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Summary: Theo comes bearing gifts while Robin is on guard duty.
Date: June 24, 2020
Log Title Midnight Delivery
Rating: PG
The Future - The Underground
Under the streets of New York City there are many tunnels that are long forgotten. There are many dead ends, rivers of sewage, pipes and maybe that alleged alligator. There isnt much light down here and if you dont have a flash light, youll be navigating the tunnels blind. Occasionally there is a bit of light that filters down from a storm drain. For those that dont know theyre there, its almost impossible to spot, but in spaced areas in the tunnels are markers to show those how to get to the mutant haven deep underground which is home to the redeemers and the rebellion.
There is almost always a guard in the tunnels posted, and at the moment it's Robin and Blank. Or rather, it is just Blank. Robin seems to be leaning against the wall, looking over some papers, while Blank's, well, blank expression seems to stare out vigilantly, waiting for anyone coming back from a raid, scouting or anything else. Robin seems to be talking to the puppet, "The motion patterns aren't random, I know that, but we need to be able to predict…" then she starts trailing off and mumbling, since articulating isn't really necessary when you're only talking to a manifestation of your own abilities.
Outside the tunnels, there is a quiet rumbling. It sounds like a diesel engine, but it is a bit quieter than one would expect. There is no light to indicate a nearby truck, but it's too loud to be a figment of the imagination. And it comes from directly overhead. The RPMs raise a little and there is the sound of tires roughly moving over the rubble and brush that has grown up in the city, and they are turning. The sound of the tires come to a stop, but the engine is still running.
Robin puts down her map and looks up as she hears the sounds, adjusting her glasses slightly so they don't fall off. She gestures backwards, sending her puppet further down the tunnel to retrieve reinforcements if necessary. "Whassat?" she mumbles, raising an eyebrow up high on her brow. She is aware it is a vehicle, but is unsure of its purpose.
The engine continues to run for a moment longer, and there is the sound of another set of wheels pulling up next to a nearby runoff. The large engine cuts off, and a door to the truck opens, then closes again. Soft footsteps start to move toward a manhole, the one closest to the guard post. There is a knocking of knuckles upon the old iron seal. Somebody knows someone is underneath.
Sighing, Robin calls her puppet back, and sends it up to reply to the knocking, shuffling off to the side to hide. If this is some kind of ambush, better that Blank go up and answer than Robin herself. The manhole cover is tilted up slightly to peer at the person on the other end. Robin readies her handgun, just in case it becomes necessary.
And there stands Hardline. It's very dark, and he wears an old pair of black cargo pants, and a black t-shirt. The technopath can't see into the manhole in the dark. Indeed, he is hard to see outside, and whatever created the engine sound remains invisible to the naked eye. Theo folds his arms across his chest, and smiles. "Miss me?" he asks. He hadn't told anyone he was leaving two days ago. He just vanished. No warning, not indication of whether he was coming back, but the attitude after the encounter with Dingo was doubtful.
The puppet pushes the manhole cover further up, and Robin approaches closer to look up. The puppet shrugs at Theo, as if to indicate, 'Not really, but welcome back anyways'. "Get down here before someone sees you," says the young woman through the tunnels, sighing slightly at this. She crosses her arms sternly and waits for him to descend.
Theo hops down the hole, grabbing the ladder by the sides and sliding down. He lights up a flashlight so that the can see. "Robin," he says. "I come bearing gifts." He keeps the light muffled, so it gives only enough light for him to be identified by, and so that he can identify her.
%Blank teleports back next to Robin and she says, "Theo. Welcome back. Here I thought you went and just up and vanished. What have you brought?" Her eye examines Theo for a few moments in the dim lighting, and she brushes some of her hair aside, an eyebrow quirking curiously while her arms remain crossed.
"Well," he says. "I really meant to, but then I figured you would all send your ghosts to haunt me if I let you all die by yourselves. And I enjoy a good night's rest." From above, a cardboard box is passed down to him by one of his assault bots. "It'll only probably buy a little less than a week with how many people we have here. But I have a semi full of food and utilities. Maybe you can send your toy back to get some help." There is the sound of the trailer door being lifted. "And I brought some more reinforcements." At the end of the runoff, a robot descends. It's outline in the darkness is not like the other robots. This one stands to be at least twelve feet tall, and moves down onto all fours. There are two arms protruding from the back, and a long slitlike green glowing eye. It moves with strength forward, having to work carefully to get through the tunnel.
"I would have haunted the hell out of you. Just so you know. You wouldn't have been able to sleep a wink ever again. So you probably made an okay choice here," says Robin, her puppet flying back down the tunnels to indeed get some mutants to bring the supplies back. She takes a step back at seeing the large robot descending into the tunnel. "Geez. I can't say I don't appreciate getting more ablebodied robots down here, but they intimidate me a bit."
"What's the matter?" Theo asks. "Don't you remember Proto?" Back in the school, Proto was Theo's first robotic creation. He was a little robot that followed him around, and was only about a foot tall. He's grown a bit, it would seem.
"Do not worry, I'm sure the shock will wear off after a while," Proto responds. "Then I will need to make some sort of gesture to continue to intimidate." It's said with a straight and deep voice, but may be in fact a sort of joke.
"Proto used to be cuter," comments Robin to Theo, looking back towards the hulking robot for a couple of moments, "I guess nothing is as cute as it used to be." She snorts slightly at Proto's sort of joke. She takes it as one, in any case. "Well, you'll probably keep intimidating me, but I'm not one of the people who regularly confronts sentinels or anything. Sorry, big guy." Her puppet returns before any other reinforcements due, just because it's faster. Blank doesn't stop to greet, going up to transport some of the supplies into the tunnels. Superstrength and flight makes Blank an optimal choice for the unloading job, anyways.
As Blank reaches the top, it becomes clear that the semi has been painted in a black matte paint to help mask it from hunters and hounds. On the front of the truck is attached a makeshift plow to aide with movement over heavy terrain. Three of the same form of robot that aided Theo previously are here. Apparently A-2 has joined the party. They continue to unload the food and supplies. Unfortunately, there is very limited medical supplies, but little is better than none. Proto squeezes by Theo and Robin, stationing himself below the manhole, he retrieves the crates of food from the workers above, and places them in the tunnel for easy retrieval. "I suppose he isn't as cute as he used to be, but he's a hell of a lot more useful," Theo offers. "So has there been any more movement from the Hunters and Hounds while I've been gone?" he asks.
"I imagine that he is," says Robin, eyeing Proto for a few moments and shrugging, "And of course there's been movement. I've seen mostly Hounds and low level Hunters around, though." She unfolds her map and shows it to Theo. It has a charting of every Sentinel, Hound and Hunter that she's spotted or has reliable information about them having been spotted, all marked with a date and time. The map mostly seems like a bit of nonsense, but reading it has become second nature to Robin, who has a legend worked out any everything. "I've been looking for motion patterns. Humans aren't really good about random motion, so I imagine predictions could be made based on statistical analysis. It's just a lot of data to process by hand. I've noticed that some Hounds' motions are partially dependant on certain Hunters, certain Hunters on nearby sentinel units, and Sentinel units in general seem to patrol fairly randomly until one of them says *MUTANT DETECTED*." She even pronounces this last in a sort of sentinelish tone.
Theo grins. "Well," he says as he looks over the map. He hasn't a clue what any of her markings mean. "I have something you'll appreciate in here as well. But you have to promise to take care of it." He calls up to his robots. "A-2, could you get the laptop?" he asks. The assault robot ambles back to the cab of the truck, and retrieves a simple laptop, and brings it to the manhole. Proto retrieves it with one of his back mounted arms, and passes it to Theo. "Here you are," the technopath says. "I was working on a sensor grid when I got stuck here the first time," he says. "Maybe we can get that finished setting up later. As for now, this computer has a nine hour battery. There's a solar battery you can plug it into later, but it's probably toward the back. There is a mapping program already installed. About two weeks ago the information on it was current, but don't count on too much now. You can use it to keep track of all the location information, and you can keep it updated without wasting a lot of ink."
Robin looks down at the laptop as if it is the most previous thing on the planet. It certainly will help her quite a lot, especially with cataloguing all of her notes, charts and maps. "This will be very useful to me. Thank you /very/ much for this. Right now, I think this information will be useful information for killing or disabling lower level Hunters and maybe even intercept a few of Ahab's Hounds. Higher level Hunters usually come packed with more reinforcements, since their losses are more precious." She shakes her head quickly and says, "I won't bore you anymore with my thoughts on it, but again, I appreciate this a lot. It will save us a lot of time, and time is of the essence."
"That it is," Theo agrees. He watches the dark proceeding. "It'll probably take another thirty minutes to finish unloading," he says. "I haven't slept in about twenty four hours, though," he admits. "I'm going to catch a little bit of a nap before I have to move the truck. We can't have it here come morning, it'll raise suspicion."
Robin nods her head and says, "I'll have Blank continue to move them out here, and there should be some others coming soon. Do you want me to wake you up when the unloading is complete? Either way, you should rest up for awhile. Keeping alert's important." She nods once at Theo and readies herself to continue with her guard duty, "Have a good nap."
