Anomaly #002 | video, spam

[dinosize]

[ Stephen flicks on his communicator with a somewhat wobbly camera shot. He holds up a fish for the camera's perusal. A clearly dead fish, due to the knife slit through most of its body. ]

This? Is a piranha. Observe the teeth.

Now, swimming with piranhas can be perfectly safe. Except with these, which appear to be in a sort of blood frenzy. You can still be a little safe, if you follow these rules.

Move slowly. Piranhas are attracted by frenzies of movement in the water as much or more than they are by blood.

If you have an open wound, bind it tightly and wash all the blood off before being in the water. Avoid being next to anyone with an open wound.

If all else fails, throw a bit of raw meat down the hallway and escape while they're distracted.

[ Shot reveals that he's perched in a small canoe, currently floating in the piranha hallway. ]

I know we come back here, but a piranha death doesn't sound pleasant to me. Be careful.

[ He flicks the camera off. ]


[ spam ]

[ Stephen spends this flood being generally useful. From fishing for piranhas to rescuing stranded people to viciously killing rogue bumper cars, he'll be wherever the action is. He's careful and generally resourceful and will use any tool at hand to get the job done. He works out of the maintenance bay. ]

Comments

[americasdirtiest]

There's piranhas up there? [Mickey has been in Zero since pretty much the beginning. He is bored out of his skull right now.]

...How much to get you to trap one for me?

[dinosize]

You want a live piranha.

[americasdirtiest]

Did I stutter, bitch? How much?

[dinosize]

We're in a madman's deathtrap, and he's worried about getting a new pet.

[americasdirtiest]

The fuck else am I going to do down here, Steve Irwin? I can't even jerk off with all these kids around.

[spam - day 1, floor 3 ]

[notsoneedy]

[The lights go off, the Joker makes his big broadcast -- and the whole time Needy's sitting on her bed, staring, with a pissed-off look of "You've gotta be fucking kidding me".

There's fear laced in behind that, icy and sharp. Sure, she's afraid. The ship's doing it again, something crazy, something bad, only this time it's about a hundred times worse than anything she's yet lived through. For her, up until now, the cavern port was the bar for how bad it could get. Now the ship's been taken over by an evil clown.

Still...the ship's been taken over by an evil clown. Considering comic books are just that and only that in the world she comes from, she can't completely avoid the urge to roll her eyes.

But like fuck she's staying locked in her room while the shit goes down. Unfortunately it isn't until too late that she learns about the piranha the hard way. Which is why by the time the guy wit the canoe comes floating past her, she'll be sitting soaking wet and huddled on a floating ottoman, bleeding from tiny but nasty bites on her legs and arms, stabbing wildly at any piranha that try leaping out of the water at her with a butterfly knife.]

[dinosize]

[ Once Stephen ascertained that the main danger of level 3 was the piranhas, he went back to his room, and to the refrigerator that came with it, and got out some steaks that he'd been saving. Put them in separate sealed bags and washed them thoroughly, for decoys.

He reaches into the cooler beneath him and pulls one out, one-handed, using the oar to nudge off a wall towards her. ]

Hang on.

[ He opens the little bag and dips it open-side-down into the water, swishing it wildly, and then drops it in as the fish approach. It doesn't get all of them, but a fair few start circling and tearing into the steak as it sinks. Every little bit helps.

The canoe's spin around so that the side faces Needy, now. Stephen balances carefully, standing with his weight low, and reaches out a hand. ]

Careful.

[ He's ready to be a counterweight if necessary to stop them both from falling in. ]

[notsoneedy]

[Needy tenses up when she sees him, freezing. She still has the knife in her hand - she's holding it blade down, facing in; she's not good enough yet to use the fancier blade for anything but a straight up stab.

While he lures the piranha off her gaze stays on him as she holds in place, not moving a muscle, watching him with a wide and not entirely trusting gaze.

This ship is full of crazy people and killers, after all.

Then again. Between him and the fish, what has she got to lose?

Wordlessly she gets to her knees, trying to keep her balance as her improvised raft wobbles, and then takes his hand with her free grip, trying to jump into his boat as smoothly as possible. Even drenched in water she's small and wiry, so it's not as if he has much weight to counter.]

[dinosize]

[ He honestly hadn't given a second thought to getting her off the ottoman and away from the piranhas, and he honestly hadn't given a first thought to the fact that she might not trust him to do it. He's the only one around with a boat.

Shifts slightly as she steps in, and the boat only rocks a fraction before they can both settle towards the bottom of the canoe. ]

First aid kit right behind you. Under the netting.

[ He's reaching for the second oar when a fish attempts to hop up into the canoe. Perfect timing for him to hit it with the flat, like a cricket bat. It flies into the wall and drops into the water. ]

[notsoneedy]

[Still silent and wary, Needy glances back at him over her shoulder, watching him for any sign that he might be about to turn on her or -- who knows. Maybe throw her back in the water?

But the moment the seems the most opportune for an attack goes, and then he's beating off the next fish with an oar. Dropping to her knees she dives for the first-aid kit, scrambling.

She didn't see his post but she knows that sharks go after blood...sharks, fish with teeth, same thing right?]

Thanks. For the help. For...rescuing me.

[She has to swallow a bit as she says it. She's not exactly choking back pride but it's still a little hard to say.]

Voice

[voluntaryapnea]

[Piranhas. Great. That's wonderful, really. Because evil bumper cars trying to skewer him alive wasn't bad enough.]

Evil bumper cars on the seventh floor. Where are the piranhas? [Because at least he can be some semblance of prepared for this. Maybe.]

Voice

[dinosize]

Third.

I've seen the bumper cars. One tried to take my leg off.

Voice

[voluntaryapnea]

Thanks.

Yeah. Yeah me too. [He managed to take it apart with his bat before six more had rushed in his direction, leaving him no choice but to flee to the stairwell.]

Voice

[dinosize]

This is absurd.

Voice

[voluntaryapnea]

[He huffs out a short laugh, still kind of out of breath.]

Yeah that's...that's one way to put it.

spam, late day two or early day 3ish maybe idk what is time

[exnihilo]

[It's very good advice. Sadly, when the fear and the reflections and rabid-eyed stare of her past drives her helter-skelter through the maze, and she finally tumbles down a way out, she is moving pretty frenziedly. Her dress - now a muddled color between the walls and the water, with mild curving abstract patterns like the light on surface ripples - could stop shrapnel and ray guns, or withstand a few dozen tons of pressure, but it is still a dress. She feels the first bite, little razors against her shin, and makes a concerted, vicious effort to skewer every one of them on her heels which only attracts more. In the double handful of seconds it takes her to admit defeat and leap gymnastically up to cling to someone's door frame, one knee resting a share of her weight on a hopefully-sturdy doorknob, she's lost little chunks of her calves. Blood drips below her into the water, ensuring the piranhas continue an agitated milling beneath her. She hisses in fear and frustration.]

[dinosize]

[ Stephen is entirely unsurprised to note that there is a woman who has completely disregarded everything he said, and who, as a result, is rather impressively clinging to a door frame while she drips blood in the water.

He nudges off a corridor wall and dips the paddle in, smoothly, accelerating towards her. He drops the last little bit of meat in behind him, making a splash. It distracts most of them. ]

You're lucky I came back up here. [ That he's been coming up here, just because honestly canoeing around deadly fish is probably the easiest of the obstacles for Stephen. ] Hang on. [ He puts out the flat of the paddle, slowing. And this time he doesn't bother to reach out a hand to his would-be rescuee. If she can climb a door, she can get herself into the boat. He'll worry about them not overbalancing. ]

[exnihilo]

Am I?

[She glares at him, perhaps a third irritated feline pridefulness and two thirds knotted barbed-wire paranoia, the words mostly directed at herself, at the ether, is she really lucky, is this another trap. She decides, after a few seconds - drip, drip, drip, with churning below - that she can kill him and keep the boat if necessary. She jumps, tiny and nimble, does a half-twist in the air to land neatly in a crouch.]

[dinosize]

[ Oh, well, okay, lady, you could have just stepped into the boat, but whatever floats yours.

The fish surge and swarm, but they can't get over the sides. Or, at least, they mostly can't. Stephen has crossed that bridge a few times already. ]

Is it just your legs?

[ He pulls out a first aid kit from under some netting in the bottom. ]

[exnihilo]

Yes.

[She eyes the medical kit with intense suspicion.]

What is that.

[darknessb4me]

How many do you have dead? Just that one?

[dinosize]

Why?

[darknessb4me]

I can make the dead kill the living.

[Pause.]

Fish. Not you.

[Not today anyway.]

[dinosize]

So you want me to kill more.

[darknessb4me]

Not necessarily. You already have one. I can start there.