lights out!

[velveteened]

Date & Time: 4/20, all day
Location: the apartments!
Characters: everyone, tag yourselves in!
Summary: as detailed here, the power will be out from early morning to midnight this night.
Warnings: PROBABLY NOT? will update if need be.

[ catch-all log for blackout shenanigans! ]

Comments

[whatsupcroc]

( Collette laughs again, shaking her head. )

No, not just that! He jumps out of helicopters, escapes explosions, infiltrates like casinos or something, gets all the pretty ladies... you know, spy stuff!

( ................... only in modern America )

Man, that's just -- oh, wait a minute. Wait! Are you from Earth?

[debtor]

I haven't heard of... spies like that.

[Quickly:] But I am from Earth!

I'm from before movies, I think.

[whatsupcroc]

Hey, being from Earth is a good start! What year were you last in, do you even know? Movies are... well, these are all characters from movies. If you were born before films came out, of course you'd have no idea what I'm talking about!

Though you can trust me, both of these guys are very cool people, and they'd probably have a solution for us.

( She considers for a moment. )

So... are you a really patient person?

[debtor]

It was 1898. [(or thereabouts, CANON IS VAGUE)]

[He'll just take her word for it, re: Mr. James Bond and Indiana Jones.]

I'd like to think I am. [Maybe not really patient, but!] Why do you ask?

[whatsupcroc]

'Cause we can try to wait this out if you are, or we can formulate a daring, practical, and probably somewhat intelligent escape if you're not!

( Said so matter of fact and unconcerned. As if there were only two options in the world, and those were the two! )

1898... that was after the industrial revolution?

[debtor]

I think so.

[About the industrial revolution; it's not a phrase he hears often. He sounds distracted though, as he considers her first point.]

[. . .] You said there might be a service door in the ceiling?

[whatsupcroc]

There may! Or else in the side of the wall. Probably not the floor, that'd be an amazing safety hazard. Do you think you can even get past the lights to feel around on the ceiling?

( She might, as a cockroach, be able to figure it out. )

I might be able to, if you don't mind some light telepathy while I'm trying.

[debtor]

. . .Eh? [You've lost him again.]

What are you going to do?

[whatsupcroc]

Turn into a cockroach and walk across the ceiling looking for a lock.

[debtor]

Eh!? A-are you serious??

[whatsupcroc]

Yep! Really serious. You're not afraid of bugs or anything, are you?

( She pitches her tone as curious -- and concerned. No need to get squashed in the darkness because she hit a bug phobia! )

[debtor]

No- um, no, it's fine! [IS IT?? He's never met anyone who could turn into a bug, it's a bit of a shock.

But

it's true that an insect would probably be better at. crawling along the ceiling than him.]

If you'd like to...!

[whatsupcroc]

Won't hurt to try, right? Give me a minute, I'll let you know when I'm ready!

( It's a good thing that in total darkness, the silent process of morphing can't create it's own sounds by the visual cues of how disastrously wrong it all looks. Within the minute and some she promises, Collette has gone from girl in her clothes in a wheelchair to bug buried in clothes and crawling out toward the edge of the chair. )

< All changed! Okay, heading for the ground first. No sudden urges to tap-dance allowed! >

[debtor]

[Voice in his head VOICE IN HIS HEAD

It's disconcerting!!, but she had warned him, so he shan't complain. The quiet rustle of cloth in the otherwise silent elevator is equally freaky. Did she really become a cockroach, is this a prank or a trick IS THIS REAL LIFE. He desperately wishes he could see right now.]

I'll stand still!

[whatsupcroc]

< Thank you! >

( She can still hear/feel vibrations coming from Allen, but none of the throbbing, heavy ones of danger that tend to make her cockroach mind go haywire in a search for safety.

It likes this place. Dark, therefore difficult to find. Nothing much to eat, but plenty of interesting small movements in what might have otherwise been still air.

Shooting down the chair and plopping on the floor, Collette is off at top speed for the wall. Whatever one she hits, she follows to the corner, scaling upward with the surety of feet that found invisible footholds to pull a streamlined body up, up, up and away!

Into a light fixture, and a grating beyond it. She can't really walk on the ceiling, but careful maneuvering around the top of the wall where it joins to the ceiling. She keeps a running commentary for Allen's sake. )

< Okay, on the floor! Looking for the wall now. Geez, it's amazing what you can see without seeing anything! Oh, oh, that's the wall, that's definitely a wall. I'll look for a corner nex-- ha! Found it! Gotta climb up and see what I can feel out at the top. >

( She pauses in her chatter. )

< Hey, what's your name? >

[debtor]

[This is so. weird.

He can't see her, and he can't hear anything except his own breathing and the voice in his head. Describing her trek across the elevator from a bug's-eye-view.

It's sort of giving him the creepy-crawlies, somehow.

--The question throws him off.]

Uh- um, Allen. My name is Allen Walker.



What's yours?

[whatsupcroc]

< Zoom~ oh -- ah, nice to meet you, Allen! I'm Collette. When I'm not totally bugging out on you, I'm usually pretty fun to hang around. Speaking of hanging, I think I've found something. Are you any good at climbing? >

( using her antennae and the tiny footholds her feet had latched on to when she hit the upper corner, Collette has edged around to where she recalls seeing something during a maintenance visit in past months. )

< I think if you can get the light cover down, there's a service door up here! Speaking of, you don't happen to be a theif, do you? Or really gifted with picking locks? >

[debtor]

Nice... to meet you, Collette.

[He glances around the elevator, trying to recall what the interior looked like, and how high the ceiling was. He's not entirely sure he could simply climb to the ceiling and remove a light cover, blind like this, but, well, that's where superpowers come in handy.]

I can make it up there. And if there's a lock, I could... break it.

[whatsupcroc]

< I was going to say you could use my chair to help reach, if you need it, but woah. What kind of strong are you? You can break locks on ceilings like it's easy as pie? Oh! Yeah, definitely found it. Back left corner, I think? Yeah, back left corner, past the light fixture, this is definitely a service door! >

[debtor]

I could definitely break it. Um... [He holds his hands out and starts inching, carefully, towards the back left corner. What he thinks is the back left corner, anyway.]

Thank you for finding it! Although you should move out of the way now, I think.

[whatsupcroc]

< One sec, let me scoot! >

( Jetting for the far corner, she braced herself. )

< Ready when you are, Allen! >

1/2

[debtor]

All right!

[With a (tragically brief) flash of light, Allen activates his claw-and-cape combo. From his right sleeve, he extends a ribbon with clings to the surface of the ceiling, and he pulls himself up like a spider on a thread, holding himself above the ground as he feels along the light fixture...

and then just starts tearing the covering off and slicing through wiring and metal with his claw, flinging chunks of elevator at the floor as he opens a service-door-sized hole in the ceiling.

He's acutely aware that he may end up footing the bill for damages, but you gotta do what you gotta do. And that lock has been thoroughly picked.]

2/2

[debtor]

...There's a way out now!

[whatsupcroc]

( There's this thing. This thing about cockroaches. In addition to being gross and the nightmare of apartment livers everywhere, they're very tuned in to vibrations.

Which means Allen has just played percussion through all of Collette's body, to the point where she's fallen down and skittered madly around the bottom, dodging falling debris, until she's parked under one of her own wheels. She keeps her mental calls to herself, figuring AAAAAH and WHAT WAS THAT and THIS IS NOT A LOCK PICKING, IT'S A DEMOLITION, MAN! wouldn't be appreciated by Allen.

She has trouble calming down what worked as her heart, but she mostly recognizes when he's talking to her and not sending her senses into overdrive. )

< Gee, is there any lock left, Al? >

[debtor]

[Meanwhile, he's poking his head out through the hole he'd carved, entirely oblivious to her distress. Alas, the elevator shaft is pitch black as well.]

Er. Probably... not.

The Initiative might be cross with me, but it's more important that we make it out!