Blackout: Lastlight (IC)

[Nostradongus]

(For those who have been accepted only. OOC

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Deployment Day



Ashen gray eyes awoke to an empty room. Sore arms and legs stretched out on the bed, Abel slowly sat up as he rubbed the crust out of his eyes. From the amount of light already pouring in from the open window, he guessed he had overslept. A constant string of cusses were said as he quickly bathed himself and dressed in his jeans and a black t-shirt. Making sure his Colt 1911 was snugly strapped to his shoulder, he bolted out of the door and half-jogged, half walked the four blocks to the newly established Deployment center, which is where Boon Guardian teams often met for a few moments before heading to a "hangar" for debrief and gear-up. It was a meticulously restored 3-story red brick building, though the first floor was used.

Abel hurried in, leaving the door open since he didn't plan on staying long.

"Sorry I'm late Jules," Jules was his mission handler, she was a wiz with computers and Abel swears there isn't a more organized person in the Biodome, "Where are they headed?" On normal occasions he would've liked to stay and talk with Jules, even for a few minutes, but he didn't want to hold up the debrief any longer than he already had. Her prompt answer of "Hangar 4" proved that she felt the same way. Abel quickly scurried to the back of the room to the broadcasting station, which would submit his message to loudspeakers located at various places in the Dome.

"Boon Team 01 report to Hangar 4 for debrief immediately, Boon team 01 to Hangar 4, immediately." Since Abel had been charged with the debrief, he was also responsible for getting everyone there.


Though they were officially called "Hangars" by the Deployment Committee, they were really just a row of large houses whose garages had been spared. These garages often housed the Guardian team's vehicles, which were almost always land based, except for Abel's, which housed an actual aircraft, which was probably the reasoning behind their team receiving the nickname "the Flyboys" from Committee staff.

Abel was quick to reach the Debrief Station- the house next to the hangar- before anyone else, to get the maps and mission logs ready. He left the door of the old house open to make it feel more inviting.

Approaching what looked like a giant, metal spool, Abel plugged a flash drive into a neighboring computer and immediately the spool-like object came to life, presenting a blue-hued, digital map of the immediate area surrounding the Dome. It was colored orange to show that the area wasn't powered.

Well, there's our first assignment.. thought Abel as he leaned forward onto the spool.

Now to just meet the team..

[howler01]

Normally, on most any morning, Dr. Adam Cole could say that his alarm was reliable and he managed, usually, to get up on time with it. The things made a series of loud high pitched beeps and he'd created a circuit that produced a mile "shock" to his bed, to ensure that he rarely overslept. Of course, that might have also explained why he'd hadn't brought a woman home in a while. It turns out that after you're done steaming up a room, no one wants to be violently awakened to realize where they are and who they've just slept with. Yes, but those thought were quietly locked away somewhere in the back of the engineer's mind as he rose from his bed and showered. The water was warm and he generally felt better when he emerged. His apartment was some blocks from what he'd come to learn was the Debrief Center...a three story red brick building that housed the Boon Teams, of which he'd volunteered to be a part of. He still the official looking paper sitting on his desk, along with a pencil sharpener, and various other gadgets; things he played with or the latest transformer model the power company was planning to put up. Of course, things had all changed when the Boons were not only discovered but deemed to be the only feasible solution.

Cole had decided that today was going to be a jeans, work boots, and long sleeved gray t-shirt day. He had no idea when they'd be actually called to go out and set up one of the Boons...but he suspected the call would be immanent. As if he was sort of pre-cog, Cole heard a male voice over the loudspeakers, "Boon Team 1 to Hangar 4 Immediately! Boon Team 1 to Hangar 4 Immediately He asked rhetorically,"Can i finish my coffee first? Gah! but he drained the remainder of the cup he had been boiling on his stove, grabbed his keys and his pistol, making sure that the magazine was fully loaded and remembering to grab the spares he kept in the apartment. He also grabbed his keys and remembered to lock up before making a beeline down the stairs and towards the red brick building, a sense of hope, and of grim realization entering his mind.

Well, this is it. Hope I'm ready for this. Wonder who the rest of my team mates are. Hopefully people that have a clue what they're doing...of course, some people that are better trained with...protection would be helpful. But no promises I'm sure. Just gotta hope for the best, I suppose. he thought as he half walked half jogged to the building in question. What he encountered there did not surprise him. Upon entry, he saw a bunch of computers, a woman sitting behind them typing furiously away. She barely even glanced up as Cole said,"Dr. Adam Cole, Boon Team 1 reporting as requested. Her response was simply a "hangar 4, the house next to this building." and that was it. Cole gave a curt nod and was back out the door and on his way to the proper hangar as requested.

He entered there and stopped for a moment, glancing around the room. he spied a man who was obviously going to lead them. or who at least appeared that he was their leader, setting out maps and other documents, as a digital map of the Dome displayed itself in the center. Cole quipped,"Look ma. I can see my house from here." and chuckled a little. too soon? he wondered, but decided to make no more jokes...for the time being. Maybe once he met the others...but for now? no. he walked over to where the man was laying things out and extended one slender hand,"Dr. Adam Cole, Boon Team 1, reporting as requested. Nice to meet you uh...?" Brown eyes gave the man a once over and he certainly looked like the type of guy who would lead a sort of ...mission like this, if Adam had to guess. Then again, he'd seen so many different types of people, especially recently, that he wasn't' going to judge a book by it's cover.

After that introduction was over, Cole strolled back over to the map. The Dome's circumference was shown in blue and Cole guess that the large orange area outside of that was either where they were headed or was important. He muttered a hmmph and walked over to the one set of the maps and other documents, picking them up and scanning them over, periodically glancing up at the door, waiting on the rest of the team.

[Lucius Cypher]

"Son, you sure you want to go out in this?" Donny's father (One of them) asked his son, who was a bit busy making rockets for the M.A.D Suit. His father was adding one additional customization to the M.A.D Suit, a sort of "Extra Hand" to fire the shotgun Donny was going to bring. Nothing like a bit of kinetic death to deter mutants and raiders. Donny's dad asked again, this time getting a responds from his son. "Ey dad's, don't worry about it. We all made this baby together, and i trust that you know what you're doing. Worst that would happen is that I break it on the way home, and that don't mean that I got hurt or nothing. Don't worry so much, I'm a big boy now, see. Cides, it's about time i actually set up a Boon for the dome." Donny fitted the rocket onto the M.A.D Suit rocket chamber, making sure it was unarmed and ready. His father finished the last customization, allowing the Mossberg Shotgun to be fired from a small "Hand" on the shoulder. The suit was just about finished, and Donny felt confident that he'd make it. but his father was still worried. "Ey, dad..." Donny and his father hugged each other one last time. No words were said; neither one had anything meaningful to say right now. Well, except this. "Love ya dad. I'll see you soon, right? Yeah, that's right."

People made way when Donny was zooming down the streets. The M.A.D Suit was slow when walking, but he found a way to circumvent this issue by adding a set of ball-wheels on the feet of the M.A.D Suit, and using it's propulsion system to boost his speed. The guy was like a man shaped tank now. Still, fuel wasn't easy to come by, so he never used his boosters in anything more then burst. Soon enough he heard the intercom call for Boon Team 1; that was him. Hanger 4 was his destination, so Donny looked for the shortest way there that didn't involve crashing through buildings. Donny made it to the hanger in short time, though there was now a new issue; fitting through the door. In the armor, Donny was about seven feet tall and five feet wide. And unfortunately for him, most people didn't like him breaking things. He peeked his head in to see the receptionist, who gave him only a brief stare before furiously clicking away at her keyboard. She told him the same thing the intercom did; Boon Team 1 to hanger 4, the building next to hers. Okay so the intercom didn't say that last part, but semantics.

Luckily Hanger 4 had larger doors then the receptionist office, allowing him to walk through with relative ease. His M.A.D Suit made a bit of noise on the way in, what with being a giant suit of mechanized metal, but he would one day find a way to fix that. Once inside, he spotted two other, two men. Donny was fairly sure he's seen one of them before, but it was probably while he was working with the others on rebuilding parts of the dome, so he never got the chance to learn about the others more intimately. "Ayo. Donny Kain Maverick, fired up and ready to serve." Donny's voice sounded oddly robotic, but that's just because of how he made the suit render his voice.

[Mr Mauve]

"Boon Team 01 report to Hangar 4 for debrief immediately, Boon team 01 to Hangar 4, immediately."

"Huh? The..." Jazz sat up with a start, wide eyes quickly finding the blaring speaker next to her, which she weakly kicked at as the message ended. "freakin..." Eh, cursing the intercom system was too much this early in the morning. Oh, wait... that clock said 10AM. Because she stayed up all night getting Kyle ready for today! That's right!

And now they were going to be late! Jazz stumbled out of the cockpit and into the garage Donny was lending her, rubbing her eyes as she smacked the controls to open up the door, and then shielding them as blinding light poured in. Yes, it was brighter outside than in, after all. As her vision adjusted and the gunk in her brain started to dissolve, she made her way over to her temporary living quarters: sure, a garage was no place for a lady, but this was where Kyle was, and her real residence was blocks away, and... no one had fixed it up since that latest mishap. Not that she'd been bothered to walk all that way and check, recently. A bathroom, a bed, and her suitcase were good enough for any mad scientist. And she could apparently do without the bed, entirely!

When she made it into the bathroom and squinted at herself, she had to sigh. No, the thing she saw in the mirror really wasn't presentable; she'd have to be late. With a yawn she sauntered out again, throwing the suitcase onto the bed and popping it open. She'd have to do a laundry run again, all she had left was that grey t-shirt, some black skinny jeans, and a jungle-camo jacket. Eh, she wouldn't have gone in a lab coat, anyway. Jazz removed the items, threw them toward the bathroom, and made her way into her ship, and then into the pilot's chair. She slumped there sleepily again, wondering just how late the rest of the group would wait before leaving without her, and decided she didn't have time for another nap. Two hours of sleep would have to do. Buffing the drool off the dash, she found her headset and put it on, just to call in to Hangar 4. Jabbing a finger into the transmit button, she managed to almost inform them "Heeeeeey, I've only just:yawn: gotten up, so I'll be. A bit late," without any sleepy yawns or awkward pauses. Almost. Or, not really. Whatever. She threw the headset back onto the dash and went off for her shower.

[Lucius Cypher]

As Donny awaited for further orders, he heard Jazz over the intercom. A neat trick, but she's not the only one with access to the intercom system. "As long as it takes." He voiced over the intercom over at the residential district, in his robotic voice. He chuckled to himself. She should still hurry up. "This is very exciting." This voice was female, and it came from the experimental AI in his armor. It was only used for targeting his rockets and telling him mission objectives. For now. "Precisly." Light chuckles all around. None the less, this was a very serious moment for them all. At least until he discovered the various voice programs he had installed. Or maybe it was his dad. Or maybe one of the computer technicians. Either way, time for shenanigans. "System ready."

[rawkhawk64]

"Is it really necessary to hit the keys that hard?"
Garet was hacking away furiously at the keyboard of the computer he was sitting at, his fingers just a flesh-colored blur against the bright red plastic of the keyboard. In fact, hacking away so hard, his client had asked the question out of concern for her poor machine. Garet chuckled, not breaking his pace.
"No, it's not necessary, but when you type fast, sometimes you hit harder. Besides, I'm almost done and these keyboards are built to take abuse." the programmer replied. He should know, because he was the one who'd rebuilt it. He was sort of a local legend in the dome, rebuilding and reprogramming old computers, and handling maintenance on even the new ones. After another minute, Garet moved his right hand over to the mouse (also a bright red, as was the rest of the computer), and set the computer to reboot with a few clicks. Garet stood, stretching. "There you go. All finished. As soon as it reboots, the new Operating System will be up. I also increased the amount of RAM the computer has, and set it to run a full systems check. I also defragged your hard drive, and the mobo needed a new fan on it." Garet told the lady, cleaning his glasses. His client stared with a blank expression, but accepted that what he did was good for her machine.
"How much?" she asked. Garet chuckled.
"I'm having a special today, so it's only going to be fifteen waffles. Regular price for a job like this is closer to forty." Garet replied, replacing the glasses. The lady disappeared into the kitchen, and reappeared with fifteen waffles, cooked and ready to eat. Garet thanked her, putting them in the bag he used specifically for carrying waffles in. That was another three days' supply. With what he already had, Garet figured that he was set for a good couple of weeks, if work ever went scarce. As he was getting ready to leave, the intercom blared on.
"Boon Team 01 report to Hangar 4 for debrief immediately, Boon team 01 to Hangar 4, immediately."
Garet sighed. "No rest for the weary, eh?" he muttered. He stopped by his house. He was glad to have been able to move out of the cramped apartment he'd been running his business out of. Now, that was all in the garage, and under five different locks, the last one of which was a thumbprint scanner. Garet quickly showered, and changed into a pair of blue jeans, a plain black t-shirt, and put on a blue ball cap. Over the black shirt, he wore a gray hoody.
He grabbed his waffle bag, and pressed a button inside of it. Instantly, the bag was double it's size. Garet put the waffles in a labeled section, and then grabbed the rest of his gear. The first things were his "babies": his Colt M1191 .45 caliber pistol, and his Remington 1100 Tactical Shotgun. He'd had the guns for a couple of years, mostly to scare off potential robbers. After checking to make sure that both guns were loaded and the safeties on, the Remington went into his bag, and the Colt went into a gun holster around his waist. He then grabbed the spare ammunition for both guns which was three boxes each and 20 rounds per box. Garet then grabbed a computer repair kit and the Boon Set-up Kit he was given when he'd signed up for the Boon Restoration Team, or rather when he almost had his arm twisted off to sign on.
The last thing Garet grabbed was his Boon Guardian Suit. As soon as he was told he could customize it, the young programmer went nuts and had a field day. It was now fashioned with a couple of extra layers of steel plating (that cost him two weeks' worth of waffles, but was well worth it in Garet's opinion), and the helmet was more than just a gas helm now. Garet had modified that with the same two extra layers of steel plating, and had a drop-down visor that could be used to scan the environment. The only thing Garet had been able to program into the visor were night-vision, heat-vision, and environment detectors. Garet was trying to get it to scan more than just the basic things that pretty much any standard equipment had, but the coding was tricky. Still, the young red-head was proud that he'd managed to get the three to be on the same system and not have any bugs in it.
Garet then made his way to Hangar 04. Garet saw what looked like a walking tank step into the hangar. Correctly assuming that was his destination, he didn't even make the effort to enter into the building next to it. In fact, the only thing he did was wave cheerfully at the lady inside, who stared at him like he was loony. Chuckling to himself, Garet entered the hangar. There, he saw "the Tank" talking with someone. Judging by the maps the person was laying out, he was the leader.
"Howdy, howdy, howdy. I'm Garet Jackson, Computer Programmer, at your service." Garet said, stepping up to the maps the two men were looking at. He saw that some of the places were marked orange, and guessed those were somehow important. Over the intercom, a female voice announced that she was going to be late. Garet, meanwhile, pulled out a PDA that he'd managed to salvage, and began taking some notes on it. If anyone were to look, they'd see a bunch of technobabble.

[Little Fox]

Kaelana cringed as the intercom boomed, ordering the new team to report to the hangar. But she was already there - She had been there for two hours. She sighed from her perch in the rafters, waiting for the eggheads to arrive. She wasn't very keen on the idea of interacting with them - People weren't always very nice to the illiterate fighter. She was a cliché jock from the days of old; Attractive, strong, and perceived as stupid. She wasn't dumb! She just didn't know how to read. Or write. It was earlier that she cracked the heads of a few engineers for teasing her. And now she was hiding because they were looking for her.

Her black outfit blended in with the darkness of the rafters, making her hard to spot. She watched as every now and then a group would come looking around the hangar for her before disappearing to look elsewhere. But now, other people were coming in now - Her team, she assumed. She sighed as one...two...three...four people showed up. There were supposed to be others. Slackers. She sneered condescendingly, running her fingers through her hair. She stood up and made a move to head further down in the rafters. She jumped onto the top of a jet before vaulting onto a nearby table, her dogtags jingle jangling as she did. One mossy green eye looked at the others with another, bright blue eye. She gave no name...just a nod.

The tanktop she wore showed that her breasts were suffocating under wraps, making her appear flat-chested. Her outfit was all black and casual - From the tanktop to the skinny jeans to the army hat to the converses. But the weapons gave an air of seriousness and intimidation. But her face was gentle and almost angelic...excluding the aggressive gleam in her eyes.

[Lucius Cypher]

"Let's go, let's go!" Ready or not, here they come; Donny was the point man, with his job to find any hostile threat and tank them while his squishier party members find vantage points. Rolling on his treads, Donny pushed forward, moving heavy things out of the way while still taking careful measures to make sure none of his allies were in harms way.

[rawkhawk64]

Garet sighed as a woman dropped down from the rafters. Part of the way she looked said that she wouldn't hurt a fly, while the rest of it screamed "mass murderer!" Still, he paid her little attention as he returned her nod, still working in his PDA. Soon, the man that Garet had nicknamed "The Tank" began to move things around. While he was doing that, Garet had to move more than once in order to make sure he didn't get flattened by any of the equipment. Feeling a tad hungry, Garet whipped out a waffle and started to snack on it, and had taken to still working on the PDA, only now he was using his thumb to make all of the input necessary.

[howler01]

The team so far consisted of; a man in pretty heavy looking body armor which was good. He was obviously here for protection, which Cole knew they would need ; considering whatever monstrosities they were facing would likely go for him first...well, maybe. Also on the team, as she defly dropped out from the rafters as the man in the armor, he'd called himself Donny if Adam had remebered correctly, joined them. her eyes said killer, some sort of security, maybe a mercenary. Adam wasn't sure, but he was a little wary of her just the same. She seemed confident and capable enough. The third meember who had joined them was a computer programmer, someone to handle the "techy" part of the devices, though the realization that this guy could also ruin their lives when the power came on worried Adam a bit, but if the programmer was an honest sort, then he had nothing to worry about. The fourth and final other member, who had apperently just woken up, was going to be late. Adam sighed and shook his head, lazy ass he thought grumpily. But, what could he do?

Donny began to move things out of the way and Adam decided that, if they were going somewhere it was perhaps best to plan things out. he walked back over to the map and signaled to Gaerit and the woman with two different colored eyes...who hadn't given herself a name. Weird, but whatever, he could roll with that, he supposed. "Hey Gerit and...scary woman with two different colored eyes...come here quick. if we're going we might as well plan out how we're going to get there, right?" He pointed to the map and looked at the computer nerd first,"Can you work this map? So that we can know how far we have to travel to the first orange point? I guess those are the boons...or at least...the locations of the boons, that we're all supposed to set up...right? Then, the doctor and electrical engineer turned his attention to the security specialist (at least that's what he guessed she was by her clothes and overall demeanor so far),"So...ummm... how do you see this all playing out? As in, where are you and Doony...Mr. Tank man over there," Cole pointed, though he probably didn't need to,"going tob e when all the fun starts? I mean, are there any special precautions we should take ya think? Anything would be useful. he provided a not at all nervious smile in her and Gerit's general direction and wondered just how this little group was going to pull all of this off.