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Post by Dusk on Sept 16, 2015 23:31:26 GMT -5
"That sounds...violent of her." Jane didn't really have much to say on that point and laughed nervously.
"To be honest, it's not something I've ever really wanted? Since light has always hurt me since before I can remember I've never really felt the desire for the light. I mean, if you want to I won't stop you. It sounds like it could be pretty cool to test if nothing else. And yeah, I'll pass on the blood thing. I had enough taken by doctors when I was growing up when my parents were trying to figure out what was wrong with me...well before they got freaked out that the doctors might like...kill me or something to see how I worked. That was before I hid in the shadows to get out of a doctor trip."
She bit her lip. Why was she telling him that?
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Post by kyngarthur on Sept 17, 2015 0:28:24 GMT -5
"I mean, mom kind of needs it some times. She goes for days, even weeks, on end without sleeping. Typically one of the lab rats would stick a needle in her arm in order to put her to sleep for a bit. But yeah..." He shuffled awkwardly for a bit.
"I never had to deal with the blood tests or anything like that. I dealt with a lot of staring at computer screens in order to 'gauge my intelligence' or something like that. I dealt with it for a long time, but eventually I got so bored with the testing that I got depressed blah blah blah, Mom got me out of there, blah blah blah. I'm just some weird genetically engineered project."
He sort of shrugged it all off, and gave her a huge grin before quickly changing the subject, "So I can build you a suit then? Oh gooood! I guess we're going to have to go to my real workshop then!"
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Post by Dusk on Sept 17, 2015 0:36:05 GMT -5
Yep, he'd left her with a knot of questions.
"Yeah I mean if you w-Wait, does that mean that you are a test-tube k- real workshop?" she spluttered lamely.
"Yeeeah I might need to work on my people skills..."
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Post by kyngarthur on Sept 17, 2015 0:50:15 GMT -5
He jumped up and grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet, "Yes I want to! It'd be a fun project. Yes, I am in fact a test tube baby I am the true offspring of two women. It took a few years, but they finally worked out the technology so that they could have me legitimately. The fact that I was smart just sort of turned out as a... bonus?"
A grin crossed his lips as he tugged at her hand some more. When they reached the door, he released her hand and spoke over his shoulder to her, "Okay, don't run. I'm reaching for the light switch, but I won't turn them on."
Grabbing the edges of the plate cover on the light switch, he popped it loose as the entire switch swung forward. Underneath was just a sort of orb. Bending down, he put his eye up against the now empty socket and held there for a moment until the entire room lurched suddenly. There was a grinding of steel and cables as it felt like the room began to descend towards the ground. Still smiling ear to ear, he turned back to Jane, "You'll be the first person to have been down here!"
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Post by Dusk on Sept 17, 2015 1:55:57 GMT -5
Jane gave a small squeak as she was pulled up. Alright, so at least one of his moms was definitely a mad scientist.
If Eiron wouldn't have warned her she definitely would have bolted. As it was she felt her whole body tense to run when he got near the panel.
The room lurching was the final straw. She dipped straight into the wall as she lost her balance. About four seconds later she realized that she must be in some sort of elevator and stepped back out of the wall.
"Down where?"
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Post by kyngarthur on Sept 17, 2015 2:34:34 GMT -5
Steel groaned and shook as the room continued to descend towards the ground. There was a great grinding as massive concrete slabs moved to either side to allow the room to descend in to the ground. A few seconds later, the edge of the concrete was at eye level through the window, and then it quickly swallowed up the top edge and plunged them even deeper in to darkness. It lasted for about a full minute, with Eiron hopping up and down excitedly, before the room came to a shuddering halt. He opened the door and stepped out in to a short passageway that was dimly lit by small lights embedded in the walls. It was barely bright enough for Eiron to see in, but he managed to make his way to the end of it. Coming to a console, he spoke back over his shoulder again, "Is there a type of light that doesn't harm you? What if I were to turn on lamps, and point them up at the ceiling? Is it just the direct beam?"
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Post by Dusk on Sept 17, 2015 3:24:42 GMT -5
Jane was about ninety percent sure that she'd stepped into some sort of sci-fi movie. The other ten percent wrote this all off as some weird drug trip from Eiron slipping something into her soda or something. "Yeah, the can that you picked out yourself and opened yourself," she thought.
She gave the hallway a good once over and decided that she didn't really have any choice but to roll with it.
"Uh, light from fires seems to not hurt me and the shadows are easier to deal with since they tend to be deeper. Electric and UV are definitely the worst. Florescent are worse than standard and headlights have literally caused me to be temporarily blinded and bleed from the eyes. LEDs mostly tingle as long as their not like, super concentrated like in a flashlight or something. If it doesn't directly touch me it usually doesn't hurt unless it's a really high powered light like on construction sites or those freaking motion lights. Won't lie though, I'm gonna be a bit edgy. I have mostly flameless candles in my house along with Christmas lights. Those aren't too bad either. How in the fuck did you get this place under the main building?" she dead-panned.
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Post by kyngarthur on Sept 17, 2015 15:20:25 GMT -5
"Oh, I didn't get this down here. That shop was originally where they took cars to put them through a grinder, and this big underground place was where all the shards went to get melted down. There used to be HUGE blocks of iron and tin and aluminum down here. About ten years ago, they started doing at an offsite location and this one was abandoned. Cue me showing up, and it was a perfect hiding place from whoever I wanted to hide from."
The entire time he was talking, he was rattling away at the keyboard under the console. Swearing under his breath, he reached down and grabbed the handle of a drawer under the console and pulled it open. He fished around inside for a moment and retrieved a set of goggles from inside. Pulling them over his head, he snapped the band on the back and flipped a switch on the side. There was a slight whirring noise as they powered up, and he turned to look at Jane, "Well the power outage caused the entire place to shut itself down anyways, so no lights for me. It happens pretty often, that's why I have the night vision goggles already, since you were probably going to ask me why I had them already. Welcome to the shop!"
With a deft flick of his wrist, he turned the handle on the doorknob at the end of the hallway and flung the door open wide, stepping back so that she could enter first and see what was in there. It was a pretty large cavernous room, about twice the size of the shop above. Along one wall ran a set of various sized monitors, all of them powered down. In the very back corner was the tank he had mentioned, clearly looking like it was from the World War II era. Scattered throughout the place were his random projects. Unlike the shop above, the underground one was immaculate. Toolboxes were closed and lined up, any parts that belong to projects were lined up carefully on carts next to their given machines. In the center of the room was something that sat low to the ground, but was covered by a big canvas tarp. "So, what do you think?"
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Post by Dusk on Sept 17, 2015 17:00:35 GMT -5
"Ah, that makes sense," she stated.
She tilted her head as she watched him type. She'd never done much with computers. The screens made her hands itchy after awhile if the brightness wasn't way low, and she hadn't really liked the way things looked with the screen that dark. Still, she had a tablet that she used to order pizza and whatnot from time to time. She didn't think that what he was trying to do was anything like that.
"Oh," was the only input she could give since he'd snatched the question away before she could ask it. Yeah, if this place was that old she could imagine it would have power problems. She followed Eiron to the door and was surprised when he stepped to the side. She gave him a quizzical look before stepping through the doorway and taking a quick side-step so he could follow her in. The fleeting thought that he could lock her in a room however far below ground and not come back only lasted a moment as she took in the room.
Even with her unnaturally clear dark-vision she had a hard time making out details on the far edges of the room. She looked up and realized that the ceiling was also quite a bit more distant than she had expected.
"Talk about night and day," she mumbled seeing how organized this place was compared to upstairs. It was obvious that Eiron must spend most of his time down here. "So he might have been awake during one of my visits to the main shop then," she thought feeling embarrassed again.
The tank definitely drew her attention , but her curiosity was much more fixated by whatever was hiding under that tarp. She didn't even hear Eiron step into the room and jumped when he spoke.
"I can't believe this is all down here," she breathed, "is that a Stuart or a Sherman? I've never been good at tanks."
She paused only briefly, but didn't ask Eiron about the tarp. She could ask that later if he didn't show her.
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Post by kyngarthur on Sept 18, 2015 3:34:12 GMT -5
"It's an old World War II era Sherman. Don't ask me what I'm going to do with it once it's completed, because I have no idea. I got the main gun to pivot a few nights ago, but that's about the extent of its operation right now. It's hard to find parts for a tank that's 70 years old, I've had to make a couple of them myself."
He walked in to the room with the goggles attached to his face, avoiding walking to close to objects because he had no peripheral sight at the moment. After making his way to the rear of the room he opened a big steel panel on the wall, full of breakers and switches. Flipping a few of the switches around, he reached up and grabbed a large break and lifted it back to its 'on' position. There was a large whirring and all the monitors on the wall sputtered to life, but all the lights in the ceiling remained off.
He took the goggles off and blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the low light of the monitors. The smile on his face couldn't be any wider at this point as he held his hands up, "So I guess you could sort of call this my lair. You've met Shirley," he gestured to the tank, "and I'm sure you'll become acquainted with the rest of the projects if you hang around with me enough. The car under the tarp is currently unnamed, that's what I was up in the scrap yard pulling parts for. Now to come up with a name for your project! Any ideas?"
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Post by Dusk on Sept 18, 2015 4:00:32 GMT -5
Jane gave a low whistle.
"I mean, this is probably an obvious question, but was the barrel still functioning? A lot of them got decommissioned so functional ones are pretty rare."
While she was talking she'd watched him carefully. At the sound of the breaker she was ready to dive, but her fears proved unfounded.
"Ah so that's what's under the- what? Uhm. What?"
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Yes. Here.
Sept 18, 2015 4:28:30 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by kyngarthur on Sept 18, 2015 4:28:30 GMT -5
"Yes! Fully functional. The first thing I checked was to see if metal had been poured in to the barrel. Other than some rust, the barrel was spotless. Now if only I could find some shells for it..." his thought trailed off.
He snapped out of it shortly afterwards and went back to grinning at Jane, "well yeah! I have names for all my projects. The one for you isn't going to be any different. I'm thinking something dark to go with your shadow manipulation."
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Post by Dusk on Sept 30, 2015 5:12:22 GMT -5
"Ah, that's so cool. That's a pretty good find," Jane said with a smile.
She rested her hands on her hips and leaned back to take in the tank. It was crazy big. She knew they were big, but wow. They were definitely smaller in the books she'd read. "Aaand, that brings us back to why I don't have a social life," she thought. On one hand, it would be cool to be able to go to the store without looking like a crazy person. On the other...she could feel the panic curl in her stomach at the thought.
"Uhhh...well," she suggested unhelpfully. She'd never been great with names, but back when she was younger and still had a couple of friends around they'd had a "superhero" name for her. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to dredge that up. She hesitated and looked at the floor crossing her arms as she thought. It might be kind of nice to hear someone use a familiar name. "Or you'll just come off as super lame." She bit her lip.
"Fine, I'll go for it. When I was a kid my friends would call me Dusk. They thought I needed a superhero name because of what I could do. Haven't seen most of them in a long time." She left off the fact that those people, except for two of them, might not even know who she was anymore. Her parents had been so protective about her that it had made it hard for her to meet other kids when she was growing up.
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Post by kyngarthur on Oct 8, 2015 23:30:51 GMT -5
"Dusk! I love it!"
He practically sprinted over to the bank of computer monitors, his hand reaching out and spinning a dial as he did so. As the dial spun, all the monitors dimmed down so that Jane could step closer without them blinding her. His hand slid under the shelf the monitors were sitting on and pulled out two computer chairs. Spinning one over to Jane, he plopped down in the other one and jacked the other one up before plopping in it. His fingers flew across a keyboard that sat in front of him, a blueprinting program flying up in front of him labeled 'Project Dusk'.
"By the way, there's definitely more food and pops in the fridge down here. You're more than welcome to it, and feel free to explore the place. Don't mind George either, he's a rat that lives down here."
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Post by Dusk on Oct 16, 2015 0:41:24 GMT -5
Jane ran a hand over the back of the chair as she watched the screen change. She wasn't sure if she wanted to sit quite yet. She glanced across the spacious shop. She had to get a closer look at that tank rat or no.
"Thanks. I think...that I might go have a look around for a sec. I'll be back," she assured.
She started off for the back corner of the shop. When she got to the point that she could no longer read the monitors she spun around.
"Do you want me to grab you anything when I'm done snooping?"
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Post by kyngarthur on Oct 16, 2015 0:59:41 GMT -5
"Nah I'm good. By the way, how does yours work? Your shadow manipulation that is. Does it bring everything you're currently touching with you? Or does it leave somethings behind? Or do you leave everything behind?" At that last comment, his face immediately turned a bright shade of red and he spun back around to the monitors, "You know what, forget about what I just said."
The closest tarped project that Jane would come to would be slightly taller than both of them, but very narrow. If she were to pull the tarp off, she would see a sort of antenna. The plaque at the bottom of the antenna denoted this as Project World Broadcast. The next one is the car that he had mentioned earlier. There was no plaque on that project, and the car seemed in need of a lot of repair. The tank was obviously one of them, and it was labeled Project Warlord. The next few weren't labeled and currently just looked like piles of parts, and the very last one was simply a bowl of water and an empty bowl, with a sign that said GEORGE above it.
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