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Date & Time: Backdated to 10/13; evening
Location: Manchester, UK @ 2am
Characters: Charlie Cutter & Tempest
Format: Tempest and Charlie on a mission to fetch supplies for the medbay
Warnings: Swearing and skullduggery

In the grand scheme of things, finding a medical supply warehouse had taken a sight more digging through the absolutely massive list of records on hand through the AI that it would've been to simply target a hospital and be done with it, but there was something off putting about lifting equipment out of the places it was actually needed. Steal a box load of syringes from a warehouse and someone just needs to place a new order; jack them from a hospital and someone's personally been fucked.

It does mean going in blind though - Charlie's not willing to spend the extra day on the ground to do the usual recon work he'd usually insist on. Finding things like building plans, identifying which security systems they'll have to disable and what kind of people they have walking the ground itself is going to be somewhat of a 'fly by the seat of their pants' sort of thing, but everything else has been as well researched as he could manage. He's certain pulling a few boxes, a few stone of equipment from this particular warehouse won't make a difference to anyone in the grand scheme of things. Someone might get chewed out for leaving a door unlatched, but as far as time travel fallout goes, this is as minimal impact as he can think to make it. Besides: it's bloody Manchester. Charlie can almost guarantee this won't be the first time someone's busted in.

The transporter drops him and Tempest off some fifteen miles from the actual location. "Oh for fuck's sake," is the first thing out of Charlie's mouth when they hit the ground and he realizes its gone off a touch wrong. He's slightly nauseous from the jump, pale - though that may be because it's full winter here, everything icy and drab and grey as the smoke rising in the distance from the factory district.

All that careful planning and now they've got to hot wire a car.

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Charlie lets his hands fall away from his ears as he steps out of her way so she can prop the poor bastard against the wall. He lets out a low whistle - very, very low given the circumstances - and cuffs her across the shoulder with his knuckles. "You're handier than a pocket, d'you know that?" Seriously, he's pretty sure that's cheating.

Though he can't deny that all that magic nonsense and the general ease of this has put him in a terribly good mood. Charlie throws her a grin, a proper one, and then swings round to the cleared side the building. It doesn't take long to find a door. He tries it, optimistic about their chances, though isn't terribly surprised to find it locked. Charlie doesn't bother to take a moment to confer and rather simply whips out a lock picking kit so he can pick open the locked door and the deadbolt above it.

"If there's a secondary alarm wired to its own power source, we might have to be quick about the rest of this." As if they've been dragging their feet this whole time.

"Of all the things to compare me to, you compare me to a pocket?" She shakes her head, entirely amused. She can't even pretend to sound offended. It's rare that she gets to her use magic for good - well, good like this, anyway, so the praise is something new to her, and even welcomed.

As he picks the door she keeps watch again, but doesn't offer to help. It isn't that she can't - it was one of the first things she learned when she was on her own - it's more that she's been showing off, in a way, all this time and now it was Charlie's turn. The car doesn't count; she'd like to forget that.

"Would there not be a wire connected to the door?" She says after a moment, taking a step back to examine the door.

"Could be," he says, carefully twisting his tools into place. There's something cathartic about picking a lock; it's been a long time and he's out of practice, embarrassingly slow compared to how good he used to be at this. Jesus, he'll have to keep on top of this in the future. "But if there is, it's likely it's on the inside. Honestly, I'm not terribly worried. If you haven't noticed, things've been a bit slip shod."

A blind gran and her lame guide dog could break into this place.

"Yes, yes, you're not worried . . . " Tempest still isn't about to let her guard down, but it has been terribly easy - usually, something happened about now that would screw it all up in her experience, but it hasn't happened. Maybe they'd actually pull it off without any other guards showing up, or triggering some second alarm.

"Enjoy the little things, darling." Which is the last advice he'll likely be doling out on this trip (no it's totally not; the bastard couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it) as the deadbolt clicks open. He carefully stows his tools, trying the handle and--

He shoves the door open. The inside of the warehouse is gloomy, quiet, lit only by a lone red emergency bulb at the far end. Charlie takes a moment to examine the inside of the doorway, flipping out his flashlight so he can do a more thorough job of it. "Don't see any wiring. Come on, let's go find what we're here for."

Tempest blinks a few times, letting her eyes adjust to the dark. "No alarm? My, how lucky." Lucky, fortunate, both words worked, really. She scowls briefly, though, because the warehouse is no warmer than it is outside, and that was the only thing she was really hoping for. Bloody buildings and their lack of—of whatever they used to heat places in the future.

"Lead the way, my dear."

"Could be a silent alarm." See, it's not necessarily optimism. He's just being pragmatic. Clicking his flashlight off, Charlie moves into the warehouse proper. Everything's packed in bulk: rows and rows of boxes ready to be shipped on from this temporary unit. It'll be a little bit of digging, but they've got nearly a half hour between now and when their timer runs out.

"Take left, I'll go right. You've got that list I gave with you still, yeah? Just tear into some boxes and see if you can't find anything useful. We'll stack it by the door so we've a neat pile to take back with us." Which is as much as he says before he shears off to the right, quietly ghosting out of her immediate line of sight.

"Mmm. Just keep an ear out."

Heading left, Tempest pulls a knife out from under her jacket to start cutting into the boxes, as carefully and quietly as she can. Not only did she have Charlie's list, but she had her own, mental tally of some things they would need as well. The advantage of killing time doing boring inventory while they were still on Earth, or something like that.

Finding nothing she even recognizes in the first box, she moves onto the next, and so on.

It's quiet, systematic work that goes slower than he'd really like but Charlie still gets through a sizable patch of boxes - picking and choosing things that seem useful - before a noise makes him draw up suddenly. He goes stock still and quiet, ears straining until he catches it again. Footsteps: and most definitely ones not belonging the Tempest. He hunkers down, pressing his back flush against a stack of boxes and breathes out, doing a quick mental calculation. It's been too long for it to be warehouse security, which means it must be coppers.

So: silent alarm. Or blowing up the camera and disabling the power in such short succession had drawn some attention. Or hell, maybe someone'd caught them on cctv anyway. Shit.

Called it.

Tempest stops shuffling through the box she was pulling supplies out of and presses back against the shelf, using the darker shadows to hide. Through the boxes she can see a figure moving, too short to be Charlie, which means . . . dammit. Guards. Or whatever the equivalent of knights were here.

She hisses a curse under her breath, even as instinct kicks in. When she was younger, she was the distraction of the group, the one who kept an eye out and drew attention away from what was going on. Though she isn't as small as she used to be, she was still fast.

With a deep breath, a plan coming together in her head, and takes off running towards the back of the warehouse, purposely knocking over a box to make a lot of noise.

The heavy slam of the box falling echoes in the cavernous warehouse. Predictably, the cop - it must be a police officer - rounds sharply. After a beat, Charlie can hear the scrape as they shove off, the heavy slap of boot soles as they move back in the direction of the door.

Charlie's quick on his feet, rounding the immediate stack of boxes. Shit, shit, shit. There'll be a second officer at least, likely by the door if they're unlucky. If she's doing what he thinks she is, it'll mean running right into the wanker's arms. So Charlie does the only thing he can think to do to even her odds: throwing his flashlight at the officer's retreating back.

It pegs the man squarely in the small of the back, makes him cry out and sends him stumbling forward.

As the man tumbles, Tempest changes direction and decides that a head-on "distraction" is probably a lot better than just ambushing him near the back. She grabs his arm and tugs him towards her, leaning close to whisper the sleeping spell in his ear. Hopefully low enough that Charlie doesn't hear it and fall asleep himself, but.

The man goes limp in her arms almost instantly, and she drags him behind some boxes to hide him for now. Then she goes quiet again, listening, because there's never just one.

It's low enough that Charlie doesn't catch the spell - neat bit of luck that -, which is fortunate as the first copper stumbling and Tempest being their to pick up the slack doesn't slow him down. He sprints right past the two of them, making straight for the door they came in at. If there's a second policeman, dealing with him quickly before he can radio in is more important than stealth.

He swings out past a stack of boxes. The police baton catches him across the back of the shoulders: a smart smack that'll leave a mark come morning. Charlie yelps, ducking round to keep from getting battered in the head: catches the other man by the wrist and drags him about until he can lock an arm around the policeman's neck.

Tempest can her the sound of the baton across Charlie's back and winces in sympathy, giving one last listen for anyone else in the warehouse before she steps out of her hiding spot. She hurries in Charlie's direction, just in case he needs her help, which she really doubts considering, but it was the nice thing to do, right? Right.

He's got the policeman in a choke hold by the time she gets there, struggling to keep a grip on him as the man struggles and claws at his arms, pummeling at his torso. Charlie grits his teeth, fingers tight, and puts up with the thrashing until the officer starts to sag - finally goes limp in his grip.

Charlie holds for a moment or two longer, then eases up and lowers him to the ground. The man's shoe soles have left marks all over the floor. "Wanker," he grumbles, wincing as he shakes his arms out. "Come on, we haven't got much time."

"What is a wanker?" She asks as past him and towards the door they came in. She puts her hand over the handle and concentrates for a moment, then just freezes the damn thing, enough that it ends up frozen to the wall as well. That should stop anyone who tries to get in for a while.

"Never you mind."

Charlie pushes his sleeves up and moves back to the first stack of boxes. He's quick to tear them open, pulling down a few once he determines what's inside. They've got fifteen minutes before the transporter pulls them back, maybe less than that before another pair of policemen come round to check on the first.

She snickers quietly and goes to get the box she was working on. "If you are cursing and not teaching me their meanings, dear, that is not very nice of you." Is what she calls over her shoulder before she disappears into the boxes.

She dumps one of the boxes on the ground - one full of things they'd need, thankfully - and starts tossing in a few other things she'd seen while exploring.

Charlie snorts, throwing a glance back in her general direction. "I'll tell you all about it once we've got this shit back."

It's quick work, not entirely focused, but Charlie hauls as many boxes as he can back to where she's going through her own stack. If nothing else, he's made for this sort of heavy lifting. By the time their timer's near to running out, they have quite the collection of supplies. Charlie's quick as he can about marking them for pickup, slapping the markers the blokes with the transporter had given over to make sure the boxes came through alongside them.

One more box gets added to the pile after Tempest gets it open to double-check what's in it, then drags it off the shelf to carry it over to the rest of their boxes. She puts it down with a grunt. "I think that is probably all we will manage this time." She says, giving their gatherings a look over. Not that it was a bad thing, of course - there was plenty here to stock the clinic for a while.

It's not a bad haul. More work than it should've been, maybe, but shit. What isn't? Charlie throws her a sidelong glance, mouth pulling at a grin. He makes a crude gesture that's distinctly below the belt.

"Wanker. It's someone who's, you know, busy having a wank."

The look she gives him is - well, the usual blank one. Only this time, for maybe the first time, she's faking it. Though her expression remains as straight as ever.

"And that means . . . ?"

There's a very brief moment where Charlie clearly doesn't know how to follow up - his face goes momentarily blank, mouth slightly open like he's halfway to saying something but can't actually find the word. Then he frowns slightly.

"You know--" And he just repeats that same exaggerated motion of the hand, only slower for emphasis.

She almost - almost manages to keep the same straight face. Except the one on Charlie's face makes her loses it, and she covers her mouth to stop an outburst of laughter.

"Ah, yes. That."

"Oh, piss off."

Which is actually the last thing that makes it out of his mouth before the space goes momentarily sharp all over, like the air might cut something open, and then transporter hauls them from the warehouse with a sickening jolt.

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