the light catches the eye but shadows have (moretosay) wrote in summerview, @ 2019-02-19 12:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | briar maeve naga, complete, narrative, plot |
I want to show them all that we can't be touched
Warnings for Violence, NPC Death, no gore but description of an unusual corpse
Xi had done an awful lot of Briar’s normal legwork for her, a job that would normally have taken weeks or months of prep she was going to be able to do from her files and a bit of research over the weekend, knock it out in one trip and be home the next day. It was convenient but left her feeling uneasy as well. When it was her plans and her intel she trusted it, spent all that time getting in the right headspace and working out a dozen contingencies. Sweep and Burns weren’t supposed to burn her, that would defeat the purpose, since she had to get out with the information and equipment.
The security system on the private, off the books lab was advanced but not overly complex or sprawling. Chad Perkins, CEO, Ph.D. and trust fund baby, was trying to be discreet at this one terrible aspect of his life. It was a nice try, but it had clearly failed. There were retinal and fingerprint scanners at the front entrance, along with a (mostly) discreet panel that measured the person’s weight. The last one would be the biggest problem with her equipment, so she was going in the old fashioned way. Chaderick was worried about corporate espionage, about his people turning against him (all two scientists that worked in the lab?), he wasn’t worried about cat burglars twice his age with a couple personal stakes in this. If she could break into an Unseelie manor, then this wasn’t going to be a problem. There was no scanner in the lab proper or the elevator, only cameras, but those were easier to trick than the scanners at the front. It also meant she didn’t have to get rid of one of the scientists early in order to impersonate them. The evening security guard she had caught at his breakfast at Waffle House, slipped his phone out long enough to modify it with some of her own software and hardware and placed it back in his pocket. Spent the first hour of his shift uploading and modifying her custom software and making sure it didn’t go into effect until after Chadery went down himself. Who should be arriving — ah! Here they went. Let the games begin. Her face shifted as she lowered herself down the vent, becoming more like an Unseelie from the darkest part of the Summerlands, tints of a starved Succubus in sallow cheeks and red glowing eyes. If she was going to be the last thing these contemptible excuses for humans got to see, she wanted their last few moments filled with terror. They thought they were safe because they worked underground at night off the books and off the grid, because they were experimenting on non-humans and because they were rich. It lulled them into complacency, and she had been taking advantage of those sorts since she was a teenager. By the time Chaderson was getting in the elevator, Briar was dropping on top of it, her few pieces if rappelling equipment left safely and quietly up in the vent. It felt good to fall back into old habits, the zen that could only come with losing herself to the sharp focus of the job and leaving the grays of it and the world as a whole behind. During the full minute she gave him after he stepped out of the elevator she checked the senbon needles in her sleeves before quietly unlatching the ceiling panel and dropping down to the floor. The walk to the labs proper was short, the facility was purposefully small, and she had timed all of this down to the second memorizing every step and even imagining the sound the sliding doors would make when they swished open. It was a good thing she over planned because they were not where they were supposed to be, two were at the computer, the other was mostly out of view behind the tanks because they just had to be cliche, didn’t they? The needles were thrown at the CEO and the Scientist, their bodies froze, paralyzed instantly, and she saw them drop out of the corner of her eyes as she vaulted over a table towards the last. He grabbed a vial of something, tossing it at her which wouldn’t have been a problem with how she was easily able to shift mid spin and kick it out of the air but the contact made it burst and vines grew out of liquid to wrap around her leg. What the fuck “What the fuck?” Briar snarled at the triumphant, arrogant man who put himself in full view as the vines tightened, perfect for her to hit him with another needle in the neck. One of her extra needles was shoved into the vine and she felt it tighten suddenly like a vice, and she ground her teeth as it withered away, stiffening and falling to the tiled floor. “Nice try.” She yanked down her mask and went about grabbing the third man, stacking all three against the wall where the vials were stacked. A Mermaid’s tail, a Unicorn’s horn, bits of Gargoyle in stone form,a pair of Pixie’s wings, an entire Dragon’s wing. All in various states of whole and there was more, but too small and too deconstructed for her to identify them at a glance. What a fucking sick operation. The veins around their eyes and necks were becoming more prominent, a miasmic green as they pulsed, skin pulling and tearing like a leper set on fast forward. Briar pulled out a USB key with a wire connected to it, wrapped around an external hard drive and plugged it into one of the computers. Her software went to work, one she had gotten an updated version of before leaving home from her Technopath on call but had trusted dozens of times before. As it worked she grabbed one of their own sturdy storage containers and started boxing up the things Xi had listed off, leaving most of the samples where they were, except a few that were special. Those, and that what was created here. A few pieces of their specialized equipment and everything managed to fit into two easy to carry boxes. The men had sores open on their faces now, some over their diseased looking veins causing bubbling, rancid puss to seep out. “You guys have about two more minutes. I’d ask you to smile but even I’m not that cruel.” She dug out the tiny camera she brought with her, “That, and you physically can’t.” The pictures were snapped, detailed shots of them with the tiny holes in their necks and movement of their eyes from shot to shot showing they were still clinging to life. It was dispassionate and lacked some of the satisfaction of physically tearing them apart. But as she planted specialized explosives around the room and hall — human, lest the investigators find anything amiss that would make those in the know look a little too close, she reflected that this was why she got picked for this. Precise, efficient, and able to bank her anger and resentment until it was useful. Used to sitting on it for a long period until it was a sharp instrument. By the time she finished, they were dead, her program had done its job, the drive was easily packed away and she took the elevator up, leaving one behind her as she stepped out in the lobby. The security guard stood as she stuck a block of explosive to the edge of his desk — “You have three minutes, or you’ll be just like them.” And he stood stock still for a long moment as she pivoted away, but like most animals, he put his self-preservation first and actually beat her to the door. |