[Open] Rebuilding the Labs

[trustycrowbar]

Date & Time: October 2nd
Location: Lower Labs, upper tunnels.
Characters: Gordon, anyone who volunteered here and anyone else who wants to join
Summary: Mastering futuristic building techniques to give the lab a floor and the catacombs a ceiling again.
Warnings: Wear your hardhat.

There's a steady buzz of activity in the echoing chambers several floors below the Hold. The cave-in left a large hole in the floor of the lowest levels of the Labs and a large pile of rubble, metal, crushed computer parts and office equipment. Up above the echoed voices of scientists can be heard barking orders like "Nono, it has to be LEVEL!" And "Be careful over there!" like labcoated terriers, and receiving just about as much heed.

Volunteers can clean rubble and scavenge check out the ruined equipment, others might set stays and metal bars to form metal framework overhead, and others are handed these odd tubes that look like ordinary caulking tubes, but instead spray a huge cloud of foam that quickly turns into something light and harder than any rock. Careful not to get any on you. Still others may be set on refreshment duty or gofers, if there are enough people.

Gordon, for the record, is down in the rubble pile, suited up and lifting slabs of old stone and concrete the size of small cars. Not on his own, but lifting them with... some kind of weird gun-thing? What the hell is that?

Comments

[trustycrowbar]

[Yes, ma'am!]

Faster than I expected! I think everyone's a little wary of working with that foam substance and sticking to clearing rubble... However, the Hold supplied it because it's the easiest possible thing to work with.

[raisedbybirds]

[She swivels around, her helmet visor blinking for a moment and taking note of said foam substance. A form of isocyanate or polyurethane resin? Was she reading that right?]

New building material?

[trustycrowbar]

Exactly.

[He picks up a can of the stuff, tosses it idly, then sprays what can only be described as a blob of cement mousse against an empty wall.]

Never seen anything like it before--maybe you have? We're supposed to use a wire cage support for the interior support and sculpt this into and around it.

[raisedbybirds]

[She folds her arms.]

Sounds cheap, but good for short term.

Not that we really have the luxury to be picky.

[trustycrowbar]

From an engineering standpoint, good enough is sometimes perfect. Especially when cost is an issue, which it always is.

[He's stopped hefting rubble for the moment and lopes down the side, closer to her. Eyeing the change they've made so far.]

But I know they'll get some better contractors and security measures down here later; this hole and the fact that we know that three feet of stone and cement were all that separated the labs from the tunnels are security problems of the highest order.

[raisedbybirds]

Definitely a big, gaping security flaw, yeah.

[Though, now that he's closer, her attention is brought back to that gun he was carrying.]

A gravity gun?

[She pointed at it, making her best guess.]

[trustycrowbar]

[He glances down at it, then back up with a nod.]

Good guess. You have anything like this in your world?

[Not quite a challenge, but a playful-sounding question nonetheless.]

[raisedbybirds]

[If it were a challenge, it'd be a dangerous thing to propose for Samus. She does enjoy them.]

Not quite in that application.

[Really, in a gun form; it was quite a novel ideal.]

Anti-gravity devices are used mostly for ship propulsion systems, elevators and lifts...

[She taps the breast plate of her suit with a clang clang.]

Even here.

[trustycrowbar]

Really now? Can't say I'm surprised, really. Yet another one of those technologies we're just starting to gain a handle on.

[In fact he's not entirely sure how the hell it works; He didn't have the luxury of perusing any texts in the two weeks he was fighting with the Resistance... But he's not about to admit that here.]

[raisedbybirds]

[She pauses a moment in consideration. If it were anyone else she probably wouldn't oblige them, but she's warming up to Gordon. Also, she's personally curious. She looks at the gun then taps her suit again.]

Try it on me. I want to see something real quick.

[Will her Gravity Suit stand up ha ha get it to the Gravity Gun?]

[trustycrowbar]

[He blinks then rubs his chin with a thoughtful smile. The Gravity Gun can't pick up living organic matter... well, usually, but she's got a suit of inorganic armor that can conveniently collapse into a nice, portable hypersphere. The only wild card were the gravity fields reacting to each other somehow... He backs up a few steps.]

I was a bit curious about that myself! All right, now if anything doesn't feel right, be sure to let me know about it.

[With that warning, he aims the device even along the ground, pointed to her, and slowly increases the gravity pressure with a innocuous-sounding hum.]

here's where I start compiling game mechanics together to make things make sense

[raisedbybirds]

[Lo, she is lifted off the ground, arms wobbling for a moment as she's thrown off balance. It's just like she were back floating around in the vacuum of space. The nostalgia is fleeting at best, since her suit is as autonomous as her thoughts. Her orange armor SUDDENLY CHANGES COLOR SCHEMES TO PURPLE emits a faint glow before her boots slam back into the rocky ground with a crunch.

Her suit doesn't seem to struggle to keep her on the ground, though her visor blips with this obvious spacial abnormality it's never encountered before. My, that's interesting...]

[trustycrowbar]

[Oho, it seems the unstoppable gravitational force has met the immovable graviton-saturated object! The look of playful competition is unmistakable as he shifts back into a more stable stance and redoubles the pull of the Gravity Gun.]

[raisedbybirds]

[She's normally not very competitive, but it's difficult to not oblige a look of challenge when she sees one. She splays her legs and powers up to super saiyan braces herself to hold her ground. Her suit continues to alert her that this is kind of weird but shows no sign of buckling or giving.]

[trustycrowbar]

[There's a low, powerful thrum from the manipulator as he cranks it up to full, and he doesn't even hear his suit's alert beyond "WARNING: critical friction--" before he starts to slide. He yelps, backpedals, scrabbles for the shutoff switch, slides again, and then his feet leave the ground as he's bodily slingshotted towards her.]

[raisedbybirds]

[She barely has any time to react beyond widened eyes and a quick spit of:]

Oh shit--

[The resounding CLANG from both of their suits probably resonates throughout the entire laboratory-turned-chamber. Despite their armor this is uhhhhh definite personal space being invaded.]

Are you alright?

[Even so, Gordon's safety is her first concern, holding him and looking for any obvious injuries.]

[trustycrowbar]

[On impact the gravity gun sputters a violet arc of gravitons against both of them and clatters to the ground. Gordon himself shakes off the jolt, and squirms to push up his glasses before he realizes that he's landed right in the huntress' arms. Now it's true that her power suit leaves everything to the imagination... but he's got one hell of an imagination.]

"WARNING. Sudden elevation in heart rate detected. Increased core temerature. Response to unknown stimuli. Determining cause of--BEEP!" [Wow. He was pretty quick to fumble for that mute button, wasn't he?]

I'm fine! Just... just fine. Don't listen to that thing, I've handled worse beatings than that. N-now if you'll excuse me--

[And he attempts to politely sidle away but the same arc of purple energy crackles between them and he finds himself pulled against her again with a resonant KLUDD. Just like two magnets.]

...Oh no.

[raisedbybirds]

[Fortunately for him, Samus assumes that fluster is entirely innocent. At least he seems unhurt, though she grunts as he slams back on top of her.]

Oh no?

[She's making a face under the visor. She even lets him see said face, brows furrowed, looking worried and displeased all at once. Figures the one moment she decides to fool around something like this would happen...]

I don't like Oh No's. What's this Oh No?

[trustycrowbar]

[He pushes himself up against the force between them, enough for conversational distance. He's still lying there and staring down at her, face centimeters from her visor, however.] This, uh... particular Oh No? [He coughs awkwardly.] This means that we may have gotten the lamellar layer of my suit charged with graviton energy when I and the gravity gun collided with you.

[Wait, that can happen?]

That can happen. And since yours is anti-grav charged, well, I don't think I have to explain the rest.

[raisedbybirds]

[She opens her mouth, then closes it. Then finally opens it again.]

So we just turned our suits into two magnets until the charge dissipates.

Or we figure out a way to reverse the charge.

[She's optimistically and stubbornly thinking MAYBE SHE'S STRONG ENOUGH TO RIP THE BOTH OF THEM APART until one or the other happens. So she's trying to stand, unannounced of course.

The extra weight on her front side is of course throwing off her equilibrium.]

[trustycrowbar]

[This is not his finest moment. He grunts and twists to the side and finds a reasonably dignified leaning position against her back. He can tell what she's thinking...]

All right, you run that way, and I'll run this way. If the field is a simple inverse-square--and I have no reason to believe it ISN'T--we should be able to stay away from each other if we gain enough distance between us. On three: one, two... three!

[raisedbybirds]

[She similarly squirms and twists, the uncomfortable sound of metal scraping every now and then making her wince. This was VERY AWKWARD but okay good they've finagled themselves into a sturdy, stable position.]

Alright.

[She likes this plan. One, two... three! They're off! The hardest part is of course the first few steps. Her boots scrape gravel and she struggles and, with a lot of effort, manages to put a few inches between them--a few feet--a few yards--hey, it feels like it might be easing up a little...

That might be because all this running causes her speed boosters to kick in, filling her Power Suit with a sudden surge of energy...

...which adds another charge on top of the charge her suit had, duly amplifying it. She feels herself being flung backwards!]

[trustycrowbar]

[Gordon had started at a run himself, and his own suit had similarly boosting his sprint after a few moments--and for a moment he honestly believes he's going to make it!]

--whoaSHIT[...And then he's suddenly jerked back by the same force as Samus and he's yanked backwards several feet, bashing into her with a loud CRAASH and a thud as they settle to the ground in a metallic heap. While his suit chimes an alert about losing some power to the impact, he grunts and rubs his neck from the whiplash and turns to look around Samus' shoulder pauldron.]

...alright, I think it's safe to say that won't work... Are you all right?

[raisedbybirds]

[She groans a little, feeling that one far more than the first bump.]

Yeah. I'm fine.

[A sliver of damage, though she didn't want to incur anymore. Hrrrgh... what to do? Oh, wait...]

...Roll over.

[Which she did regardless of his permission or not, so she was sprawled on top of Gordon, easily dwarfing him. It was a simple fix, really; she'd just take her suit off, it fading away in a sparkly blaze of digital light. There. Problem solved!

And no longer was she dwarfing Gordon at all. Did she suddenly lose a few inches out of the armor or what...? Not to mention the blue skin tight suit left little to the imagination.]

[trustycrowbar]

OOF, hey what the--

[He would have complied, really, if he hadn't been shoved over so quickly. The whole thing happens quite fast in fact; one moment he's pinned under a couple hundred pounds of combat-suited hunter, and the next thing he knows the suit has evaporated away and left this beautiful blue-suited creature in his arms.]

...

Warning: extreme jump in blood pressure detected. Respiratory rate increase by twenty-two perce--BEEP!

[Ahem.] Well. This is... I... uh... Good thinking! Great idea. [His eyes not quite so wide now, he props himself up on one elbow to look around. His other hand rests on her back. Not purposefully of course, or at least not consciously...] What happened to your suit?