taxonomites | [ visual | location: outside "sanctuary for all" ] [ open ]

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[ visual | location: outside "sanctuary for all" ] [ open ]

Bruce Wayne has kind of had enough of today; while the world of Taxon doesn't look nearly like the (artistically rendered, he suspects) Doctor's looming apocalypse, it's still in a near-cracking state. The destruction of citizens vs sentinel robots, accidentally-detonated bombs, and his own creative use of the tram have left a notable impact. Still, there is more to come - but just how much more depends on all of them.

"There's no radiation in the individual bombs," he says, and he's walking, headed straight towards the Sanctuary building in downtown Osten. "The machines are there to protect civilian life, not the explosives. If you're still here and can't get to a safe zone or on the ship, stay as far away from any sentinel activity as you can."

Speaking of the machines - they're approaching, because he isn't stopping, and neither are the people behind him, whose shoulders or backs can occasionally be seen in his broadcast. Bruce is holding something small and heavy in his hand, somehow both calm and extremely annoyed.

"Unless you'd like to get down here and help break this goddamn facility open, because the Doctor is right here."

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"I hope someone brought some fucking handcuffs," is Sol's grimly-delivered gallows humour contribution, "for Dr Irresponsible here." He shifts River to his other shoulder, leaving bloody handprints in the process, and he stays between Judith and a clear line of sight for the Doctor or Morgana until she's changed back from one form to the other. Thoughtfully.

He looks more closely at Morgana, actually; she's going to need some help very, very shortly. Between them they should have enough hands, if they secure the Doctor and then Judith can give him a hand with Morgana while the other two do their science...thing.

"Maybe I'll just break his fucking legs, how about that?" Judith is human again, the last traces of lupine characteristics melting back into her flesh, but it doesn't take away from the purity of her focus or rage. Leila is right to have concerns, because werewolves are not safe, and Judith's self-control is slipping out of her grasp. It'd be so easy to kill him, her instincts tell her, to just reach out and tear his head off his shoulders, he's only a man--

Instead she moves, swiftly, and lunges for him with the intent of doing two things: knocking him off balance, and breaking his grip on the girl Judith is assuming is his hostage. She may throw breaking his wrist into that, depending on how it works out.

"Look out!" the Doctor calls, pushing Morgana back as he moves out of Judith's lunge. He's fairly light on his feet and keeps from falling, but isn't sure if he can say the same for Morgana.

He doesn't have his device, he doesn't even have his detonators, he's just got the sonic, which he pulls out and brandishes like a weapon.

"Listen to me," he says. "Whatever you've got planned for me, whatever you think I did or had planned, just know this woman here isn't with me." He nods to Morgana. "She came in, she tried to stop me, she's innocent. Don't hurt her."

Morgana doesn't stay properly on her feet, and, with both of her hands, is holding onto the Doctor's arm. She wants to say something. What the Doctor just said, defending her, doesn't sit well with the rabid dog of a man, just minutes before.

She's still holding on to the Doctor's arm. There are no words because she's feeling that if she talks, she'll be ill.

Her left leg gives out first, and she hits the floor, hard, on both knees. She has an understanding she's passing out, but somewhere in her mind, thinks it's taking far too long to do so.

She's still holding on to the Doctor, when she does lose consciousness.

Edited 2010-03-05 05:20 (UTC)

Nobody here, Bruce is sure, would suspect for a second that Morgana was any kind of co-conspirator, and it rings hollow in his ears, that this madman would think so little of the people here - like looking down at them, like ants, like the lab rats he'd preached about so passionately just an hour before. Maybe they were all just an experiment for him, too.

Judith is on top of it - literally - and Bruce goes for Morgana, pulling her away from the Doctor and gathering her into his arms and immediately stepping back. They don't know if there's an epicenter here, or what kind of dangerous materials someone who likes to play with radiation bombs is hiding in his inner sanctum. It's a bizarre feeling to be forced to trust the people he's with, having never worked ('worked', how interesting) with anyone else before, but he finds he does, or at least, that he doesn't have enough time to really think about it. He's back outside with her in a moment, getting a full view of the wreckage their brand-new backup has been causing.

Having already dismissed the Doctor as either a spiteful madman (deliberately inciting a mass panic and rioting for fuck all pay off) or just that stupid (ignorantly failing to realize the consequences of his actions and irresponsibly refusing to take ownership of them), Sol is relatively certain that Judith can handle him and Leila can take care of the radiation. Where he personally feels most necessary is taking care of their immediate wounded, right now, and he meets Leila's eyes for a moment, nodding after Bruce before he shifts River down to cradle her more comfortably against his chest, now that enough danger's passed he's less concerned with having to run and fight something.

At the doors, getting a good look at their 'back up', Sol snaps the fingers on his temporarily free hand and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "They're securing our friend with the explosives down there," he announces, "you might want to go help."

Leila is on edge, because this is a situation that really could get out of control depending on who shows up next; she doesn't know if they'll be inclined to start up vigilante justice or simply apprehend him, and she'd prefer he not trigger the werewolf in the room, who, while on the side of the angels, is understandably pretty unhappy with this entire situation. She nods to Bruce and Sol (the latter of whom receives a more significant look) when they leave, and decides to assert herself here. She turns to Judith. "Looks like it's you and me. Make sure you get anti-rad drugs from the hatches before we go anywhere; my meter is going crazy, and what's back there needs to be contained as soon as possible."

She sets the meter down on the floor, adjusting her bag, which is beginning to wear a red line into her shoulder.

"Look, let's not make this a standoff. No one is going to hurt her," Leila tells the Doctor, firmly, "and while you may not be as concerned with it, I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, either, but we need to secure the irradiated area back there, first and foremost, and I have the tools to do that, so I'd like you to help me so we can keep anyone else from getting hurt. Then we can decide what we're going to do from there, but what you had planned here, we figured it out, and it's over."

Edited 2010-03-05 05:56 (UTC)

Judith has had, to put it lightly, a long hour. She has been shot, burned, cut, tranquilized, and battered, seen two of her friends caught up in the explosions of bombs set by this man, and listened to dozens of people panicking over the network--there has been so much damage, and so much pain, all caused by someone who still doesn't seem to think they're smart enough to understand what's he's done. She should kill him: it's right to kill him, for his dozens of sins, for his arrogance, for the invisible poison radiating around them - she's baring her teeth unconsciously when Leila speaks, and that's really all that stops her.

Leila is calm, and Judith wrenches her blood-dimmed focus to that instead of the Doctor, and at 'it's over' a weight shifts on her shoulders enough that she can bear it. Instead of lashing out, she nods at Leila, unholsters her Beretta, and points it at the Doctor, looking steadily down its sights.

"I should shoot you," she says, her voice just as steady and plastic-smooth as her gun, "You son of a bitch, do you even know how many people you hurt today? Do you even fucking care? How stupid do you think--you're going to help her," Judith indicates Leila, with the tilt of her head, "Fix this, right now, and then--"

She takes a breath: "Then you're going to answer to every single fucking person out there, and we need you alive for that. So get busy, and if you say a fucking word to me I swear I'll break your fucking nose."

"He's all yours," Judith continues, stepping back, now speaking to Leila; she doesn't take her eyes off the Doctor, of course, or lower her gun, "And I'll be okay, if you need me to do anything that'd get you sick - I'll do it, it's fine. It's all fine."

The Doctor doesn't want to give up Morgana to the strange man, but he hasn't got any real choice. She'll die if she stays with him, and if he tries to help her, they'll probably think she's with him.

"She's been infected with rutgen radiation," he says. "Sort of the equivalent of a very big x-ray machine." And since he can't miss a chance for flippancy, he adds, "Never understand why you lot never developed a tolerance for it considering how much is on Earth, of all places..."

He weighs his options. Running seemed like the best option, though how he'd avoid all of them became the immediate secondary question. And where would he go?

All those people hurt. His hearts hurt at the thought. "No one was supposed to be injured, I set up sentinels to keep everyone safe."

And this violent woman, threatening to shoot him. He hated guns.

"Then you'd better do it," the Doctor says to her, his tone disgusted. "Because it's pretty obvious I'm not outnumbered here."

The selective hearing doesn't do wonders for Leila's sense of certainty about the Doctor's sanity, but she knows that anyone who'd do this has to have a screw or two loose. It doesn't change that she plans on trying to keep him in one piece, so she keeps her tone as steely and certain as she can. She glances at Judith (it would certainly be nice to get some accountability here, it's true) before speaking.

"Pro tip: don't provoke the woman holding the gun on you, because she is entirely justified right now. Focus. Help me secure the room," she says, shoving one end of the lengthy rope-like device she uses for radio wave emission at the Doctor, "this is to cleanse the vicinity and create a safety zone beyond the irradiated areas, which you need to show me, secure, and deactivate, now, before anyone else shows up. Just hang it up and I'll fix the other end and turn it on."

Judith, in what may be a surprising bit of news, is well-versed in a type of gun safety, and this means that until the Doctor seemed not to hear her she'd kept her finger off the trigger of her gun. He told her to go ahead, and Judith's grip tightens--triggers have weight, and giving points, and Judith draws hers back easily to the point just before firing. She doesn't even have to think about, which is good, because she's busy picturing other things: Godric tearing open a sentinel, Dean lying still, Enfys disappearing in a burst of dust and heat, the three vampires clustered at a blast radius, Glitch's face when he said he had to find DG--

"Help her," Judith says, her own voice distant in her ears, and she eases up on the trigger and engages the safety, just to be sure. "Stop fucking around, and help her, I don't fucking want to kill you but you are--just. Stop."

Tension, wow. Not like he's surprised at the fact, and he understands — at least he thinks he does, maybe not fully, but enough — but he's pretty sure this guy just narrowly avoided getting splattered all over the wall, Nightwing's first instinct to batarang the gun out of Judith's hand aside. The safety's on, so he makes the projectile disappear again, easing slow and careful into the scene.

"We can help," he says to Leila softly, referring to Holmes and Robin, zipstrip in hand. It's an adjustable, nigh unbreakable plastic restraint. "I can take him outside. And they can help you secure the room."

The mask hides his eyes, but he's watching Judith. And he's keenly aware of Bruce's presence, but ignores it for the time being.

Walking in on the scene at hand is enough to assure Holmes that he's not unfounded in his preference to work alongside the Yard rather than with them. Regardless, he nods once in confirmation - he's not paying too much attention to the ramshackle sort of plan as it's laid out, rather focusing on the individuals he's yet to see before this point, gaze lingering on the Doctor in particular.

"I'm not much with technology. He may be better off still in here while things are taken care of in case there's anything he's neglected to mention."

There's a nod in the Doctor's direction, as if his subject isn't obvious enough already. He's not so much concerned about the technological aspects of things as he is with the prospect of giving him greater opportunity to flee the scene under a lesser watch, but he'll keep that to himself.

As natural as it is for Tim to wish to cleave to Nightwing's plan, in this case he's more convinced by Holmes, if only for the apparent technological stumbling block presented. The important part here, however, is to reassure the extremely tense parties involved that this situation is in hand, and that no-one is getting shot. To that end, he moves gently closer to Leila, quiet and unassuming, holding out his hand as he gets close enough.

"I can help with the clean up, wherever our detainee ends up - let's just be quick about making this place safe, and making sure no-one else gets hurt."

The Doctor looks warily at the zipstrip, then back at the woman instructing him. He could run right now. Running seems like a good option, it's the option he's always taken when things go awry. Fouled plans, rewritten timelines, anything. Off in the TARDIS, and he's good to go. But here, in this box of a city, he's utterly trapped. It's a horrible feeling.

"The radiation will dissipate on its own in about a half hour," he says. "It's from an environment-creation simulation I put up in the lower levels. There's a secure amount of radioactive material in the city, but, yeah, as I'd said: secure. Not about to hurt anyone, unless you lot decided to go blundering into there, too. No one was meant to get hurt in this." His voice is intense, furious that the people around him just can't let him do what he needs to. They have to go off and get in the way.

He considers the information he's just said, and then adds, quickly: "Dr. Magnus didn't know what I'd had planned, either. It was just me, you should leave her out of it."

And here is the cavalry, in the interesting shape they've taken. Leila appreciates their arrival, because it occurs to her that while they are definitely taking the Doctor somewhere, she's not sure where that is going to be, and can only provide so many options as to locations. Most of them aren't hugely secure.

"Yes, we understand no one was supposed to get hurt, thus the guards, but the fact that our captors can see everything we do anyway aside, prevaricating about a bomb threat is frankly a fucking terrible idea. And while I'm sure that's true, regarding the radioactivity levels," she says, to the Doctor, "I seem to recall its effects on the young woman who was here prior, so, in the interest of being absolutely certain, if you will--"

This last part is to Tim, as she hands him the other end of the strip.

Over her shoulder, she adds, over her shoulder, to the others, "I don't know where you're going to take him, please let me know what you decide- you should check if he's armed, though, not necessarily conventionally."

She does recall how he'd looked at Judith's gun.

Edited 2010-03-06 23:22 (UTC)

"I got it." Judith is potentially not the person who should be on top of this, but she's closest to him and she moves with abrupt and unnerving quickness as she holsters her gun and goes to work on searching the Doctor. The presence of other people will, at least, keep her from maiming him; she noticed how Nightwing in particular is looking at her, and she's reminded that she's playing by human rules. Certain things go with that.

Her search is quick and thorough, and she relieves him of his sonic screwdriver, coat, and any other odd objects she finds roughly, making no effort not to knock him around at least a little bit. She doesn't say a word to him, because she really isn't sure how many times she can tell him that his life is in danger here without him getting it before that alone sets her off. It's like he believes nothing bad can happen to him, and it's infinitely frustrating.

She shoves his possessions into Holmes' arms while digging her fingers into the Doctor's shoulder, and turns towards Nightwing, expression drawn tight: "I have to get out of here, it's--I can't explain it to you, but I have to go, so I'm--delivering him into your custody." She's pale and almost imperceptibly shivering, every movement jerky and tense, and it's not hard to tell she's at the end of some rope. The almost formal words feel odd in her mouth, but they keep her holding on.

"He's your responsibility," she says, and then turns and punches the Doctor square in the face before nearly throwing him in Nightwing's direction. "Don't fuck it up." It's not a threat, but a plea, and on that note she all but runs from the room.

... Judith, he's thinking, is an interesting woman with a rage problem. (He doesn't know how right he is.) But she didn't shoot the Doctor, and she removed herself from the situation. What more could you ask of a person who knows their own inclinations?

Catching and steadying the Doctor, Nightwing draws his hands behind his back more carefully than Judith had searched him but not gently. The zipstrip goes around his wrists and is tightened to an appropriately binding state before being attached securely. It's not comfortable but it's not meant to be. Most of the people they use them on are unconscious, anyway.

"Just outside to begin with." He can hardly say he doesn't know the area well, but if it comes to it, he can hobble the Doctor too and just cart him around. "I'll wait on some kind of consensus to where he goes from there."

Unless he's further addressed, he nudges the Doctor toward the exit, peering at him to see if his nose is bleeding.

Holmes readily accepts whatever's thrust at him, not overtly surprised at the sudden outlash. In fact, it seems as if he's doing his best to make himself invisible since that last bit of input, observing rather than taking an overly active role in the proceedings.

The detective can't seem to find it in himself to be quite so furious as his company, and so he simply steps aside to assure that he's anything but in the way, keeping a sort of idle watch on the pair making their exit. There'll be plenty of time for his own agenda later, he reasons, and it's only then that he actually takes an interest in the items he's been handed, starting to overlook them with an unusual amount of care lest he blow something up in the process.

Judith is definitely someone to keep an eye on in future, but perhaps Holmes is as well. He's got the knack of fading, quiet and unassuming into the background, but as they've already seen, he's more than capable with a fire arm. And he's paying very careful attention to the Doctor's belongings, now that he has them.

These are all thoughts that Tim has to stow away for later inspection, however, as he needs to concentrate on his own task here. With the end of the... rope-like device in hand - and how he'd like to know how exactly that works, but again, not the time - he nods to Leila. "Just tell me where to hang it."

"Could be a little less tight," the Doctor complains, experimentally tugging against the restraints. He wanted to fight, but he's not stupid. He's not going to make it fifty feet away from these people. And, well, anywhere he wanted to go would probably already had people searching through them.

"Firing squad, then?" he asks. "Or are we going to get creative with my excecution? Can't possibly imagine a proper trial in this place. All people from different universes, no solid government or legal system. Still! I imagine it'll be interesting to see what you all have planned for me. Better make it interesting, though. Can't handle a simple gunshot wound to the head, that just wouldn't be fair. I know! You could boil me alive. Do be careful with that coat, Janis Joplin gave me that!"

He's fairly terrified of how utterly out of control everything has spiraled, so he's covering it up with a healthy layer of flippancy. Be flippant, be relaxed, it throws everyone else off.

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[ visual | location: outside "sanctuary for all" ] [ open ]

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