xp_logs | WENDY: The First Rescue

At the hospital, Remy and Ororo find their target. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones.

The Cederbrook hospital was older; a squat brick and concrete construction dating back to the 20s. It was part of the sprawling Memorial Health University Medical Center, attached to the campus. It picked up the overflow from the downtown core; rundown and a focal point for drugs and the homeless. Remy slowed down as they approached it. One of the other teams was ahead of them, maybe two. As important as it was to get there, an ambush wouldn't do them any good.

"Ideas, Stormy?"

"Don't call me that," Ororo muttered, looking up at the ugly building in front of them. Of course, if she had the team there, she would begin by deriving a strategy for infiltration, most likely using several points of entrance, as well as a lookout... She glanced sideways at Remy and made a face before looking back at the hospital. "I suppose going in the front door is too blatant."

"Oui." And emergency would have police there, he didn't bother to add. They started to circle the building, and Remy pointed at a side entrance, off a small concrete landing. Based on the people clustered near the door smoking, it was the unofficial break area. "Dat's our way in."

"We do not have time to wait for them all to leave," 'Ro said, already heading that way with a purposeful stride.

"Don't think we need to." Remy drew on his cigarette and as they got close, tossed it into the sand tray. He nodded to one man on the way past, as they both walked on in. One of the keys to infiltration is that people who look like they know where they're going are less likely to be stopped.

Ororo tried not to wrinkle her nose at all the smoke - it was hard to resist the urge to summon a breeze to blow it away. Once they were inside they were faced with a long stretch of hallway, filled with bustling nurses, squeaking gurneys, and one or two serious-looking doctors striding around with charts in their hands.

"One moment," she told him, glancing around for the nearest nurses' station. Spotting it, she headed over, quickly rifling through the bin of charts until she found the one that she was looking for. "Second floor," she mouthed to Remy, quickly replacing the folder before anyone spotted her.

Remy looked at the elevators for a moment before walking past. "Stairs. Better to use the stairs." He muttered, following the signs leading towards them. In the back of his mind, he could feel the trap closing on them, but couldn't see it.

"Dere's definitely another team in here. Anyone look familar?" He muttered to Ororo as they crossed a sitting room.

She was about to shake her head when she spotted a familiar face and stopped dead in her tracks. "Remy," she hissed, quickly turning so that her face wouldn't be seen.

"I knew it. Trap." He muttered. "What do you see?"

"Kamenwati al-Misri - one of el-Gibar's top men. Very strong, but not much of a thief." Ororo couldn't keep a slight tone of derision out of her voice. "But he will surely give us trouble if we try to get past him. I am sure he has a partner nearby as well."

"De cop said it was a blond man asking about Rory." Remy sighed. "Dere is another team here. We're late." His eyes darted around the waiting room, looking to find a solution and not seeing it. "We need to get to dat room."

"I can provide you with a distraction to rid you of the Egyptian team, at least. They will recognize me, though not you. If I draw them off, will you be able to deal with the second team until we rendezvous again?" Ororo knew that the bracelet was probably picking up her increasing nervousness and imagined Arcade and his cronies having a good laugh at that fact. It made her scowl.

Remy nodded. "Give me two minutes and I can get to de room. What did he have in de rules? All we need to do is get to dem and hit de call button. As long as Arcade isn't screwing us, we should be alright." Ororo started to turn back when Remy grabbed her by the arm. "Play it safe, 'Ro. Dese people ready to kill us if need be."

"I know that," Ororo said, meeting Remy's eyes with a serious expression. "And I can take care of myself. Just do what needs to be done; I will do my part." Remy might be used to being in charge, but then, so was she.

"Just remember, neither of us de engines of destruction we used to be, neh?" He said before turning to take up a spot near the checkin desk. "I'll meet you up dere."

With a nod, Ororo reached up to pull the scarf from her head, her hair immediately seeming to light up under the stark fluorescent lighting. Stuffing the scarf in her pocket, she took off with a purposeful stride across the room, eyes focused on a spot on the opposite wall.

Remy took a deep breath, and as eyes turned to Ororo, he dashed across the room and disappeared into the stair, his presence no more registered than a flicker.

____________

Remy took the stairs three at a time, using the banister to propel himself upwards. He was concerned about leaving Ororo behind, but didn't have time to focus on it. He trusted her to be able to handle herself, and the odds were too far against them to make caution any sort of real protection. At the top of the flight, he paused to peer through the tiny window, but it offered no new information.

Carefully, LeBeau opened the door, using it to shield him from his blindspot, scanning the area as it came into view. The door opened to the waiting area, but there was only one occupant; an old man, looking idly through a magazine. The nurses desk was staffed fully, but they barely gave him notice as he quickly moved from the door to the opposite side of the room. LeBeau ducked into the small corner occupied by the payphone, hidden by the bulk of a candy machine.

Down the hallway, near the end, he could see where Rory's room should be. There were two men at the door, quietly speaking to each other. He couldn't make out features, but both were heavily built and blond, matching the description provided by the police officer down on Ohio Street . There was no way he could sneak up on them, and Arcade 's power suppressor had taken away his other opinion of a precise charged card.

Glancing around, he noticed one of the nurses leaving the station, heading for the hall. As she passed him, he stepped out behind her, lifting a white lab coat from the hook beside the care station as he did. He fell in step a couple of feet behind her, enough that with the labcoat on and his hands in its pockets, he looked like a technician or something, on the job.

The nurse turned at the door before Rory's, and Remy walked past to stop at one of the gurneys parked against the wall. One of the men was outside of the door, keeping an eye out for people while the other had gone in. There was no way to hide, but LeBeau's casual walk and movements had a way of blending him into the background as the other staff. He pulled the gurney from the wall, and started pushing it past the room.

As he drew level with the man, Remy went into action. His fist shot out directly from at his side, taking him in the solar plexus with a vicious strike. Remy pushed forward, blocking the arm that was reaching for a weapon behind his back and shoving hard. Both men clattered into the room, letting Remy see the other FoH member holding a pillow over Rory's face where he lay.

Remy used his momentum to topple his opponent, literally running over him to reach the one by the bed. He wasn't as accurate without his powers, but he easily brushed aside the punch aimed at him. The FoH pivoted with a kick, but the close quarters robbed it of any real power. LeBeau ignored it, lashing out with a knifehand to the bridge of his nose, snapping the bone like china. He caught the wrist of the other hand, with the knife the man had produced from his pocket, and twisted up hard.

The blade clattered from the suddenly numb fingers, and Remy's elbow took him under the ear, dropping him easily. His head hit the end table on the way down, but Remy took no notice, dropping to scoop up the knife. His first opponent had finally regained his breath, and had finally fumbled out the pistol he'd hidden down the back of his pants.

Remy rolled out from behind the bed, turning as his feet came around and letting the knife fly. It took the man in the knuckles, forcing him to drop the gun and clutch at the wounded appendage. LeBeau dashed forward, stopping the screams with a vicious blow to the throat, and a lashing strike across the temples. He dropped heavily to the ground as well, leaving only Remy's breathing and the sounds of the machines in the room. Quickly, Remy pulled the knife and tourniquet the injured hand, before walking over to Rory.

He looked like a skeleton; what had been square good looking features were erased by the mismatched beard, half cut off dreadlocks, and deeply sun scarred lines. Rory had been a little older than Remy, but even with the same leonization treatments that they had both gone through, the three years on the street had added decades to his looks. Remy carefully picked up the wraith-thin form from the bed, laying Rory on a chair and covering him with a blanket before he set to securing the two injured FoH team members.

By the time Ororo reached the room, Remy had already restrained both men to the bed, using the ones that had held Rory, and an improvised set torn from the sheets. The bonds were very tight, and Remy's rigid expression as he secured them indicated the angry roiling inside. Across from them, in a chair, Rory lolled back, the drugs making him virtually insensible. Curiously, he'd been carefully covered with a blanket; an odd contrast to the violence that hung around LeBeau like a cloud.

"Have you hit the call button?" Ororo wanted to know, casting a glance over the room and then looking back out into the hall.

"Not yet." Remy said tightly, finally straightening up. He crossed over to Rory and knelt down, turning the man's face one way and then the other, looking for damage. He uncovered one arm for a moment, and carefully turned it, looking at the mess of purple bruising and track marks riot on it.

"May I suggest we do that, then, and get out of here?" It wasn't that Ororo didn't care about the man they had just found, but she didn't trust Arcade not to have a few more surprises waiting for him, no matter if he gave his word or not. And she didn't want to be waiting around if some of them happened to be of the particularly nasty sort

Remy quashed the angry retort, instead hitting the button on his bracelet. He had no idea what to expect, and they both jumped as the phone beside the bed suddenly rang.

Ororo shut the door behind her, regretting the lack of a lock, and reached for the phone. "Hello?" she said, trying to sound normal. Though I am beginning to forget what 'normal' is, now...

"Congrats, Miss Munroe," Arcade's voice was loud over the line. "You just beat odds of seventeen to one to claim Mister Browne. I think the Sheik just swallowed his tongue. Four million on the FoH? Terrible betting. They're avid gamblers, but they aren't very good at it."

Remy looked up from Browne at the sound of Arcade's voice on the line. "What's he--" he started to say, but was waved to silence.

"Now, two nurses will be at the room in a few minutes. Follow them down to the waiting ambulance. There Mr Chambers will give you the information for your next target and move Mr Browne to a safe facility until the end of the race."

"Very well," Ororo said shortly, and hung up the phone before the man had a chance to say anything more. She relayed the instructions to Remy as she crossed the room and stopped beside the chair, looking down at Rory. "He will be in good care, I hope, at least for the time being."

"Oui." Remy muttered, not really registering. He was still taken in by the face from his past, and strangely enough, a window into his possible future had things have been different.

Within a minute there was a short knock at the door, and two women in sea-green scrubs let themselves into the room. They barely batted an eye at the two restrained men, instead moving to Rory's seat and bending over him to assess his condition. They murmured to one another, and then one straighted up, addressing Ororo and Remy. "He's stable enough to be moved, so we're going to go ahead with that. Any questions you have will be answered by Mr. Chambers - he's waiting for us downstairs."

Remy nodded and got up. "Be careful wit' him." It was all he said as they followed them out the door and down to the waiting ambulance. Standing by the side of it was Mr Chambers, casually turning an envelope over and over in his hands. When he saw Ororo and Remy walk through the door and approached them, holding the envelope out to them.

"Your information on the next target. As a reward, you get a one day head start on the other teams. Mr Lowenstein said to inform you that Mr Browne and the other ones you find will be held until the end of the race in a secure location. You have no need to concern yourself with their safety." Without waiting for a reply, he touched the brim of his hat and walked back to climb into the ambulance.

"Come," Ororo said, watching as the boxy ambulance closed its doors and begin to drive away. "If we are to have a head start, we should not waste it." She fished the scarf out of her pocket and began to retie it over her hair, looking over at Remy as he opened the envelope. "Where is our next destination?"

"Chicago." Remy said, before he even drew the paper out of the sheaf. "When I got hold of Whelan's files, dey included de locations dat he dropped us to die. I've been wanting to get dem for de last two years, but I never knew de exact location, and if de Agency caught me trying to find dem, dey'd either risk activating dem or quietly disappear dem before I even got close."

Chicago. Ororo had never expected this to be easy, but... "That is quite far away. Well," she continued in a businesslike voice, "I suppose it is time to procure another vehicle. What shall it be this time? Plane? Train? I was always fond of mopeds..." Despite her whimsical words she could feel her stomach begin to tie itself up in knots again at the prospect of boosting.

"Train." Remy held up, of all things, an American Express. "One of de men upstairs had dis in his wallet. I have a plan. Arcade wants us run so ragged, we're only reacting. Dis is where we stop dat and start planning."