Jamie and X coming to Eureka.

[smart_house]

It may be awkward for X-23 and Jamie, transitioning from Milliways to Eureka. SARAH herself does not notice much of anything when she moves back and forth, but she advised her two guests to sit down on the living room couch before they left the bar.

"Exterior sensors have resumed function," SARAH announces. "Welcome to Eureka."

Comments

[walksthebounds]

Jamie edges quietly after her, darting glances forward and back.

The man at the top of the stairs doesn't look like much of a threat, but Jamie would still very much prefer 'not caught' to 'caught'.

[eureka_npcs]

That makes one of them.

"Richard," EG offers through Richard's communicator - a courtesy to the landlord since the extent of his power is not public knowledge - "Two unauthorized visitors have made their way toward the sub-basement."

Richard doesn't run, but close enough as he starts to cross the wide lobby toward the stairs.

One flight down from Richard, a colder man's voice is piped through speakers in the walls. "Your access to this site is not permitted. Please remove yourselves immediately."

[cutting_edgex23]

X's skin prickles, and her expression gets tighter.

Colder.

But she says nothing.

She just picks up speed.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie glances after X. She's going after the information - all right, that would seem to make it his job to stall.

Talk is what Jamie does best, after all.

He stops in his tracks, turning around in the tight stairwell, and demands in a voice that cracks, "Who said that? I don't see anyone!"

[eureka_npcs]

"Richard advised me not to speak to others."

Down the flight of stairs from the lobby is a central hallway that runs from one end of EG to the other, with fire doors at regular intervals.

At the far end from the two intruders, these fire doors have started to close. And lock.

"I do not believe he would mind, at the moment."

[cutting_edgex23]

X checks the doors along this stretch of hallway, one quick look, then a second (if there's anything to look at).

She is not going to let the locked fire doors stop her.

"Move faster."

Hurry up, Jamie.

[walksthebounds]

If the doors ahead of them are closing, stalling is probably pointless.

Jamie hot-foots it backwards after X, even as he calls, for the benefit of Richard and EG, "Agh! It's a ghost! Let's get out of here!"

[eureka_npcs]

"You are underground. I do not understand who it is you are trying to speak to."

No doors had been closing in front of X and Jamie; only behind.

Pushing them forward, moving toward a goal. It just so happens that EG's and the intruders' goals happen to coincide.

[smart-house.livejournal.com]

SARAH, on the outskirts of town, knew this was going to happen. It was a very high statistical probability that she would lose signal strength and tracking capabilities when X-23 and Jamie went inside EG.

She is unhappy about it.

So is someone else.

Not that SARAH knows that.

[cutting_edgex23]

X knows what Jamie is trying to do. Mostly.

It does not make sense to her, but maybe it will be useful.

And eventually, at the end of a long, cold, industrial hallway, they reach their destination.

X's focus shifts abruptly, though her expression hardly changes at all.

She has worked with computers before.

Her fingers slip across the buttons and keys, eyes searching out the most likely--

There.

[eureka_npcs]

The louder intruder appears to be of no consequence.

EG focuses on the female as she approaches the larger of the two server control panels in the room, no doubt intent on espionage and stealing his landlord's work secrets.

"You will not be permitted to remove anything. I will allow you to leave."

[walksthebounds]

"That's big of you," Jamie calls out, picking his way towards the other control panel and remembering hard what SARAH told him about how to work them.

"We really don't want to get in trouble - are you going to report this on our school records or anything?"

[cutting_edgex23]

"I will leave later."

X's voice is short and sharp.

She frowns a little, concentrating on her work.

Half of her attention is waiting for some kind of defensive measures.

She will deal with those as they come up.

There is no other choice.

[eureka_npcs]

And they do come up.

Not physically, though, so much as electronically.

"I will not allow you to steal." The two panels, readouts displaying a red label of TRANSFER IN PROGRESS, are blinking mundanely at X and Jamie, a status bar crawling from left to right. "I am backing up my systems."

[cutting_edgex23]

X tries a key command, but her attention is already flicking around the room.

If the storage space isn't here, it's somewhere else, and she'll have to find--

Oh.

She lifts one hand to hit Jamie's arm. She tries to make it light.

"Behind you. On the right. Unplug them."

Beat.

"You can break them, too."

If he can. Server stacks are not always that fragile.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie nods and grabs for the plugs, tugging as hard as he can to get them out of their sockets and prattling all the while:

"Really sorry about this, but it would be really bad if there was a record of us being here. See, our parents would kill us, so we're going to have to make sure that -"

With a final tug, the plugs come out. Jamie falls backwards on his rear, but holds them up triumphantly.

[eureka_npcs]

Even with the power from the rest of the building -- from AC electricity to solar panels in the roof -- EG cannot support himself for more than a few seconds.

There's no last words or final message.

Unless you count that TRANSFER IN PROGRESS, and the weak status bar that is frozen on two percent.



It's a quiet two or three seconds until a mumbled whirr and the sounds of a seal being formed in the door to the room. By the echo, the same seal is probably being formed in the other matching fire doors in the hallway.

Redundant systems; Richard must have been expecting an intrusion eventually.

[cutting_edgex23]

X does not seem startled in the least.

She just finishes up her work, looking fiercely satisfied.

snikt

Now to destroy EG's hardware, and the data contained therein. You can't strip data from drives that are just tiny scraps of metal and plastic.

Hopefully Jamie does not mind the carnage.

[walksthebounds]

As long as the carnage is not living, Jamie is mostly okay with it - or at least, okay with ignoring it.

He occupies himself, instead, in writing a note on a small Post-It, as he told SARAH he would: Try stealing someone else's data again, and you'll wake up without windows too. Love and kisses, Your Conscience

The note gets stuck to the biggest monitor with a flourish.

[cutting_edgex23]

X does not put her claws away, just shakes them free of debris.

Then she looks over at Jamie.

"We can go now."

Beat.

"Hurry."

And then, when simply opening the door doesn't work, she breaks it down.

Well--cuts through it.

It's almost the same thing.

"SARAH is waiting."

Then she's slipping through the hallway, 'unlocking' the doors as they reach them.

There is no time to waste.

[eureka_npcs]

No, there really isn't.

EG had locked the fire doors in the subbasement as Richard Nickerson had tried to come through to find out about the intruders -- the marines find him, for all his computer savvy, kicking at the lead doorway, swearing up and down about dismantling circuit boards.

He dropped himself to his knees before anyone had even drawn a firearm.

"Get a blowtorch!" one of the lead officers called to an underling. "We need to get down there, find out what's going on!"

[cutting_edgex23]

X freezes, one hand reaching out to snag Jamie and keep him still.

"There are people upstairs. Many."

Her gaze flicks down to him, then away, assessing their position against the map of Eureka (and EG) in her head.

"Follow me."

She tugs him after her for a moment, then lets go.

Here's hoping he can keep up.

She does not want to kill people today.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie is small and fast, and also very much down with the 'no death today' plan.

Keeping up isn't a problem.

For once, he doesn't talk, concentrating instead on following her - and on listening to what's behind them.

[eureka_npcs]

In Eureka, there is no shortage of available tools. Especially tools that involve a lot of power, and fire. The first door is dispatched quickly.

And the second.

It's the third -- the first the marine unit comes to in a long line of door that look like they've been attacked -- the unit commander spins on his heel, pointing at a subordinate.

"Go up top and tell Stark," the man in the black riot gear barks. "We may have something...loose down here."

[cutting_edgex23]

X and Jamie are too far away to hear them.

It's kind of a pity.

But eventually (less than a minute and a half later, if anyone's counting--she is--) they reach another stairwell.

She pauses in front of it again, listening, scenting the air.

Then she nods, just once, and slides it open very carefully. She'll hold it open for Jamie, then slip past him and continue upward until they find a door to the outside.

It shouldn't take long.

(And if worst comes to worse, they can go through the wall. It'll just be--loud.)