Night 57: Walk-in Refrigerator

[ninelivesonce]

[from here]

The cold storage was, as usual, cold. Taura stopped to make herself a second snack: several kinds of what looked like vat-meat from how even the loaves were, wrapped around some sliced cheese, like a sandwich with lighter meat substituting for the bread around the darker. She held it in her mouth as she grabbed a box of fudge ripple ice cream and waved it. Her voice was a little muffled, and she knew it looked ridiculous, but she only had so many hands, and one of them was covered in blades. "C'mon, Goku, there's good stuff in here, too. D'you like chocolate?"

That might be a dangerous proposition; he could be there all night, but she could always carry him -- and the ice cream -- along. What she'd heard hadn't said anything beyond three people being needed for the doors. They didn't have to be paying attention, just present.

Comments

[monkeyboy]

Goku followed right in with swift eagerness. The heavy door somehow masked the smell of the food, but once it was open the young boy practically drooled on the floor. The cold hit him as quickly as the smell and he stuffed his hands under his armpits to stave off the strange drop in temperature.

"Why is it cold in here?" It looked like every other room, so what made it so different? And how could it stay cold in just one spot and not bleed out into the other rooms? Well, it wasn't really important. He didn't have the brain space necessary, let alone the power to actually understand it, anyway. So he stood their shivering as he held out his hands for the tub of ice-cream that was being dangled in front of him.

"Yeah chocolate's okay..." It wasn't his favorite, but he knew chocolate came with a lot of energy for some strange reason, even if it burnt out rather quickly. That's why he needed meat for the long haul. "Is there any boar or fish?" he asked, looking around for a giant side of meat just hanging for his personal consumption. "I dun mind walkin' and eatin'. I do it all the time!"

[bodhiandspirit.livejournal.com]

Rita was pleased with Taura's suggestion that they eat on the move, and with a nod of agreement, she gathered up the food she'd brought out and carried it with her. The peel from the banana she'd just finished was unceremoniously dropped on the floor as she walked into the refrigerator.

"It keeps the food from going bad," Rita answered offhandedly when Goku asked about the room. She didn't move to take any of the food in there, and instead started on another banana. If they were keeping the meat cold, chances were that some of it was uncooked, and she didn't feel like taking any chances. Besides, Rita preferred sweet food to begin with.

"Whatever you decide to get, make it quick," was all she had to offer Goku by way of suggestions. She didn't really know or care what kind of meat was stored around them.

Since Rita was the only one with no interest in the contents of the fridge, she decided to open up the passageway in the meantime, to make the most of their time. She made her way over to the corner of the room and pried the tile upwards, revealing the staircase below.

[ninelivesonce]

Boar? Taura was pretty sure that was an animal, but beyond that, it was a bit fuzzy. Something big and nasty, but evidently edible.

"These are meat. I'm not sure what kind, though they're not fish. The crosshatching on the big one looked kind of like fish scales, but it didn't taste anything like it, and there was no internal structure. Which either meant processing or vat-grown cultures, and there wasn't time to explain. Taura didn't think too much about where food came from if she didn't need to; as long as it was plentiful, she was happy. If it was delicious, she was downright gleeful.

She tried not to glare as Rita dropped fruit skins everywhere; too much time on space stations, where littering was almost a capital offense. It was different on planets, which seemed incapable of staying clean, but did they really need to add to it? They were in a hurry, though, so she just kept her comment to a pointed look and hopped through the open hatch.

[to here]

[vstheworld]

[From here]

Once again thankful for his coat, Scott hurried over to the corner of the room, keeping an ear on Indy and Peter's conversation (as well as any illicit sniggers) as he felt around for the secret panel.

"Like no one's ever tripped on a banana peel mrrfgnfrmble..." Scott grumbled to himself.

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

Indy thought back. The only note that'd been addressed to him was Pilgrim's not-so-coded message about "West Farthing," but he'd read a number of others, and he thought he remembered one in Peter's handwriting-- "This morning?" he asked quietly. "Didn't you ask who knew you? If there was another one after it, I missed it." Come to think of it, that one had been unusual; it'd had long strings of responses, none of which he'd read. Actually, he hadn't answered, either. Indy was confident Peter knew he knew him.

The teenage drama was beyond him, if he was honest, but it was clearly important to Peter. "Everything all right?" Indy asked, still keeping his voice down.

There was no time for an answer before a scream from behind them sent Indy whirling around--only to see Pilgrim flailing around over the banana peel. Of course he would slip on the banana peel. Face perfectly straight, Indy ordered, "Quit monkeying around, kid; we've got places to go." It was the obvious line, but they could worry about subtlety in the morning. For now, he followed the others into the freezer and waited, good hand wedged in his pocket for warmth, while Pilgrim felt around for the right tile.

It wasn't lost on him that the door had already been hanging off-kilter when they got there; someone had messed with the bolt. "Wonder who else has been here," he muttered.

[tightsofmight]

"Yeah, um. That wasn't me." Sheepish, he reached behind his head to scratch at hairs he couldn't touch. The most he accomplished was rubbing them with twice as much static charge than they would have had just from being flattened under the mask. "There's this girl here-"

He jolted. Scott's scream had him prepared for another round with the son of Shelob, but it looked like he'd only been the victim of a Donkey Kong prank. Well done, Pilgrim.

At least now Peter wasn't the only guy looking like a total ass. He cringed with sympathy, but left the incident alone. Butt monkeys had to stick together.

"Uh - anyway, yeah, the reason I didn't come by last night was because this girl from my world showed up last night," he continued, willfully ignoring the other conversation going on beside them and reminding himself to be thankful they weren't silent and eavesdropping. For a moment, he considered sticking with the twin story, but somehow that felt insulting. Indy was...well, Peter liked to consider him a friend. No matter how often he felt more like a hindrance to his former childhood hero. Sometimes, even in his line of business, honesty was the best policy. "And she's...um. She's me. She has my face, my memories, my handwriting. She was trying to suss out who knew me here and she's been jumping into my notes all day, impersonating me. Just - fair warning okay? If you think you're talking to me on the board, maybe try to double check. She's not bad per se, but we're not on good terms right now. So. Yes."

He really, really wished they were talking about this in the safety of a Sun Room couch in daylight. Not on a hasty trek to certain doom. At least that way he'd have the time to convince Indy he wasn't completely bonkers and this was a legitimate issue, not some...intricate mental disorder.

[vstheworld]

Scott's ears burned at Indy's perfectly-timed deadpan remark. "Hey at least I'm not the one who almost 'monkeyed around' with Willie," he said (half-squeaked) through grit teeth. "'Primitive sexual practices' my butt rzfrzuhmrm..."

Thankfully, Peter took the reins of the conversation after that, and S.T. took the lead in heading into the ballroom. That left Scott more time to just listen to Peter's explanation and Indy's reaction. It also meant he didn't have to be the first one down the ladder in the event the fire-breathing monster returned. Sorry, S.T. - you make way better monster bait than me. There's more meat on your bones.

[To here]

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Scott was already at the corner with the secret entrance- not too badly off for that trip-up he'd spotted back in the kitchen, Depth Charge noted. Primus, that had looked like something out of a bad comedy skit. What were they thinking, trying to have a serious fight between the six of them? Maybe they weren't thinking at all- which, actually, was a far more soothing thought than the idea they'd all planned this out in intense detail. He was a manta ray, after all. He was designed to go with the flow.

He glanced back to S.T. and Dent for a brief headcount- hey, you never knew- as he made his way over to way for the passage to open up for them.

"Hey, I'm leaving that to you," he answered with a grin. "If I tried to make myself a drink here I'd probably end up chugging cheap gasoline." Which would have been pretty pathetic even if he was still Cybertronian. That stuff was for bums.

[dualistic]

Oh god, Sangamon and Depth Charge (Harvey really needed to come up with some sort of disparaging nickname for him) were talking about those dinosaur things that they'd apparently been attacked by. That meant that Sangamon believed the guy's crazy robot story for some reason. Maybe he'd been given proof or maybe he hadn't, but Harvey wasn't playing along unless he saw it with his own eyes.

Which he sincerely hoped never happened.

Scott proved all of those cartoons correct by almost slipping on the damn banana peel, and while Harvey was quietly amused, the two of them were too far from each other to make laughing out loud worth it.

Instead, he focused on what Sangamon had said about a possible bar opening up, since that was much preferable to trying to wrap his head around the whole robot thing. (The guy was talking about drinking gasoline.) "A bar, huh..." Well, that was one way for someone to spend their time. Tifa seemed like a girl he could get along with, seeing how she was willing to brave zombies for the sake of a good drink. "Might have to check that out sometime."

His priorities were completely in place.

Shuddering as they entered the refrigerator, Harvey just had to remind himself that they hadn't been attacked yet. Granted, they were heading down into the basement specifically for a fight, so it would have been cruel if they'd been ambushed on the way. In any case, the others were already working on pulling up that floor panel, and so Harvey was fine with waiting until it was his turn to climb down.

[toxicspiderman]

If they stuck around here any longer, Aguilar was going to have more than a set of would-be escapees to worry about. The room was heating up with so many bodies in it. Simple thermodynamics. A few more and the odds of food poisoning for the senior set skyrocketed.

Not that he'd turn down the good stuff. Some things were worth risking a little projectile vomiting for.

Peter was still trying to explain without sounding crazy and/or his age, so as soon as Scott fumbled the floor open, S.T. pushed past them. He walked through the hole in the tile, snapping his flashlight on for the first time.

[to here]

[gald_digger]

[from here]

The inside of the fridge was cold, but compared to the weather outside, it was perfectly bearable. In there, Anise was able to see more traces left by people who had gone ahead of them: food out of place, packaging left on shelves, the tile in the corner had already been moved... While she couldn't guess at who had come in before them, it was clear where they had gone.

"Looks like we're almost there," she told the others with a small smile, but she couldn't help but worry about whoever had gone ahead of them. She probably needed to worry about herself and her friends a little, too... There was no telling what was in store for them.

[full-score.livejournal.com]

It was a little unsettling to see clear signs that other people had passed through here before them. That meant there were people down there, maybe even in the coliseum. For a moment, Claude felt regretful that he'd been unable to properly warn anyone, but he'd done his best to dissuade those who showed interest in exploring the basement. Unfortunately, Landel had done something to prevent him for telling the whole truth of what happened down there.

Well, there wasn't much use in beating himself up over it, he thought with an inward sigh. They just had to hope that they'd find something down there that wouldn't make Dias and Guy's sacrifices in vain.

"Let's see," Claude said as he made his way toward the passageway's entrance. "It looks like someone else has opened everything up for us, so I guess it's a straight shot from here." He glanced over to Guy. "If you wanna go first, I'll make sure Anise gets down safely." It would also put a buffer between the two of them in case something happened, and they lost their grip while climbing down.

[nobleman]

It was obvious that they weren't the first ones to make it here, which was not surprising when considering the fact that they'd had to reroute to such an extent. Guy still thought they'd been moving pretty fast, though, and now they were so close he could almost taste it.

Not that he really knew what they were about to face would taste like. Chances were it wouldn't be anything good.

Guy actually took some pleasure in the coldness of the room, mainly because he knew they were only going to be in here for a short while. He nodded in response to Claude's suggestion and moved ahead of him and Anise to head down the revealed staircase.

[To here.]