Section Seven, The Truth is Beyond the Walls Options

[Sparrowsmith]

Monday

It was 8 o'clock in the city, night, though you couldn't tell the difference. Acid rain fell down from the dull orange glow of the sky in heavy droplets, rolling along the ground and dripping lazily further and further down into the depths of Section Seven. This night was calm, silent, still. Half a million heartbeats ticked away within the safety of their homes - or whatever shelters they could fashion - away from the gentle burn of the rain. Non-fatal, but warm even when cold, the rain did no favors for anyone besides feed the barely edible food. The treatment facilities would fix the food, but the rain remained. Methane burns, water evaporates, turbines turn, magnets spin, and power shoots out into the city. Acid rain, the only problem of the city, was the remainder of that necessary equation making contact with the cool glass dome that protected the city from the harsh conditions outside.

The city: a labyrinth of mysteries - all unsolved and all shielded from the public. So long as the market exchanged commodities and the labs continued to produce new tech, no one was willing to rock the boat. And this is how order was kept, until two days ago. One man had rocked the boat, and he had suffered for it. Somewhere between his home in the Upper City, and the university he taught, Professor Quentin Cods encountered some difficulty. He never made it to class on saturday morning. Whether he disappeared by his own will, or met some worse fate, is unknown - but the paranoia about him in the last few days told the whole story.

However, this isn't the first time Cods has disappeared for days, and his most loyal of students know that if there is any clue as to his whereabouts, they will be buried in the very depths of the city. On the outskirts of the acid forests - dense areas of inedible vegetation, too dangerous for treatment - lies a secret. The only weapon free mind and imagination have left here. Connected to the framework of the city by a makeshift power line, built from the very trees surrounding it, and containing every basic tool necessary to construct absolutely anything: The Retreat waited.

The Retreat itself consisted of one large room, two floors, and one window. The one window perfectly aimed to see the clock tower, one of the very few places that could from the Lower City, and served as a lookout for approaching citizens. The shelves and tables loaded with assorted tech and tools, it could be possible to make almost anything, though if necessary parts could be built from scratch from the makeshift smelt in the corner.
There are only two ways in and out of The Retreat. The first is the emergency exit, a trap door on the first floor which leads to a ladder scaling underneath the factory and to a hatch into the inner pipe work of Section Seven - it has never been necessary to use this method of escape. The second is the large wooden door opposite the window to the clock tower, which creaks purposefully upon opening, and which the brightest of Cods' students would be coming through within the next few moments...

[OoC Once at least one of you is in The Retreat (preferably all of you) I can start giving out clues...)

[Naridar]

The creaking of the door echoed through the empty room as it opened and William Vix entered. He wasn't surprised when he saw that no one was there: he's gotten used to arriving early, it was a habit too hard to break. Not like it caused him any trouble so far. He briefly looked at the clocktower through the window, then focused his attention on the table on which the contraption he was working on in the last few weeks stood. It was just as he left it last time, as it was an important rule not to touch the others' tables when they're not there. He walked there, picked up the small methane tank and turned it around in his hands, his mind viciously looking for a solution to the problem he stumbled into: the compression of methane.

The tank was part of a somewhat larger device, engines which would be applied to shoes, bracers or belts to augment one's movements through burning methane and controlling the gas' flow using nozzles. However, there still were several problems. One was the controlling of how much power is used, without requiring a complex device that would interfere with physical activity - wouldn't be too convinient to press a button on one's leg when having to hold on to a ledge with both hands, would it? However, the bigger problems included heat - burning methane close to the human body wasn't exactly a good idea, and with applying protective gear came the second big problem - weight. William's contraptions indeed boosted the power of one's legs, but it also added about ten plus kilograms, which in turn would upset one's balance - quite dangerous when used at a big height. And the biggest problem of all - methane storage. It was obvious from the start that methane should be stored liquified, since wearing a huge methane tank as a backpack kinda defeats the point of being more nimble. But the evaporation of methane was far from a controllable and calculable phenomenon, and it also wasn't quick enough for the engine to fire up as needed...

William shook his head and put the tank back on the table. He would have to find a solution some other time. Tonight was the time for something else: after the disappearance of Professor Cods, his students, more like disciples, agreed to meet here, at the Retreat to discuss what they should do. William sat down on a chair and waited for the others to arrive...

[Ryuga]

Alan stored away his figures and dice into his cloak, as the other cloaked figures did the same. They all bowed to the leader before making their way out of the basement, todays session at an end. Once outside, Alan removed the hood, exposing his face to the world once again. He quickly proceeded to swap the cloak with the jacket in his bag as to not get drenched by the rain. He took a glance at the clock tower which read 8:14. Todays session went a little longer than expected. No matter. The retreat wasn't going anywhere, and it was Alan's freedom to be there whenever he wished. Regardless, Alan applied the hood from his jacket, hiding his face again as he made his way over to the acid forests.

Alan took a quick look around to make sure no one had trailed him. He had done so before entering the forest, but it was always good to make sure. These were dark times afterall. Opening the door, Alan was surpised to find only one other student had arrived. He gave silent greeting in the form of a nod before making his way up to the second floor where the computer was held. It annoyed Alan to no end that he was forced to dismantle it after use, only to reassemble it as soon as the next day. But as time went on, Alan would remove more and more steps to the dismantling process until only a few, but elaborate steps remained in his ritual.

[Nicsp]

"V-Vincent...Not so loud, my parents will hear..." Said a young girl as Vincent possesively pressed her against her wall in her room. He let out a smirk and gently kissed her neck. "Don't worry sweetheart, i'll be as silent as the night and- Wait, what time is it?" With that, Vincent walked out to the closest window and looked up at the the clock tower, eight o'clock, he was supposed to be going to The Retreat. He quickly grabbed his coat, heading back over to the window, the girl called out for him, partially dressed. "Wh-What? Where do you think you're going?" Vincent pulled his hood up. "Sorry, sugar, i got a very important meeting soon and-" The girl interrupted. "I've noticed you're always calling me by nicknames...Vincent...You do remember my name, right?"

Vincent stood there paralyzed, a chill running down his spine as he desperatly tried to remember the girl's name. "Uh...Can i get a hint?" The girl's response was, instead of hint, a yell, actually, a call for help, which went by the lines of. "DADDY! HELP! RAPIST!" Lars sighed disappointedly and quickly rushed past the girl and the door, about to leave, he was, however, greeted by the sight of the girl's father holding a shotgun, probably, hopefully, loaded with coarse salt. "Guts or nuts, your choice." Vincent flailed his arms around desperatly. "W-wait wait! I'm not a rapist, i'm the guy your daughter has been dating for the past few days." The other man simply replied, after cocking his shotgun. "I know."

Vince ducked, avoiding just in time the first shot that left a huge hole in the wall behind him, guess it wasn't coarse salt. Vincent quickly rushed back to the girl's room, the girl let out another shriek as Vince walked backed in and ran right past her, jumping out through her window just in time to avoid another shot.

After that, Vincent simply ran and ran as fast as he could, pulling his hood down to cover his face and hoping the girl's father wouldn't go after him. After running for a few minutes, Vincent looked back, it seemed like he hadn't been followed, good, it was safe to head over to The Retreat now. Vince fixed his hood in place and then walked off towards the lower city.

Taking one last look around to be sure no one else had followed him, Vince then entered The Retreat, taking off his coat and then dumping it somewhere, then approaching his two other acquaintances. "Yo, how's the night been treating you guys?!" He called out cheerfully, then sighing and shaking his head disappointedly. "Can't believe you guys convinced me to come here at this time when i could be...Uh...Doing something else." He chuckled mischievously. "Anyway...Wait...Where's everyone else? I wasn't the last to arrive for once?"

[Sparrowsmith]

At precisely 8:30 a small ticking sound came from the ceiling. Exactly one tick a second. Methodic. Never a longer or shorter distance between notes. Finally a small compartment opened, dropping a sealed manilla envelope onto the table several feet below. The contents of the envelope were heavy enough to push the envelope straight down with a noticeable thud. The dim light from the clocktower circled the envelope, giving it a powerful and dark presence. Whatever was inside bore the same curious temptation as all of Cods antics, a scratching within the head beckoning those around him to break the rules, to disregard the protocols, and to think as far outside the box as possible.
Who could possibly resist?

[PMs will be sent containing the contents, whoever wants to open it can and they are free to post the contents. This is just to avoid confusion and to allow any of you to open it and move the plot forward. Most clues will be given in this way, sometimes without me telling you ]

[Ryuga]

Alan turned around as he heard the thud. He shut the computer off, not wanting others to take a peak at his data while he left to go check out the noise. He spotted the envelope, surrounded by the light given off by the clock tower, just as he was halfway down the stairs. Wasting no time, Alan jumped over the rails, bypassing the last couple steps, getting his greedy paws onto the envelope. He quickly skimmed the letter that was inside, smirking. It seemed that he had stumbled upon a new unknown. An untapped fountain of knowledge begging to be discovered. Unlike what Cods was conveying in his letter, Alan believed that knowledge could only enhance a man, not drive him mad. Possibly cause anger, but not madness.

Finished with the letter, Alan tossed it back onto the table without a word. If anyone else wanted the information, they could read it themselves. In the mean time, he looked over the blueprints enclosed, eager to get to work on the watch. The designs were easy enough to read, but he process was tricky. Afterall, Alan was no gadgeteer, and for the most part, neither were his companions (on the small scale anyway). Alan grumbled in disapproval before walking off to a corner of the room to gather materials and tools.

[Nicsp]

Grabbed the letter as soon as Alan dropped, his eyes quickly scanning through it and a wicked smile flashing across his face when he was done. "Ahah, seems like Cod got another challenge up for us, i'm in." Vince laughed and put his hands behind his head. "Hey...Alan...Need some help there?" Vince said casually as he strolled closer to Alan's table. "Man, a watch, that sounds useful, at least then we wouldn't need to be always using the big ol' tower there for everything. Say, maybe we could install an alarm to it or something, that'd be cool too." Vince stroked his chin as he thought.

[Naridar]

William read through the letter as he walked towards the other two. "Medical records... methane production... acidity of the rain... I see how they're connected, but why would the professor want us to track these?" He frowned in thought. "Keep an eye on the clocktower... and to build these watches. Can it be... some pattern to it? Maybe that's what the professor wanted to tell us?". He sighed, "I sometimes wish the professor spoke in english instead of cryptic".

[Ryuga]

"Sure," replied Alan as he tossed a toolbox towards Vince.
Having collected all the spare parts lying around, Alan dumped them on the table, sorting through the pile while looking at the blueprints. "Hey, William! Can you craft any of the parts shown in these blueprints?" he asked, handing over the designs.

This post has been edited by Ryuga: May 28 2011, 11:01 AM

[Nicsp]

Vince opened the toolbox and browsed through it for a while, glancing over to the blueprints. "Looks like we're going to need lots of gears..." He walked over to his coat and took out from it a small black string and then used it to pull his hair back in a ponytail, he then took his glasses out of another pocket in his coat and put them on, adjusting them on his eyes for a moment before he turned to the others. "Just so you all know, i have a few...Contacts, friends of my parents, which could probably keep me updated on the methane productivity."

[Naridar]

"Sure, lemme have a look", William answered as he looked at the plans, his sight stopping at a bunch of cogs and springs connected to the top of the watch. He couldn't ascertain exactly what this part would do, but he found it most likely that it served as a method for storing the energy made when one winds up the watch. Luckily, the parts listed on the blueprint were common and were available in the Retreat as well.

"I think we should first gather everything that's needed", he said, while quickly looking through the piles of parts and components on the tables in the room and finally put a smaller heap of them on the table they worked on. "We should start with the central gears," ,he began to screw cogs on a small metal plate, "Alan, can you assemble this part?", he pointed at the gears connecting the wind-up part to the numerous tiny gears he was working on. "And about methane production," he turned to Vince for a moment, "if they can give us anything, like, graphs or statistics, that would be great. Just don't mention patterns, that might be suspicious if there's indeed one and we shouldn't know."

[Omnial]

"OH this burn...it makes me feel so...ALIVE!" Vayne lit up as he walked aimlessly around the city, acidic rain touching his skin. He kinda liked the feeling, it was soothing to him. Then again, after all the other corrosive chemicals used in his explosives, even fire seeme soothing at times. As he daddled aroundd a noise caught his ears, "Ooops." he muttered, the noise he heard was the clock tower, he was late for meeting at the retreat, so he casually started to make his way there, and then suddenly went into an all out sprint.

He reached the forest in record time, for him at least, he slowed down to a strut and marched in through the door, "Busy as always I see...But it seems like you are...working together? Whats going on?" Vayne was puzzled "Did I miss something?"

[Ryuga]

"Ya, sure," replied Alan regarding William's orders. He quickly set off to work assembling the winding mechanism. The work was in vain, however, as he found it difficult to find the pieces he needed in the hetergenous sea of parts. "I can't work like this," he mumbled abondoning the building task and organizing the parts into groups. Just then then another comrad walked in.

"Did I miss something?" Vayne asked.

"Here," Alan grumbled Alan as he tossed the letter the puzzled engineer's way. "Catch up with Professor Cods."

[Omnial]

"Well isn't that something." Vayne read the note carefully then set it aside on a clear table space, "Sounds like quite the challange, what do you think the punishment will be if we get caught?" He walked by everyone who was working peeking at the watch parts, "And more immportantly what can I do?" His thoughts raced, "I can tell you how acid the rain is, I can feel the difference," He chuckled, "Joking aside, it isn't that hard to take samples of it and compare it to my other chemicals."

[Ryuga]

"Sounds like a good plan," replied Alan to Vayne's suggestion. "Well, that's two of four things Professor Cods mentioned in his letter."
Alan continued to organize the parts on the table into seperate piles, picking out the few parts he could remember from the blueprints. "As for something you can do, help me organize these parts. If you want to build anything, ask William."

[Naridar]

"You can help with this part.", William pointed at the blueprint showing the hands of the watch and the cogs that were responsible for their seperate movements. He concentrated intensely on the central gears. The professor's instructions were very clear, though that didn't mean they were easy to follow. "And once we're finished, I can ask Emma's father about the medical records. He's a doctor, and if I say it's just for statistics, he's sure to give us some info. Still, I have no idea how this can be related to the methane production or acidity... unless there really is a pattern to it."

[Ryuga]

"Great! That covers just about everything," replied Alan as he finished sorting the parts. He then slowly began assembling his portion of the watch. "The methane, the acid rain, medical records... I can theorize how those three are interlinked all day. The clocktower is the odd one out. What do you think Cods meant by 'always keep an eye on the clock tower'?"

[Nicsp]

Vincent would laugh a bit. "Well, it's obvious we'd have to keep an eye on what time is it, after all, he did also tell us only to activate this watch at a very exact time." Vincent would smile a bit as he helped the others with the building the best he could since the whole mechanics and stuff wasn't really that much of his thing, kind of made him wonder why he was in there the first place...Anyways. "So...When will we meet later, to activate this thing at the marked time, that is."

[Ryuga]

"Gee is that all?" whined Alan as he finished up the winding mechanism he was working on. "I was hoping for something far more deceptive." He looked back down at the table fetching parts for the additional watches.
"As for activating, this thing," he began, looking back up to the group, smirking while he did it. "I'd rather not waste valuable time waiting for midnight the next day. We're getting these watches down and active tonight. So no breaks until this job is done!"

---

Alan stared out the hideout window, the watch wound up and ready to go in his hand. The minute hand of the clocktower was one tick away from signalling midnight. Making the same part repeatedly ment each subsequent task was done faster than the cycle before, so it didn't take long before the all the watches were finished.
Right on cue, the clock struck midnight, as Alan released the winder on his watch as did everyone else. He peered down at the device to make sure it was in working order. Surely enough, the second hand was steadily ticking away. Pleased with the result, Alan hopped down from the window ledge before confronting the others.
"I think we did a good job tonight. Now comes the fun part." Alan turned to face each of his classmates as he addressed them.
Vayn, get to work on collecting and analyzing samples of the acid rain. Your going to have to build those pH indicators. Get William to help you out if you need it.
Vince, contact me in the morning. We're going to get our hands on some medical records."

[Nicsp]

Vince chuckled some as he scratched his cheek. "I get to check out the nurses then? Wonderful!" He'd grin as he went over to grab his coat and put it back on, about to head outside. He pulled his hood up and then turned slightly to the others as he left. "Well, I guess I'll see you all in the morning then, bu-bye now!" And with a wave of his hand, he'd walk off The Retreat, heading back to his home.