Day Zero - Through the River

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Team Alpha makes their entrance - the last part of which was through the East River. In October. Needless to say, no one is happy about this situation.



"Marginally better than jumping out of a plane," Scott said quietly, trying to ignore the fact that his teeth were chattering. They'd had to swim the last fifty yards or so to shore, and to say that the East River was cold in October was... a considerable understatement. "Everyone all right?"

"Ask me 'gain when I can feel my feet." Kyle had his jacket off and was wringing out the black t-shirt he'd worn under it. He'd stopped shivering almost as soon as he was out of the water, but his toes were still a little numb. "Parachuting sounds like fun, but not with those horsemen blowing up planes."

"I would distinctly prefer to not be blown up," Zanne agreed, trying to squeeze the water out of her hair as best she could. "Although considering what we just swam through, being blown up might be a kindness."

"Amen, sister," Adrienne muttered grumpily, emptying water out of a boot while hopping on one foot. How did she get talked into this shit? Someone owed her a truckload of brownies for this. Surely she could have found another way to check on her office staff and make sure her employees were alright and her office hadn't been blown to hell. "I'm sure being blown up would be warmer than drowning. Hey Summers, can I change my mind about this whole 'help save the world' thing? I can't save the world while I'm soaked and half-frozen." From her tone, she wasn't joking.

Two years ago, Scott would have yelled, or at least barked at them for the chattiness. It wasn't that he saw it as any less appropriate these days. Just that he knew there were other, better ways to get them to focus.

"We need to keep conversation to a bare minimum while we're on the move," he said, and quietly said or not, it had the force of an order. "We don't know what we're walking into. Or who might be listening."

Kyle gave his shirt one last wring and pulled it back over his head, and then put his jacket back on over it, leaving it open. "Yeah, about that, I'm not gonna get anything except the East River for the next couple of minutes or whatever." He punctuated this with a sneeze, muffled by covering his nose and mouth with both hands, and then looked in the direction of the Citadel, rising over the skyline. "Wait, no, East River and smoke. No cars though, so that's a plus."

Zanne wiped the last stray water droplets from her face. Funny how anything could be considered a plus at this point. What glimpses of the city Zanne had gotten as they flew in had left her with a sickened feeling in the pit of her stomach. "On your word, sir," she giving Scott a quick nod of acknowledgment.

Adrienne shuffled away from Kyle and his sneeze and narrowed her eyes at Scott for his 'no talking' rule and Zanne for agreeing with it without putting up a fight. Damn do-gooder X-Men. "Anyone want something to warm them up before we go save the world?" she offered with a petulant smirk, pulling a flask out of the inside pocket of the jacket Scott had leant her.

The look in Scott's eye was short of deadly only because said eye could in fact produce literal deadly force if it chose. He had crossed the distance between himself and Adrienne before she could actually do anything with the flask, and plucked it out of her hand without a word. He tossed it back in the direction they'd just come from, and it disappeared from sight with a splash.

He turned and went back to his pack, pulling out the tracker. "Let's get moving," he said brusquely. "The sooner we get to that bomb, the better."

"At least it doesn't beep." Kyle commented quietly, as the tracker buzzed a little in Scott's hand. Once his hair and shirt had mostly dried, the smell of the river faded, replaced with smoke, and concrete dust, and rust and the much-more-frequent-than-he'd-like smells of urine, vomit or blood. Kyle was starting to hate his power a lot more than usual, but had refrained from too much disgusted muttering. "Still not a lot. Anything peopleish I'm smelling is from people who aren't here anymore."

"Miracles of modern technology," Zanne murmured in reply. It was eerie how deserted the city was without people, the stillness only marred by the occasional building fire or stray animal. The panic of their departure was evident in what they'd left behind, and she was sure that if she reached out to see what had happened the past would only replay anger and fear. "Do we know how far in the team was?" she asked Scott.

Scott eyed the tracker. "Last contact was somewhere in East Harlem," he said. "Call it... about an eighth of a mile further." He looked in that direction, jaw tightening slightly. "The bomb's not moving. Hopefully that's a good sign."

"Unless the bomb was strapped to a person and now they're dead," Adrienne offered up cheerfully. She was still a little miffed at Scott for throwing away her flask- before she'd even had a chance to explain that she didn't even drink liquor and that it was full of coffee- which led to her desire to act even more ill-tempered and bratty than she had previously. "Do you smell dead people?" she asked Kyle.

Kyle snorted, and glared at Adrianne. "I've been smelling dead since I got the river out of my face. You wanna make that more specific? I mean, there's 'crushed dead' and 'burned dead' and 'just plain dead dead." But dutifully he raised his face slightly and inhaled, almost making a show of it, and frowned. "There's more blood, uh, man, why does saying stuff like 'more blood in the air' sound so stupid anyway? There's more of it, but that doesn't mean much."

"Should've brought one of the telepaths," Scott murmured under his breath, more to himself than to anyone else. But they had been needed where they were - or were about to be, depending on how things were going. Still, he reached out and laid a hand on Kyle's shoulder briefly, squeezing. "You're doing fine. Shout the minute you smell anything not dead, okay?"

"Oh, yeah. First thing I smell that's not us, dead, or on fire, I will totally say the word." Between the smells and catching little noises, stray dogs or cats, the occasional bird - and twice, footsteps running off, Kyle was totally on edge. He was just slightly aware that he was probably taking it out on someone who didn't deserve it - Adrienne was probably even more freaked out than he was - but he was just too cranky to really care.

Kyle's rundown on the different flavors of dead did nothing to soothe Zanne's nerves, and she tried to squelch her revulsion. "C'mon guys, let's just go find this thing."