Chapter 2: My Brother's Keeper

Checkmate goes after Des, cursing under his breath. The ghoul charging around like a bull in a china shop wasn't doing his blood pressure any favours. "Slow down!" he hisses in a stage whisper. "You're going to get us all killed!"

Nyx follows behind Checkmate and growls at the ghoul as well. "You want me to put you outta my misery?" She says, jabbing the shotgun in his direction indicatively. "What about this place? Looks like a bunch of plants.""

Des freaks out at the threat. "Wha...? he points at the glowing green rocks. "Can't you see... oh right... only your ninja buddy can truly see. These aren't just glowing rocks. These are awakened!" He seems to pee himself with excitement. "This is the smugglers wet dream." As he says this a small drone on wheels rolls over to the three in the bonzai room. It says in a artificial voice "Do you need assistance?"

Turning to see what's all the ruckus in the next room, "Guys, Gerald is in one of the cells, maybe we should go and see him first to know whats happening here." Seeing the small drone, "Hey Wyvern, we got a small roller here, can you check it to make sure it won't activate an alarm or it's not bugged ?"

"Roller? Does it have rig?" Peaches listens to the cell door, her ear pressed to it.

"Don't think so, looks more like a small drone on wheels. And it's asking if we need assistance..." Lu tries to see where the drone came from.

Wyvern's digital ghost flies down into the ground and finds the drone. It is not tethered to the host. She sends small wyrms to wriggle their way into the drone's code silently chomping a way in. Eventually getting three marks on the drone. She analyzes its specs and sees it doesn't have a rig. But it has decent simple a.i. running. Its primary function is servicing the bonzai trees and the wertimere.

She sends a message to the team "I have the drone marked. What do you want to do with it?"

Just after her message is sent her baby monitor whines just a bit louder Wah, Wah, Wahhhh. The clock is ticking for Wyvern's access to the place.

Checkmate clears his throat, looks at the drone and pointedly says, "No."

The drone turns and moves to a corner of the room and seems to plug itself into the wall to recharge.

Wyvern's voice comes over the comms, "Best hurry, folks. I can't hold off security much longer."

"Do you find gentlemen wish for me to procure that man from the cells? Sounds like we gotta get the lead out?" she says, shaking her butt lightly.

"Do it, but wait a second til Nyx and I can back you up. We don't know what's been done to him," Checkmate says, moving back to the main room and readying his SCK.

"Lu, can you take a look at those stones – Des is freakin' out about 'em being awakened. They might be valuable."

"I got no problem with that, but don't hesitate to call me if you need anything." Lu moves to Des, switching his vision, "So whats this exactly ?"

Nyx, Peaches and Checkmate head into the hallway through the double doors. The first door to the right has a large troll. The troll's skin seems to be falling from his large arms and body. Green ooze darkens the medical scrubs the "patient" is wearing. He looks up at you all with blood shot eyes. A despondent look is on his face.

The next cell holds a small woman. She is also in green scrubs. Her hair is falling out making her look older than she really is. As soon as she sees you she runs at the door and slams against it hard. She begins to claw at the clear glass door with her elongated fingers. Eventually her fingers bleed as the nails break against the hard surface. The clear door begins to smear pink.

In the last room sits Gerald. He is lying on a small white cot in green scrubs. He seems asleep.

Lu's vision is filled with astral energies reflected into a prismatic spiral. The energies have an emerald green tint. It seems to be sucking the astral energy into it.

Wyvern's baby monitor begins to scream.

Peaches holds the back of her hand to her mouth. "Contagion? Curse? Best be sure, sugah, or you'll need more'n DocWagon."

The barrel of Nyx' gun snaps to attention ominously quickly when the woman pounds on the cell window, but she loosens up a little when she sees the threat is behind a glass wall. "I don't need to tell you guys that this is a bad place, right? Nothing good's ever happened here, by the looks..."

"Time's up!" Wyvern calls tensely into the comms. She shifts her attention to see if GOD has started to send anything after her, and switches into silent mode.

Lu slashes at one of the tree to see if it can be "harvested" easily...

Wyvern sends out small black dragon programs to see if anything is converging on her location. From their eyes she sees a large red demon launch from the Tacoma docks' dirigible. It's trajectory is definitely Wyvern's location.

Lu slashes through the tree and frees up a sizable chunk of the glowing rock.

Gerald opens his eyes and looks over at Peaches, Nyx and Checkmate. His head still on his pillow. His eyes are blood shot. His flesh has open sores. "So you came to kill us?"

Since Wyvern told us we had to go, Lu will hack away to free two chunks, one for him and one for Des. Once he's done, "Guys, Wyvern told us we have to go, so grab Gerald and let's clear from here."