glencolareef | LOG | DAY 003

The door opens again. The drone is carrying... something. It's so hard to focus, but Martin thinks it might be a body. Jon? Is it Jon?

He tries to say something, but his throat is so dry. He manages a croak of sorts, but the drone tosses whoever it is into another cell, and Martin can't physically summon the ability to focus well enough to understand how to respond to that. He passes out again.

Another sound catches his attention at some point after that. It's not one of the drones, but the sound of... footsteps? Ones that have a limp to them. His voice is little more than a whisper when he speaks. "Water...?" He should be more polite, greet them, do more than lay here like a useless lump and beg, but his mind is consumed by that one thought.

The rasp of a voice could almost be written off as a figment of his tired mind, but it sounds like it comes from one of the bodies in the cells and it has Jet pausing in the middle of the room. Every part of him is tense and ready to react the second these drones so much as stir, but if they were sensitive to sound, he'd already have been found out.

"Hey." His voice isn't unkind, just a little terse. "Just a second, gonna see if these doors open." He turns to the computer nearby, it's screen only reading out Password on the screen. Well...fuck. What he wouldn't give for Francoise and her ability to decrypt and hack anything.

Jet spares a second to look around the station for some sort of cable and, finding one, spares another to plug it into the port hidden just under his hairline. There's no dizzying rush of information, no readout behind his eyes or even the worst case of a virus taking advantage and feeding through to him. At least not more than the one that might be corrupting his systems. It's a relief as much as it's entirely, frustratingly, disappointing.

With a muttered curse, Jet pulls the plug, wraps it, and stuffs it into his jacket pocket with the bone he'd found the other day before moving to the cell.

"Hey, man...can you move a bit closer for me? These bars are tight, I'll only be able to reach so far." And how was he going to get this water to him when his receptacles were bigger than his own hands? Drip-feed, maybe. "What's your name?" He's pretty sure he heard it, but it's a good way to get him to focus for now.

Martin's brough the mattress to the bars, at least. He tries to shift closer to the stranger, pressing his face into the bars. They feel cooler, at least. His breathing is harsh and quick and his features are flushed like he's been running. No sweat adorns his brow, and he's stripped down to nothing but his boxes and an undershirt. His glasses are lying on the mattress near his head, and Jet will be able to see one of Martin's hands is wrapped in a flannel shirt. He's clutching a rusty metal shiv and the small pile of rusty flecks near his hand point to a final escape attempt. Just outside the bars are an antique knife and a lockpick, things he's managed to push through.

"Martin. Please."

Jet's eyes dart from items to man and the lack of sweat on his brow mixed with the apparent feverishness. Not for the first time in the last two days, he wishes the read-outs at the corners of his vision showed anything but empty information. A proper diagnosis of everything wrong would be way more helpful, instead all he's got is military training 101.

"Alright, Martin. You're gonna be fine. Here, it's the best we've got right now." Jet fishes out what water he's got and dips his curled fingers in to bring them through the bars, his knuckles catching in the space between them, but it was enough, he presses them to Martin's lips to get the water into his mouth. It wasn't much more than a wash of liquid, but he repeated the movement until it was at least a swallow. Inelegant, but effective enough to keep at it, talking as he does. "My name's Jet. I know you're thirsty, but we gotta take it slow or you'll get sicker and I'm gonna need your help getting you out of here."

Martin catches maybe half of the other man's words in the haze, but what he does understand is moisture. He might look back on this with shame, at just how undignified it is to suck on a complete stranger's fingers like they've been covered in the ambrosia of the gods, but here he is. He makes a helpless sound when the fingers disappear and don't come back again with more water, clawing weakly at the bars. It's the first time he's found it in himself to really move in a while, though. To have any semblance of something like hope.

"Drones," he finally says in a cracked voice when he manages to pull himself out of his own head. "Break them." Because he suspects his rescuer is going to become a fellow prisoner very quickly, otherwise.

That little sound is sharp to his conscience, but he still sets the can of water aside. There's more. Enough to keep at this a little while, but not all at once. He couldn't let them rush. Movement is, at least, a little better than he'd found him.

Jet glances over his shoulder at the perched drones and their unresponsive state. For now, he has no doubt, they'd be trouble soon enough. Having his plasma gun would be helpful about now with everything else in him on the fritz. "They're off for now and I left my baseball bat in New York; notice any weak spots?"

Edited 2023-05-29 07:23 (UTC)

"Ports." It's so hard to focus on this conversation. He can vaguely see the can with the water, and Martin just want to phase through the bars to be able to drink all of it. It still wouldn't be enough. It feels like he's never going to have enough water again. The tease of it is almost infuriating.

"Shorted out. Rotors? Knife." He means to break the rotors with his knife, but Martin's not coherent enough for strategy beyond that.

Jet nods. It's not anything he wouldn't have tried himself, he's pretty sure he can guess at a machine's weak points, but still not bad to ask. "Alright. Here, we'll do a bit more."

He reaches for the can and takes up more of the water to messily feed it to Martin as best he can. He's quiet while he does, focusing on the task rather than needlessly filling the air. Once another swallow or so is done, he sets the can aside again.

"Promise I'm not torturing you, even if it feels like it. Gotta go slow or you might just hurl it back up and be worse." His eyes cut up towards the toilet in the cell and he makes a face. "You didn't try to drink out of the toilet, did you?"

Edited (did you know you have to pick an icon) 2023-05-30 00:41 (UTC)

The water returns, and Martin is just as desperate as before. Maybe this isn't torture, but it's about as close to it as he's ever experienced. He can't cry. He's not hydrated enough to cry, but his next few breaths are a bit more shuddering as he squeezes his eyes shut.

"Tank. There wasn't anything else. I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I got sick." It's shameful to admit. All of this is disgusting and pathetic. Naked, helpless, sick, useless. He couldn't face Jon like this now, even if he did turn up. He's too ashamed of himself and how easily he'd dissolved into an invalid in the matter of a few days.

But at least he won't die alone? No. No, he'll just be an inconvenience to this poor man.

He winces, both for Martin and his own tactlessness. This was why other people did the polite talking.

"Hey.." His voice dips a little softer, closer to how he might talk to one of his family instead of some stranger he was just hoping to keep clinging to the mortal coil. "You didn't ask for this. The tank should've been safe enough of a bet, fact it wasn't means it's been sitting there long enough to be contaminated. Not your fault again. We'll get you through this, Martin." There's a pause and then more water to be offered.

"Ive seen humans do some really amazing stuff, especially when they thought they couldn't or the odds were impossible. You can too, I know it. Just do me a favor...save crying for when you've got water spare in you, okay?"

The kindness is unexpected and doesn't really help with his emotional regulation. Trying to save his life, bringing him water, those are already things that already make this man a Good Person in Martin's mind. At least for the moment. But the fact he's being nice when he doesn't have to be is almost too much.

"'M not crying," he says in a trembling rasp. "Thank you. Take the shiv. You need it. Break-break things?"

"Yeah." He works a little more water into his charge and then sets the can aside to wipe his hands on his jeans and take up the shiv instead. "Yeah, I'm plenty good at breaking things. Take five."

Not that Martin had much choice, but still. Time to se what he could do about these drones. A walk around doesn't serve him much, so he sends a few texts, bends a few ears...and ends up trying the 'pick it up and drop it' approach.

Martin spends the time... lying there. It's about all he can do at this point. The drone whirring and crackling to life has him rasping out a warning for all the good it might do. "Quick! Get it- Rotors!" God, if this man gets caught and trapped because he came to rescue Martin, he'll never be able to live with himself.

Annoyance lances through him as the thing stirs and he doesn't have time to mourn his HUD but he feels it as he sweeps up the shiv. It's a familiar stance he falls into, blade held a bit away from himself to move with speed and deadly accuracy. He'd been human back then, when the Bronx' alleys had been his den, but he moves with the same fluidity and more power when he aims to stab the thing in its fanblades. The blade strikes and momentum mixed with instinct see Jet stepping in to try and push the drone back and hopefully out of the air.

Unfortunately, it's right as the drone seems to find its power and he has a split second of realization when he hears the electricity before all thought and reason leave him and electricity courses through every scrap of metal and wire and flesh in him. He can hear the cry he gives and can hear the heaviness of his body striking the floor with the drone quick to follow long before the pain actually sets in. It's all he can do to breathe through it as his vision seems to flicker and fracture before returning to normal and his body nearly refuses to respond to him. The usual hydraulics in his joints to keep the weight of himself from being too much haven't been working since he woke up...and god, can he feel it now.

The damn thing's still buzzing about and that's the only reason he even begins to try and stir and find his feet. Job's not done yet. Jet gives a groan and puts a shaky hand under himself. "Keep...keep back from the bars, Martin."

"No!" It's not a particularly loud exclamation, but it's what Martin can manage when he sees Jet go down. No, no, no! No, the other person is in a cell. Not this man, too. They're all going to die, then. Every last one of them.

But the drone veers drunkenly to the side and hits the ground in a whirl of sparks. Jet is down, but it doesn't move to stab him with a needle or pick him up. It... can't? He doesn't have much movement left in him, but Martin's quick as he can to obey Jet's directive. It's just sensible. He wants to be nowhere near that thing again. He's pretty sure a shock right now would outright kill him. So, Martin rolls over, away from the bars and off the mattress.

He stops there because that's about what he can manage, even with a small burst of adrenaline.

It's a struggle to get back to his feet when every part of him feels like its made of lead. That's twice now he's been tased in, what? A month? Not his favorite. But he's nothing if not determined and it sees him bracing his weight on his good leg to get the other stable.

The damn drone just...pitifully arcs in circles like a wounded bird crackling with electricity it doesn't know what to do with and there's something promising in that, at least. It's not hard to find the stash of stuff he'd come in with, not nearly as hard as it is to then turn and limp his way into nudging the thing with his turtle shell closer towards the cell...and at the same time it discharges electricity. Pyunma had said something about turtle shells not absorbing electricity once. Something about them being bone. He'd probably have a better idea than this if he were here.

But Martin's got Jet and he's good enough to figure this out. It's aggravating work, but it's something to focus on and, eventually, he's rewarded. The thing clunks against the bars right as the discharge goes off and then hovers off on its way as the pad by the door switches to green. The door shoots open. Jet blinks.

"Thank fuck. Hey..." He stumbles to the water can on his way to the door and in, finally, to Martin himself. "Hey...got it. Lets get you sitting up, pal."

The door unlocks. The door unlocks. He doesn't actually have the moisture or energy to cry, but there's a soft sob of relief when he hears that sound, when he hears Jet's feet, the other man stumbling in. He still might die, but at least it won't be trapped and alone in a dingy, smelly cell.

Sitting is an ordeal. Martin is a fairly large man and just the process of shifting upright has him passing out. Jet will need to do most of the work there. Martin's too hot, too dry. The moment the can is pressed to his lips, when he has enough consciousness, he'll drink what he can. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the sense at the moment to go slowly, so he'll need some help there.

Jet's strong and sturdy, certainly a little stronger than maybe he seems like he should be when he's on the narrower side, but it's not his arms are hurt and he's good at angles and momentum, at least. It takes a game of kneeling on his good knee, balancing Martin partially against his bad one, and the bars behind him to help prop him up, but stubborn determination has rarely failed Jet in the past and it doesn't start now.

"Alright...here we go." He rouses the other man with a small pat to his face and controls the tip of the can once it's to Martin's lips so he can pull it back away again when needed. "I know this sucks...but you're gonna get through this. I promise. You're not dying on my watch."

He has no doubt his words aren't even heard, but that was fine, they were more to try and keep his new charge alert and awake enough to get water in him. Jet hesitates a moment, but then puts his hand over Martin's forehead with the hope his abnormally cool hand might help ease him a bit.

"Why don't you talk to me between sips, Martin. You sounded like you're from London. Been there a couple times. Nice enough place. Where'd you grow up?"

"Uh..." There are words. He should process them. Grow up. London. "A-Ardwick." Depending on Jet's knowledge of geography, he might know that's a rather poor neighborhood in Manchester. "Then London." Which might explain why his accent isn't nearly as northern as it ought to be for someone born in Manchester.

His eyes flutter open. "Sorry." For everything, really.

Ardwick...GB had talked about it briefly. Dismissively, but in that way he did when he just didn't want to talk too much about something. It mattered a little, but not right now.

The apology brings him up short. "Sorry for what? This place? Not your fault you got shoved in a cell. Plus, those things needed to go, they nearly killed you." He shakes his head and brings the can back up for a small sip.

"Don't worry about it. Let's see...that shiv, where'd you get it?"

"You got hurt." And even if Martin hadn't shoved the drone directly at Jet, his being here is... no wait. Why is this man here? How did he find him? Who was the other person who was brought in? It's not just them. All thoughts that run through his head and collect in the pile of mush that is his cognitive processing ability in this moment.

"Mattress. Under it." And after a moment, he does manage to extract one of those thoughts. "How? How did you find me?"

He just gives a single shoulder shrug at the mention of getting hurt and doesn't address it. It wasn't the first time, not even for that knee, and it probably wasn't going to be the last. When his family came to get him, he'd weather their earful and lack of surprise.

Luckily, Martin offers a question he can answer a lot more easily. Jet glances over his shoulder to Kokichi out cold in the other cell. "The kid...Kokichi. He got snagged by the drone and I chased after him. It led me here. He's unconscious, but he seems ok otherwise. Honestly, probably wouldn't have made it here in time if not for that." He sets the can aside again. "We should probably slow down again. Let you get that energy back up."

"Check on him?" If Martin's going to have to go without drinking for a little bit here, then at least maybe Jet can ensure Kokichi isn't trapped in the cell. He's not sure if the door opened because the drone was specifically on. It would be good to repeat while it is, regardless.

He nods and looks back towards the drone and it's sad low-spiraling track and occasional discharge of electricity. He'd need to corral that thing again. And then probably destroy it.

"Yeah. Good idea. Rest up, but maybe try not to go to sleep for a bit. Not until we can get you out of here physically." He puts a hand briefly on Martin's shoulder, but then makes to stand and head back out of the cell. There was plenty more to do before anyone could rest properly in here.

LOG | DAY 003 - 006

Morning 003

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: electrocution

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject