Time to Spill It [Walkabout - In the midst of all the city-exploring]

[itsananimalthing]

Well, we found an airlock underneath the hospital.

[Riddick even graces the network with a sensory livestream view of it, through his eyes, including occasional views of Jules or Matthew or some other member of the little exploration party in his peripheral vision. Have fun with the colors and Riddick!vision quirks, like intense motion sensing and heat halos.]

Found a generator a while back, but it only powered one house. The old network that used to be up ain't there anymore, so we can't get to the communication archives until we find where that came from and power it back up.

Anybody else got anything interesting? Know I've seen a bunch of you around the city, I'm sure we ain't the only ones who found somethin' funny.

Comments

[final_summoner]

Down where there were all those square buildings, warehouses, one of them had a tunnel for a floor. It goes on a long way.

[runawaystory]

Which direction does it head in?

[final_summoner]

Toward the ocean, the forcefield, unless it turns somewhere. I think it goes out past the forcefield, actually, but then it was filled with water, so we couldn't go any farther.

[runawaystory]

...Cameras in the hotel. Among other things. Dunno if they were there last time, but it seems likely.

[itsananimalthing]

Yeah? I... don't remember those, either. Huh. I'm gonna come by in a bit, maybe you can show me. Maybe we can bust one open and get at its last feed.

[flumine]

The hospital's wrong.

[runawaystory]

"Wrong" how?

[flumine]

Improper allocation of resources. There's nowhere to stay.

[itsananimalthing]

Well, it's empty and falling apart, but I dunno if that's the same 'wrong' you mean, kid. Wanna explain?

[flumine]

It's all short term. Immediate response to catastrophic damage. What do they do if people are sick?

[itsananimalthing]

Couldn't tell ya. I don't ever remember it actually happening. Nothin' more than a cold, anyway. Could be they just repurposed the place for whatever disaster wrecked the hotel, or whatever made 'em abandon the place?

[Or all die. Whatever.]

[flumine]

No. It's not emergency overflow, it's too orderly. It's by design. They were expecting violence.

You said you were here before. When were you here?

[itsananimalthing]

Not long after Moebius, before most of the current crew showed up. Gotta be at least a couple years back, this world's time, judgin' from dates on computers and supplies and shit, and just how bad the plant life's gotten.

Which's probably about as long as it's been, for us, almost.

[flumine]

We have a date of last delivery. It must have been just before the evacuation.

...We should look for full supply manifests.

[itsananimalthing]

That'd be a good idea. They gotta have inventory records, right? Either here or wherever they came in. Somebody else's got a tunnel under the forcefield, might be somethin' useful there if we can't find anything here.

[flumine]

[It's some time before River comes back - hours, in fact, after the initial conversation that had sparked the notion.]

They tried to contain it, but they failed. Had to pull out. There wasn't any food in the last shipment. They knew they were leaving.

[itsananimalthing]

[Well, that's curious.]

Huh. There any clues as to what "it" might be? And which "they" we're talkin' about here, exactly?

[flumine]

No. It's a shipment manifest, not a requisition form. Might be a "why" in the system, if you can get Jules to stop screaming long enough.

[But here, have a not-entirely-deliberate livestream of the paper manifest spread out before River, indicating that the last shipment saw a significant uptick in resources to the police and the fire brigade, and nothing at all in the way of food or fuel.]

[itsananimalthing]

I can always interface it if I've gotta and Jules doesn't shut up long enough to be useful.

[His voice has a distracted quality, as he examines that paper through her eyes. At least it does clear up the "they", to some extent.]

Thanks. Looks like they had a problem on their hands, before they all up and vanished. So might not be that they all found a way off the island peaceful-like.

[flumine]

There would have been casualties. Blood in the streets and in the air and in secret.

[itsananimalthing]

Guess that's why they've got everything set up for trauma patients. There any records of patient injuries you found in that stack of papers?

[flumine]

No mention of people. Just of things.

[itsananimalthing]

So either there weren't any, or nobody bothered keepin' records of 'em. Or else they kept those records someplace else we ain't found yet. Probably one of the other two.

[flumine]

Or they were taken. Swept under the rug so it was harder to see the damage. It's just a city.

[itsananimalthing]

Don't know where they could've been taken to, unless it's down through that airlock on the bottom floor. We've been all over this hospital, no body bags here, and they're civilized enough not to dump 'em in the ocean.

[flumine]

Burial at sea is an honorable tradition.

[There's a brief pause.]

So is cremation. There are volcanos.

[River, honey, no one sacrificed the old Travelers to a volcano.]

[itsananimalthing]

I'm pretty damn sure nobody made that trek, kid.

[He can't help it. He sounds a little amused. And since he has the right skill for it, he does in fact sound amused.]

It's like fifteen miles, all uphill, and nobody here has anything with wheels to make it easier to get up there.

[flumine]

Wouldn't come with wheels. The only ways in are sea and air.

It's too clean. Too orderly. Like it's waiting, only nothing ever came back.

[itsananimalthing]

Then we'll just hafta figure out where they went. We're workin' on it, kid.

[He likes her enough that he's actually being reassuring, there.]

Come on back down here, get some real-person time instead of ghort-time, before we crack that airlock door. Jules has almost got it popped.

[flumine]

We need more bandages. I'll come when they're found.

[itsananimalthing]

Nobody's bleeding that I know of, but if you want more bandages, knock yourself out. Good luck.

[flumine]

Yet. Calamity is inevitable.

[If not now, then next Jaunt, or the next. Just look at the death toll on the Bando Peninsula.]

[itsananimalthing]

[He chuckles a bit.]

Okay, ain't gonna argue with that. Just don't take too long hunting it down.