damned_institute | Nightshift 38: Extra Storage

"Sure," Indy replied confidently. "Just like home." Except that "home"--wherever in the world it was on any given dig--was a lot heavier on sand and rock, which could get old but were nonetheless infinitely preferable to this kind of scattershot mess. He didn't even know where to start.

Well, the obvious items were the big ones. Whatever didn't fit on a shelf had been lined up against the lone free wall, including a familiar object from the night before. "Guess this is where they found that cart," he noted, although he didn't remember its looking this bad. Those kids must've been pretty determined to wheel that wreck out through all this clutter. It barely looked like it could roll as far as the doorway, let alone down the halls.

The other large artifacts--ladders, a large bucket, a hand truck--might come in handy some other time, but they weren't high on his list tonight. For now, Indy turned toward the nearest wall of shelves. "See if you can find those pipes," he suggested, embarking on the same task himself.

Methos eyed the cart when Jones pointed it out amongst the rest of the larger clutter. He hadn't taken a long look at it the night before, but it looked like roughly the same thing. "I guess they do reclaim some of their equipment, then." It made sense. He couldn't think of anywhere in the patients' rooms capable of hiding anything quite that large.

"Those should be simple enough to find," he said. As he turned his attention back to the shelf from which he had grabbed a bottle of cleanser, that optimism waned. Again he wondered if the mess was deliberately set up to make it all the harder to find anything useful in amongst the mundane implements. All too aware of the seconds ticking by, he searched the shelves, now mindful of the possibility of encountering sharp objects hidden in amongst more innocuous things.

"Yeah, if you've got a metal detector hidden up your sleeve," Indy replied. He looked again at the large appliances in the corner, hoping now that the idea had come to mind that one of them actually might be a metal detector, but of course that was absurd. Even if one were sitting right next to them, it would be far too heavy and bulky to try to use in a space like this. They'd just have to do this the old-fashioned way. Which was the way he preferred, really.

He'd started with a shelf at about eye level. Edging several cans of paint thinner to one side yielded an instant reward--the flashlight picked up the dull sheen of metal as something rolled across the shelf. It was as easy as 'X marks the spot.' "Ah-ha!" Indy crowed with immense satisfaction, and wormed his hand in to retrieve his prize--one of the hoped-for metal pipes.

He'd been gunning for something a little longer than four inches, though.

"Okay, not quite," he said. Even to his own ears, he sounded a little chagrined. He put the pipe back where it had come from and kept looking.

As he searched, a thought that had been in the back of his mind for some time came to the forefront, and a minute or two later he voiced it just to break the ominous silence. "You know, all this begs the question of what the real plan is. Even if we find the pipes--even if we find a pipe for every patient here--we might be able to fight off the terriers, but how much luck can we expect to have with the staff? Are we just beating up nurses and searching them for keys every day? Trying to get out, make it as far as the nearest town and try to find someone who's not going to call the cops and have us sent right back?" Indy was all for making things up as you went along--flying by the seat of his pants was practically his trademark--but right now their goals were no more defined than "get out somehow."

"I doubt that would help," Methos replied. Even a quick glance over the shelves revealed too many odds and ends made of metal. Wires, cans, the racks themselves. He shifted a few paint cans out of the way, moving cautiously. The last thing they needed was an avalanche of stuff, let alone an avalanche of potentially-pointed stuff.

"You can crack a man's skull as easily as a terrier's," he replied, forcing the words to come across uneasy. Methos was not at all concerned about the possible necessity of killing a few of the staff if it came down to that, but Adam Pierson was not quite so cold-blooded. "More so, probably. They won't be as quick. I don't really like the idea, but if it's a choice between fighting or submitting to whatever it is they're planning without a fuss?"

He crouched to search a lower shelf, continuing once he had himself situated. "Ideally, we might be able to make it into town. If we can get some proper clothing, a car, and possibly some money, it will be a good deal easier to get away. And to not just get chucked back in here the first time we open our mouths."

"That's not what I meant," Indy said. "Sure, we can kill a few nurses if we have to, but they're just as ruthless as we're prepared to be--probably a lot more so. And they're also probably a lot better armed. If we have any intention of getting everybody out of here, we're going to have to do a lot better than all of us rushing at the whole pack of them and ending up full of bullet holes."

And if the prospect of getting everybody out of there was a new one to Pierson--well, it was a new one to Indy too. He'd thought about it before, of course, but this was the first time he'd actually said it in so many words. Yes, that was his ultimate goal here. Even if some of them were genuinely disturbed, no one should have to deal with experimentation and killer bugs and this kind of sadism, day in and day out.

"We can get ourselves out first, if that's what we have to do. But at least as far as I'm concerned, that isn't where this is gonna end." This wasn't going to be like Mayapore, Indy realized. No big joyous homecoming rush into the arms of grateful parents. Some of those kids might not even remember where they were originally from, with all the stories they'd been telling themselves and anyone else who would listen. But there had to be something they could do.

The gravity of the decision wasn't lost on him, but he felt a little better now nonetheless--more purposeful--and he began hunting with slightly renewed energy. The next potential prize he came across was a thick roll of silver-colored adhesive tape and considered it briefly. Looked surprisingly sturdy. The extension cord might snap better if he could attach it to a handle--a foot-long pipe, say, or a good wooden rod (sawed-off mop handle? He didn't have anything to cut wood with). The tape went into the pillowcase too. Hopefully some of this would actually be useful; he only had so much available space in which to hide things.

"Trying to get everyone out from the inside would be an exercise in futility," Methos replied. He turned from his own search to give Jones a long look, eyes narrowed in contemplation, before continuing. "Any method that might allow for a mass escape would casualties. More if the guards do have guns and aren't shy about using them, but some even if we don't have to face that obstacle. We do know it's possible to get over the wall. A smaller group might make it past the perimeter."

He turned back to his search, motion slowed to a more thoughtful pace. He was loathe to admit it, but Jones was right. Not about the altruism, that interested him no more now than it ever had. But simply escaping wouldn't be enough; until they could find and eradicate the resources used to track them down in the first place, they could never be certain they'd be safe from recapture.

"Once we're out, our options increase. We'll be able to draw upon our own resources, rather than relying on these," he lifted a length of PVC piping. "Scraps."

Of course there would be casualties. Indy didn't like it, but he knew it. The trick was to minimize them, and to make sure they were the right people--people who knew what they were signing on for, who were willing to take risks. I.e., not Pierson, who was clearly a lot more interested in saving his own skin than anybody else's. You couldn't trust him to come back, Indy thought suddenly. He'd get out and disappear, and good luck ever trying to find him again.

"What resources do you have?" he asked, wondering how much Pierson would be willing to tell him. "Because if it is my government doing this, going to them for help isn't going to work."

While he was talking, he'd hit on another metal pipe; this one was about eight inches long. Not big enough to use on its own, but not bad as a test model for his experiment. "Pass me that box cutter for a second, will you?" he asked Pierson.

Methos held the box cutter out, rounded butt first; there was no need for both of them to tangle with the thing's pointy end. "Here." He waited a full five seconds before asking, "Did you find something? Because it's starting to look like we may as well be searching for the map to Atlantis, otherwise."

He considered his answer as he crouched to search the next shelf down, containers rattling as he shifted them to peer at the nooks and crannies in amongst the mess. "Seeking government assistance is rarely useful. And I haven't got many contacts in the American government anyway." The pause that followed was more a trailing off. He wasn't sure how many of his old contacts he did have. Not the Watchers, certainly. And not MacLeod.

Or maybe...his friend (former friend, he amended bitterly) was fond of heroics. Pulling down such an organization as had entrapped them would be right up his alley.

"There are a few people I could call on," he admitted, a hint of something rueful leaking in despite his best efforts at keeping his voice neutral. "Contacts and the like. Though academia isn't necessarily the best place to start..." He glanced back, but left the statement open.

"Sort of." Indy took the box cutter and used the blade to slice off the smaller of the extension cord's ends so the cord itself would slide all the way through the hollow pipe. Then he began wrapping the pipe and the protruding ends of cord with the heavy silver tape. When he was done, he had a long tail of about seven feet, firmly attached to an ergonomically wrapped handle. He trimmed the ends of the tape with the cutter and pressed them down. After a moment's hesitation, he cut off the larger end of the cord too and placed it on the shelf. All this was the work of a minute or two.

Left with a rudimentary bullwhip--about two feet shorter than he was used to and of dubious functionality, but recognizable as a bullwhip nonetheless--Indy handed the box cutter back to Pierson. "Thanks. Just give me another three minutes or so to see if there's anything else I can use."

As for academia... Well, Marcus had heard crazier stories from him before--he might be willing to buy it. Sallah probably would, too. But surely nobody would believe them. How could the three of them possibly beat people who could knock you out cold without warning right in the middle of a conversation? With this level of technology?

"Oh, academia, that'll be easy," he cracked, with a confidence he didn't feel. "We'll just call for paper submissions from the most long-winded colleagues we can think of and invite Landel to an academic conference. Two hours and he'll be bored to death, and this place'll fall apart around him. Can't go wrong."

Methos eyed the makeshift whip, taking no pains to disguise his utter bemusement. "Well, you'll have good reach," he pronounced. Whether or not that served as much of an advantage at all remained to be seen, but it could hardly be of less use than their current salvaged weapons.

"Make sure someone slips something into his coffee. You could call it a mercy killing and no one would dispute it." He frowned at his shelf, shifting aside a few more cans, labels obscured by shadows and dust. "Ah. There might be something here." 'Something', in this case, being a few lengths of piping stacked toward the back of the shelf. Methos eyed them critically, mentally weighing and measuring to judge if they would be useful, or nothing more than dead weight.

"Yeah, if it'll crack. I'm not optimistic, but hopefully the magic is more in the arm than the rope." Indy doubted it would hold his weight under the best of circumstances, but it might do a little damage. Maybe whip things out of people's hands. He could test it in the hallway--but better get one of those pipes just in case it didn't pan out. That IV pole was looking less useful every time he glanced at it.

He'd already moved to the next shelf down, and here he struck gold in the form of a remarkably complete-looking tool kit. The screwdriver looked like a good space investment, considering how often they could've used it last night; Indy pocketed it. He took a little longer evaluating the pliers and hammer--more weight with less potential benefit--and decided against them.

Indy was about to mention his find to Pierson when the other man--inevitably--beat him to the punch. Indy groaned under his breath. This guy was like Belloq all over again. Just once, it would be nice to do something first.

"Yeah, here too," he replied, asserting his position as the leader of this team. "Anything worth keeping?"

"Possibly," Methos replied. He gingerly extracted one pipe, roughly the length of his forearm, though not nearly as wide. He tested the heft of it, considering. "Not a bad weight, but sluggish," he decided out loud. "It's better for narrower hallways than what we've got, but there's not much advantage aside from that. What about..."

He'd been able to ignore the voices in the room behind them; if anyone had decided to come in further, they would have enough notice that listening in on patient conversations was pointless. But the gunshots echoing in from the hall, two in succession, were a great deal harder to ignore. His head snapped up, quickly enough to make the muscles of his neck twinge in mild rebellion, and he looked at the door. It revealed nothing, but the glance had been reflex anyway, not expectation. "Well, then. It sounds like someone's armed after all."

Indy got up to look for himself and extracted a somewhat longer pipe (no Freudian analysis for him there). It looked just shy of two feet. Like Pierson, he picked it up and gave it a swing, baseball-bat-style. "Good find," he commended the other man nobly. "Feels a little more solid than that pole, anyway."

Pierson had just started talking again when the gunshots went off. Indy instinctively jerked the pipe up into an offensive stance, but even as he did so, his brain caught up with his muscles and he realized that the shots had been in the hallway and that there were a number of people between them and the door out--which, in and of itself, was not good. Almost had to be guards out there, didn't it? He couldn't think where any patients would have gotten a gun, unless there was some kind of weapons stockpile around here. And what were they shooting at? Patients? One of the animals?

Indy coiled the makeshift whip around his left shoulder again and stood, keeping the pipe in his right hand and the flashlight in his left. He left the IV pole leaning where it was. Maybe someone else could get some use out of it.

"Sounds like it," he said. "Take a look at that tool kit and decide if there's anything you need in it. Then we'd better decide just how involved we want to get in all this, before it decides for us."

"Not remotely," Methos said. It was quiet but firm; if Jones wanted to go poking his nose into the mess undoubtedly going on outside, he was on his own. Being shot had never been high on Methos' list of preferred activities, but until he was certain how far the drain on his capacity for recovery extended, it was off the list entirely. Lasting millennia only to be taken out by a ricochet would be utterly embarrassing.

He rose from his crouch and crept over to the tool kit, keeping an eye on the door and an ear open for any more voices beyond it. The lack of a safe vantage point from which to view the altercation made him uneasy. Eventually, either trouble would come to them, or they would have to go to it.

Nothing in the tool kit suited his idea of necessity, though he considered the hammer a good while before shutting the case with a quiet snap. "I wish we could see what the hell was going on out there."

"Well, what's your plan then, just crouch in the closet all night?" Indy shot back. "With people at the door waiting to box us in? I'd rather take my chances.

"Join the party or stay here--up to you," he offered over his shoulder. And so saying, he made his way stealthily back into the janitor's closet.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/560782.html?thread=45967502#t45967502)]

Nightshift 38: Extra Storage

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