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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 3:09 pm
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Mark's sudden appearance behind him in the cafeteria had Lucky very nearly drop his tray of nutrition pastes, meat substitutes, and other previously canned, frozen, and freeze-dried imitations of what had once probably been almost edible. He whirled around, clutching it defensively. A perfectly synchronized wave of mild concern traveled through his mind and Song's.
"I - I guess so..." He did kind of owe Mark for the promotion. He could afford to hear him out, right?
"I mean, I wouldn't call it James Bond level or anything, but - wait." He gave Mark a suspicious look. He had, after all, lived with him for almost half a year. The odds were fifty-fifty that this was something wildly dangerous, or maybe just as simple as - "Are you installing more of your cameras? Just tell me which shower it is this time so I can avoid ever going in there ever again."
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 3:53 pm
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"Nah, I already replaced them," Mark replied nonchalantly, conveniently not explaining which ones or where, "blackmail material comes first." He sidled up right next to Lucky, took the bread roll, dipped it in the meat substitute, biting experimentally into it.
"So like," his mouth was still full, so it was relatively difficult to understand him, "I was thinking like, remember that radio I left at Delta?" He didn't wait for Lucky to respond yes or no to this question. "Recently it's been starting to signal again, which got me thinking, of course just between you and me, that thing cost me fifty bucks to get repaired so if it is working and fully functional, we should obviously go get it back and I can still return it under warranty."
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:41 pm
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Mark stared at Lucky's hand gesture and gave him a flat look, mistaking the O for a heart. "No homo, bro." He helped himself to whatever it was that Lucky had decided to get a drink of, which was on most days the leftover syrup residue of fountain pop that Sun division had bought about five months ago mixed with questionable water supply and absolutely no carbon.
He hesitated, gave Lucky a very platonic pat on the back to cheer him up (just in case), and then stood up. "Okay, I already set up a portal because I knew you'd never say no because you're terrible at saying no, so just pack up your gear and meet up where the lighthouse should have been. Or I should say that but I'm lazy and I actually set it up in my office, just don't step in too far okay."
With that he took a few more things from Lucky's tray and wandered off, hopefully to get prepared for the mission.
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Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 10:44 pm
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"What? Wait, that's not - I don't -" Lucky sputtered a few more broken sounds of disagreement before Mark was out of earshot.
He was still trying to think of a real response when he stepped inside the death division office ten minutes later, looking like he was dressed for a very casual robbery and not a retrieval. Boots, gloves, hooded sweatshirt, and even his scarf ready to be pulled up over his nose and mouth if the situation called for it. The last time he'd seen Delta it had still been covered in dangerous thorny vines, and the only reason he had been safe then was because he'd been piloting a golem for most of it. He wasn't about to take his chances with getting infected a second time.
"So, uh, what are we looking for, again?" Lucky called out to Mark. He'd been so fixated on the idea of going back to Delta that he didn't remember what they were going to Delta for.
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Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2015 12:03 am
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The only person in the death division office at that time was Caelius, who just pretended Lucky did not exist for most of the duration, so it was basically Lucky shouting to the empty space of where Mark should have been and then standing there. It was extremely awkward until about five minutes later, Mark showed up.
"Dude," the Death assistant said loudly, and then covered his mouth as the Death lead glared. Mark almost comically pulled Lucky out of the office and before they knew it, were down the hallway, Mark was rambling a mile a minute, "I said my office, my office, not the office, you know I have an office, it's my lair and how could you even get those two mixed up, thank god I installed cameras in the office, look, I know we haven't gotten along well but-"
- He got distracted mid sentence as he got a tweet and took a moment to laugh and reply to it.
"Anyway, right, so, portal set up." It only took about two more minutes to get to Mark's lair. The portal was also very obvious since it was the only glowing source of light in any of the "office", currently held together precariously by a variety of items including a spare computer tower and a dead pile of roaches. "You first."
Before Lucky could say yes or no, Mark pushed him into the portal. Lucky would have said yes anyway.
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Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2015 3:01 am
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The last thing Lucky would hear as he hurtled into it was Mark saying "Relax", though the distorted space and compression of the portal would turn the sound waves into a long drawn out -aaaaaaaaaaaxxx at the end that seemed to have no ending or beginning and-
- When Lucky was conscious again he would find himself lying face down on the cement. How he had landed and not bashed his face in was another story altogether. Delta, or what remained of it, was still in shambles, the wrecked construction, the odd taste in foliage, and the cars, stack haphazardly at every highway turn and exit was just a strange reminder of what had been. There was however, a noticeable lack of infected anywhere around.
Mark was also nowhere in sight, though scattered around a rather sizeable car pileup were only about seven different types of radio transmitters.
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Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2015 1:25 am
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Lucky practically leapt off the ground again the moment he opened his eyes. The lack of a broken bloody nose was completely lost on him - his priority was just scrambling behind the nearest car to hide. First, get a bearing on where he was - and why he was alone.
"Mark?" Lucky whispered hesitantly, thumb brushing the weapon totem in his pocket. He could feel all of his fingers and toes, so he hadn't lost any extremities to Mark's haphazard 'portal. "Hello?"
Silence.
Lucky glanced around the side of the car. Delta appeared the same as he remembered - dismal, broken-down, overgrown. Very strangely still. Even before, there had been zombies. Now... nothing. No one. He didn't realize he'd been holding his breath that entire time until he exhaled one loud, long breath.
It was a few moments longer before his gaze shifted down to something that glinted like metal beside one of the larger pile-ups. He moved closer, slinking around the nearby cars until he was close enough to see what they were.
"Huh. Well. Uh. Mission accomplished," Lucky mumbled to himself, looking over what he had to assume was a radio transmitter. And another radio transmitter. And another. They were all completely different transmitters. It was actually a little disconcerting to see so many in one place - the paranoia was already creeping cold in his blood. Could Mark have really lost that many of them? In the same spot? He reached out to the nearest one. "Kind of."
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Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2015 6:50 pm
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Lucky turned sharply toward the noise, grimacing behind the scarf as he dove for cover again. The transmitter he had picked up was quickly dropped back on the concrete - if it hadn't been busted before, it probably was now.
He couldn't help but imagine it was Charlotte. It was too easy to draw the connections, and too difficult to convince himself that she might have gotten killed getting mixed up in the business of Legacies. She'd already been operating in the city. Lucky had seen the penthouse before and after it had been warped and overrun by Creation. He had immediately recognized the marble dining room, and the garden. And the familiarly Ouroboros coats of the corpses that had been shambling around and lamenting a sacrifice. He would be relieved if it was just a coincidence - some civilian helicopter in a place it shouldn't be. But he couldn't afford to take the chance. Oh, god, he really was terrible at saying no...
Lucky fretted for another moment in the shadow of the car wreckage, just long enough for a brief internal argument with his weapon, and to swipe the next-closest, presumably broken radio and stuff it into his pocket. Like he said - mission accomplished, sort of. Mark could take it up with him later. He followed on foot, heading north toward the tunnel and trying to keep as many broken cars between him and the actual helicopter as he could.
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Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2015 10:58 pm
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As luck would have it, the tunnel entrance was entirely blocked by vehicles. It was dark inside the tunnel, without any source of light, even during the day it felt colder. Was it Lucky's imagination or was there something moving behind him - a shadow perhaps, something that reached over, grabbed his shoulder and-
- "What the heck are you doing?" Mark all but dragged Lucky coat hood and all out of the tunnel. "Go get a radio, not walk randomly around - you know what I don't even want to know what you were up to. Here, hold these for me." The Death assistant dumped into Lucky's arms about eight more broken radios. "Please tell me you were wandering off to I dunno, go pee or something and not to do the touching things thing, why do I even bring you with me." He gave the other a long suffering sigh, just in time for several other helicoptors to fly overhead, about six in total. They were military grade, simple dark colours.
"What the-" The Death Assistant slowly turned to Lucky as if this was all his fault.
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Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 12:07 am
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"Jasna ch--" Mark's appearance had definitely startled him, as did being dragged away. He struggled the whole way back out of the tunnel entrance. Lucky had been so intent on spying on the tunnel that he hadn't been watching his back. "Hey, wait, - Mark??"
"But I -" He didn't manage to get a word in edgewise, and before he could pull out the radio he was saddled with almost ten more. "I wasn't touching anything, I was just - I was just looking. I saw a helicopter fly over -"
Anything else he was going to say was drowned out by the roar of several more engines passing overhead.
"Uh, we should hide," Lucky suggested, looking from sky, to tunnel, to sky. He took a couple steps backward, toward the tunnel entrance and broken-down cars. "Maybe in that tunnel. In case they come back around?"
He finally tore his gaze away from the helicopters to find Mark staring at him. It took a few seconds to realize why, and he gave Mark a very affronted look. "Really?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 11:41 pm
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"Just don't touch anything," Mark bossed around, stuffing any additional radio pieces he could find into his pockets. He was just in the process of reaching over for an eleventh when that particular one crackled and and then hissed with static.
"We know you are in the tunnel," the radio suddenly echoed, words sharp and unmistakable, "just the other is fine. You can go home."
"Who-" Mark began, as static played on said radio transmitter again, "Wait - what about-"
- "Come along now, Lucky," said the voice through the radio, sounding exceedingly female and familiar, "I'll meet you at the other end of the tunnel. Just keep on walking. Do it and we won't take Mark hostage."
"Well, if you insist," the Death assistant suddenly changed tone, doing a quick one-eighty. He passed Lucky on the way out and gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Good luck bro. Don't die and stuff." A very unsubtle whisper. "And don't touch anything." Quick double thumbs up and then the sound of Mark scurrying the hell away.
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