Search and Rescue - the Great White (Cold) North. (Cain and Clarice, Wednesday)

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

While checking through all of the known places where Lyman and his men could be hiding Scott, Juggernaut gets assigned one of the trainees to go search someplace remote and cold.



Clarice was practically vibrating from excitement as headed into the
hangar for the mission. Mission. She was an X-Man! That her uniform
was dark grey and not black didn't matter, in her mind she was King of
the Mountain. Not queen. King.

"This is going to be so cool, Mr. Marko!" she burbled, coming up to
the massive man waiting to leave as well, "Er - I mean, Juggernaut!"

Cain looked down at Clarice, eyebrow arched as he took a look at the
little purple girl in the grey trainee outfit. "O...kay," he drawled
slowly. He handed a folder to Clarice, perusing his own quietly.
"Nunavut? Where in the hell is Nunavut?"

"Northern Canada," she replied absently, flipping through her own
folder, "Extreme north, artic circle north. Very cold, all the time.
What?" she almost whined when Juggernaut looked at her oddly, X-Men
did not whine she told herself sternly, "I'm a long-range teleporter?
I know this stuff."

"Oh," Cain said, looking at the map printout. "Well, this here's a
relay station - supposed to have been the backup command center for
Stryker's folks at Alkali Lake. Intel says there hasn't been any
signal out of there in about three years, but hey, no stone unturned,
right?"

Cain took a step back from Clarice, then clenched his teeth and
flexed, his armor flaring into existence around him. "Hope you
insulated that suit, kiddo, because off we go." He nodded down to her.
"Do your thing, and watch your step when we get there."

Suddenly, she wasn't so sure about the breeches. It had seemed like a
good idea at the time, but even in July Nunavut was cold add probably
freezing. "I need more than a giant territory to guide me," she said,
flipping through her folder hoping to find more useful information. A
picture with longitude and latitude. Not great, but it would work.
"Let's do it!"

Opening a teleportation disk large enough for Cain and herself, she
aimed for the coordinates. She wasn't very adept at teleporting with
coordinates, but she would get them close enough.

Stepping out into a bracing cold, Cain looked out over the flat
tundra. About a hundred meters to the north, a squat concrete building
was the only feature dotting the landscape. He crouched, steam slowly
rising from his armor as his breath frosted along the edges of his
helmet.

Behind him, a flash of purple light signaled Clarice's arrival. "Stay
behind me," he said without looking. "Ain't no one supposed to be up
here, but we play it safe anyway."

Shivering, Clarice did as she was told, although she was pretty
certain that they would have never sent her here if there was even an
iota of a chance that it would be dangerous. This was busy-work X-Men
style. And she loved it. "So, what are they relaying then?" she asked
almost glued to his back.

"Beats the hell out of me," Cain said. "Apparently Stryker's goons
kept this place as some sort of backup command center. Odds ain't good
they got Cyclops holed up here, but just in case..."

He strode up to the door, rearing a hand back. "Avon calling?" he
said with a grin as one punch knocked the steel door right off its
hinges.

"Dude," she muttered, it was impressive. "Could we be more obvious? I
could have teleported us." she said, following him into the dark
building. "I am sure there are sensors going apeshit now. Or
something."

"Sometimes obvious works," Cain said, making sure his bulk blocked the
smaller trainee from any incoming booby traps or gunfire. After a
minute of silence, he knelt to pull a flashlight from his boot, makign
a visual sweep of the complex.

Banks of unused computer monitors covered the walls, most of the
screens cracked and shattered from the cold. "Looks like someone
packed up and moved out quick, and ain't been back for a few years,"
he said, overturning a table that had fallen on its side. "Take the
left side, I'll take the right. Anything spooks you, you 'port
yourself right outside and give me a yell, yeah?"

"Ten-four," She replied, unsure if she was being serious or sarcastic,
although she headed off to the left with her own flashlight sweeping
the area. "Eeew," she muttered, finding a coffee cup where the coffee
had frozen inside it. "Gross."

"Hey, Juggy?" she whispered into her comm after a few minutes. There
was something about the unnatural stillness that made her want to
whisper, "I got nothin'. Not even cockroaches."

Cain knocked on the walls, stomping on the floor every few feet,
hoping for one of the ubiquitous secret doors or at least a land mine.
Something interesting.

"Same here, this end of things is a bust. Rendezvous back at the entrance."

A few minutes later, Cain stood outside, kneeling on the mostly-frozen
ground, peering at ruts that might have been made by a tracked vehicle
years before. "Maybe they took him somewhere tropical, who knows?
Ready to head home, call this one a swing and a miss?" he asked with a
shrug. "Or is the scenery here growing on you?"

"Like a fungus," she replied, teleporting to the entrance and idly
twirling her hair ribbon. It was green to match the piping on her
uniform, "So, what do you think of my codename?"

Under the helmet, Cain raised an eyebrow. "Been meaning to ask about
that," he drawled as he turned to look Clarice in the eye. "What in
the hell is a Tinky Winky?"

Oh he did NOT. He did. "You are joking!" she stood there mouth open in
the middle of the semi-frozen tundra. It would have been a perfect
time to attack, but nothing happened, "You remember the stink Jerry
Falwell was making years ago over that kids show, The Teletubbies?"

With a small puff of steam, Cain sighed. "You're talking to the guy
who was in a coma for the entirety of the seventies, most of the
eighties, and spent the next fifteen years or so wandering around the
great American wilderness without a TV to sit my ass in front of and
vegetate. So yeah, I might have missed that little nugget of pop
culture."

He snorted, then turned to look at Clarice. "Wait, like the Muppets or
something?"

"Kinda," she'd forgive him his popculture ignorance this time, "It's a
kids show from England. There are 4 Teletubbies - named because they
have TVs in their tummies. The purple one is named Tinky Winky and is,
supposedly, a boy. But he has a purse and wears a tutu. So there was
this whole stink in America about Tinky Winky being gay and turning
kids gay," she snorted at how stupid that was.

Blank-faced, Cain nodded and turned to face the horizon. "Well, it's
official. 'Dazzler' is no longer the goofiest code name ever. Take us
on home, Tink."