WHO PUT THIS DAMNED FLOOR HERE?!
WHO: Cari & open
WHAT: Cari falls, quite literally, out of thin air.
WHEN: Midnight, October 16, 2007
WHERE: Starts in a garage, goes to a nondescript hallway in Atlants & progresses from there
RATING: tba.
STATUS: Incomplete
Cari threw the wrench across the garage, shouting in fury as its impact rang through the big space. Caroline Bryant had never met a car she couldn’t fix. Or a plane she couldn’t fly. But this sucker…well, it took the cake. “I HATE Fords!” she muttered under her breath.
Kicking the tire across the way, she went to sit on the hood of the old, beat-up Datsun she’d had sitting for years. She sighed and started to lean back against the car when suddenly, she felt it disappear. She was falling, through empty air. She screamed…it was the first reaction to come into her mind. Especially since cars weren’t supposed to disappear…not right out from underneath you.
The little blonde fell for a good second more before hitting something definitely hard. She landed on her rear end, and let out a loud yelp. OWWW! Who put this damned floor here? she thought, fairly sure the Datsun had been parked on a bed of soft pine needles. This was definitely in her realm of “weird stuff.” The kind of “weird stuff” her cousins investigated, and she’d found herself smack dab in the middle of.
Looking around and seeing no one initially Cari got up to assess the damage. Kay, that hurts, she thought. Stupid people putting a floor where a car should be.
Cari crossed her arms over her chest, surveying the hallway. “What is this, the frickin’ Twilight Zone or something?” she muttered.
It was getting easier to deal with Adam Pierson when she wasn’t inside the medical department. It turned out he was sympathetic to the whole idea of feeling like some lab specimine, and had discontinued his campeign to see how she was different from her human relatives. Even though he was still fascinated by the strange cells filled with energy in her blood.
It was MUCH easier when the grapevine filtered down that he was doing swordwork with Sarah Vida and teaching some new kid the basics. Now swordfighting was something she could appriciate. She had approached him about it with no little trepidation, considering how she always had a snarky comment ready for him before. But he had agreed. And he was good. Damn good. Too good for it being a hobby. Especially when she pressed. He beat her nine times out of ten, and she had a feeling that he held himself back every once in a while to allow her to score and throw off a perfect record.
That was how the two of them happened to be walking together in loose fitting excercise clothing and carrying their swords in gym bags when they came across the girl looking lost and confused.
“Are you lost?” Oona asked carefully. “Happened to me quite a bit when I first got here. They need signs, I swear.”
“Oh yes, something like ‘this was to engineering, please blow us up.’” Adam drawled.
Oona rolled her eyes. “Anyway, where are you headed?” She gestured to the confused looking girl. “I’m sure we can give you some directions.”
Cari thought fast, searching for someone she could, feasibly, be looking for. “I’m looking for my cousin but I can’t seem to find him,” she lied. “I thought he was here, but…I guess not.”
Easy enough cover, she figured. Dean Winchester wasn’t likely to be in a place like this. Wasn’t his style…wasn’t Cari’s either. Now that she wasn’t thinking so fast, she got a good look at the woman. An albino…Cari figured she’d remember the face.
“He’s about this tall…” She had to stand on her tiptoes to indicate Dean’s six feet and one inch. “He’s got really dirty blonde hair and big green eyes. And he’s got a mouse nose.” For emphasis, she wrinkled her own. She could play along with this, she decided. For a while. And then she’d get caught and probably get in a lot of trouble.
“Does he have a name?” Oona asked. “Not that I know even a quarter of the people here, but it’d be easier to locate him if we knew exactly who to look for.”
Oona offered a smile. “I’m Oona by the way. No doubt you’ve at least seen Dr. Pierson in medical.” She indicated Adam with a nod of her head in his direction.
“Dean Winchester,” Cari answered automiatcally.
She gave Adam a look as if she might have remembered seeing him, then shook his head. “Nope, sorry. Must have missed him. I’m Cari Bryant…you might have heard my cousin refer to me and you might not have. He’s kind of pissed at me about a comment I made regarding his car.”
She gave her a warm smile, pretending she wasn’t horribly confused about her current location.
“Dean?” Adam was suprised a bit. “He lives in the sector with the other paranormal experts doesn’t he?”
Oona nodded and rattled off the designation of his quarters. That included tower number, floor number and room number.
“He’s often in the gym or the firing range.” Adam offered.
“Wasn’t he on your last offworld team?” Oona asked Adam.
“Yes. He preformed admirably. We wouldn’t have gotten out with out him and Marianne.” Adam decided that Sheppard’s ignoring the Hunter’s warning didn’t count, as they were all unconscious and dreaming at the time.
This was like stealing money from a rude, incompetent customer. Easy as hell. Cari didn’t show any of her confusion about a so-called “offworld team,” nodding at the directions with a Hunter’s face.
“I’m sorry, I’m really easily lost in this place…” Probably not a lie. “Could one of you guys at least point me in that direction?”
“You just came in with the Daedalus, this morning, didn’t you? What department are you working in?” Oona tilted her head, fascinated.
The woman smelled of oil and metal, as well as fresh air and a tinge of sweat.
“Mechanical, I bet. Still got a bit of grease…” Adam spoke from beside her, indicating a spot alongside Cari’s nose.
Oona jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “There’s a transport chamber five lefts down, then third right.”
“Yeah.” Sure, she can go with that. Cari smiled again, somewhat more tentatively. “I’m a technician and a pilot,” she answered, to her own surprise. She wasn’t expecting to need a department.
She wasn’t expecting to be here.
“Yes, I’m very mechanical.” She gave him a toothy grin, nodding at Oona’s directions. “And then where do I go from there?” she asked.
“Just get in the transport room. There’s a map on the wall. Speak aloud the address Oona gave you. It’ll take you to the proper tower and floor. But the room number you’ll have to find yourself.” Adam explained.
Oona was bestowing a very pretty and beautific smile on the girl.
“That long in space, and this assignment messes with many heads. Just try to take the time to calm down and soak it all in the first few days. Doctor’s orders.” He didn’t smile at that. It was pretty much expected and got lame after the first two hundred times.
“Thanks,” she said, determined not to get lost. After all, she followed directions pretty well. Now watch, Cari will undoubtedly get lost.
“It’s pretty damned hard to mess with my head,” she answered, smirking. “Dean’s my cousin.”
Speak aloud the address, see her cousin, and kick his ass, because she was sure this was all his fault. Stupid Winchesters, she thought.
The moment Cari was out of sight, Adam pulled out his com.
“Security to C46. Deactivate Tranport rooms. We have a visitor. Unarmed, female, blonde. She’s wearing blue jean coveralls, with grease on them.”
“What was your clues?” Oona looked at him with a arched brow.
“The grease, first off. There’s very little here that requires it. I also didn’t see her come off the Daedalus. She never came in for any of the physicals either. She mentioned pilot. There are only twenty six people here with the ATA gene. I know them all on sight. She could have been talking about back home, but…She did know Dean’s name, though. You?”
“The grease. And I smelled grass. Only place we have that is the top level atrium with the sky lights and floor to ceiling windows. And it isn’t completed, so the only people with access right now are Botany and maintenance. Plus, she was looking a bit more fearful than confused. At being caught, maybe. But I suspect she’s one of those who just fell through. Dr. McKay and his people really have to work on finding out why that’s happening.” Oona continued walking towards the gym.
“Ahh, beauty, an affinity for bladed weapons, and now brains as well. I’d be attracted if I weren’t afraid of a knife in my back.” Adam sighed, making it sound whistful.
“It’s be a knife to your front. I don’t stab in the back. I’m insulted.” She shot back as they both entered the gym.
Let security handle the little girl lost.
Dean was on his way from the gym to the transport room. He might have made it all the way from the gym to the transport room if he hadn’t seen the blonde.
The blonde who looked really…familiar.
Dean tilted his head to the side, watching her move, and then it hit him. Cari… Dean stepped back as if someone had slapped him. This was not good.
But then again, she was family, and so, by nature of the wof “family,” Dean felt pretty much responsible for making sure she was at least okay.
“Didn’t know you were here,” he commented lightly, wearing a traditional Dean smirk, even though he felt like he’d been punched in the stomach by someone twice his size. “What is this strange fascination with little blonde girls following me everywhere?”
Referring, of course, to Jo, his recent adoption of Sarah Vida, and now Cari.
A security team closed off all three branches of the hall. Two men on each team. Their weapons out, but not yet aimed. The call stated unarmed. And with those shorts, the only place she’d be hiding weapons would be the tool belt.
“Halt. You have been identified as unauthorized personnel. Very slowly undo the tool belt and drop it to the floor. The Sargent in charge didn’t quite bark, but it was clearly an order.
Even if five other guys with guns were not backing him up.
Cari shot a look at Dean, then put her arms over her chest. “Ha. Ha. You’re very funny, you know.”
She put her weight on her back foot, adopting a defiant position. “I’ve been identified as Air-for-brains Winchester’s cousin. In case ya didn’t know.”
She really doubted the security team would be able to argue with that. After all, Dean was the best hunter in the business, the best fighter she knew…and…
“Hey Dean?” She blinked, totally forgetting the guards. “Where’s Cousin Sammy?”
The guards did not lower their weapons.
“This is no joke, ma’am. You are unauthorized personnel. You’ll be taken to security until such time as Dr. Wier and Colnol Sheppard can question you.”
Intruders had been known to impersonate people others knew before. The Replicators being the most dangerous.
“You’re serious?” She blinked, returning her gaze to the guards. “You’re dead serious.”
Cari had her knife in her hand before another word was exchanged, just sitting there. She watched the others with a now-dangerous gleam in her eye. “Let me explain something to you. I’m not a Demon, a Skin Walker, or anything else you seem to think I am. I’m Caroline Bryant…and if you intend to accuse me of being otherwise, I’ll kill every last one of you. Every last one of you…everyone in this city. Not a life will be spared.”
Her eyes flicked to Dean for an infitesimal second, then back to the guards. “Not a life except of those belonging to my family. Not a life but Dean’s will be spared.”
Well ain’t this interesting, Faith thought. Her instructors had told her most on-world security calls would be minor things, false alarms, the occasional angry drunk or lost ‘visitor’. Much worse then that tended to need something bigger then her current training called for yet as a first call, this was down right exciting. Hours from now when this was all done with, she would be dressed down for breaking protocol but Faith was impulsive and no amount of training would change that. She stepped out of formation and lowered her weapon. “Tough talk for such a little girl. Why don’t you put your little knife away and come with us? I promise we don’t bite.”
“Little’s got nothin’ to do with it,” Cari said. “I’m a Hunter…you’d do well to know that, girlie.”
She still held her knife at the ready; she wasn’t going to surrender that easily. “This isn’t the only knife I’ve got.”
Actually, sort of a bluff…all the rest of her knives were back home. In her Datsun. Moron Winchester cousin, she thought. I’m going to kill him.
“Little’s got nothin’ to do with it,”
“See I think it does,” she took another step forward while making sure she was still well out of reach of the blonde. “That thing would break before you got through 2 or 3 of these guys much less everyone here. Have you seen the size of their necks?”
Faith then lifted her weapon a fraction of an inch and smiled. “Also you never take a knife to a gun fight.” She looked at Dean. “You know her?”
“Who said I was gonna go for their necks?” she said, shifting her weight. “Who said I’d even need the knife? Who said I wouldn’t kill one guy, grab his gun and kill the rest?”
She glanced over at Dean with a smirk. “Knives go to gun fights all the time if you’re a part of the Winchester family. And sure he knows me; I’m his pain in the ass cousin!”