Kind-of-an-OOM: Car adventures!

[hasthehighground]

Clint's not entirely sure how Oswin's gained access to the car she has -- a sturdy four-door sedan.

Whichever way that happened, she has a set of keys and hasn't wrecked it yet. Clint's given it a look-over, including pulling out out of its parking spot and re-parking it in the middle of the lane, and now he's sitting in the passenger seat.

He hands Oswin the keys once she's buckled in.

Comments

[souffle_girlek]

A computer very much from the future, along with someone who can use computers very, very well - that's a magic all by itself.

"We survive this, and I just might hold you to that." She promises, head bent over her tablet again as she delves further into the computer systems that once held this place together.

[hasthehighground]

He breathes a laugh.

A movement puts him on edge until he realizes there are rats in the trees. He's pretty sure rats didn't live when the dinosaurs did, but with how much traffic there must've been to the island -- signs posted on the road with speed limits he's ignoring, advertisements for the building up ahead offering snacks and souvenirs -- it'd be more surprising if rats hadn't made it.

"This the one we're looking for?" he asks, as the building comes into view. It looks wrecked, and Clint shifts his estimate of how long the place has been abandoned to somewhere past ten years. Things degrade quickly in damp environments, but it's... surprising.

[souffle_girlek]

"I... Think so." She frowns at the picture she found in the archives, a simple shot of the gathered staff smiling in front of the brand new main building.




"Clint? Shouldn't we... make sure no one's out there? Survivors?"

[hasthehighground]

Clint looks at her, thinks: there's no way they haven't died by now.

He looks back to the building. "Well. Any honking will alert any of the raptors that haven't followed us --" just because the dinosaurs have disappeared from view doesn't mean Clint in any way thinks they're not being followed, "but a human from the 90s knows what a car horn sounds like."

Clint's quiet another long moment. "The building looks stable enough to drive through, as long as we don't upset the supports. If we unlock the doors, we might be able to get survivors in before the raptors reach us."

He looks over. "But I think they're dead, Oswin."

[souffle_girlek]

She bites her lip, worrying at it in a gesture she never quite grew out of. She knows what he's saying. She knows he's probably right. They'll be risking their lives for ghosts, and for no good reason.

"Sometimes there's survivors." She mutters at her computer, deleting the picture and going back to searching through databanks to find more useful information.

[hasthehighground]

"Yeah," he agrees, quietly.

Clint's thinking. He's not currently on any critical missions. He's apparently integral to the overhaul of the security on the NASA project coming up, but they could pull Park off of the SIS project if they really needed to.

Fury would know what happened. Natasha... Natasha would be fine. She has a strong safety net with her Chicago coworkers.

He's paid his bills for the month.

"Okay," he says. "Are there garages on the other side?"

[souffle_girlek]

Startled, she looks up at him, because he can't have meant what she thinks he means.

The guilt in her expression at finding out she's right is horrible, but the gratitude is just as fierce. She's going to get them killed, but... maybe. Just maybe. This time the rescue can be not-too-late.

That'd be really good.

"Um. Yes." She's utterly flustered but her computer and data is grounding, so she focuses on that. "Through the main doors, left at the giant skeleton, right just past the restrooms, through the emergency exit at the end of the hallway, and a sharp left leads to the garage."

She blinks at the file for a moment, before adding:
"The one that has electrified gates. That are off. But still reading as functional."

[hasthehighground]

He looks over her shoulder at the blueprints. The hallways should be wide enough, but they might have to take the last turn on foot. He'd really like to avoid that. "Have those ready to go."

He drives in through the space the main doors used to be in, pulling into the lobby.

Clint unlocks the door, rolls down the window, and lays on the horn for five seconds. "Car in the lobby!" He calls out the window. "We're leaving in 90 seconds. Give a sign!" Clint takes a breath as he lays on the horn again, then repeats himself in Spanish -- adjusting the time down.

He rolls the window most of the way back up.

Now they just have to wait.

[souffle_girlek]

Every noise seems magnified, now that they are listening. Creaks and groans that could just be the building continuing it's steady decay could be someone deciding if they believe in miracles... or another one of those creatures looking for lunch. There is (was) an internal camera system, but it's long-dead, refusing to even pretend to come online for her.

Seconds slip by without an answer, and she feels like more and more of an idiot. But it is good, to check, she clings to that... because what if they'd been wrong?

This place is crawling with Daleks.
Yeah. Kinda why I'm anxious to leave.

[hasthehighground]

There's a sound, very much like a heavy footfall, from above, and the balcony up to the right -- out of sight -- creaks precariously.

Clint steps on the clutch, hand to the gear stick. "Who's there?" he calls.

There's silence, and then something crashes onto the roof. Clint flinches back as it dents, but it's only about as far as it would if a full grown man hit onto it.

There's a thick, reptilian tail down the windshield. Clint reverses with a sharp jerk.

[souffle_girlek]

For a moment, a brief shining moment, Oswin thinks that the gamble actually paid off.

And then, you know, there's that tail.

Clint gets a rapid introduction to swear words of the future as the roof dents further, and receives the lesson again in a more panicky key of 'augh' when those dents turn into rents, and the raptor's talons rip through into the cabin.

"Door to your left the ceiling is lower there door just go now now now!" Oswin yalps, sliding lower in her seat, her attention divided between the schematics on her tablet and, you know. The velociraptor above her head.

[hasthehighground]

Clint follows her directions, smashing back through the doorway -- just slightly too small, but thankfully not that sturdy, the steady thunk of flesh against a hard object as the ceiling catches the raptor by surprise. Unfortunately, it just clings harder as they back up, swinging around so its lower legs are scrambling for purchase against the back window, blocking the view.

In front of them, now that Clint can see, is the remains of a gift store. They've managed to knock over enough of the racks that the path back to the door isn't clear. "Get down," Clint says, as he takes the path anyway.

When the raptor isn't shaken by them pushing back out, he adds, pressing the P30 against the roof: "Cover your ears!"

He doesn't have time to see if she's going to comply, or to turn off his hearing aids. They turn themselves off after the first shot (smart tech), but his brain is already ringing. His audiologist -- fuck, he's so dead.

He moves the gun slightly, and shoots twice more in quick succession.

[souffle_girlek]

She has just enough time to wedge her fingers into her ears before the gun goes off, and the noise of it is still brutally loud. Three quick shots, followed by a heavy thud against the roof of the car. Oswin ducks lower, but the talons don't follow.

And that balcony is creaking again.

"That hallway, there, that's the restrooms, go!" She urges, before the light dims behind them. She twists in her seat, just in time to be able to stare into the unseeing eye of the dead velociraptor that's slowly sliding its way off their roof.

[hasthehighground]

Clint can't hear her, or the balcony creaking, but he catches sight of the hallway, matching it to the blueprints Oswin showed him, and accelerates.

The raptor hits the ground, and the car slows up immediately as it drags. That'd be bad enough, even if there weren't more coming in through the doors, but the rest of the pack's decided to move in.

"Okay," he says, and hits the gas. It's not like the car is going to survive this in drivable condition, anyway.

[souffle_girlek]

They move as if innocently curious, heads perked up, steps deceptively light-looking, claws held up against their chests like a pack of nervous mothers dithering at a school recital.

But then one bounces forward, mouth open to screech and any spell of innocence is entirely broken. Oswin tries her very best not to stare, tries not to hear their noises, tries not to hear the thumpthumpthump of the dead dinosaur's body as it's dragged along the lobby floor. Instead she checks and rechecks the electrical system, making sure that gate will be electrified after they go through it.

And then to be safe she checks it a few more times, in between shouting at Clint to 'here here turn here hallway that one here!'

[hasthehighground]

Clint glances at Oswin, briefly, and isn't surprised to see her talking. He can't make out the shape of her words from this angle and her excitement, so he falls back on the memory of the blueprint.

Crashing through the emergency doors almost shakes the dead raptor off, the vibrations of it thumping into the doors strong enough for Clint to feel in the car.

It's the next turn where they lose it, a sharp left after the emergency exit.

With the sudden reduction in drag, the car all but leaps forward.

[souffle_girlek]

The car's tires screech and squeal on the tarmac outside, nearly drowning out the noise of the creatures hunting them - they aren't far behind, the leader bouncing off the ruined emergency doors in its haste. Oswin isn't watching. If she watches the dinosaurs, she will be busy contemplating just how very sharp their teeth and claws are, how fast they can run, how very hungry they look.

So she's working, typing frantically. Restarting generators, re-starting electric fences where she can get a signal to run - someone on this island wasn't an idiot, and installed solar panels, and that's helpful. She's determined that no matter what, she'll be causing these creatures trouble for an awfully long time.

With her focus, she can't see the fruit of her labors - the garage doors loom open ahead, with their heavily-built gates waiting to crash down, strung with enough electric wire to bring down even the largest animals on the island, and ringing the lot, flashing yellow lights warning that they are live.

[hasthehighground]

"Get ready," Clint says, the well-lit garage of Milliways visible through the doors.

[souffle_girlek]

The car rockets through - engine screaming, tires smoking, sparks showering behind them as the ruined bumper is drags along the rough ground. It's simple really, the push of the button, and the emergency release on the gates fires - this isn't a controlled fall, this is the safety backup someone (another intelligent someone) put in place. The heavy gates fall with only seconds to spare, but they work.

Whole constellations of sparks ignite as the velociraptors slam into the live wires. It's hard to say which is more horrendous - the sounds of their screams, or the reek of burnt reptile.

[hasthehighground]

Clint can see what's going on in the rearview mirror. If he was thinking more clearly, paying attention to Oswin, he'd put this off until later, but right now all he's got is we need to close that before the generator runs out.

He swings the car back around, in a more controlled turn than before, and stops fifteen feet from the door, putting the car in park and jogging out.

The velociraptors were thrown back when they hit the fence, but there's still some charring flesh on the wires.

Clint makes eye contact with one of the raptors who didn't hit the fence. It turns its head to look at him better.

The garage door makes a satisfying thunk as it hits the ground.

[souffle_girlek]

If Oswin were a bit less boneless with 'holy heck it worked and we're home', she'd have stopped him. But the whole turning and stopping doesn't register until she's stared at him jogging away from the car for a few seconds.

"CLINT! NO!" There's true panic in her voice because what is he doing they're safe now. Of course, it's a bit muted - she can't get her dang door open because the unfamiliar layout doesn't lend itself to quick opening with shaking hands.

[hasthehighground]

There's no lock on the garage door, so Clint just scuffs at ground with his foot. "Hey, that was pretty great with the -- Oswin?"

He's just turned around to see her panicked flail with the car door.

[souffle_girlek]

The door finally opens (albeit with some entirely unnecessary hitting and kicking because it won't open when she wants it to), and she staggers out and away.

"What were you doing?" She demands once she's gotten her feet underneath her properly. "What were you doing?"

So maybe she could figure it out, logically, if she took a moment to stop and think. She would even call it smart. But all she's running on is the image of him walking back towards the dinosaurs seared into her brain.

[hasthehighground]

He catches 'doing' the second time she says it, and feels a faint sense of sickness, that he quickly represses. He'll actually have to learn to lip-read instead of just use it in a pinch, if Milliways can't fix this.

"Hey," he says, gentler. "We're okay. I just didn't want anything trying to get through, later."

[souffle_girlek]

She's shaking now that they're safe. The freak-out she distracted herself from before is creeping up around the edges. She nods at Clint's explanation. What he's saying makes sense, even if she's pretty sure she'll be revisiting that moment again in the nightmares she's getting entirely too used to. It's just... Too much.

She turns to go lean against the car, but... the car is battered and bloody and has holes in where there weren't holes before and... The last time she felt this off, she found herself curled up in a corner bawling her eyes out. Firmly she tells herself that she hasn't broken down that badly in a year, it is not happening today.

Maybe.

There's... so much blood.

"I think we killed it."