Just how far would you like to run

[totallytrustworthy]

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."

 

Comments

[totallytrustworthy]

See, that's what she was worried about.

In the seconds that it takes for him to shimmy down out into the open streets, she's already pacing between alleyways, scanning for a route cluttered with enough rubbish to make tracking them a painful-- or at least trying-- process. Not that it matters much so long as they're in the clear within the next five minutes or so.

She has her hand on the edge of a nearby wall that darts off into a sidestreet completely devoid of light, fingers tapping out an impatient beat at the faint glow of rapidly approaching torches. Come on, come on.

[alittlesweptup]

He hits the ground hard, abandoning the rope without a second thought. Give or take five minutes and they won't need one so leaving it behind seems like the best idea when it's that or 'get stabbed'.

Luckily he fights the instinct to book it in the first direction that's simply away from torchlight long enough to take a brief account of the situation, to catch the meaning of her hand on the wall and-- "Shall we, darling?" He throws her a grin, clearly certain as rain on a Sunday that they've got off scott free, before booking it down the side street.

[totallytrustworthy]

There's no helping it, the flash of teeth from him wins one on her end even as she ducks down into the narrow path and all its shadows to the beat of incoming footsteps. The warning of 'watch your head' comes in once or twice while sliding in under a few low beams, but for the most part-- aside from the inability to see-- it's not all that tricky to navigate. Halfway down the path, she cuts off again into a tight alley till it empties out into a section of town she's only vaguely familiar with.

So long as there's no stomping along behind them, it's not all that bad an outcome.

[alittlesweptup]

The warnings are appreciated it - saves him from cracking his skull open once or twice. By the time they turn off and find themselves in a distant, quiet part of the city, Charlie's faintly winded from the run. Christ, he's out of shape -- though honestly, he's never been much of a sprinter. He huffs out a low, "Well done, eh?", scrubbing his hand across the gritty back of his neck. Wipes his hand absently off on the linen at his hip.

"Shame about the scroll though." He shoots Chloe a sidelong look, dark more from the lack of ambient light than anything. "You didn't have to be so bloody cavalier about it, you know."

[totallytrustworthy]

"No?" She asks, in the same telltale tone that means she's got an ace up her sleeve or the ball in her hands rather than the cup. One last glance about their surroundings precedes her tugging something loose from the pack and tossing it his way.

"Catch, then."

[alittlesweptup]

He catches it without thinking and before he even fully recognizes what she's tossed. After a beat, Charlie carefully unrolls Amenhotep's scroll. There's a brief moment where he's genuinely, unabashedly pleased to have the thing in his hands -- and then he sobers abruptly.

"Hold on. If this is safe, what'd you actually toss onto that brazier?"

[totallytrustworthy]

"Plenty of the bloody things lying about." Cavalier being the key word for her delivery, hands dusting off her hips as she paces in a half-circle to grab her bearings. Whatever it was that she tossed onto the pyre, she certainly doesn't seem bothered about it. "Shame as it is to lose hard records of our ancestors binge drinking, I'm fairly certain there's another scroll depicting 'I drank too much wine and now I'm pissed off my ass'."

[alittlesweptup]

"That's--" Oh for Christ's sake, it's not worth it. Charlie heaves out a low noise, turning his attention back to the scroll in hand. "Well what're we supposed to do with this then? I don't think we can just take it back with us."

That'd be officially too easy, right?

[totallytrustworthy]

"Look it's your kink - you figure out how to deal with it." Toss it off a bridge, bury it, light some scented candles and say a prayer to the nerd gods while you set it on fire, Charlie; she doesn't much care.

While she might respect his sentimentality, she certainly doesn't share it.

[alittlesweptup]

Which gets a glare, but no witty retort as he holds the scroll at arm's length and gives it a last, morbid once over. Given the option, he probably would go the scented candles route. As it is, he carefully stretched it out to its full length and sets it carefully down on the pressed earth of the street. A moment spent rummaging through his kit and he unearths a lighter.

He hasn't got the time to give it a proper send off anyway. So a few clicks (it's an old lighter that he doesn't have much use for anymore - hasn't smoked in Christ only knows how long) and he gets the thing going, setting the flame to a few points on the edge of the parchment. It feels like a right bastard sort of thing to do, but business is business and if he tried to bring it back to Exsilium, it'd probably get tangled up in customs and sent straight back to the rack they just plucked it from.

He snaps the lighter shut, shoving it back into his hip satchel. He straightens as the parchment burns, waiting the few moments to be sure the whole thing's going to go up before: "Alright, let's go. I can't stand to look at it."