The Great Outdoors, Part 2
by nexxus 3 kline
Nexx left Phoe and Shad to inspect the rooms on their
own, opting to head straight for a bedroom and a shower. She
walked down the hall and took the last door on the left, out of
habit more than anything, all the rooms were the same anyway.
Tossing her pack on the bed, she pressed the light switch before
tossing herself on the bed as well. "This whole thing is turning
into a disaster," she commented to the room. "I hope tomorrow
turns out a little better."
With a sigh, she sat up and took off her boots, then
dumped the entire contents of her pack onto the bed, sorting
things into separate piles as she searched for her hairbrush.
Flying on a dragon was great except for the tangled hair.
After an hour in the bath, 20 minutes of hair brushing
and 5 looking for her nail file Nexx's thoughts turned to food,
or lack of having eaten any all day, and made her way out into
the kitchen to see what was available. "Nothing..." she
commented, closing the door. "I *know* I asked for a stocked
kitchen when we checked in, so where the heck is all the..." her
train of thought was interrupted by the sudden mental image of a
very large dragon. A very large, very _hungry_ dragon. "SHAD!!!"
Did you eat everything?" she shouted in the general direction of
the livingroom "Yes" came the shouted reply. Nex sighed, shook
her head and walked over to a panel on the wall.
Ten minutes later a waiter knocked on the door and
quietly let himself in to restock. Nexx grabbed her specially
ordered Chinese take-out from off the waiters cart and made for
the balcony where she found a spot that provided a good view of
the mountains. This where she stayed; leaning against the ledge,
take-out carton in one hand, chopsticks in the other, she watched
the mountains and wondered about Kat and the missing Rescue team
members. She'd been staring into space for a full three minutes
before she heard the sniffing noise behind her. She felt
someone... some*thing* behind her, the hair stood up on the back
of her neck, "You gonna eat that?" implored Shad from behind her.
Startled, Nexx jumped, losing the take-out carton over the edge.
She leaned forward to watch it fall, Shad rushing forward to see
as well.
Tarlen was feeling confident in his new suit, he just
knew that he'd impress everyone at the club. Looking down at his
new shoes, he noticed his shoe was untied. He quickly stepped
closer to the building, so as not to be in the other pedestrians'
way and bent down to tie it. He wiped a small smudge of dirt off
the left toe before moving to stand up when suddenly, *splat* He
found himself covered in soy sauce.
"Oops." Shad commented in a small voice. Nexx snickered
madly, "Guess we'll have to order some more." and headed inside
to see if Phoe wanted anything and to place the order.
*Crash*
Nexx was awakened by a vase crashing into a million
pieces, it seems they had failed to close the doors to the
balcony and a sudden breeze had caused the curtains to blow out,
knocking it off it's pedestal. She noted the time and winced, it
was after 3 pm already and the others were still asleep. Not
wanting to wake them just yet, she quickly got dressed, grabbed
her backpack and went down to the lobby to see if the EDT logs
they were promised had arrived yet.
They had. Impatient, she pulled her laptop out of her
backpack, powered up and slid the data clip in. She spotted 6
landings; one in Marraketh, two just outside Chi-Lin, one in the
mountains and two inside Chi-Lin limits, one of which was marked
a a 'presumed teleport'. "Must have been when Shad showed up."
she commented to herself. On closer inspection, the Marraketh
landing was undoubtedly VR's, as was one of the landings just
outside Chi-Lin, the second one was a large group. The second
Chi-Lin teleporter was an approved military entrance, so there
was no way it could have been the missing VR personnel. The
mountain landing showed only two people. It had to be two of the
missing VR people, it was at the same time and of the same
signature as the Marraketh landing, but which two. And what
happened to the third person. Where could they have landed? Nexx
cursed under her breath and shoved the laptop back into her pack.
"I'd better go wake Shad and Phoe up. We've got to locate those
two and find out what happened to the third." she sighed and
headed for the lift, teleporting to the room as soon as the doors
closed.
"Good, you're awake." she said, teleporting in right
behind Shad. He turned around, "Nexx? I thought everyone was
still asleep. You got the logs?" he asked.
"Yeah." Nexx replied, sitting in the nearest chair and
pulling out her laptop. She tapped a few keys before the data
appeared mid-air in the center of the room. "This is what was
recovered from their logs. As you can see, there were only 6
landings yesterday." she tapped a few keys and the projection
zoomed in on the Marraketh landing. "This was VR's landing." she
narrated and typed at the same time. "And this was when we came
to Chi-Lin. This one, I'm assuming is where you broke through,
Shad." she continued. "And this, right here, it has the same
signature as the Marraketh landing, this has *has* to be VR..."
she paused.
"But..." Shad interjected, detecting more to the story.
"But," Nexx began.
"There were only two people in that teleport." Phoenix
finished, having woken up and heard the noise.
"Yeah, which means..." nexx began again.
"Someone didn't make it?" Shad finished.
"Yeah, exactly." Nexx frowned. "Unfortunately, we have no
way of knowing who is still missing. The good news is, we at
least have a good idea where we can start looking for them."
"Where exactly was their landing location?" Phoe queried.
"Can you pinpoint those coordinates on a map?"
"Yeah, hold on a second." Nexx closed down the log and
pulled up a map of the mountains. A couple of keystrokes later a
blue dot appeared where the two VR members were recorded as
having landed. "Right there," she paused. "And if I'm not
mistaken, they should have been able to see Chi-Lin from there,
if we're lucky they've headed this way. It'd be nearly impossible
to see them down there from the air, too many trees."
"How far is that from town?" Phoenix asked.
"Well, it's about 3/4 of a day on foot. If they started
walking towards Chi-Lin right after they landed, they would be
here by now." Nexx answered.
"Ok, and if they didn't head straight for town?" Phoenix
looked around for a clock.
"It's late afternoon." Shad interjected. "They'd be here
by now."
"Yeah," Nexx began. It suddenly occurred to her that they
may not have any way to get into the city. "We should check at the
gate, I'm sure they'd head for the city first. Just in case
they're here."
20 minutes later they were on the street, headed for the
gate.
TBC in "Roughing It"