january 2020. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Seventh Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of January 2020
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. champagne supernova.

Normally, the changes in the sky are subtle, happening between glances or over the course of days.

That's not the case now, when the bright sky with its three suns is wiped away in an explosion of blue light, right at sunrise on the morning of January 1st. The light pulses across the sky in uneven blazes, sending out lattices of what might be lightning or something worse. There's no moon. No brightness. Just this lightning-storm brilliance in space, shedding little light on the world below.

And the suns don't come back on. As the day wears on, the supernova brightness in the sky starts to fade out and no new light appears. The sky is static and black, with no stars, no moons, no suns. The mild rolling blackouts that started with the opening of the relaxation room intensify with the sudden loss of solar power, as the backup systems try to compensate for the increased use of power.

For a moment, power goes out in Anchor entirely, leaving the place plunged into darkness.

The darkness doesn't last. Thanks to those generators everyone worked so hard to sort out, the backup systems struggle back to life, keeping the lights on and the bar, kitchen, and agricultural supports open, but there are some things that the limited power just can't cover.

b. tower of babelfish.

The first, and perhaps the most noticeable system to start failing, are the auto-translation programs. While not affecting every area in Anchor equally, communication between those who speak different languages is going to be a lot more difficult. The effects are spotty, coming and going, sometimes completely failing, leaving only people's naturally-spoken languages available. Sometimes it just struggles, making conversations sound a lot more like babelfish translations than recognizable speech. People themselves seem to be affected differently by the translation struggles, depending on who and where they are. There's no rhyme or reason to when and how it fails. But the problem persists through most of the month.

c. the hidden passage.

The second system failure is harder to spot.

At the end of what seemed to be a maintenance hallway, a set of doors have appeared from behind what used to be a shielded hologram of a dead end. The doors stick out from their surroundings: thick metal, barred heavily from the outside. A clear attempt to keep something locked away inside, not to keep people from entering.

For those adventurous enough, or foolish enough, to wrestle the locks open, a problem will reveal itself. A short flight of stairs, leading down into an area flooded by murky water. It's hard to see more than branching halls down below.

Those who choose to brave the water will find a hallway lined with bulkheads and sealed doorways, all guarding rooms that could be accessed with the right combination of smarts and brute force. It's the question of what would be ruined by the water if the doors are opened that might give people pause. What kind of secrets could be wiped out or destroyed if the doors are forced and the water passes through the bulkheads? Can the water be drained? How?

But there is one room open, or mostly open, where the bulkhead doors didn't quite manage to seal when the area flooded. It'll be a squeeze, for bigger characters, but the flooded room beyond contains artifacts preserved behind glass - strange medallions, strings of glowing beads, broken sceptres, arrows fletched with feathers from creatures no one has ever seen before.

Only one object isn't sealed away. It's a handful of small orbs, with shifting colors, held in place by a shield array that still seems to function, for the most part. They can be touched, can even be removed from the stand with the right know-how or a willingness to smash stuff.

But once an orb is touched, the colors start to spin more rapidly. The more it's handled, the brighter and faster the colors shift. Whether it takes hold immediately or not is up to you, but those who handled the orb will find the bright colors start to glow under the surface of their skin, in the shape of veins, glowing bright for a few minutes before fading. And those people bring a different kind of contagion back with them to the surface. Memory loss, communicated from one person to the next via contact. It can be partial or complete, or not happen to your character at all - they can be an unwitting "carrier" of the effects, passing it on without experiencing the losses themselves. The loss can last from hours to weeks, with carriers being "infected" for the duration of that time.

It also leaves behind magical traces, ones that don't fade after memories return. The cleverest might start to wonder if it wasn't a kind of inoculation, though against what, it remains to be seen.

Navigation.

Comments

[hypothermic]

"The map was supposedly created by the people who came before us. I don't know if they built this place, but it sure as hell looks like they died in it." In reference to the scorch marks and bullet holes marking the walls, and other obvious signs of struggle scarring the colony.

Whoever was here before them went out with a bang.

He steps down beside Jacob, almost a head taller than him, dipping the toe of his boot into the water with all the poise and delicacy of a cat. The big ones that like to keep their paws clean in spite of gutting their prey for fun.

"Feel it like heartburn, or feel it like the kid from the Sixth Sense?" A pause, remembering how generally clueless people average old timey-wimey people are, "If you're a psychic or some kinda spook is what I'm asking."

[nothinglikefather]

"Was it created by people who knew this place was here?" It seems like a reasonable question, considering the mass of passageways in London that seemed to have been forgotten.

He watches the other man move towards the water, dipping his foot in. He smiles to himself, and strips put of the heavy black coat, tossing it up above the waterline. Yes he's going in, but not with that weighing him down.

"Jacob." He introduces himself, "And no, I'm not. I just feel it."

How can you explain to someone that you can see, far below, through water and walls, the glitter of something important.

[hypothermic]

"Your guess is as good as mine. I'm fresh outta the gate. Portal. Wardrobe. Whatever the hell you wanna call it." Len looks back down at his device, which shows the relative locations of everyone else carrying a device. Keeping a close eye on those moving dots.

Swimming isn't his idea of a good time, but neither is being torn limb from limb by his ex-partner who is out for his blood. Len can't tell which dot belongs to who. He doesn't have to. If someone or something starts coming at them, he's jetting.

Mick would follow him to the ends of the Earth to lay the hurt on him. Underwater? Len isn't so sure. He was always a shitty swimmer, and hates the cold. Heat is his domain.

His attention snaps back to Jacob upon introduction, the corner of his mouth quirking.

"Jacob. Like the ladder." He rolls his shoulders out of his leather jacket, standing on his booted toes to push open the vent and stash it safely away. Sorry Anchor, you can't pull it off like he does.

"Fans call me Cold. Adorable, isn't it?" That's all Jacob's getting until Len figures him out. Call him greedy, but Len is more comfortable taking than giving away.

"We find something down there, we go halfsies. Deal?"

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob's face twists a little. Not like the ladder at all, in fact, but like his name. He has the chance to be petty when the bloke stops looking at his phone and comes back to the here and now.

"Cold- like a runny nose?"

Weird name and he's not exactly sure what he means when he says his fans, but he'll worry about that later.

He goes down the steps until he's waste deep in the water, and look back to see if his new acquaintance is coming with. "If you do half the work mate, sure."

And with that he takes a breath and dives down, following the submerged steps. Its quite a way, and he goes back up for air having gone down deeper and had a look. There's a corridor, lined with doors. They look shut fast, aside from one.

[hypothermic]

"Cold like ice, and twice as pretty." Gentlemen first. Len steps out of the way for Jacob to take the plunge. He'll follow.

Once Jacob surfaces with news, or his body to floats back to the surface. he's not getting himself wet for no reason.

Len taps his foot, arms folded over his chest. Waits. Tilts his head to one side upon seeing those tell-tale bubbles with a smirk, and moves out of the way to give Jacob some room.

"So. What's the down-low? Dead end, or do we have some real-estate to cover? Locked doors? Floor-plan? See, I'm the brains-type, and you look like the brawn, so I figure you'll give your fifty with leg-work and I'll give my fifty with these." A waggle of his long, slender fingers. Perfect for playing piano. Or grand larceny.

"If there's a lock, I can pick it. If there's a safe, I can crack it. If it sparkles, I want it, and I have thirty-some-odd years of experience getting it."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob emerges, soaked to the skin and grinning ear to ear. There is something down there, a lot of somethings. The only problem is those doors, the water, and how long they can hold their breath for.

"Yes yes, I'm sure." He replies, because Jacob also possesses those skills. Normally brute force will work, but there used to be lock picks in his coat for a reason.

"Another ten feet or so the steps end. Long corridor, big solid doors on each side. Everything looks locked up tight. Apart from one, doors partially open, inside probably flooded to the ceiling, so this will be our only air pocket."

As he speaks, he moves, coming to sit on the lowest step. He's not about to dry out, and he's not cold yet.

"We could come back later with equipment, or we can try with what we've got on hand. Up to you, brains."

TW for child abuse

[hypothermic]

Wet is a good look on Jacob. Len could avert his eyes when he steps up out of the water, and has his Gangs-of-New-York-meets-Baywatch moment, but doesn't. Len makes a point not to apologize. For anything. Ever. Instead, he smiles that conman smile, and keeps on looking.

"I've got all the equipment I need." Len has his gun, his hands, his wits, and a bobby pin. That's all it's ever taken. Pick-kits and electromagnetic lock-breakers exist, but Len's never needed them. Make that, wasn't allowed to use them.

Lewis Snart was old-fashioned that way. What he lacked in traditional family values, he made up for in boomer-esque work ethics. Tools were crutches. If a crook couldn't do the job with his/her own two hands, he/she wasn't worth paying.

Or keeping alive.

Len was raised from childhood with safe construction manuals instead of picture books, taught how to jack cars before he could ride a bike, and was only ever on the receiving end of a baseball bat, beaten halfway to death or past it if he so much as flinched while dismantling a security system.

There's no better tool for a big job than tiny hands.

Len isn't so tiny anymore, but he never lost his knack for breaking the law and evading it. That's what happens when crime is your sole hobby and primary education, and he has his father to thank for it.

Had his father to thank. Len killed him a couple years back. More quickly than he deserved.

He pulls his leather gloves off with his teeth, finger by finger, creating the floor-plan in his head. Mentally rendering the dimensions with an engineer's precision based on Jacob's description, the width of the stairwell, and structure of their current surroundings.

"If we can get one of the other doors open and quasi-functional, we'll have some working room. A base of operations. As long as there's nothing alive down there, I'd bet there's enough oxygen for us to take what's worth taking." Len descends into the water up to mid-thigh, makes a face, and snaps on the goggles previously dangling around his neck.

"Meet me by the last unopened door. No one puts the good stuff right up front."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob doesn't know this man's story, his past or even a real name. That's fine, he doesn't need to know anything like that. But Len might be interested to know that they have something in common: Jacob never had much of a childhood either. Mother dead the day she birthed him, not meeting his father until Ethan returned from India when his children were six years old. And then raising them as soldiers in an unending war with the Templar Order.

Jacob never had a choice in what his life could be. He was a thug and a tool, a killer and a weapon. Never good enough in Ethan's eyes, too spirited to be a truely good assassin.

But Ethan is gone now, dead, and Jacob's sister Evie is somewhere else in this vast mulitverse unable to look at him and complain this wasn't what father wanted. Unable to look at him with the same disapproval. Unable, in fact, to stop him. Jacob is free to do what he wants and how he wants, when he wants. Free to be himself, to find out who himself actually is.

Its the most intoxicating of all the drugs he's tried.

He listens to the other man, snorting with soft amusement. He's pretty certain that if they can open another of those doors, that water will flood right in before they have the chance to do anything. But maybe it will break open cases or wash away anything down there that they would otherwise have to contend with.

"I'll wait for you." He replies, and slips back into the water like he belongs there. Swimming here is easy in comparison to the Thames, against tides and the pull of the myriad of boats.

Strong strokes have him passed the long line of doors soon enough, waiting for the other and examining the last one for any signs of how it might be opened, sliding the blade from his gauntlet between the two heavy steel shutters. There's hardly a hairs width between them.

[hypothermic]

Len follows in Jacob's wake. Letting him lead, keeping his eyes on their surroundings all the while. Casing joints is what Len does, and a little H20 isn't enough to distract him from noting potential threats, escape points, and valuables.

Jacob's a stronger swimmer, but Len is built like one. Long and lean. He cuts through the water with strength and grace. Like an underwater ballerina in combat boots. It helps the water is a moderate temperature. Not too warm, or cold. Ice is Len's thing, and he has above average tolerance to below zero climates, but he's only human.

Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he's less than.

They come to the end of the hallway, past the door that's slightly ajar, and towards final doors. The bulk-head leading deeper into what appears to be some kind of research facility is pressurized and sealed. The doors lining the hallway, leading into rooms, aren't so secure. Tight, but not impenetrable.

Len swims up to the door, fingers tracing the same seam as Jacob's knife from top to bottom, bubbles escaping his noise as he sinks lower, hovering inches above the floor on his side, and knocks on the tiles, ear to the ground.

Hollow knock. Hollow knock. THUD. AKA Bingo.

He gives Jacob a thumbs up, and jerks his head back towards the stairway. Again, he waits for Jacob to go first.

Ever since losing his partner, Len has to watch his own back.

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob hasn't really seen a door like this in his own time. Heavy steel and wood doors fastened with enormous latches and dead bolts, padlocks and bars. He has got through a fair share, from those in the Bank of England to the ones in the Tower, but he can see the strange way the door works, when his vision changes to monochrome.

Levers and strange electronic devices and pulses. Not completely damaged by water ingress but not as good as new either.

And beyond the door, the gold glitter of their goal. What exactly it is he couldn't say, but hopefully worthwhile.

Back up to the surface they go, and Jacob takes a deep breath as he treads water. "We don't have doors like that where I'm from. Electric, right?"

[hypothermic]

"Electric, before the power shut down. Now, they're manual. Feel me?" Len drapes himself against the stairs, one long leg slung over the other. Fingers tapping against the tile floor beneath the water.

"Here's the way this will go down. I'll use my magic and jack open the hydraulics. It's gonna get cold, really cold, and it's going to hurt. Now, I'll be counting on you not to pass out, so you can use those big, strong muscles and turn the motor by hand. Get it open a foot wide and I'll squeeze through, so I can help you from the other side. This needs done fast. Quick and dirty, so we've got some breathing room."

He sits up suddenly, eyes fixed on Jacob. Steely blue. Sharp and cold as the edge of a razor-blade, and more likely to cut a man to the quick.

"Let's get one thing straight. Try to screw me on this, and you'll regret it." The moment passes. Len settles back again. Calm. Cool. Collected.

"Here are your options. If you think you can take the cold, you can follow me down there while I do my thing, or you can wait exactly forty-five seconds to join me. The choice is yours. If I don't see you in forty-five, exactly, I'll assume I'm a solo act and proceed as such. Capiche?"

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob listens, carefully, but the word magic eyes his eyes rolling in a way that he can barely hold back. Unlike his sister, he isn't about to believe in fairytales about unnatural powers. Perhaps certain circumstance has led him to change his stance on creatures like werewolves and vampires, but magic?

That's just science they don't understand yet.

"Is a foot going to be big enough for that ego of yours?"

The doors might not open wide enough to let that big head through, but maybe Jacob doesn't like being told what to do and roll over like that. A proposed course of action, presented in the right way? He's all for it, but he is not just the brawn in this.

Apparently, this Cold isn't going to think of him as anything but for the meanwhile, and Jacob has learnt enough in the last few months both in London and in the City to know that he can't always go solo. He needs to work with this guy, even if he doesn't appreciate the tone.

"Whatever is down there would need to be worth screwing you over for. Let's get our hands on it before we start pulling pigtails, alright? Let's get this done."

And by that he means he'll go down and wait out the cold. He's cold enough anyway, because the water, while not freezing, still saps the heat from his muscles the longer he stays in it, but the sooner they act the sooner he can get out the cold for good.

[hypothermic]

"You call it ego, I call it experience." His eyes sear into Jacob, unblinking, water droplets still clinging to his silver eyelashes.

"No offense, kid, but I've been robbing people for longer than you've been alive." Len doesn't need to know Jacob's age to know he's older. That soft peachy skin, glossy dark hair, and youthful arrogance say it all.

"You're cute and all, but don't think I couldn't do this without you. I just hate to sweat." He slicks his wet hands back over his buzzed scalp, and climbs to his feet, descending up to mid-thigh in the water. Checks the LSD one last time before securing the device at his hip.

So far, so good. Except his sixth sense, the one that detects bullshit and bad ideas is saying otherwise. A tingle at the base of his spine that flares with every unexpected noise or sudden movement.

It isn't Jacob's fault he's on edge.

Len pulls his goggles back up over his face to conceal his eyes, and dives.

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob makes a face. Good god, if he'd been out of the water, he might have punched the other just for the way he'd called him kid. He is sick to death of people doing that, of believing he knows nothing because of his age. Age doesn't equal experience, especially when you're an assassin.

But the water wicks away the heat of anger as well as the heat of his body, and he resolves that at the first chance he gets after they have whatever is down there, he's leaving. Part of him considers leaving now, because he isn't cute, and he doesn't give a damn if the other man has to break a sweat.

But his curiosity about the treasures below isp piqued, and so once Cold dives in, Jacob will follow, but not before muttering "What a prick" to the empty room.

[hypothermic]

He's been called worse, because he is worse. Leonard Snart is many things. A nice person isn't one of them. He's rude at best, and straight up villainous at worst. So far, Jacob's been on his good side. That can change in the blink of an eye, and the pull of a trigger.

When it comes down to it, Jacob is a stranger, and accidents happen to strangers all the time.

Swimming towards the door, Len is considering his options. Whether or not he's in the mood to keep his word, or kill a man. At the end of the day he's a criminal, and the value of his word is dependent on the value of what's behind their door.

Floating with his legs tucked beneath him, Len draws the cold-gun from the holster strapped to his thigh, checking back over his shoulder to gauge Jacob's proximity. He wasn't lying when he said it was going to get cold. The water temperature will drop to freezing almost as soon as he fires.

He motions for Jacob to cover his eyes with one hand. If he chooses not to listen and temporarily blinds himself, that's his problem. Len isn't going to play Seeing Eye Dog. If Jacob can't see, he can't work, which makes him a liability and not an asset. Which means he can bumble around in the dark and drown, for all Len cares. So long as he doesn't get in his way.

The hall glows a brilliant blue when he pulls the trigger, made brighter by the fact they're surrounded by reflective metallic surfaces. Staring directly into the freeze ray without goggles will burn the hell out of your retina.

A second is all it takes to turn the floor before the door into a sheet of ice. Len swims down, breaks it open with the butt of his gun, and brushes the ice away from the opening. Inside is the door mechanism, a pulley-type system that's going to require some serious elbow grease in order to pry the doors apart.

The water is freezing. Len's lips are already turning blue, fingers white-knuckled around his gun. He's gained a resistance to the cold after years of utilizing his weapon, but nothing can prepare your body for the shock of it. Holding your breath goes from hard to agonizing.

If they don't move fast enough getting that door open, they're going to be in for a bad time.

[nothinglikefather]

He is smart enough to protect his eyes, but even through his hand and eyelids, the brightness is clear. A burning, brightness like staring at the sun, but the sudden cold? That is the real problem. The flash is done and over in a heartbeat, but the cold saps and sinks into his flesh and bones.

He is used to cold. He wears a lot of layers because he's from a time without central heating, from a time when the Thames still occasionally froze over in the worst of winters. He is used to working outside, in the rain and snow, at night. He can cope with the cold. But normally it isn't like this, not sudden and soul-deep.

He wants to gasp, but the pressure of the water is already pressing in hard, making his ribs and lungs burn. It's enough to make anyone want to retch.

But he can't. He forces himself to swim past Cold, to get to the pulley, to tug on it. It's slow, at first, the mechanism stuck and then it moves, the doors opening and water rushing in as they do.

[hypothermic]

Len waits what feels like an eternity, rubbing his arms and kicking his legs to keep his muscles from going stiff. The worst thing you can do is stop moving. That's when the cold sets in, sapping the strength from your body until you're slow, sluggish, and stop feeling anything at all.

Then you die. Slowly, quietly, and without a fight.

Which isn't Len's style. If he's going down, he's going down swinging.

As soon as the gap is wide enough, Len swims to the door, peers into the room through the gap, then flips to go through legs first, waiting that next fraction of a second for Jacob to make the next turn until his ass can follow (the trials and tribulations of having a thicc booty), the rest of his body follows easy, though he has to turn his head to one side for his skull to pass through comfortably.

What most might find claustrophobic, Len finds exciting. He thrives on adrenaline. Feels alive the moment his booted feet hit the wet floor in a place he shouldn't be, sucking in forbidden air with a smile on his face, even as he shivers.

Contrary to what most might expect from Len, his first move isn't to start casing the room and filling his pockets. He jams a knee through the door, and puts his shoulder into pushing the doors open wide enough for Jacob to squeeze through. The sooner he's inside, and the less water the room takes on, the better.

Maybe the goody-goody's have been rubbing off on him, or maybe he's always stayed true to his own moral code, however questionable, or flexible that code may be.

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob is, unfortunately in this situation, made of dense muscle. Where Cold is lithe, Jacob is solid, broad and barrel-shaped. Bubbles escape his nose and mouth as he fights the chill weighing down his limbs, pulling on the chain until the door opens wider still. He can't risk letting too much water flood the space beyond, but he also needs to get through the damn thing, and that's going to be difficult with how sluggish and heavy he feels.

Eventually, he has to stop, not because it's enough, but because he can't hold his breath any longer. He can't stop his lungs hurting, burning, fire in his limbs fighting the cold but only making it all much worse.

He moves towards the doors, getting one arm and shoulder through, using what little resource he has left in his muscles to force himself through. The door gives just a tad more with those shoulders braced against it, water rushing in over him into the room beyond and then suddenly he's through, gasping and shivering. But he doesn't stop, doesn't collapse and splutter.

He finds some purchase, finds a grip, and forces the doors to shut a little, to slow the water ingress. It's harder to fight against the water trying to push the water in, but eventually, the gap is closed up again, to the narrow width of Cold's frame.

And then he slumps. Fights to fill his lungs with stale air, but air all the same.

[hypothermic]

"Close your eyes." Len closes the gap with a blast from his gun, a strip of ice shutting out the water from floor to ceiling, capturing the rush of water in mid-spray with all the detail of an artisan ice sculpture. They can shatter the seal when it's time to go.

Until the oxygen runs out, they can breathe and rest easy. The room is cold, and there's a couple inches of water on the floor, but there's something to be said for body-heat. He takes a heavy seat beside Jacob, taking a moment to catch his own breath.

"Don't fall asleep. Keep moving your fingers and toes, or you'll lose 'em." Some people cave under pressure, and aren't worth the air they consume on the job. Len would rather work alone than with a dead-weight. Jacob put his ass on the line, stuck through it when the going got tough, and didn't whine about doing so. Len can respect that.

Still, open turning his head to see the dazzling sparkle of the room around him, buckets of gems beside a heavy-duty refinery, and a rock-wall glittering with a vein of crystal more bright and brilliant than diamond, he gasps softly, and deeply regrets offering that fifty/fifty split down the middle.

Len wants it all.

[nothinglikefather]

Having seen the effects of the gun before- or rather, seen them through his closed eyes, gloved hand and ages-old water, he doesn't hesitate to turn his face away and protect his eyes. And then opens them again when the glow is gone, and he feels the other man come and settle with him.

His breathing is now almost normal, the heavy deep pants replaced by slower, more steady inhalation. They have time now, at least while the ice and the doors hold against the weight of the water. They can look around and discover what was so important that it be locked away down here.

"I'm from England, I know what cold is." Jacob laughs, before he shifts, checking the leather gauntlet on his wrist to make sure the water and pressure didn't cause damage. It looks fine, albeit soaked, but it's suffered through worse before now. It also gives him the excuse to stay sat down for a few moments more.

Then he looks up.

He's never been in a mine. He's been in tunnels and caves, but never a room like this, with literal gems in the wall. It enough to force him to his feet, so he can move towards it and look over it. Well, he makes to go that way, but before he does he reaches out to offer the other man a hand up.

[hypothermic]

Len looks from Jacob's hand to his face and back again. The floor is slippery, and his body is already tired. He's shivering beneath his clothes. Len has every reason to take Jacob's hand, and he's almost flattered by the offer. That he would bother to help up the man who almost froze him to death, and so easily gotten under his skin.

Which is why he brushes Jacob's hand away, and uses his gun to prop himself up. Because he doesn't want to give Jacob any ideas. Len doesn't need him, doesn't give a shit about him, and they're both here for one thing.

All that bling.

He doesn't need or want another partner.

"Now that's what I'm talking about." Facing the glittering crystal vein, sparkles in his eyes. It isn't just the brilliance, or clarity, but that glow. Before Len knows what he's doing he's reaching over to touch one of the pulsing stones, with his bare hand, drawn in by it.

As soon as his fingertips make contact with the crystal a shock jolts him in his boots, strong enough to make him jump back with his hand held to his chest.

"Now that was stupid." A scowl, more at himself than anything, but the edges of his mouth are already curling into a smirk.

"For a place that's always running short on power, I bet an alternate energy source could prove real valuable."

[nothinglikefather]

If it's going to be like that, Jacob won't try again. He's not offering bosom friendship or that they start going on romantic walks in Hyde Park, but a little bit of camaraderie helps sometimes. And while he isn't able to ask for help himself, he can offer it out in droves.

He dusts his hands off and follows the other man across the wet floor looking at the machinery and the worked stones left abandoned down here. Something must have gone very wrong very fast, if they couldn't take these with them.

And then there's the flash and noise as Len is shocked, the arm cradled to his chest.

Its all Jacob can do to roll his eyes and snatch up a pair of protective gloves, also abandoned, and smack them into the man's side.

"Try not to die."

[hypothermic]

"Just so you know, telling me what to do is a quicker way to die than sticking a fork into a power outlet."

Len rolls his eyes, snatches the gloves, and shakes it off. The small hairs at the back of his neck still standing on end. He reaches for the crystals a second time and is rewarded with... a lesser shock, and he's ready for it this time. A light yank, with no budge. They'll need heavy equipment to pry the gems from the wall, and while the room is messy with tools and machinery, none of it has power.

That said, there are buckets of gem sitting beside the largest of the machines. The crystals don't have that mesmerizing glow, but they're polished, cut to perfection, and sparkle with their own inner light.

He crosses the room, sliding into a crouch to grab a handful of glittering gems, smiling, with teeth, as they slip between his gloved fingertips and back into the bucket with tiny, musical clinks. Expensive is his favourite sound.

Whatever they are, he wants to wear one on every finger. Now that would be one hell of a backhand.

"Two buckets. Two thieves." Len couldn't carry more than that anyway. He kicks Jacob's bucket across the wet floor, and starts filling his pockets. For a man whose pants are glued to his legs, he has no trouble finding places to squirrel away his share. Pockets. Cuffs. The bandolier hidden beneath his soaking black sweater, briefly visible against pale, scarred torso when he tugs up the hem of his shirt to stash the goods.

"Let's make a deal. I don't tell anyone about our little treasure chest, and neither do you. We hide anything we can't grab under a sheet of ice, and come back for what's left after we restore power."

[nothinglikefather]

"Has anyone ever told you you're a joy to work with? No, I didn't think so." Jacob replies.

He has to wonder if the diamonds are worth it, how much they could be sold for in the captive market of those stuck here. It's not as if they have a booming economy, is it? Still, perhaps that raw power could be useful.

As the bucket slides across to him, Jacob leans down, fingers reaching in and drawing out a palm full of the glittering gems. They're pretty, he supposes, but he can think of a lot of things he'd rather have.

Still, payment is payment and he conceals a good third of those diamonds on his person.

"Sure." He says, certain that Cold is going to try and come down here without him. He's welcome to try, as he seems far more interested in these things than they warrant. Maybe he'll let Angel have a look at them, see can tell him if they're even diamonds at all or something uniqie to this place.

[hyperthermic]

The door to the room thuds.

Chronos had been planning on coming down here again, anyway. Had been planning on seeing if he could torch one of the doors open, or use his laser gun to blast a way through.

He hadn't expected to see ice coating one of the doors.

He's still in his borrowed (stolen) radiation suit, the airtight thing making breathing easier under the water. It doesn't make it less cold or wet. He's never had the chance to test out the heatgun underwater, but now that he's got it back, well. He can fix it if this goes wrong.

But it works. A sluggish column of flame roils impossibly through the water, steam streaming away from it in all directions. It hits the ice sealing the door, the metal around it.

Inside the little treasure vault, the inner edges of the doors start to glow, and water presses in around the ice.