[IC] The Adventures of Dr. Lazarus' Paranormal Science Adventure Team (Ep. 1)

[sneakyonfoota]

The two towering, antique, polished, wooden doors; trimmed in iron studs; slid apart and into the arch of the doorway with a hiss. A short, vague silhouette was visible in a shroud of pale blue steam that poured out of the all-too-quiet estate like fog. With an audible *whoosh* a jet of air disspelled the fog, revealing the silhouette's owner in full form: a young girl of mixed Caucasian and East Asian descent stood there, expressionlessly studying the young man on the doorstep.

Dressed in a dark grey pinafore over a black blouse and tights, she tilted her head to the side and blinked at the young man slowly. What appeared to be a flipped-up welder's mask was perched atop her brown, curly locks.

"I suppose you'll do," she said simply.

And then she turned around and beckoned him with a wave.

"Stand down security," she muttered. A pair of machine gun turrets slid back silently into the ceiling of the doorway as she walked gingerly into the house, disappearing and reappearing as the intermittent light of a plasma arc was the only illumination.

The door remained wide, the light from outdoors spilling within, revealing gadgets and gizmos of unknown purpose lining the walls of a thin corridor. At the far end was the diminishing sight of the young girl with the welder's mask and her echoing footsteps.

[Kiall]

Justin looked at the various gadgets and gizmos in awe, he was so dazzled by the various lights and shapes that he had completely forgotten where he was and what he was doing, the girl who had let him in had already walked away and Justin had to run to catch up.

“hey wait up!” he called, who was this girl anyways? he thought. They wouldn’t let kids in here surely, not with all this dangerous equipment and stuff hmm.. maybe she had some sort of weird dwarfism, yeah like in that one movie! Justin shook his head, focus! “So you said I’d do, does that mean I got the job?” he hoped so, he only had time to scrap together a very poorly made resume, and wasn’t really looking forward to any interviews.

“What exactly am I going to be doing anyways? And what’s with all the security?” he asked walking along side the for a all he knew, pituitary challenged woman, “are you guys building a bomb or something? Ooh you guys are building a death ray I bet ha-ha, like that one TV show y’know with the scientist.” He hoped that was it, he was tired of the regular boring science with all that hypothesis and …other stuff!

[sneakyonfoota]

The corridor terminated into large open chamber whose intended use seemed to be for dining, however its tall ceiling was obscurred by a haphazard gridwork of many pipes and wires going in all directions. Monitors hung, lining the walls and dangled over tables and consoles and controls. On the far side of the chamber white light reflected off of tiles and brushed steel, indicating a kitchen. Flanking the corridor from where they entered was a rather comfortable sitting room equipped to receive and entertain guests in intimate quarters and another seemingly singly devoted to all manners of electronic amusements.

The girl, however, sauntered into the midst of the screens, all projecting different, seemingly unrelated visuals of data--some were news streams, some were live telecasts, while others seemed in the middle of complex processes.

"Status of station impact?" said the girl, discarding her welder's mask onto a table equally cluttered with notes and numerous saucers and tea cups. Her curls fell to her shoulders, but were otherwise kept managable with ribbons.

"Seven hours, fifty-six minutes and counting, Miss Xinling," spoke a digitized man's voice--one that seemed renowned but difficult to place.

"That's Cyndi," complained the girl, stamping her foot.

"Apologies, Miss Xinling," the voice replied.

The girl growled in frustration then snapped her attention to Justin, at last personally confronting the houseguest for the second time since they were barely introduced a minute ago.

"You are going to be helping me blast that out of the sky."

She used a telescopic pointer to tap at a triply highlighted and crosshaired triangle on a monitor behind her. From that triangle was a dotted line arcing toward an animated globe--and that line pointed toward the Bass Strait*. From that point was a large red circle which contained a vivid white skull.

Below that marker, text: IMMEDIATE DEATH.

Radiating from that point, another circle: AGONIZING DEATH.

And the next circle: SLOW, EXCRUCIATING DEATH.




* the strait that separates Australia from Tasmania

[Kiall]

She hadn’t said one word to him since entering the house, he shrugged maybe it was a short thing he knew he sometimes felt resentful around taller people, he was trying to think of the last guy he knew who was taller than him when they entered a large chamber, it was full of pipes and wires and various gadgets but that didn’t interest him anymore.

What did interest him was the room full of electronic amusements one of those amusements was a stand up arcade machine with the title ‘Space Invaders’ on it. Justin was creeping towards the machine completely oblivious to everyone and everything else when he heard the girl say “You are going to be helping me blast that out of the sky” he turned around confused, “huh? What? Like go into space or something? Cool! But doesn’t space travel mean a lot of shaking and twirling, cause if you look on my resume you’ll see I’ve got a motion sickness problem.”

He was now staring at the marker that said ‘Immediate Death’, “now when that says immediate death that’s just for Australia and stuff we’re fine right? The rest of the earth I mean?” oh god what sort of mess had he gotten into now?
________

[sneakyonfoota]

The girl blinked and then looked back at the screen. She then realized her error.

"Flatten map, highlight: Extinction Area," the girl ordered.

"Acknowledged, Miss Cyndi," replied the computer, though with a certain sarcastic air.

The globe on the screen flattened out, showing a two-dimensional depiction of the Earth centered on the three danger zones indicated earlier. Outside of the outermost 'death circle' a pink filtre applied itself to the rest of the planet along with dark red, blinking text stating in bold letters: ASSURED EXTINCTION.

"There is a space station on a collision course with Earth," said the girl, utterly detached. "A haunted space station. One kilometre across. We must depart to Melbourne immediately." She shouldered on a violet rucksack. "Do you need to use the lavatory?"

[Kiall]

Justin blinked,"uhh no, no i'm good I went before I came in so i'm good." He loooked back at the red blinking text that said 'Assured Extinction' one of his eyes began to twitch and inside his head he was screaming but on the outside he was calm.

"So a haunted space station, that happen often? ooh do we get one of the cool laser guns like in ghostbusters? where's our spaceship anyways?" he was getting excited now he always wanted one of those 'Ghostbuster' laser guns that alone made him forget all about the fact that they might all die in seven hours.

[sneakyonfoota]

The girl waved a dismissive hand.

"Space is too troublesome," she muttered. "I said we were going to Melbourne; do keep up. And they won't be laser guns--plural. It will be a laser cannon--singular. Actually, it will not be so much a 'laser', which--" she cut herself off deliberately. "At any rate, you come with and do exactly as I say and we'll be back home in time for me to take that batch of muffins I was baking when you rang my doorbell out of the oven." She adjusted the straps of her rucksack and then started for the front door again. "Oh, you did not have a coat, did you? It's going to be just past dawn when we arrive."

She keyed in something on a pad next to the automatic front doors. Once again they shunted open, however the scenery was very much not the same as what Justin left behind... it was morning twilight, for one thing, and the house now faced toward an ocean.

[Kiall]

"woah" that's all Justin could say as Cyndi opened the door, not only had the small suburb disappeared only to be replaced by a beach it was now almost dawn, Justin rushed out to look at the house, it looked exactly like the one he had entered, "whoa how is that even... hey you think we'll have a chance to go swimming after all this save the world business is over?" he couldn't help but laugh "let's go mess up a space station, I am so ready for this!"

[sneakyonfoota]

The girl blinked and tilted her head at Justin, once again regarding him with a total lack of expression. From a pocket in the front of her pinafore she removed what appeared to be a flip-open mobile... only when opened, a small parabolic dish unfolded and began to rotate where the antenna was.

"Good morning, General? Are you en route? The equipment was supposed to be delivered here minutes ago." A pause for the unheard half of the conversation. "I see. We will be standing by." And then she hung up with a slight sigh.

She glanced at Justin.

"Once the ADF arrives with our equipment, we will go to the site and build ourselves a..." She trailed off, once again looking at Justin. "Our big laser. Cannon. Thing."

Sure enough, within a moment a fourfold flight of helicopters swinging large freight containers on chains came into view. A convoy of trucks was also coming down the neglected highway that the house--identical to the one Justin had entered--stood next to.

Speeding in from the opposite direction of the highway, however, came a much more peculiar sight... It appeared to be a motorcade of Cadillacs with their tops down, all giving off an eerie green glow. At the wheel and filling the seats seemed to be astronauts, of all people--filling all four lanes and on a collision course with the ADF convoy.

[Kiall]

Justin was watching the helicopters when he noticed a strange scent, "wait a minute..." he began sniffing the air, "someone isn't obeying the speed regulations!" he turned and saw the cadillacs with what appeared to be astronauts driving them, all heading on a collision course with the convoy.

Justin began to panic "agh! astronaut ghost crash! explosion! take cover!" he cried grabbing Cyndi by the arm and running towards the side of the house, he leaned against the side pulling Cyndi along with him, he hoped the house would be enough cover as he closed his eyes and plugged his ears.

[sneakyonfoota]

As Cyndi observed the incoming helicopters, her mind drifted to assorted baked goods as well as a job well done celebrated by perhaps a game of Ms. Pac-Man or Space Invaders back at home. Just another troublesome day as a super-scientist, she thought. Despite having fewer resources to exploit than when dealing with various American agencies, she valued the ADF for simply being more cooperative.

She was literally wrenched from her daydream when she heard some indistinct hoo-hah from her newest hire--what was his name again? She blinked back into reality as she was pulled along around the house.

Oh, she thought, glancing at the young man. I suppose there is danger again. How troublesome. She emulated him, covering her ears with her palms and shutting her eyes, but she felt something strange pressing against her face. Oh. It was her mobile. It then occurred to her that there was something she ought to be doing.

Close by she heard the roar of a pack of eight-cylinder engines along with the thumping beat of bass through the ground. Quickly she was dialing her mobile. "General, have your helicopters retreat and land one klick from--"

She winced when she heard machine gun fire on the General's end and then a massive explosion and rain of debris on the other side of the house.

Oh bother.

[Kiall]

Even with his fingers in his ears he heard the explosion a loud blast that shook the house and caused debris to rain down, he opened his eyes and peered over the edge, it was still raining debris some of which got into his mouth, after coughing and spitting out bits of the rubble, he saw that the cadillacs and the convoy had been smashed to pieces bits were strewn all across the road.

“Oh man that was so nuts!” Justin exclaimed heading over to check out the wreckage, “I mean that just happened right out of the blue what’s up with that?” he said while scanning the debris scratching his head, “so there wasn’t anything important in that convoy right? The stuff for the laser cannon was in the helicopter right?” his attention shifted when he spotted something in the rubble, it was a medium sized container with a biohazard sign on it which he picked up and shook. “hey I found something! sounds half empty to me... You think it’s important?”

[sneakyonfoota]

Justin was answered with the modulated hiss of Cyndi's breath exiting from a hooded hazmat mask. She pointed at the ground, showing that she now wore a pair of thick Nitrile rubber gloves in addition to the fact that the young man was also standing in a thin, steaming pile of the container's contents.

The girl stepped casually to the edge of the retreating, quickly evaporating fluid and crouched down close to it, her shoulders rising and falling to pantomime a sigh. While Justin was mostly correct that the cannon's hardware was stored within the containers hauled by the heli-convoy, the motorcade was responsible for support systems, and more importantly, the anti-retroplasm that served as the catalyst for the weapon against the plummeting space station and its radioactive, undead inhabitants.

Cyndi cupped her chin and stood up. The zombie disconauts weren't taking any chances...

She glanced at the house and stamped her foot in anger. The explosion that destroyed the supply trucks also blew a hole in the estate, exposing sensitive systems and power generators. She put a hand to her forehead when the roof collapsed slightly, triggering a small explosion of sparks within. She stood there standing surveying the damage, taking no note of the glowing shapes of green astronauts emerging from the wreckage of the ruined convoy and Cadillacs.

[Kiall]

Justin stared incomprehensibly at the hazmat mask that now covered Cyndi’s face, that is until she pointed to the goop he was now standing in, “agh!” he cried holding the container away from his body and stepping off the goop, luckily none of it had gotten on his skin, he was debating on whether or not he should put the container down when the glowing green astronauts began to rise from the wreckage.

“Ah! The weird spacemen aren’t dead!” he shouted “well technically I guess they are dead since they’re ghosts and all…well, they aren’t as dead as I would like them to be!” yet again on the verge of pure panic, Justin hurled the container at the nearest astronaut, then charged another of the glowing astronauts and attempted to perform a Captain Kirk style dropkick, the kind of dropkick with absolutely no plan for recovery after it is delivered, there have been better plans sure but Justin liked the flexibility of this one.

[sneakyonfoota]

How troublesome, thought Cyndi.

The container clocked the first radioactive astronaut, causing it to fall back and the container to break open on top of it. The remainder of the hazardous contents spilled upon the astronaut, causing it to flail to a stand. It lurched forward slowly before letting out a low, pained groan and falling face-forward onto the littered highway, its space suit started to be consumed by its own radioactivity.

In true mook fashion, Justin took three astronauts down like bowling pins, the first taking down two behind it as it fell back in a mutual take-down, leaving Justin and three astronauts down.

There were indistinct moans all over the landscape now as the rest of the astronauts rose, seemingly undamaged from the kamikaze attack they made against the convoy. Though there were dead soldiers amongst the reckage, none stirred, and more puzzlingly, none were feasted upon by the astronauts.

As Cyndi grew more cognizant of the scene and less troubled by the status of the house, she slipped her rucksack off her shoulders and began rummaging, producing a rifle that from butt to muzzle was as long as Cyndi's height to her shoulder. She also produced a pair of what looked like neon plastic water pistols and shoved them into her front pockets and began to run for one of the more in tact but overturned trucks.

[Kiall]

His foot hit the astronaut hard, his ill concieved dropkick caused the astronaut to fall backwards into two other astronauts who came tumbling down with them. Despite the pain now flaring from his butt from landing on it he was actually quite proud of that dropkick, usually when he tried that he ended up missing the guy altogether but this time to took down three of them! As he shakily stood back he saw that the rest of the astronauts were beginning to rise, outnumbered and out of ideas Justin did what he always did when faced with a problem, he threw things.

Bits of scrap metal, a cushion, a rock, some sand anything he could grab he threw, most just bounced of their suits harmlessly. Justin was getting nervous this might be a problem that throwing things wouldn't solve, he then turned and saw Cyndi running towards an oveturned truck carrying a rifle. Justin ran after her crying "Hey! wait up! slow down! where'd you get the gun? how come I don't have any weapons?!"

[sneakyonfoota]

Cyndi clicked her tongue peevishly. So much for the distraction, she lamented.

She had to find more of the anti-retroplasm to fight back the astronauts. She had wished now that she carried more conventional weaponry within her Nth dimensional rucksack. Though inherently useless as bullets were in this situation, a high enough calibre did stun the disconauts, even if it was only momentarily. And a sheer number of bullets were able to riddle their limbs useless, though that required a certain amount of precision, not to mention a mass of shells.

Hmph, for being a mutate, the boy lacked a certain... resilience she had come to expect. Perhaps the biometric scanner she used on him wasn't calibrated properly. Well, whatever. So long as the disconauts were without a vital 8-track tape player or otherwise deprived of music, they were of little threat beyond standard blugeoning and dismemberment. But, since the young man did not seem particularly adept at hand to hand combat, all she could suggest was:

"Dance. Just dance for them!" she called over her shoulder.

[Kiall]

“Dance whaddaya mean… for them?” Justin didn’t really know what to do with Cyndi’s advice, if he wasn’t the trusting sort he’d of thought Cyndi was trying slow down the astronauts by using him as bait. He wasn’t even a good dancer! But he couldn’t fight them all so if he was going down he might as well go down looking like a fool, it’d be poetic at least. Justin stopped and started doing the robot jerking his arms and legs “Domo arigato Mr. Roboto, dah dah dahhhhh!” “Domo! Domo!” he sang jerking spastically. To his amazement the astronauts began to mimic his dance movements “Oh wow awesome, Thriller style zombie spacemen!”

He tried freestyling it incorporating a bit of the moonwalk, the pelvic thrust, and the rowboat. He also changed to a different song “We can dance if we want to! We can leave the earth behind! Cause spacemen dance and if they don’t dance, then they aren’t any spacemen of uhm…Time!” Sure enough the astronauts mimicked his spastic dance movement and even tried to sing along to his badly butchered song. “Cyndi! You won’t believe this! I’ve controlled them with the power of dance! I am now the Dancing Astronaut Lord…of Dance!”

[sneakyonfoota]

With great difficulty, the girl had dragged a full container of the hazardous material from one of the trucks. Straggling behind her was a wounded AA soldier, himself carrying another container of ooze one-handed with the other clutching at a wound in his side. After she had re-entered Justin's field of view from behind the overturned truck, her eyes registered shock and her arms went limp at her sides, dropping her rucksack onto the spider-webbed tarmac.

"Who told you to sing!?" she screamed through her mask. "You're not supposed to sing!"

In her sudden loss of composure she fumbled with a hose attached to her container, hurriedly attaching it to the strange rifle-like weapon she had been carrying.

The disconaut zombies, without the command and power of song (no matter how poorly performed), seemed to become restless and angry, and began to repeat Justin's lyrics themselves despite being muffled by their helmets. They seemed much more energized now. One of them, emerging from a wreck of a Cadillac held a stereo torn free from the car's dashboard in triumph.

The AA soldier whipped out his service pistol and started putting bullets in the stereo-toting astronaut.

[Kiall]

"what? why can't I sing? you can't have dancing without singing!," he noticed the astronauts were getting restless, "easy my minions calm yourself!" Justin said attempting to calm the horde, one of them grabbed a stereo, but before he could do anything the wounded soldier shot him which caused Justin to scream and duck, mostly because he thought the soldier was aiming at him.

he turned back to see the now slumped astronaut "my performer, nooo!" he ran up to the soldier, "why would you do that? we were going to go on tour! I was gonna be famous!" he then noticed the the container similar to the one he threw, "Oh hey you found that...stuff, that's good right?"

[sneakyonfoota]

The soldier and Cyndi exchanged glances but then both paused when one of the rowdier, undamaged astronauts tore open the suit of the one the soldier had targeted. It then began to meticulously connect wires and shove sloppy entrails into the discarded stereo.

Witnessing that, Cyndi and the soldier began working their weapons at a much faster pace--Cyndi's gloved fingers fiddled with knobs and activated the rifle, which whirred as it heated up. The soldier, with practiced discipline reloaded a fresh magazine into his pistol and continued opening fire, though the perspiration and the grim expression he wore spoke of desperation.

"Make yourself useful and fill these up," grumbled Cyndi, throwing her pair of water pistols at Justin. Screwed into the lid of the soldier's container was a hose and pump like the one attached to Cyndi's weapon. "They are your weapons--treat them well."

The felled astronaut arose with an 8-track tape player sticking out of its chest. It lifted up the visor of its helmet exposing not a face, but a subwoofer. It was flanked by a pair of zombies who tore out lengths of intestine from the back of the first zombie's suit and then tucked that into the necks of their helmets. They raised their visors to show no heads, but loudspeakers.

The stereophonic astronauts posed with arms raised in triumph, and then blasted a track from Foreigner's 1979 album Head Games: "Dirty White Boy."


'Cause I'm a dirty white boy
Yeah, a dirty white boy
A dirty white boy~♫

[Jacogos]

Somewhere within the general vicinity of these going ons, Johan von Krugle started awake, coming erect from his prostrate position on the ground. He blinked looking around. To his left was a rather stylish Mustang (http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-1960-1969/1965-Ford-Mustang-Fastback-Cammer-SA-1600x1200.jpg), rammed into this random tree that stood a good hundred yards from any other foliage. He scratched his head, then looked around again. Laying next to him (this realization causing him to yelp and jump to his feet before he could figure out who it was), was the unconscious form of his assistant, Charles.

Blinking again, Johan studied his surroundings, trying to get a hold of his mind so he could figure out why in the world he was here. Reaching into his standard Evil Scientist Lab Coat of Pure Evil, Johan grabbed the first thing he could. Peering down at the bottle, he read the words 'Far Out Juice'.

... That explained a lot.

Moving over to Charles, Johan prodded the man with his shoe. "Charles." he spoke in his almost stereotypical voice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWBdR4Btxko) (0:16 in the vid). The man stirred, then did almost exactly as Johan had, sitting erect, then jumping up and away in shock when he saw his master.

"Oh... Hello, Master! Didn't recognize you... You have a little something..." He gestured towards his own nose, his voice a little more along the lines of (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52McyHEFoYo)... (2:08 in the vid) Johan rubbed his nose, wiping off a glob of something radioactively green. Studying the goop for a moment, Johan flicked it off like a booger, then stopped.

"... Who the hell is playing that God-awful 70s music?"

[sneakyonfoota]

Don't drive no big black car
Don't like no hollywood movie star
You want me to be true to you
You don't give a damn what I do to you

I'm just a dirty white boy~♫

"Miss Lazarus!" yelled the soldier, panting and wincing against the aural onslaught.

Cyndi herself was having difficulties. Holding the enormous rifle in her two small arms, she tried bending her head into her shoulder to drown out the noise and clamp her hand to her other ear, yet to no avail. They wouldn't be able to last like this if the disconauts decided to crank it to eleven. Heaven help them if they had to endure "Love on the Telephone".


Well, I'm a dirty white boy
Dirty white boy, dirty white boy
Dirty white boy, yeah, dirty white boy
A dirty white boy~♫

The disconauts all danced in rhythm, synchronized thanks to the zom-box that the speaker-headed triplet formed. They then began a dancing, yet purposeful advance upon Justin, Cyndi and the wounded AA soldier.

[Kiall]

It was this time that Justin got his best idea yet, "Ding!" he cried out to no one in particular, moving quickly he grabbed one of the fallen disconaut bodies and headed behnd a nearby truck, a few minutes later Justin wearing a slightly stretched out space suit walked back in a jerking dancey manner, "Dirty white boy! Dirty white boy! follow my lead guys! dirty white boy!"

[sneakyonfoota]

I really ought to be more thankful for their critical quirk, thought Cyndi. The zombie disconauts could only move in dull shuffles like their terran brethren in the absence of music. When fully animated by song they were as spry as they were in life, however they were limited by tempo and their instinct to follow the lead of the most rowdy dancer on the floor.

As the disconauts dance-moved toward the three, Cyndi continued to snipe them with her scientific rifle, ensuring that they would not rise again thanks to the anti-retroplasm. The rifle required a long pause between shots, which added up as the disconauts advanced musically with gestures, struts and hip-thrusts.

Without a squirt gun, the soldier had pillaged what firearms were handy from his fallen comrades, shells scattered at his feet.

Cyndi couldn't rebuke Justin as she was currently occupied with keeping up the only effective means of directly harming the disconauts. She did, however, feel slightly miffed that he wasn't filling up the neon squirt pistols she had tossed to the young man.


I've been in trouble since I don't know when
I'm in trouble now and I now somehow I'll find trouble again
I'm a loner, but I'm never alone
Every night I get one step closer to the danger zone

Cyndi quivered, struck by the next wave of Foreigner. Nevertheless, she maintained her assault.

Though greenly irradiated and undoubtedly dead (again, permanently), the corpse that Justin had dragged away was dressed rather sharply despite his clothing being thirty-odd years out of style and reeking of a Salvation Army thrift store. The unsuited disconaut sported a fluffy affro and a splendidly thick mustache.

The free-dancing disconauts followed Justin's lead unquestioningly, aping his motions and redirecting themselves purposefully toward him. The zom-box triad exchanged faceless looks and shrugs and began to follow as well.

[Jacogos]

Advancing towards the horrible music, an undoubtedly stupid idea in retrospect, von Krugle suddenly began hearing gun shots. Throwing himself quickly to the ground, Charles following suit, he covered his head in the usual this-will-surely-protect-me-from-gunfire! reaction. After he realized no bullets were flying in his direction, he slowly rose and walked a few more yards, around a large mansion that stood almost in the middle of nowhere.

Upon reaching the front of the house, Johan was greeted by a large crash site, as well as the most peculiar site of a group of glowing astronauts dancing to the music, which appeared to be coming from three other astronauts, which weren't really astronauts, but suits with speakers for heads. Furthermore, there was a completely unrelated human dancing along with them, and two other people, one a small girl, shooting at the astronauts.

Scratching his head slightly, Johan turned to Charles, who shrugged, then pointed at the wreckage. Von Krugle followed his gaze and saw the waste that was seeping from the wrecked containers. Walking forward to get a closer look, von Krugle noticed that the gun the girl was carrying downed the astronauts much more efficiently than the gun the solider beside her was.

"What do you make of this, Charles?" Turning to his assistant, the mad scientist blinked. Where'd he go? "Charles?"

The man in question tapped the girl's shoulder, asking politely, "Excuse me. My Master would like to know what is gong on." He kindly pointed to Johan, who facepalmed.

[sneakyonfoota]

It only took the girl the briefest of glances to identify Charles: "minion". Her appraising vision merely glossed over Johan, her mind labelling the man as merely being an "acceptable loss".

Cyndi clicked her tongue irritably. Her repeated use of the rifle made it hot, making each recharge cycle longer with each shot. Hastily resting the rifle atop the mostly depleted container of the anti-retroplasm, she unshouldered her rucksack and produced a pair of somewhat antiquated Super Soaker 50 water guns from the disproportionately small bag.

"Arm yourselves," she said curtly, pushing the two pressurized water blasters into Johan's chest. "Refill using that container next to Major Williams there," she instructed, indicating the wounded officer with the small mound of discarded shell casings and recovered pistols. A yellow 30 gallon container with a conspicuous "biohazard" symbol stood in front of Major Williams.

Without saying anything more, Cyndi took up her rifle again and began shooting with renewed vigor and a gaze that seemed to ignore anything that wasn't in her sights.

[Kiall]

Justin continued dancing , his plan was too blend in with the disconaut horde and escape, however the rest of the group continued shooting at them so they obviously hadn’t gotten the message. It was at this time he noticed they were slowly advancing towards him. Before long he was right in the middle of the horde all of which were mimicking his spastic movements. He had to admit he was getting really into this whole group dancing scene, too into it some would say. He recalled the last school dance he went to and the disastrous results there, apparently when he danced for too long he went into a trance, and when he went into a trance he turned violent.

Halfway through his flashback this happened, the world became a hue of colors and sounds, with fists and feet flying, he would only remember brief flashes later, kicking one of the creatures in the knee, head butting one of the stereos, and one hauntingly visceral moment where he sat on top of some disconaut and began beating his face with a rusty pipe, he didn’t even know where he got a rusty pipe… the car crash maybe? When he finally came to he was knee deep in sea water with a pair of disconaut pants on his head bent over slapping his butt and mooing loudly. He had no idea where he was or why he was doing this but it was really fun so he decided to just roll with it