going to be here for a while and we're going to be working closely together. Tomorrow, we start the long-term projects. We'll set up a medical center and turn this place into a livable habitat along with figuring out how to close the rift. Tonight, we have some fun and remember why we want to keep this world going." He tilted his beer bottle in a toast. "To us," he said. "And to the future."

[Open to the M.I.T. folks!]