Jailbreak, Part II: Electric Boogaloo [Daglobster]

[DragonSong]

Annabelle's first attempt at escape had not gone well.

Honestly she couldn't even remember much of what had happened after the alarm system she'd been suppressing suddenly came back online--she'd badly misjudged just how much of her power she could use with the stupid TRIM chip embedded in her temple--and within thirty seconds she'd been tased unconscious and dragged back to her "dormitory".

At least, she assumed that was what had happened. Her memories of the first few days after that were a blur of white coats, bright lights, and a wider variety of pain than she'd ever really thought possible.

The next thing she could really remember was waking up in her hospital cot, one wrist cuffed to the bed, with one of the doctors standing over her, explaining that they had updated her chip. They had control now; without approval from a computerized control unit, Annabelle had no access to her powers at all.

It felt like losing a limb. She could feel the phantom tingles of electricity sometimes at the tips of her fingers or sparking behind her eyes, but the moment she reached for it, the feeling vanished.

In all of the five years since she'd been found and brought to TRIM, she thought that might be the most effective torture they'd come up with. It had been nearly two months of this, and even after enduring dozens of previous tests and experiments, she thought much longer of this might actually kill her.

Fight...

Annabelle sat up in bed, looking around the darkness of her tiny cell. That--that was a voice. A voice she didn't recognize. Where...?

Fight it, my child.

Her eyes widened as she realized the voice was inside her head. "Oh gods." She looked around, though now she knew it was useless. "What--what's going on?"

You must fight. It was a whisper, fuzzy and barely audible, almost like static. Cannot...much longer. Go now. Go while...doors are down.

Annabelle got the distinct feeling that there was more to the message than she was hearing, her brow furrowing in confusion as she tried to figure out exactly what the voice was trying to tell her. Perhaps she should have been more worried about anonymous voices in her head, but honestly? At this point, it barely even phased her.

And the voice wasn't completely unknown, somehow. Almost like a memory of a dream, something she couldn't quite grasp.

But she didn't have time--or honestly really the inclination--to prioritize that train of thought. "Go while the doors are down", what did that mean?

As if in answer to her thoughts, she saw the red glow of her door lock flicker, then blink to green, and heard the unmistakable snick of the automated lock turning open.

She was frozen on the bed, wide eyed and staring, for a long, elastic moment. Then she burst into movement, launching herself off the bed and racing for the door, barely pausing a moment once she'd cracked it open to check the hall before she darted out and began running for the far door, bare feet hardly making a sound against the cool tile.

She reached the door, fingers closing around the handle, and the harsh blare of an alarm suddenly ripped through the hall. She froze, terrified, memories of her last attempt racing through her mind--but it wasn't a door alarm, it was an emergency alert. Someone must have realized the door system was offline.

Go while the doors are down.

Alright. She could do this.


Either by miracle or by design, the path from Wing Alpha down to the southwest docking point was almost entirely clear of doctors and technicians. Annabelle had memorized the guards' routes from her last escape attempt and there should have been more people down here, but the emergency protocols had called them all to an upper level.

All but the two standing at the main door. Annabelle stopped dead once she caught sight of them, then ducked back around the corner and poked her head around again, more cautiously this time. Okay, there were only two of them, and they were probably distracted by the alarms. If she took them by surprise...

A sharp pain jolted through her head and she had to bite down on a cry, clenching her eyes shut as electricity surged through her blood--

Her eyes snapped open. Electricity.

She could feel her magic again.

Not knowing how long this would last, spurred onward by a surge of wild, giddy relief and joy, Annabelle dashed out into the hall and went barreling right for the guards, sparks jumping from her fingertips as she raised her hands and focused the energy down her arms and gather in her palms. If she could just toss a ball of electricity at them, it would be enough of a distraction for her to rush through, grab the first ship she saw and put this place far behind her.

The magic pulsed through her blood, surging into her hands, ready to be released. The guards were going for their weapons, but she was faster, throwing her power forward with a shoot as she charged directly toward the door between them.

Something happened. Something sharp and hot and dangerous that made both the chip in her temple and the core of sparks at the center of her magic protest painfully. The electricity sprang from her hands, hotter and fiercer than she'd intended, singeing the edges of her hospital-regulation scrubs, but she couldn't pull it back, could only watch in horror as the guards jerked and spasmed, then went limp, collapsing to the ground.

It didn't look they were breathing.

Annabelle felt the floor slide sideways beneath her feet, her stomach twisting sickeningly. Her steps slowed, vision pinpointing to the uniformed figures on the floor. Oh no. Oh no no no no no--

Focus! Another jolt of pain, this one actually drawing a cry from her lips. Run, now! I cannot maintain...fading.. will not be able to help you again.

"I'm sorry," Annabelle whispered as she ran through the door into the docking port, vision blurred with the start of tears. "I'm so sorry."


Official TRIM ships were all on the same wireless locking system, which was also down along with most of the doors in the facility. Annabelle ran for the first single person craft she saw, a generic security vehicle, and managed to both jump start the ship and slip her consciousness into the navigation system just long enough to input random coordinates before she felt her power begin to fade again.

A soft sob caught in her throat at the loss, but she tried to swallow it down, curving the ship toward the slowly opening docking door into open space. She punched forward, accelerating to max speed as quick as she could.

A ragged, hysterical laugh joined the muffled sob in her throat and she sank back in her seat. She had no idea where she was going, what it had cost, but she was out.


By the time the emergency at TRIM was under control and the patients counted, it had been nearly six hours since Annabelle's escape. Somehow, she was the only subject who had managed to utilize the chaos effectively, though there were plenty of other injuries from patients and subjects attacking the staff. Enough that the core staff couldn't mobilize quick enough to send someone after her.

"Call in one of asset recovery operatives," Annabelle's lead doctor, a psychic called Garth Farrow, ordered his assistant as they watched the security video of the young woman attacking the two guards. "One of our best--someone who isn't scared of a little lightning."

[Daglobster]

Saendyr shot up in bed as his communicator started beeping loudly and flashing. He never wanted to miss a call from his employer, of course, so his reward for wanting to be quick to pick up the phone was a 3:46 AM call from Mr. Trim.

Excellent.

The window blinds were open halfway and the lights from passing hovercars filtered past occasionally as he reached dumbly out beside his bed. His apartment wasn't huge but for a flat in Tynova it was pretty comfortable. Three rooms and one bath, trash incineration included.

He sat up in bed and held the communicator up, the blue light illuminating his purple skin. The call was from ARC Dispatch.

"Talk to me."

"You have been activated. Report in to Dr. Farrow at TRIM immediately, and come ready to work."


One of the benefits of working for a shady research laboratory was that the commute was always fast. One short transit ride to the Thanatos Inc. headquarters in Tynova and Saendyr was already halfway there. Of course, the Thanatos Inc. building frequently dispatched shuttles full of employees and technicians to their orbital assets, but a couple of those went a little farther than that, and damn fast to boot.

He was through the lobby and heading up, passing through a security zone afterwards and through a clearance zone after that. The security depot. He found his locker, armored himself up, and picked up his weapons from the quartermaster. The dispatch had mentioned that the doctor had specifically mentioned "lightning" so he made sure to pick up an energy harness restraint and an extra drum magazine of rubber bullets.

Once he had everything, he hopped on one of the shuttles, alongside some reinforcements for the several injured guards, and they took off and sped up into the atmosphere.


It was around two hours total after he was called in that the shuttle was landing inside one of TRIM's sealed hangars. Saendyr stepped down, ready for duty and also carrying a duffel bag with spare clothes in case he had to stay on the move.

He looked about as he stepped down into the hangar, and if nobody was waiting for him then he would make his way over to one of the guards and ask to be taken to Dr. Farrow.

[DragonSong]

Farrow’s assistant was a squirrelly little man with a sharp jaw and weak chin, tapping one foot anxiously as he waited for their operative to arrive.

Seandyr was certainly a distinctive character, and the assistant had no trouble spotting him and quickly making his way over to give a short, clipped, “The Doctor is waiting to see you,” before turning on his heel and leading the agent down a series of halls to Farrow’s office.

The moment he knocked in the door it slid open with a soft whoosh if air, revealing Dr. Farrow hunched over a datapad in his desk, frowning as he re-watched the footage of the incident yet again.

He barely acknowledged Seandyr, and ignored the assistant entirely. “Ah, you’re here. Good. How much did Dispatch brief you on?”

[Daglobster]

Indeed, Saendyr literally stood out from the others in the hangar, a quality which he had his inhuman legs to thank for. He walked on those slender, three-toed feet of his rather gracefully, picking his way across the hangar before Farrow’s assistant intercepted him.

Sendyr looked down at the assistant, one of the many Suits and Labcoats that made this place their permanent workplace. He was a little disappointed he didn’t make it to TRIM’s weapon lockup (half his kit was in there!) but he supposed he’d just have to go afterwards.

He didn’t waste any breath talking to the Labcoat guiding him through, and when they arrived to Dr. Farrow’s office Saendyr gave the assistant a curt nod before stepping in, removing his helmet as he did so. At the doctor’s question, he chuckled and tucked his helmet under his arm.

“Hello, Dr. Farrow. Told me a decent bit. Brought my rubber gloves and everything,” he said as he walked up. He was already heavier than the average human and the military spec body armor he wore certainly added some weight of its own. His footfalls were heavy and he had a calculated, precise manner of walking.

He bent a bit to peer down at the datapad, wincing when he saw the looped footage of Annabelle streaking around the corner and cooking those two guards in their armor. His stomach tightened a bit when he saw the escapee was a human test subject, quite unlike the rogue operatives and lab monstrosities that he was used to.

Still, as he watched the footage, Saendyr could understand why they’d called him, and none of their usual manhunters.

“How long ago?” Saendyr started, and then straightened up to regard Dr. Farrow. Time was of the essence and every moment meant a bigger head start for Annabelle.

“And how did this even happen, anyhow? I’ve got a report to write after this, you know.”

[DragonSong]

Dr. Farrow watched the bounty hunter's face when his attention focused on the video--because dress it up however you like, as far as the good doctor was concerned, their Recovery Operatives were little better than bounty hunters. Just bounty hunters with exclusive contracts.

"Mm." Farrow pursed his lips and steepled his fingers just in front of his face. "The answers to those two questions are connected, conveniently enough. It's been nine hours and twenty three minutes since the security failure that allowed Ms. McAlistair here to make her escape. It's been almost nine hours exactly since we lost contact with her inhibitor chip." His fingers flew over the datapad, drawing up the readouts from Annabelle's chip, which did indeed cut out eight hours and fifty-seven minutes ago. Farrow tapped a spike in the readout for her magic that flared just before the escape itself. "See that? That shouldn't be possible. We've spent the better part of decades of study here making sure that that is not possible."

Frowning, Dr. Farrow turned the pad so he could bring up a new screen, muttering under his breath, "Of course, technically, the door failure shouldn't have been possible either. We're still working out how that happened, exactly. Some sort of outside interference that, again, shouldn't be possible." he glanced up at Saendyr and added, almost as an afterthought, "If you can manage to get any information out of her, be sure to get it to us as quickly as possible."

He turned the datapad back around, showing a tracking screen. Like the rest of the readouts from Annabelle's chip, the tracker cut out just about nine hours ago, but the general trajectory seemed to be heading for Edanith.

"We need her back, and we need her now." Farrow lifted his eyes, expression stony. "I'm giving you access to all recent and current information from her chip, such as it is. If it comes back online, you'll be able to track her easily. Additionally, I'm giving you access to roughly thirty-six percent of the video documentation of Ms. McAlistair's...treatment. Perhaps more knowledge of her abilities and what we have thus far tested with her will allow you to...better apprehend her."

He paused, lips a thin line, then added, "Do try not to get yourself killed by this one. The amnesia makes her a surprisingly valuable test subject."

Edanith

Annabelle woke up slowly, in pain and confused. It took longer than it really should have for her to realize she was in a small space shuttle, not her dorm back at TRIM. It took even longer after that for her to remember exactly how she'd gotten here--the doors failing, her mad dash through the facility, killing those two guards, stealing a ship...

And crashing a ship, apparently. Or just about.

The red, dry earth of Edanith was encrusted all over her viewing panel, and a closer look revealed that she seemed to have somehow managed to plow the ship into the surface at just the right angle and just the right speed to avoid completely obliterating the vehicle. Even more miraculously, as far as she could tell, she had only a handful of scrapes and bruises from the ordeal--probably a twisted ankle, it was sort of hard to tell.

All in all though, not bad.

The voice in her head was gone too. She thought maybe she should be upset about that--whoever the owner of the voice was had essentially saved her after all--but honestly she was just relieved. Savior or not, whoever--whatever--that voice was hadn't given a single damn when she killed the guards. And it hadn't been shy about hurting her to get her to do what it wanted either.

Groaning, Annabelle forced herself to the shuttle door and smacked the release button, all but tumbling out onto the sandy earth. A quick glance around told her that she was in a long rut that ended in a sort of crater around the small ship, and beyond that...

Nothing. Just red earth and wide sky.

"Well." Annabelle glanced down at herself, then back to the shuttle, then down again. She had nothing. No supplies, no real clothes besides her hospital-issued scrubs, not even a pair of shoes.

She also had no choice.

"Forward then," she murmured to herself, climbing slowly out of the small crater and setting out into the barren Edanith frontier.

[Daglobster]

The doctor's explanation made Saendyr cross his arms, although on the inside he was smiling like a jackal. He wouldn't be working for this charnel house if the pay wasn't good enough to keep his entire family afloat, and while he knew that they did bad things to people here it was never his direct problem.

Until now, of course, and he had to go subdue a poor girl and bring her back here. Would he stay up and think about it? Probably. But the 50,000 credits per contract makes it a hell of a lot comfier and hey, maybe he could even get some hazard pay for this one.

But, all that negativity aside, his report had the power to make this doctor's life a living hell, since it'd be going straight to TRIM's Head of Security (as did all containment reports, in-house or otherwise) and multiple extremely compromising security breaches did not sit well on that particular piece of paper.

"Believe you me, that info's going to good use," Sendyr said, even as he laid his commlink on top of the good Doctor's datapad so the file transfer could begin.

"And allegedly impossible circumstances notwithstandin', it sounds to me like you've got to either change all your security pathways and access codes or find the man on the inside that opened it all up," he said, taking a couple of long, thudding strides across the room.

"'Cause you know as well as I do that after what happened four months ago, HoS is going to be looking for somebody to roll over for this. Just make sure it ain't you, Doc."

With a snap of his fingers and a parting smile, he put his helmet back on, grabbed his commlink, and stepped back out, speaking as he went.

"And don't you worry, you'll have every hair on her pretty head here soon enough Just make sure you can keep her in one place by the time I get back," he said, and didn't wait around for a response.

Next stop was TRIM's lockup for specialized weapons, and he made friendly talk with the quartermaster as he retrieved some more specialized re-containment items. Rubber bullets and titanium handcuffs were good and all but TRIM carried the good stuff.

Shoulder-mounted net launcher, wired to a laser sight on the helmet? Check. Eyedrones and pellet-sized sleep gas grenades? Check and check. Just as he was about to leave, the quartermaster got his attention and handed him a thick bracer for his right arm. Experimental new technology designed to attract magic to itself and protect the wearer, all outbound containment operatives for the next two months were required to carry one for field testing.

Excellent. unproven technology strapped right to his arm, what could go wrong? Besides, he didn't have the heart to tell the quartermaster that it was a little redundant to give one to him. Then again, lightning you aren't hit with is leagues above the alternative, so he couldn't quite decline it.

After all that debacle, he was on a transport shuttle headed to Edanith. The drop zone was nearby the hijacked security vessel she'd taken, so he had some time to kick back in the belly of the shuttle and set his commlink to project inside his helmet visor. With a bit of trepidation, he started the playback and began to watch Annabelle's testing logs...

[Do you want to describe what's in the logs as he makes his way to Edanith?]

[DragonSong]

[Yeah, I can do that! Annabelle will just sorta be wandering around anyway lol]


"What is your name?"

"...Annabelle."

"Last name?"

"M-McAlistair."

"You know this."

"I...yes?"

"How?"

The young woman in the video frowned slightly at the lab-coated man watching her from across a desk, fingers tapping diligently at his datapad with every answer she gave--a slightly younger Doctor Farrow.

Annabelle herself was clearly younger, barely more than a teenager, dressed in a simple white hospital nightgown with her hands shackled to the chair in which she sat. Unlike the footage of her recent escape, in this video her hair fell just passed her shoulders, and there was no inhibitor chip implanted in her temple.

"I just...do," Annabelle murmured in response to the doctor's question.

"But you don't remember anything else? Who you are, where you came from? How to came to be found in our northwest storage compartment?" The doctor's eyes narrowed. "How you nearly killed three men, and put one in a coma?"

Annabelle winced and shook her head. It was painfully clear that she was scared, and confused, and wracked with guilt. Every emotion was worn plain on her face, carried in each line of her body.

"I--I don't know. Really, I don't. I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone, I promise! I didn't, I--"

"Alright, enough." The doctor raised one hand, pressing a buzzer with one finger of the other. "Security is on their way. They'll escort you to your new room." He smiled, cold and cruel. "Welcome to TRIM, Ms. McAlistair."


The next clip cut in what was clearly halfway through a video. Annabelle was once more strapped into a chair, slumped forward, head hanging low toward her chest. Her shoulders heaved with heavy, painful breaths, and her hair--shorter now, like it was in the escape footage--hung lank around her face, hiding most of it from view of the camera.

Doctor Farrow and two other scientist were speaking in low voices just behind her chair, scribbling notes and occasionally bouncing theories off one another.

"If we partially released the inhibitor--"

"No, too risky. We've seen what she does on accident, can you imagine if she turned on us?"

"True enough. But we can't get an accurate measurement with her powers half-hobbled like this."

"Perhaps a more...invasive study? Looking directly into her mind?"

Annabelle jolted, her head snapping up, revealing the long, fresh burn mark that spread over the left side of her neck and shoulder. She shook her head, blue eyes wide and frantic, and her mouth opened, throat convulsing as she clearly tried to speak.

All she managed was to cough up a mouthful of blood, slumping back into the chair, evidently unable to keep her eyes open.

"Hmm...perhaps. The psychologist? Maybe a few weekly sessions...?"

"Worth keeping in mind. For now, let's run the test again. Live wires in three, two--"

The video cut out with a sharp, staticky crackle that sounded suspiciously like a scream of pain.

After all, if their recovery operatives didn't see an abuse of human rights, they really had no evidence to report.


The third clip was entirely audio.

A woman's nervous laugh. "I didn't really think I needed a therapist, but...whatever the doctor says, right?"

"We can just talk.  How are you?  Did you sleep well?" A male voice, the psychologist.

"Yeah, I slept...fine." Mumbled, wary. "Weird dreams, but I always have those. I sleep through the night though--"

...

 "Dreams, you mentioned those.  What kind of them do you have? What about them makes them weird?"

"Well...you know serial dreams? They're kinda like those, only it's always this same person. A woman, and she says she's my mother..."

"Mother?" The therapist sounded curious.

"She says I'm special. She says that...all her children are special."

The conversation continued a few more minutes, the psychologist asking just why Annabelle was special while the young mage was clearly unable to answer. Then he suggested looking directly into her mind.

"I'd say it's painless. But I'd be lying."

"How...not painless?"

A stretch of silence. Then:

"Your mother...strange. Feels as if...not alone."

The audio was suddenly fuzzy and corrupted--the file had clearly been edited on short notice. Annabelle's voice came again, high and scared, but her words were too garbled to make out.

Then a scream, a clatter, a shout of pain, the doctor shouting for the"subject" to be removed immediately.

And the feed cut out.


A few other clips and snippets of video were included, mostly just audio notes from Doctor Farrow, documenting the "progress" Annabelle was making--mainly, how far up they kept ramping her inhibitor chip, until she was essentially as chained to the thing as any Edanith mage; perhaps more, for she had no mordecai to help her channel her power.

"She talks in her sleep," one of the last clips noted, almost bored. "Screams, sometimes. Always about this mother of hers. She claims not to remember when she wakes... She's probably lying."

[Daglobster]

Saendyr had seen quite a few things during his military days. Heartwrenching things that could break someone down into their constituent parts, really reveal what somebody was made of on the inside. Watching Annabelle's test footage was something else. It wasn't videos of people prodding some new beast while a bored scientist read off its characteristics and weaknesses or the final recordings of some rogue scientist that he was tracking down.

Dr. Farrow had instead opted to give Saendyr what seemed to be his own heavily redacted torture tapes, a veritable chronicle of human suffering that all started with that cruel, sick smile in the first clip.

He closed his eyes and rest his head back, still listening to the audio in his helmet even as the shuttle bumped and jumped as it cleaved through Edanith's atmoshpere.

There was a lot about Annabelle McAlistair's story that seemed odd to him, from how she allegedly just appeared at TRIM, confused and ready to be contained, all the way to the repeated references of a "mother."

He'd seen enough psychics and mages in his time to know that they were an abstract, sometimes loopy lot, but something about this girl struck him as different. She was dangerous, even if she didn't want to be, of that there was no doubt. TRIM at least made an effort to keep her alive but here on Edanith she's more likely to be shot than spared if she had a lethal outburst.

The shuttle lurched to a stop, and the pilot spoke up through the intercom.

"Here we are. Happy hunting, agent."

"Yeah, happy hunting to you too," Saendyr said, and he stood up. The shuttle doors opened and Saendyr gave the approaching ground a look. When the shuttle was about twenty feet away from the ground and spraying dust in all directions, he stepped out and made a solid landing just a short walk away from the abandoned security ship. He took his rifle off of his back and he switched the ammo type to rubber bullets as he approached the vessel.

She wasn't around, of course, but that didn't stop him from approaching the cockpit (which had been left wide open.)

The wind had removed any trace of her footsteps, but maybe if he wired the right sensors, he could get a proximity readout, anything that might've told him where she could've gone. It took him nearly twenty minutes of work, sitting in that pilot seat that was clearly not designed for someone with Altani legs, but finally he got the radar tracker working.

The ship had remained functional for a short time after Annabelle had left it, and with a smile he watched the radar logs display a person-sized contact moving directly away from the front of the vessel, as if she'd just bailed out and started walking. Smart girl, but sensors didn't lie.

And so he stepped out of that ship and left a TRIM beacon on it for recovery. Looking up into the Edani sky, he frowned and set off in Annabelle's last known direction. He hoped for her sake that he found her before the elements killed her.

[DragonSong]

Forward then.

Nowhere to go but forward.

And forward.

And forward.

Annabelle had no real way of keeping track of time, but she knew it had to be at least a few hours just by how far the sun had traveled across the sky.

The thrice-be-damned sun.

Panting, the techno-mage paused for the fourth time in as many minutes and looked around yet again, trying desperately to get her barrings; she was fairly sure she may have been walking in circles for the last hour. 

Red earth, red earth, a few scrubby plants, some tracks from some sort of...something. Local wildlife maybe. A few shapes in the distance that might be a smattering of hill territory--probably her best shot for water.

Alright. That way, then.

Swallowing through a dry, sore throat, she forced herself to keep walking, stumbling slightly in the heat. Sweat had almost completely soaked through her clothes by this point, and the bottoms of her feet were burned and bleeding, but she couldn't stop, she couldn't afford to stop.

Even if TRIM hadn't sent someone after her yet, she didn't want to risk running into any locals. What she knew about Edanith was few and far between, but she did know enough to understand just what level of "deep shit" she'd be in if anyone on the frontier learned she was a rogue mage.

She probably wouldn't even have time to explain that her chip blocked her powers entirely before she got shot.

So she trekked on. It was slow going at this point, her steps stumbling and labored, but at least she was moving, one step at a time coming closer and closer to that tiny hint of hills and the theoretical promise of water, of survival.

[Daglobster]

An hour later, and Saendyr was just about as bored out of his skull as he could be. He’d run at a jog ever since the downed security vessel and the only thing he’d seen was red dirt and rocks. He was going to get nowhere like this, but it was at least far enough away to make the eyedrones useful. He set his pack down and took out two base-ball sized metal spheres, and he tossed them up into the air, and they fanned out but would remain relatively close by, expanding his search area by quite a bit. Both would notify him if they detected a human female.

He paced for a bit, thinking to himself, trying to think of things from her side.

Rogue mage on Edanith, so population centers are a no go. No supplies, no protection, no shelter and no navigational aids either so I’m relying on landmarks. I’ve just crashed, maybe I’m tired or injured...

The horizon held nothing for him but flat desert and the occasional cactus, save for a lumpy cluster of grassy hills that caught his eye. The elevation would be a good lookout point, he could survey wide swaths of land like that and maybe catch a glimpse of her or keep up the trail.

So he pressed on and resumed his jog, and he went on for another thirty minutes before his helmet scanners picked up an irregularity on the ground and he examined it, a dry patch of caked earth that didn’t blow tracks away, with a faintly foot-shaped bloodstain. He straightened back up to his full height and knew he was on the right track, and proceeded slower, more subtly,

[DragonSong]

Annabelle lost all track of time and spatial awareness, only conscious of stumbling forward, ever forward, throat now utterly parched and her lungs protesting every gulped breath that felt like she was swallowing fire.

Why was it so damned hot?

She didn't even realized she'd reached the hills she'd been moving toward until suddenly each step wasn't sending a wave of hot pain up from her feet. Blearily, she looked down and realized that was because she'd staggered onto the beginnings of some scrubby patches of grass--dry and prickly as all hells, but compared to the red earth deliciously cool and considerably more forgiving on her bare feet.

And she could hear water.

If there had been any hydration left in her body, she was pretty sure she would have collapsed into tears as she stumbled the last few steps toward a pathetically tiny, rather muddy little stream and sank to her knees, quickly scooping up handfuls of water. It tasted like dirt and she loved it, splashing a few handfuls on her face once she'd managed to slake her thirst somewhat.

Okay...Okay, Anna, what next? Where can you go?

It was an excellent question, and though she'd asked it of herself the young mage really didn't have the energy or the focus to answer. Her vision was still blurry at the edges and her whole body ached, her injured ankle reminding her persistently of its presence now that she'd finally stopped walking.

"Stupid fucking thing," Annabelle muttered to herself as she twisted around to put her leg out in front and finally actually look at it. She glowered, sizing up the swelling. Probably not broken, maybe sprained, definitely twisted. "Really? Look, you either come out of a shuttle crash with dozens of broken bones, or you walk away unscathed. That should be the rule," she grumbled, glancing around for something she might be able to fashion into a makeshift splint.

[Daglobster]

Saendyr kept his eyes on the hills as he approached. Sweeps with his helmet scanners on multiple different modes all told him that if someone was there, they were most likely deeper inside. If he'd brought a chemical tracer he could've followed a blood trail easier. Hindsight aside, he made a conscious effort not to thud his footprints so much as he came up, and with a flick of his fingers he sent the silent eyedrone hovering ahead, seeing if the stealthy little drone could spot his target.

He stepped on some dry, crunchy grass and the noise attracted his attention. When he glanced down, he was grateful for his curiosity because he chanced upon some more bloody tracks pressed into the dry, easily bent grass.

The print was fairly fresh, and he set his helmet to pick up audio more sensitively. He honed in on the distant sound of running water, and considered his options. He decided to approach from an unexpected angle and he started climbing so he could approach the situation with the altitude advantage. If he could get the drop on her and put a pair of tranquilizers into her before she can zap him he'd be home with his rent paid for the next few months before the day was over.

[DragonSong]

The faint whir of machinery brought Annabelle's attention suddenly snapping skyward. She squinted, trying to make out the source of the sound--but it was gone in a matter of seconds, and she couldn't see anything unusual in the vastness above her.

Still, it put her on edge. She needed to get moving. Grabbing up a handful of dried, woody reeds that were sort of clinging to life by the edge of the small stream, she ripped off a strip from the bottom of her pale blue scrubs and sort of clumsily tied them onto her ankle, hoping the makeshift splint would at least keep her going.

Carefully, wincing as her battered and exhausted body protested, Annabelle forced herself to her feet and looked around again, trying to figure out the best direction to keep walking. Further into the hills seemed like a good bed; at least there was a better chance of finding water.

Gritting her teeth, she started following the stream back upstream, toward what she hoped would be its source.

[Daglobster]

He'd faced much worse climbs in his past, and despite all his equipment and protective plating the armor was designed with carbon sinews to assist movement and allow for the full application of his strength despite his encumbrance. His other advantage was that his lower half was better adapted to terrain like this, and his digitigrade legs and flexible, three-toed feet gripped the rocks much better than a flat boot. The whole time, he paid attention to the square in the top right corner of his helmet's view, the view from the eyebot.

Nothing so far, but maybe that'd change.

He found a nice elevated spot, on top of a rocky rise that had some rocky red earth accumulated on top. He took his rifle off of his back, adjusting his sight for longer range and flicking on the gun tracking system with the flick of a switch.

Wind information, a built-in rangefinder, and other such widgets formed his tech basis, but nothing beat a vidfeed directly down the scope. He hunkered down and surveyed the landscape below.

He thought he saw some movement deeper into the hills, among some shrubs, and he steadied his rifle and chambered a tranquilizer round. He looked down the sight to see what it was...

[DragonSong]

Her skin prickled and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Annabelle stiffened, and slowly turned on the spot by the bend in the stream where she'd paused to get her bearings again.

There was a sort of tension in the air, something she didn't entirely understand but was almost positive was just as much internal as it was external. She felt like a hunted animal, a deer scenting a wolf on the wind.

...run...

Again, the strange voice, but it was so faint now she almost didn't notice it. She wouldn't have, if she hadn't been so intent on listening for the telltale sounds of another living creature in close proximity.

I can't run, not on this ankle. She looked around. I--I could hide? But maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just being paranoid, and hiding will keep me in one place long enough for whoever they send to catch up...

She swayed on the spot, hesitating. Hunted creature she might be, but it seemed she didn't quite have the instincts of true prey.

[Daglobster]

Now that, he wasn't expecting. He tensed up when the girl he'd watched suffer through all those research tapes just up and appear in his scope. He tensed, suddenly... nervous. The scope homed in on her and he centered her. Saendyr noted the makeshift splint, the way she seemed nervous, almost as if she knew something was wrong...

Well, there wasn't a better time than this.

With a flick of a switch, his safety came off and he aimed for her good leg. The tranquilizer shot was chambered and he took a moment to exhale and get used to her nervous swaying. He was confident he had a good bead on her and as the gun-link system gave him the "all clear shot" message, he squeezed on the trigger ever so slightly in preparation.

Sorry, Annabelle. he thought, and then fired twice, with the second shot aimed a bit higher, more towards her hip. She wasn't too far off a target, so hopefully he could bag her and be home early so he cold get on with feeling guilty about this.

[DragonSong]

Run!

She tried. She really did. She managed a few steps before there was a sharp pain in her leg, then another in her hip. She actually kept running, limping heavily, and managed to get a few yards from the stream before the world started to blur around her.

Oh no. She'd been drugged too many times not to recognize the effects of a tranquilizer. Her eyes, hazy now, looked down to see the two darts sunk into her skin. No no no no no...

The voice was gone. Terrifying as it had been, she found she suddenly ached for it--it had at least helped her escape before. She wasn't sure she would be able to do it again on her own.

"Please..." She hardly even realized that she spoke around, her vision tilting and spinning as she turned in a slow circle, feeling herself start to fade. "Please, don't...I can't...please..."

She dropped to the ground, unconscious.

[Daglobster]

Two hits, and she barely even made it a few more steps before looping out and dropping to the ground right there. The laser microphone on the scope picked it all up, every last word that she said until she finally went still.

It made him feel heavy in a way he’d never thought before. He’d shot and killed enemy soldiers, and was no stranger to tragic scenes or shows of needless brutality.

Still, it took him a moment to regain himself. He’d shot her with tranqs but considering where she was going he’d probably just killed her. No, no no no.

He shook his head and got to his feet so he could climb down the rock face. A few minutes later and he was stooped down by her. He put the standard manacles on her, cuffing her hands behind her back. He took a scan of her head, confirming that her chip was still in her and operational but unresponsive to external commands, including the command to actually inhibit her powers.

Well, at least she was already bagged.

He tried to radio back to TRIM, but he was getting some pretty heavy interference. The hills played hell on signals and there was a dust storm rolling in, so the only thing he could think to do was keep sending out a signal even as he found a nice, sheltered spot and accommodated both himself and Annabelle.

“Come on, just go through...” he muttered anxiously, even as he busied himself preparing a meal ration. He took his helmet off but kept the antenna extended. It was all patched into some earbuds he was wearing so he didn’t have to put the whole helmet on to use the radio.

[DragonSong]

The thing about tranqing a mage was that it never lasted long--magic required a bitch of a metabolism, even magic that was dormant or currently unable to be accessed by its wielder. So while Annabelle rightly should have been out for at least an hour, it really only took about ten minutes before she groaned and started to stir against the red, sandy earth where she lay.

It wasn't the first time she'd woken up cuffed in unfamiliar surroundings in the last few years, and as she lay there groggily taking stock, she knew with a gut-sinking certainty that it probably wouldn't be the last. At least, not if TRIM didn't decide to just kill her outright once they got her back. They might. She was more than just a security risk now, she was an embarrassment.

She groaned again, squinting as her vision sort of pulsed and blurred, then cleared quite abruptly. Laying on her side, hands bound behind her back, all she could really make out was what was directly in front of her--a helmet with some sort of antenna sticking up from it in a weirdly jaunty manner.

"What the hell?" she mumbled, voice thick. Her throat was dry from her trek over Edanith's inhospitable terrain, and her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton from the tranquilizer. Not a fun combination.

Wincing and muttering curses, Annabelle tried to push herself up into at least a semi-seated position. She failed. Repeatedly. While the drug in her system was fading steadily, her entire lower body was still either numb or filled with the pins-and-needles torture of shaking a limb that had fallen asleep back to life. Plus, her ankle still hurt like a sunnovabitch.

On the fourth try she managed to roll herself onto her back as she collapsed down to the earth again, glaring up at the rocky outcropping over her head. "Ow..."

[Daglobster]

Saendyr had busied himself with a quick meal, the kind that cooked itself when you opened it. At least TRIM packed good grub, not any weird, bulk-imported foreign ones. And so he chowed down on a good old salisbury steak as he watched the many colors of sand and dust whip by the entrance of the cave, forming an enchanting curtain of color. The storm filtered the sun a bloody red and thus the little cave they were sheltered in was painted the same color.

The storm brought heat as well, and his crests were a little flushed at the moment, heightening the Altani part of his heritage just a little bit more. He was still fully armored up, the suit had enough padding to sit comfortably just about anywhere, and he let his long, hoofed legs stretch out.

Damned storm, he couldn't even get a local signal, let alone radio for a pickup. Didn't even know if his mission beacon had even gone through, either. Either way, the small sparks of lightning caused by whipping dust was nothing compared to the lightning sitting much closer.

A light thud caught his ear, and he turned where he was. He drew his sleek plasma pistol and it was aimed in a flash. The dust in the air helped show the beam, and the laser sight was focused right on her chest.

"Woah there, Lightning..." he said, voice even.

"Don't try and move so suddenly."

Pretty impressive, for someone with two tranqs in them. Those things were cleared to recover all kinds of assets, people being the least intensive.

"Your field trip's over. You're done and caught."