Nathan and Lorna, Monday evening
Jun. 13th, 2005 08:22 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsLorna and Nathan take their well-deserved criticisms back to the Danger Room with them where they learn to make all new mistakes. Many drones were harmed in the making of this log but no fatalities.
They had an audience. Again. Slightly larger than the last time. Okay, considerably larger. Nathan laughed under his breath, then glanced sideways at Lorna.
#Keep it to telepathy?# he suggested. #This way no criticism about how much we're talking...# Not that he anticipated either of them were going to let themselves get distracted with even a telepathic conversation. Not this time.
#No, you just have to put up with my poorly formed responses.# Lorna didn't communicate by telepathy much, being entirely headblind. Her mental voice was a bit shaky and the overtone was colored by nerves. Her hands were twitching as she carefully checked over her uniform, ensuring the metal lining was flowing together properly. #What do you think we'll see this time? Not the same thing, I'm sure.#
#My guess? We won't get the breather this time.# The doors slid shut behind him, and he took a deep breath, then let it out. #I'll try and stay with you, here. Can't promise it if things get too up close and personal, though.#
#Let's run it the same way to start. We can always adapt when it becomes necessary.# She gave him a sideways glance. #I want to try to layer our shields. Can you lock yours over mine? Might keep mine stable even when I'm focused elsewhere and it will definitely augment yours. Well, I think.# She smiled then looked up at the numbers counting down to start.
Nathan nodded. #Gotcha.# He smiled down at her, then looked up at the numbers, shutting out any awareness of the people in the control booth, of anyone or anything besides him, his partner, and what was about to happen in this room.
No holograms this time. Just the Danger Room shifting as the countdown reached zero, and drones coming from every pit and alcove, right at them.
Lorna hissed and snapped up her shields. It was a wide mix headed toward them, metal, mixed with plastic and every variation in between. No wall turrets yet, small mercies. #I'll blow back the metals. Shut down the plas.# She was doing it even as she thought it. And sharp pulse of magnetic energy sent the metal drones tumbling back, slamming them into barriers hard enough to have broken bone but barely denting the metal.
Power cells. They weren't all the same, damn Scott and his tricky tendencies, but there were basic similarities and Nathan fixed on them doggedly. Just like knocking someone out... The plastic-heavy drones started to fall out of the sky, a few at a time, but some were fast enough to reach them and he flung up a shield even as he reached out to their power cells.
His shield intersected rather than layered hers and she frowned. #With me, remember!# She adjusted her shield until it fitted under his, locking with the EM framework. She hoped this would work the way she thought it would. While he took out drones, concentrated on keeping them shielded, slipped her sight to the EM spectrum to find the power signature the closest drone were running on.
More of them. Just how many of these damned drones were there, and how could Scott have repaired the ones they'd damaged yesterday already? Well, he was not adding to the repair bill. Not today. As far as he was concerned these were human beings and he wasn't hurting them.
Keeping the shield synched with Lorna's felt odd, but wasn't as much of a strain as he'd half-expected. #It's scaling upwards again,# he sent, then nearly jumped out of his skin as the floor beneath them groaned warningly.
#Let's move then.# The swarm of drones didn't seem to have an end and Scott was a damn liar about having a limited supply. He probably sat up nights building them and cackling like the madman he was. She felt the plates of the floor flex. #You don’t think he'd drop the floor out from under us, do you?# She used a flat shield of metal to shove back the drones then reached down to stabilize the floor.
#I think he would if he--# Nathan cut himself off, flinging out a second TK shield as the wall beside them swing outwards, right at them. The wall-module hit his shield and Nathan almost stumbled at the impact.
"Oh you've got to be kidding!" Lorna burst out, and slammed the wall back. So nice of them to design the room with metal supports. If Scott was going to throw the room at them, well, structures were fair game in the real world too. She ripped the unit off it's supports and hurled it at the veritable wall of drones bearing down on them. #They're coming from every way but up. I think that's a hint.#
Nathan winced as the flung wall sent drones flying - but they seemed dented at worst. A couple of broken limbs, but that was acceptable, wasn't it? #I'll go up the wall,# he said, flashing her his intended route even as he simultaneously reached out and shut down a few more drones.
They were turning themselves back on. Lovely.
That was so cheating.
Lorna nodded her assent and mentally gave Haroun a sardonic salute as she shoved herself into the air. #Hey, what's our objective anyway?# She'd looked over the mission brief and hadn't seen one. But maybe his had been more complete. She picked up her new toy, formerly known as the wall unit and swatted away another drone.
At the spot where the Danger Room's wall met the ceiling, far above the floor, Nathan braced himself, grimacing as some of the drones took to the air. #Deja vu. Youra, and the Trojan Horse isn't working. We're seeing how long we can hold out without using lethal force.# Straightforward this time, at least.
Hovering nearby, Lorna deflected the energy weapons of the drones with her wall while she thought. #You were protecting the kids.# She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. #I was trying to keep the second gens from killing Piers. But now all we have to worry about is us.# Any second now the ceiling was going to gift them with flying drones. What the hell was the point of practicing a last stand?
And it did, an instant later. Pushing back against the wall telekinetically to brace himself, Nathan gently swatted the first few that came at him, bringing them in for a less-than-crushing landing on the floor far below. But the next two started shooting at him, and he gritted his teeth and ran - at a ninety degree angle to the wall.
#It's just an analogy. This time he is pushing us to see how long we can do it before we drop, or our control frays enough that we'd be killing people.#
That was so vintage Scott. #So you think I'll be okay just breaking bones and knocking out guidance systems?# The flight drones were part metal but she wanted to be sure that crippling them would be okay.
#There's a limit to what you can do without making it a kill. I say go for the option.# Nathan gritted his teeth and then launched himself through the air, hearing someone's incredulous thought that he looked like a ping-pong ball as he bounced off the wall and then landed on his feet. Ow. Fuck, ow. His back had not liked that.
There was a Very Large Drone rushing him from behind, all of a sudden. He ducked as a metallic arm swung over his head in the equivalent of a right hook.
It vanished abruptly as one of the flight drone crashed into it. #Oops.# Her thought was sheepish. The last minute reversal of its flight path meant that it was going faster than she'd anticipated. Still, they were probably both salvageable. Lorna followed Nate, though without his wall bouncing antics. Catching another flight drone in her fields, she sling-shot it into a clump of ground drones. So far, no deaths. Good. She settled on a remote area. #Watch me, will ya? I want to see how many I can wipe the guidance from but it'll take a minute to sync the fields.#
'Watch' meant 'shield', he figured, and focused on keeping them off her back as she concentrated. His multitasking was definitely getting back to where it should be, he thought dimly, slamming one drone after another to the ground, seeking out the weak spots in their joints. They did keep getting back up. Deja vu indeed.
That's exactly what it meant. Her own shields flickered and died as her attention turned to the EM fields. Her eyes roved over the entirety of the room but in her vision, everything was just patterns of moving green energy. Around her hands, she began to gather the fields to her, winnowing out those that were batteries and other things, tracking down the peculiar feeling of the guidance systems. It was incredibly faint and she felt it slip from her grasp more than once while other overeager field pushed their way in. But finally she'd teased out the frequency. Her hands were suddenly sheathed in metal. #You know how I said I needed better hand to hand work?# she thought distractedly at Nate, already mentally preparing herself to do this.
The wall turrets were moving. Tracking them. Nathan gritted his teeth and surrounded each of them in a half-bubble of telekinetic shield. #Yeah, you'd mentioned that...# The pressure wasn't too bad as they started to fire. Should have done this the first time...
#No time like the present.# She tumbled off her wall perch and down into the swarm of drones. The charged metal on her hands knocked out the guidance as she hit them, her blows carefully non-lethal but there were rather more of them than there was of her.
Too many of them for her to hit them all in time. She was going to get swarmed. Instinctively Nathan started to move in that direction, to get in there - and then froze. No. He reached out and froze the drones where they stood instead. Make like garden statuary, guys...
The floor abruptly vanished beneath him, and he cursed as he felt, somehow managing to hold onto at least a portion of the drones as he caught himself. And there were drones in the fucking pit, too... only a handful, but they had guns, oh joy...
This was vastly better than running and much less exhausting than flying even if it hurt like hell to get hit with energy weapons, even through her tightly woven shields. She worked her way back toward the wall, not knowing the floor was no longer there.
Nathan swore again, and instead of launching himself back up out of the pit, created a telekinetic extension of the floor so that she didn't topple off the edge. #Lorna, stop! Floor's not there!# he warned, and one of the drones, the only one of the handful that was one of the hand-to-hand models, reached up and yanked him downwards, hard.
Looking down and seeing nothing under your feet was not cool. It was also very distracting and Lorna received a drone arm to the head for her inattentions. She shoved back and spun the now disoriented drone back into the mass where it did its best to take out anything its way. It wouldn't hurt anything too badly but it wouldn't last long either. #What are you doing down there?#
He hit the floor of the pit, barely managing to keep what was left of his focus on the 'floor' under Lorna's feet. #Nothing--useful,# he sent back, his grip on their temporary psi-link fraying. He caught a metal foot as the drone launched a kick at him, and used the momentum to help himself back to his feet.
His back was to the wall almost immediately. Cornered, nowhere to go... except no, damn it. Three dimensions. He dislocated the drone's leg joints and launched himself upwards, back to ground-level. The rush of adrenalin was different, this time. Less jarring. He was more angry than afraid.
And he was glowing. Okay then. #I should have my psimitar, damn it,# he spat, furious at the obvious spillover.
Lorna stepped off his TK floor and executed a neat flip to join him again, putting herself by his side. #Why don’t you?# She knew there was a reasonable explanation but her brain isn't willing to put the effort into recalling it. How long have they been at this anyway?
#I'm not supposed to be using the crutch until they're sure my control is as good as it can be without it.# The glow around him grew, turning a fiercer white-gold, and the drones that were hauling themselves back to their 'feet' already were suddenly down again. #Too long. I don't like this. I'm sick of having my nose rubbed in this!#
She used a few part-metal drones to sweep the area nearest them then took out the flight drones diving in. She was dead tired and her control was getting shaky. #Am I green?# she wondered.
#Starting to be...# There was a definite tinge to her skin. #Can we... why are they rebooting? How's he doing that...# The wall turrets were still firing away merrily, bouncing off the insides of those shields. That was what was getting to him, he realized, what was wearing him down the most. #The ones with damaged limbs aren't getting up.# Although they were dragging themselves towards him and Lorna, reminding him of the operatives on Youra.
"Damn." Green meant she was over-doing it. Something had to be cut back. #I'm cutting my shields. They're just too intensive.# She scanned the room, noticing, as he had the persistence of the drones. #Youra. You got the Trojan Horse to work finally.# How did that apply here? Lorna slipped back into her EM sight and began to swear as she sorted through the mess. A low level harmonic that she'd dismissed as the Danger Room's power supply before suddenly made a lot more sense. #That bastard! He's just got a frequency keeping them on. Look at this!# She offered him a link without any hesitation, wanting him to see what she saw.
As Lorna had searched - for inspiration? At this point, he didn't know - Nathan concentrated on methodically dislocating the knee-joints of all the combat-style drones. Easy enough to fix after the fact, and right now, it would slow them down. The flying drones were a different story. Splitting his concentration, he encased all... shit, nineteen of them, in TK bubbles of their own.
He had enough presence of mind to grab at the offered link. #Can you...?# It was more difficult to form the words. Between holding the guns and the drones, and... oh, yeah, he was definitely wearing down here...
"No." She couldn't think clearly enough anymore for telepathy. "It's not my range. But I can tell you where it's originating from." Very clever, making the transmitter out of non-ferrous materials. No signature to change.
"Show me?" Just like then. A harmonic, only a physical one instead of a psionic one. He hated Scott. He really did.
She guided him through her strange green world to the source of the harmonic. "See the null spot? Right there."
Some part of the control system for the drones, buried in the wall of the Danger Room. Nathan felt it out telekinetically, wondering somewhat dizzily if this was any different than shutting off the world the last time. But no, it was the analogy.
Like flipping a switch. Not just shutting it down but reversing it, so that the drones all toppled over nicely like the unconscious people they weren't, and when had he decided that sitting on the floor was a good thing? Oh, that's right, when the room had started tilting.
The guns weren't trying to figure anymore. That was nice. He managed to lower the now-lifeless flying drones in their little bubbles back to the ground instead of just dropping them.
Lorna released her second sight and gazed around the room. Drones littered the floor like the beaches of Normandy in every war film ever. Her heart was still racing and sweat beaded her forehead. The wall at her back was reassuring. It meant that she wasn't going to fall over like Nathan. Her shoulder was throbbing unmercifully and she suspected she was going to hear it from the doctors four.
She looked down at Nathan, "I vote we hire Jamie to prank him."
"Prank him, hell." His breathing was definitely on the ragged side. "I say we just go up there and beat him."
I heard that, was the quiet, mildly amused-sounding reply from the control booth.
"You were MEANT to!"
Lorna shook her fist at the booth. "Okay, we'll beat him up. You go first," she suggested wearily then decided that falling over wasn't such a bad idea. She slumped next to Nathan. Oh, hey there was a cut on her leg too. The one that wasn't already scarred. Well, that sucked.
Nathan tried to tilt his head at her. It wounded up kind of sagging sideways as if it would topple right off his neck. "I think we won, though."
"Hooray for our side."
They had an audience. Again. Slightly larger than the last time. Okay, considerably larger. Nathan laughed under his breath, then glanced sideways at Lorna.
#Keep it to telepathy?# he suggested. #This way no criticism about how much we're talking...# Not that he anticipated either of them were going to let themselves get distracted with even a telepathic conversation. Not this time.
#No, you just have to put up with my poorly formed responses.# Lorna didn't communicate by telepathy much, being entirely headblind. Her mental voice was a bit shaky and the overtone was colored by nerves. Her hands were twitching as she carefully checked over her uniform, ensuring the metal lining was flowing together properly. #What do you think we'll see this time? Not the same thing, I'm sure.#
#My guess? We won't get the breather this time.# The doors slid shut behind him, and he took a deep breath, then let it out. #I'll try and stay with you, here. Can't promise it if things get too up close and personal, though.#
#Let's run it the same way to start. We can always adapt when it becomes necessary.# She gave him a sideways glance. #I want to try to layer our shields. Can you lock yours over mine? Might keep mine stable even when I'm focused elsewhere and it will definitely augment yours. Well, I think.# She smiled then looked up at the numbers counting down to start.
Nathan nodded. #Gotcha.# He smiled down at her, then looked up at the numbers, shutting out any awareness of the people in the control booth, of anyone or anything besides him, his partner, and what was about to happen in this room.
No holograms this time. Just the Danger Room shifting as the countdown reached zero, and drones coming from every pit and alcove, right at them.
Lorna hissed and snapped up her shields. It was a wide mix headed toward them, metal, mixed with plastic and every variation in between. No wall turrets yet, small mercies. #I'll blow back the metals. Shut down the plas.# She was doing it even as she thought it. And sharp pulse of magnetic energy sent the metal drones tumbling back, slamming them into barriers hard enough to have broken bone but barely denting the metal.
Power cells. They weren't all the same, damn Scott and his tricky tendencies, but there were basic similarities and Nathan fixed on them doggedly. Just like knocking someone out... The plastic-heavy drones started to fall out of the sky, a few at a time, but some were fast enough to reach them and he flung up a shield even as he reached out to their power cells.
His shield intersected rather than layered hers and she frowned. #With me, remember!# She adjusted her shield until it fitted under his, locking with the EM framework. She hoped this would work the way she thought it would. While he took out drones, concentrated on keeping them shielded, slipped her sight to the EM spectrum to find the power signature the closest drone were running on.
More of them. Just how many of these damned drones were there, and how could Scott have repaired the ones they'd damaged yesterday already? Well, he was not adding to the repair bill. Not today. As far as he was concerned these were human beings and he wasn't hurting them.
Keeping the shield synched with Lorna's felt odd, but wasn't as much of a strain as he'd half-expected. #It's scaling upwards again,# he sent, then nearly jumped out of his skin as the floor beneath them groaned warningly.
#Let's move then.# The swarm of drones didn't seem to have an end and Scott was a damn liar about having a limited supply. He probably sat up nights building them and cackling like the madman he was. She felt the plates of the floor flex. #You don’t think he'd drop the floor out from under us, do you?# She used a flat shield of metal to shove back the drones then reached down to stabilize the floor.
#I think he would if he--# Nathan cut himself off, flinging out a second TK shield as the wall beside them swing outwards, right at them. The wall-module hit his shield and Nathan almost stumbled at the impact.
"Oh you've got to be kidding!" Lorna burst out, and slammed the wall back. So nice of them to design the room with metal supports. If Scott was going to throw the room at them, well, structures were fair game in the real world too. She ripped the unit off it's supports and hurled it at the veritable wall of drones bearing down on them. #They're coming from every way but up. I think that's a hint.#
Nathan winced as the flung wall sent drones flying - but they seemed dented at worst. A couple of broken limbs, but that was acceptable, wasn't it? #I'll go up the wall,# he said, flashing her his intended route even as he simultaneously reached out and shut down a few more drones.
They were turning themselves back on. Lovely.
That was so cheating.
Lorna nodded her assent and mentally gave Haroun a sardonic salute as she shoved herself into the air. #Hey, what's our objective anyway?# She'd looked over the mission brief and hadn't seen one. But maybe his had been more complete. She picked up her new toy, formerly known as the wall unit and swatted away another drone.
At the spot where the Danger Room's wall met the ceiling, far above the floor, Nathan braced himself, grimacing as some of the drones took to the air. #Deja vu. Youra, and the Trojan Horse isn't working. We're seeing how long we can hold out without using lethal force.# Straightforward this time, at least.
Hovering nearby, Lorna deflected the energy weapons of the drones with her wall while she thought. #You were protecting the kids.# She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. #I was trying to keep the second gens from killing Piers. But now all we have to worry about is us.# Any second now the ceiling was going to gift them with flying drones. What the hell was the point of practicing a last stand?
And it did, an instant later. Pushing back against the wall telekinetically to brace himself, Nathan gently swatted the first few that came at him, bringing them in for a less-than-crushing landing on the floor far below. But the next two started shooting at him, and he gritted his teeth and ran - at a ninety degree angle to the wall.
#It's just an analogy. This time he is pushing us to see how long we can do it before we drop, or our control frays enough that we'd be killing people.#
That was so vintage Scott. #So you think I'll be okay just breaking bones and knocking out guidance systems?# The flight drones were part metal but she wanted to be sure that crippling them would be okay.
#There's a limit to what you can do without making it a kill. I say go for the option.# Nathan gritted his teeth and then launched himself through the air, hearing someone's incredulous thought that he looked like a ping-pong ball as he bounced off the wall and then landed on his feet. Ow. Fuck, ow. His back had not liked that.
There was a Very Large Drone rushing him from behind, all of a sudden. He ducked as a metallic arm swung over his head in the equivalent of a right hook.
It vanished abruptly as one of the flight drone crashed into it. #Oops.# Her thought was sheepish. The last minute reversal of its flight path meant that it was going faster than she'd anticipated. Still, they were probably both salvageable. Lorna followed Nate, though without his wall bouncing antics. Catching another flight drone in her fields, she sling-shot it into a clump of ground drones. So far, no deaths. Good. She settled on a remote area. #Watch me, will ya? I want to see how many I can wipe the guidance from but it'll take a minute to sync the fields.#
'Watch' meant 'shield', he figured, and focused on keeping them off her back as she concentrated. His multitasking was definitely getting back to where it should be, he thought dimly, slamming one drone after another to the ground, seeking out the weak spots in their joints. They did keep getting back up. Deja vu indeed.
That's exactly what it meant. Her own shields flickered and died as her attention turned to the EM fields. Her eyes roved over the entirety of the room but in her vision, everything was just patterns of moving green energy. Around her hands, she began to gather the fields to her, winnowing out those that were batteries and other things, tracking down the peculiar feeling of the guidance systems. It was incredibly faint and she felt it slip from her grasp more than once while other overeager field pushed their way in. But finally she'd teased out the frequency. Her hands were suddenly sheathed in metal. #You know how I said I needed better hand to hand work?# she thought distractedly at Nate, already mentally preparing herself to do this.
The wall turrets were moving. Tracking them. Nathan gritted his teeth and surrounded each of them in a half-bubble of telekinetic shield. #Yeah, you'd mentioned that...# The pressure wasn't too bad as they started to fire. Should have done this the first time...
#No time like the present.# She tumbled off her wall perch and down into the swarm of drones. The charged metal on her hands knocked out the guidance as she hit them, her blows carefully non-lethal but there were rather more of them than there was of her.
Too many of them for her to hit them all in time. She was going to get swarmed. Instinctively Nathan started to move in that direction, to get in there - and then froze. No. He reached out and froze the drones where they stood instead. Make like garden statuary, guys...
The floor abruptly vanished beneath him, and he cursed as he felt, somehow managing to hold onto at least a portion of the drones as he caught himself. And there were drones in the fucking pit, too... only a handful, but they had guns, oh joy...
This was vastly better than running and much less exhausting than flying even if it hurt like hell to get hit with energy weapons, even through her tightly woven shields. She worked her way back toward the wall, not knowing the floor was no longer there.
Nathan swore again, and instead of launching himself back up out of the pit, created a telekinetic extension of the floor so that she didn't topple off the edge. #Lorna, stop! Floor's not there!# he warned, and one of the drones, the only one of the handful that was one of the hand-to-hand models, reached up and yanked him downwards, hard.
Looking down and seeing nothing under your feet was not cool. It was also very distracting and Lorna received a drone arm to the head for her inattentions. She shoved back and spun the now disoriented drone back into the mass where it did its best to take out anything its way. It wouldn't hurt anything too badly but it wouldn't last long either. #What are you doing down there?#
He hit the floor of the pit, barely managing to keep what was left of his focus on the 'floor' under Lorna's feet. #Nothing--useful,# he sent back, his grip on their temporary psi-link fraying. He caught a metal foot as the drone launched a kick at him, and used the momentum to help himself back to his feet.
His back was to the wall almost immediately. Cornered, nowhere to go... except no, damn it. Three dimensions. He dislocated the drone's leg joints and launched himself upwards, back to ground-level. The rush of adrenalin was different, this time. Less jarring. He was more angry than afraid.
And he was glowing. Okay then. #I should have my psimitar, damn it,# he spat, furious at the obvious spillover.
Lorna stepped off his TK floor and executed a neat flip to join him again, putting herself by his side. #Why don’t you?# She knew there was a reasonable explanation but her brain isn't willing to put the effort into recalling it. How long have they been at this anyway?
#I'm not supposed to be using the crutch until they're sure my control is as good as it can be without it.# The glow around him grew, turning a fiercer white-gold, and the drones that were hauling themselves back to their 'feet' already were suddenly down again. #Too long. I don't like this. I'm sick of having my nose rubbed in this!#
She used a few part-metal drones to sweep the area nearest them then took out the flight drones diving in. She was dead tired and her control was getting shaky. #Am I green?# she wondered.
#Starting to be...# There was a definite tinge to her skin. #Can we... why are they rebooting? How's he doing that...# The wall turrets were still firing away merrily, bouncing off the insides of those shields. That was what was getting to him, he realized, what was wearing him down the most. #The ones with damaged limbs aren't getting up.# Although they were dragging themselves towards him and Lorna, reminding him of the operatives on Youra.
"Damn." Green meant she was over-doing it. Something had to be cut back. #I'm cutting my shields. They're just too intensive.# She scanned the room, noticing, as he had the persistence of the drones. #Youra. You got the Trojan Horse to work finally.# How did that apply here? Lorna slipped back into her EM sight and began to swear as she sorted through the mess. A low level harmonic that she'd dismissed as the Danger Room's power supply before suddenly made a lot more sense. #That bastard! He's just got a frequency keeping them on. Look at this!# She offered him a link without any hesitation, wanting him to see what she saw.
As Lorna had searched - for inspiration? At this point, he didn't know - Nathan concentrated on methodically dislocating the knee-joints of all the combat-style drones. Easy enough to fix after the fact, and right now, it would slow them down. The flying drones were a different story. Splitting his concentration, he encased all... shit, nineteen of them, in TK bubbles of their own.
He had enough presence of mind to grab at the offered link. #Can you...?# It was more difficult to form the words. Between holding the guns and the drones, and... oh, yeah, he was definitely wearing down here...
"No." She couldn't think clearly enough anymore for telepathy. "It's not my range. But I can tell you where it's originating from." Very clever, making the transmitter out of non-ferrous materials. No signature to change.
"Show me?" Just like then. A harmonic, only a physical one instead of a psionic one. He hated Scott. He really did.
She guided him through her strange green world to the source of the harmonic. "See the null spot? Right there."
Some part of the control system for the drones, buried in the wall of the Danger Room. Nathan felt it out telekinetically, wondering somewhat dizzily if this was any different than shutting off the world the last time. But no, it was the analogy.
Like flipping a switch. Not just shutting it down but reversing it, so that the drones all toppled over nicely like the unconscious people they weren't, and when had he decided that sitting on the floor was a good thing? Oh, that's right, when the room had started tilting.
The guns weren't trying to figure anymore. That was nice. He managed to lower the now-lifeless flying drones in their little bubbles back to the ground instead of just dropping them.
Lorna released her second sight and gazed around the room. Drones littered the floor like the beaches of Normandy in every war film ever. Her heart was still racing and sweat beaded her forehead. The wall at her back was reassuring. It meant that she wasn't going to fall over like Nathan. Her shoulder was throbbing unmercifully and she suspected she was going to hear it from the doctors four.
She looked down at Nathan, "I vote we hire Jamie to prank him."
"Prank him, hell." His breathing was definitely on the ragged side. "I say we just go up there and beat him."
I heard that, was the quiet, mildly amused-sounding reply from the control booth.
"You were MEANT to!"
Lorna shook her fist at the booth. "Okay, we'll beat him up. You go first," she suggested wearily then decided that falling over wasn't such a bad idea. She slumped next to Nathan. Oh, hey there was a cut on her leg too. The one that wasn't already scarred. Well, that sucked.
Nathan tried to tilt his head at her. It wounded up kind of sagging sideways as if it would topple right off his neck. "I think we won, though."
"Hooray for our side."
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