exsiliumlogs | Just how far would you like to run

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Just how far would you like to run

Date & Time: 9/10 + 1:30pm. Hottest time of the day in the desert. Enjoy.
Location: Cairo, Egypt
Characters: Chloe Frazer, Charlie Cutter
Summary: Get in, steal some ancient, sacred artifacts pertaining to the Book of the Dead and a couple of spare canopic jars, party hard and start some trouble.
Warnings: Extreme stupidity

When the swirl of dust from displacement settles along with the slight nausea rolling around at the lowest point of her stomach-- when Chloe shakes off the memory of exsilium under the heat of midday sun on her skin-- making the leap from future to past is routine enough these days that she skips the shock and awe, moving to give both herself and her surroundings a quick, efficient evaluation. They're not far off from the city (Cairo, according to the briefing) but the distance serves as a decent enough buffer as the pair get their bearings.

Better than being shoved feet-first into over crowded streets, in her opinion.

"Jesus, Charlie." She's halfway through patting down the almost too-taut fabric of her Initiative-donated linen dress by the time he finally grabs her attention. "You've got hair."

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Unless they go losing a limb or two it should be just fine, right?

"Doesn't count." Which comes out a bit slower than she'd care for it to, spiced wine still stuck to her tongue from a hasty swallow.

Hell, so far as he knows the Initiative can probably fix that up just fine too.

"What? Why doesn't it count? That's a perfectly valid yard stick for measuring the value of property, I'll have you know." He gives her a gentle shove, flattening himself against the wall and daring to peek round the corner. Looks clear. Charlie shoots her a quick sidelong glance, frowning -- it's a nice flat -- and then slides out into the hall, making a beeline for the first doorway the catches his eye.

She knows it is. Self-satisfied grin stuck firmly in place when he spares a second to glance off in her direction.

Chloe follows not long after once Charlie's out the door, shuffling down the corridor on the balls of her feet to keep noise at a minimum. If it's any sort of mystery (of course it isn't) she's enjoying herself. Not just for the feeling of freedom that comes from running a job on their own terms, smelling something other than wood rot or mildew, but the simple thrill of some pure bloody adventure in a place she's only seen in relics.

And the first room Charlie ducks into looks more surgical than sacred: both filled and vacant canopic jars lining the walls alongside rolls of spare linen and surgical tools. They catch in the dimmed brazer's firelight, easily winning themselves a bit of attention.

"Hel-lo." He's starting to think there may be hope for them after all. If this isn't a stroke of luck, Charlie doesn't know what is. Moving farther into the room, he moves along the rows of jars - gently, tentatively even, brushing his thumb across the fronts of them as he goes. It's bizarre: something he's only seen in museums and photographs, here and new and real. Filled with organs instead of ash and centuries of dust.

"Think that nutter back on the island could make do with an empty one?" In the present, it seems a little... macabre to go stealing someone's organs. They might need that in the after life.

"Oi." Chloe snorts, dropping the offering dish unceremoniously on the stone edge of a cadaver table at the opposite end of the room. "He's not a nutter."

"He's a dragon-- which, by the way, you ought to be into."

Never mind the canopy jars.

"Ha, yeah alright." Dragons. Really now. Except she's not laughing along with him and that's not really the sort of thing she's into lying about. Charlie shoots her a sidelong glance, dropping his hand away from the rows of jars.

"Seriously? He looks--" Okay, not normal, but: "--well he doesn't look like a dragon anyway."

"Next time you see him, ask. For the whole," there's a pause as she wanders closer, waving a dismissive hand. Like she understands how it works. "scaly transformation deal."

"Just don't be disappointed when it's not as impressive as you might've imagined it would be."

"Yeah, alright," There's still a distinctly skeptical edge to his voice - more the sense that Dragons are real over any kind of genuine doubt in her. Don't get him wrong, he's been in Exsilium for a year and seen some weird shit flying around while on missions-- but dragons that breathe fire and dragons you strike deals with seem like two very different sorts. "I'll keep that in mind."

He raps his knuckles against the shelf of canopic jars, tipping his head. "So, we lifting one of these are d'you think nutter dragon has something better in mind?"

She doesn't fault him for it. If she hadn't seen it curled up in a nest made from one of her most prized possessions (her bloody jacket, thank you very much), she never would've believed it herself. Chloe reaches up to pluck a jar from the shelf-- feels light in her palm-- and tuck it away in the back with a quiet little shrug. "Robbed plenty of tombs but I'm not all that fond of the idea of carrying around corpse bits."

"Sacred ones especially."

Which honestly comes off as a bit of a relief. Ancient body parts is one thing - he'll lug about a petrified hand or whatever for as long as the day is long if there's need to (which has really only happened once, but you never know when it might come round again) -; fresh ones are another matter entirely.

"Alright, no bits." He moves beyond her, hand brushing across the small of her back as he goes. "Come along then; onwards and upwards." Or onwards and through the next series of small rooms as the case may be.

Simple as it is, that brief bit of contact pulls a wide grin across her face. Spurs her on into following once she's made sure to pack away enough of the necessary items for a decent paycheck (Who doesn't love the idea of getting paid in gemstones?).

"Any luck?" Chloe whispers off down the corridor, having lost track of exactly which room he's decided to duck into.

The room has shelves cut away into the stone, roll after roll of scroll illuminated by a soft light on the wall. If they're on the hunt for some bits of parchment, this seems as likely a place as any. He goes so far as to turn round, throwing her a pleased grin as he spreads his hands - shrugs in a way that's all faux deference. "Suppose you could say that."

Damn he's good.

He earns himself a look for that. One spent on Nate more often than anyone else (really, whose ego matches his on the regular anyway) but if comes naturally: short, easy scoff leading into a half-cocked smile.

It's short lived.

Because once she's moved past his posturing, Chloe's treated to the sight of walls filled with scrolls and records of all shapes and sizes. At this point they could be here all bloody night looking for the right stick figure drawing. That she can hear faint shuffling off in the distance underlines just how quickly they might need to work to solve this without getting caught. "So..remind me again why burning the lot of them is probably not the best idea?"

He actually stops dead in his tracks, very nearly causing her to run headlong into his back. He can hear the faint sounds of movement too and he isn't stupid, but-- He hisses at her, tone severe but hardly above a whisper out of necessity's sake. "Have you gone completely mad? You can't burn all this! It's a bloody miracle anything makes it through Alexandria as it is; imagine if we destroyed something important."

Well, more important than what they'd already been sent to destroy anyway. To be frank the whole idea is miserably depressing as it is. Don't make him think about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, Chloe.

"It's fine. We'll be quick about it. How hard could it be?" And he promptly sets to combing through the mish mash of collected records, telling himself that this isn't a dig that someone's combed over. There has to be some form of organization and it's not like it's impossible to read hieroglyphics. He's a little rusty, sure, but if there was one thing the British are phenomenal at, it's appropriating and destroying Egyptian artifacts.

Edited 2013-10-18 07:44 (UTC)

"Not mad, practical." It isn't the soft, slow patter of footfalls outside that has her tense and taut, is all she's saying. One resigned exhale later and she mirrors his efforts on the opposite end of the room. Christ help her if they spend the last of this pleasant trip neck deep in papyrus.

He combs through the racks as quickly as he can manage with an ear for the sound of footsteps. The layout of the temple makes it difficult to judge if they're getting nearer or straying father, but he'd rather not--

Charlie pauses, arm deep in a row of scrolls. "You really want to speed things up here?"

The thick pile of scrolls, his stance-- the shift in weight when he glances over-- Chloe matches it save for a cocked, moderately curious raised brow.

"Now would be the time for it, yes."

"It won't be subtle," he warns, hands stilling. There's a certain frankness to his tone, to the cant of his shoulders, that's quite serious. "Might mean we'll have to make a quick getaway if it goes badly."

"Didn't put that rope on the bloody wall for nothing, now did we?" There's humor in how she says it, and whether or not it's true hardly matters: if it'll save her from playing Egyptian bingo, she's more than happy to go all in. "Let's hear it."

Extracting his arms from the mess of scrolls and record keeping, Charlie brushes his hands across the linen wrapped round his center. He shoots a sidelong glance toward the doorway. "Make just a bit of noise. I'll stand just inside there and grab whoever comes through. We get them to show us what we're looking for, we lift it and destroy it once in the clear. Yeah?"

It's not exactly an elegant plan, but it's better than this.

Charlie might not be Nate (similarities mostly skin deep-- or possibly just seen that way due to some sort of willful override on her part) but when it comes to planning, they both have a talent for thinking up the most reckless plans she's ever had the pleasure (and displeasure) of scraping through in the entirety of her completely legitimate career. That she doesn't like the sound of it is a given.

That she concedes a moment later-- one low, even exhale as her fingers curl about the slender neck of a nearby decorative pot before shattering it against the wall beside her-- is just as inevitable.

"Have at it, Rambo." Bloody madman.

See, this is why he's fond of her - or one of the reasons. It's a completely nutter sort of idea, but she takes it well enough in stride that Charlie hardly has time to slip to the doorway before the crash of the pot prompts that distant scrape of footsteps to stray closer - for a man to appear in the doorway. The sight of a lone woman in the archive must not be something to raise the general alarm over, but the man does stride forward with a stormy look on his face, mouth open to--

Which is when Charlie grabs him in a choke hold from behind, clamping a broad hand over his nose and mouth and squeezing the man's neck into the crook of his elbow despite the bucking and clawing at his forearms. He holds steady as the man struggles, jaw set and clenched, until the priest - surely he must be that - goes quiet and starts to sag. It's only then that Charlie loosens his grip so the bloke won't black out on them.

"See?" He throws Chloe a grin over the limp man's shoulder. "Nothing to it."

It's impressive in its own way, honestly. Chloe's not much for his particular technique (personal preference: the hired thugs she usually squares off against tend to be tall enough that she'd need a pair of platforms to get anywhere near their necks, and one hard sock to the jaw tends to work just as well) but she knows the road maps if not the route. There are a number of ways the stunt he just pulled could leave them with a dead or quickly dying captive.

Still, that's not what Charlie gets to hear.

"Darling I'm not going to applaud you for putting the keys in the ignition. Start driving, then we'll talk. "

With a huff of breath - honestly, everyone's a bloody critic - Charlie swings the poor bloke under his arm and gently (moving toward not so gently) slaps his cheek to bring him round. "Come on, lad. Perk up. I've a favor to ask you."

Not surprisingly, it's met with a bit of struggle - though Charlie squashes that quickly enough, clamping his hand tighter over his mouth and nose again.

"Easy there. I just want you to look something up for me, isn't that right darling?" Charlie throws Chloe a sidelong glance, wheeling the man around so he can get a proper look at her as well. "And then the lovely lady and I'll be out of your hair. So point out where you've got Amenhotep's scroll quick as you can, eh?"

He's self aware enough to know that the whole thing is comedic as anything. He's got a bloody Egyptian priest under his arm, struggling against his grip and then cow towing the moment he closes the angle of his elbow or tightens his fingers. It's a train wreck waiting to happen. Nonetheless after a terse moment of consideration, the man in his grip starts to shuffle in the direction of one of the shelving units.

Christ help them, they're going to wind up beheaded by the end of the night.

Or whatever the Egyptians do to heretical criminals in this era.

The direction's enough of a hint for Chloe to jump in on her end, digging through the unit's contents with little in the way of care or concern. She doesn't hold any contempt for the mess of scrolls she's currently pawing through, but they've a priest by the throat in the middle of the archives: the less time wasted, the better. And by the time the heap of not-targets is a few inches high, she finally manages to uncover the carefully wrapped bundle of words that they were sent here to erase completely.

"Jackpot." Said to no one but herself, because-- without giving Charlie a second to reconsider their primary objective-- Chloe tosses the text atop the nearest smoldering brazier. "Job well done, congratulations and so on and so forth-- let's go." The urgency in her tone? Practically palpable. Good thing they stocked up on treasure before hitting the books.

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canopic jars CANOPIC JARS ty autocorrect

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dull travel tag aww yeah!

even duller summarizing tag!!

even duller--- no, no wait I am stopping this!!!

Re: even duller--- no, no wait I am stopping this!!!

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ps I'm back to random icons enjoy

delightful me 2

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