2012-11-27 Outside Interference 2

Getting to the supply base in Upstate NY doesn't pose too much trouble for the Outsiders, really. Sam's got a truck... they could hitchhike, get a taxi... the possibilities are endless if somewhat strange, considering. But it's a necessary step to getting wherever this 'Base Tango' place is.
On the supply base, it seems to be a busy day-- lots of crates being shifted around and loaded onto transport aircraft. It turns out this is probably good news for our heroes, as it means that there are somewhat frequent cargo trucks arriving at the gate and being ushered through. The area is pretty heavily-forested, and HYDRA has not cleared as much around the base as they normally would, to help keep it hidden. For all of that, they still seem to be taking things seriously, as there are troopers patrolling the fence in pairs at pretty regular intervals.
Since the attack on the base, Spider-Girl has been... well. Climbing the walls. Literally. While the team made its preparations to track Laura down and bring her home, the most she could really contribute was a whole lot of YES GOOD THAT SOUNDS FINE WHEN CAN WE GO and pacing patterns into the Den's ceilings.
Now that Spider-Girl is actually wearing a slightly-altered HYDRA uniform as they approach the supply base, she a) is finally becoming less jittery, and b) is realizing how much more comfortable her usual costume is, likely because HYDRA has actual money to put into these things, even for mooks. Ugh. Unfair.
"So, do we just..." Spider-Girl glances sideways at the others and mimes knocking on a door.
How would they react to flying on a broomstick? Well, who knows. Rain opts to go with the others, since traveling alone always gets you killed in the movies. Rain at least left the kittens with Sam for needed kitten cuddles. She will wear a disguise as appropriate (really, operating on safety in numbers is good enough for fish and it's good enough for her), though her eyes might stand out. So she wears some sunglasses, even if it's night. The dorkiest HYDRA agent ever. She's hoping it's not too dark... "Um. So... Since none of us are selling girlscout cookies... I guess we could figure out what entrances there are, or there's the door..." Master stratigerist.
"We're going to have to be careful getting in. They seem like the types to even have psionic security in places." Sam is far from confident about this entire gamble. Losing Laura to HYDRA was a real blow, not just to the team and to Spider-Girl. "We're going to have to watch it with the comms, chances are they'll pick up on it." They really need a telepath here and they don't have one and he's going to be going into this mess with a barely-trained team. "Distraction is a bad idea, it's just going to put them on high alert. We should do some recon and meet back here once we have a good idea of what's up. This place isn't exactly easy to find on Google maps, we have to know where we're going."
Spoiler breezed through breakfast with an excuse about a gym field trip to explain the loose, strangely coloured uniform peeking out from beneath her school clothes, and when she left home that morning, her mother was none the wiser. School and practices of various sorts mean that her time at the Den is as sporadic as ever, but she's done her best to keep up on the situation through the magic of IMs.
If the frowny face emoticon were copyrighted, the girl would probably have one hell of an infringement case coming her way, in fact.
"Yeah," she adds, half-distracted by tugging here and there at her own HYDRA uniform, "they might have a password, or access code, or something. At least if we're just kind of poking around, they might just think we belong here, instead of, you know." Spoiler stops tugging at a little piece of material over the crook of her elbow, and as it settles back into fitting snugly around her arm, she glances up from frowning at it to quietly finish, "Shooting us because they're crazy, or something," before focusing on her costume again.
Base NY-14 rolls on as they contemplate the issue. There are a couple of useful patterns that emerge-- every few minutes, the perimeter patrols end up spaced out further than normal and a quick person would have a few seconds to cross through. And the traffic into the base is picking up somewhat, with the result that a trio of trucks end up having to wait their individual turns to get checked through the gate, stringing out in a line. Some of the drivers seem irritated by the delay, others bored. The gate guards dont' seem to much care about either, though they do pick up their pace on the checks.
"Dunno how helpful being sneaky is gonna be if they have psionics watching the place, Ceebee," Spider-Girl notes to Sam, making a bit of a face. "So we may as well just go for broke, right?" Right. She's totally not just saying that because she's impatient. She watches the gate for a few moments longer, bouncing on her toes, before she sets her jaw just... /so/. Sam knows that look. That's the Heroic Jaw that happens when she makes a decision.
Said decision apparently involves Spider-Girl making a low, quiet break for the last truck in the line. She peeks in the back for any signs of passengers before she beckons towards the group in the bushes and, without so much as a by-your-leave, vaults up and into the back. If anyone follows, she'll give 'em a hand up into the back with her.
Rain listens, frowning. Psionics. The idea's a bit unnerving, having someone peruse or scramble your thoughts like your most embarrassing browser history. "I don't think trying to sneak in as cargo would work, if they flew and the cabin wasn't pressurized..." She tilts her head. Guess it's following Spider-Girl time, after all! Though, maybe that box is a good idea...
"Man, I'm just keeping this thing when we're done," Spoiler quietly muses as Anya vaults onto the truck. She then pops up and hustles after it, hand extended until she's /just/ able to grab the wall-crawler's hand and make an assisted vault up to join her teammate.
"You think they've got /actual/ guns in there?" she wonders with a glance towards Spider-Girl once she's settled. "Like, with plasma?"
"Spi... Don... Aww, hell." Sam doesn't like this at all but he takes a run at the truck slides in after the girls then tugs the canvas down behind him. The truck is half empty, there's a few crates and such in there. "Let's move these forward, just the first row," he says. "I'll use a shield to brace them so we can get between." That'll hold up to a quick glance inside.
They have ludicrously little in terms of resources right now. A few battery grenades, his firepower... God, Sam, what are you doing? "If anything happens, you three get yourselves out of here," he says as he's moving boxes enough to let the girls slip between them. "Promise?"
The truck makes its way to the gate in little short uncomfortable starts and stops. Indeed, one of the gate people lift the canvas and pokes his head in... though he would prehaps not have been that surprised to find HYDRA uniforms back here. Still, all is in order, so he drops the flap and pounds on the tailgate to send the truck bouncing its way inside. It finds a parking spot in a line of trucks by the warehouse and jostles to a halt, where the engine shuts off with a sort of unhappy coughing noise.
Outside the truck, things are busy, as the other trucks are being unloaded, boxes hauled into the warehouse. Other workers haul other boxes out of the warehouse and to a transport plane being loaded on the tarmac... it's all quite riotous and perfect for going unnoticed in a sea of uniforms going every which-way.
"I don't even know what supervillains have Fed-Ex'd to themselves, man," Spider-Girl quietly tells Spoiler, giving one of the boxes a curious look. "It's probably a lifetime's supply of easily-avoided boobytraps or something."
All Sam's note earns from Spider-Girl is a flat look. She has been a superhero longer than he has, and sometimes, she thinks he forgets. She'd remind him, but. Guy peekin' in the truck.
....and in! Pausing only long enough to stick her tongue out at Sam, Spider-Girl creeps to the back so she can peek outside. Hm. Hm. "Let's see what we can find. Just... I dunno. Fly casual." She shrugs helplessly at Rain, Spoiler and Sam, then hops out the back of the truck. RIGHT. RECON. PRETEND YOU BELONG THERE.
Pause. Rain keeps her sunglasses on, due to her oddly colored eyes. "We could keep an eye out for where things come in and out. Do they have anything that x-rays stuff?" She's trying to figure out what all of this chaos is. She has to sort it out, peering around carefully. "I might see - if..." If what? "... what IS in these boxes?" A peer at one. Uniforms? Boobytraps? Employee handbooks? "Should we stay together then, if we're going to do recon?"
The nosy uniform earns a stern look and a sharp salute from Spoiler; once he's gone, she softly exhales and joins Spider-Girl in examining cargo. "Man," she murmurs as she idly picks through and tossses aside a few random items, "you think if I like, spray paint a tunnel entrance on one of the walls while we're getting away, it'll like--/fool/ 'em?" Her tone is a mixture of sarcasm and genuine thoughtfulness.
"--er, /if/ we have to get away, I mean," she corrects after a moment, looking up to peer around at her teammates; she flashes them all a quick, two-handed thumbs up and a fleeting smile to demonstrate her confidence.
Soon enough, she's crawling out of the truck, skulking into the warehouse, and reminding herself that the only time it's even kind of appropriate to stick both thumbs out at the same time is if she's pointing them at herself.
Oh, and scanning over destination tags for cargo headed for Tango; she'll even go as far as to fetch a little notepad and a ballpoint to scribble useful bits of info down, if she finds anything /really/ juicy. Push comes to shove, she'll just tell them she's an inspector and scream 'HAIL HYDRA' a lot, or something.
Sam rolls his eyes at Spider-Girl sticking her tongue out. "It's easier on me to blow things up if I don't have to worry about hitting one of you is all." He's all for raining down some destruction if he has to, it's just hard when he has to keep track of where he saw people last.
"I think we should stay in line of sight of each other at least. I don't want us to get separated--in spite of what I just said--unless it's a last ditch thing. Let's follow the shipping labels, try and get ourselves onto a flight or a truck or whatever to this Tango base, wherever it is." He pulls out his phone and scans some of the labels on the boxes to see if there's any GPS information in the label codes.
Good news, heroes! HYDRA is a competant and efficient organization, which means that not only do they do things like use organizational labeling that is simple for their goons to read and efficiently handle, their security is usually good enough that they don't have to use obfuscating code-phrases and such-- the supply corps isn't exactly the best and brightest HYDRA has, anyway. No GPS, as that's far more tracable than a simple "Base Tango". But there are actually a few crates labelled "Base Tango". Apparently HYDRA has been using NATO phonetics to confuse local agencies, aren't we all just so lucky.
Spoiler's notepad... it does not go unnoticed. One of the supervisors spots the a drone out of place, and points. "You! What do you think you're doing? We have a schedule!" He says it like 'shed-jool', which is not really important in the slightest but we can all be amused.
Spider-Girl sticks with Spoiler, because they're bros, that's why. "I'll make sure I'm hard to explode, I promise," she assures Sam, crossing her heart with a hand. "I dunno if they x-ray their stuff. I mean, it's... it's HYDRA. They'd probably want it all x-ray proof, right?" In case THE MAN got ahold of it all.
Speaking of the man. Spider-Girl whips her head up when the supervisor calls towards Spoiler and she gives her a sharp-but-gentle elbow in the ribs to call her attention to it. "Fly casual," she repeats in a quiet hiss. You can /do this/, purple.
'You!'
Spoiler momentarily freezes and nearly drives the tip of her pen into the paper. Following a brief glance towards Spider-Girl, she sets her jaw, straightens her back and turns to regard the supervisor squarely. "I am /working/," she indignantly offers. "An organized HYDRA is a--deadly HYDRA, right? A more efficient HYDRA? At least, that's what /I've/ always said." She waves the pad around a little bit, then uses it to salute the supervisor. "But that might just be me; I think about, you know, dominating the world and all that, like, all of the time. Just, /all/ of the time; it's /crazy/." The girl's hand shifts a little so that she can circle the pad around beside her temple, and then it's waved around as she continues, "It's like, 'get it together! Stop thinking about awesome a HYDRA-run world would be! You've gotta unload these crates!"
By that point, the pad is all the way down, and now she's just tucking it back into her utility belt - helpfully spraypainted gold to match the rest of her uniform. "Anyway," she finishes, after small sigh, "I'll, you know." She mimes working a hand truck momentarily, then resumes saluting.
"Hail HYDRA!" she tacks on.
Sam knows he's got a slight advantage when it comes to blending in with jackbooted lunatics. He looks like the average grunt. He keeps an eye on what's going on with Spoiler as he swings himself into a forklift for moving pallets once they're packed. Thanks for going on break there, dude. No one questions him stepping up into the seat the moment it's vacated. Heil HYDRA indeed.
At the very least, he's got a nice little weapon here. He gets it into gear--good thing he knows how to drive one of these--and follows the lead of the guy driving one up ahead. Anyone want a ride?
Sam does indeed just blend in oh-so well. Blonde hair, built like a truck... yep, he's kind of recruiting poster material for all sorts of things, HYDRA included. Steph, on the other hand...
The supervisor just... eyes her, throughout her entire string of chatter. You can just see it in his eyes-- the 'uh-HUH', and the lengthy reflection on just how far down the HYDRA Totem Pole of Competant Underlings he's fallen. Eventually, Steph runs out and pulls the last bit of artful inspiration. Apparently the supervisor simply cannot conceive an infiltrating hero would be THAT much like a dreg of a HYDRA drone, because... he buys it. "How about you stop 'saying' and 'thinking'," he suggests acidly, and points a snappy finger at a crate and then a thumb over his shoulder. "Instead perhaps you could do something useful, like load -these- crates onto -that- plane so they get to Tango on time, and the Baron does not become irate and fly out here for the express purpose of simply killing yourself and everyone else present in an effort to improve morale!" There's a pause, and a similarly-tacked-on but much more sneery "Hail HYDRA" as he crisply turns and marches off to go shriek at someone else, who seems to be trying to pull a box from the BOTTOM of a stack.
Spider-Girl manages to wait until the supervisor's turned to march away before the sputtery almost-laugh sneaks out, and she gives Spoiler a big ol' THUMBS-UP. GOOD JOB. "I dunno what he's so worried 'bout," she confides quietly, before turning to beckon Sam and his forklift over. "You heard the man! Help us get these crates for Tango onto /that transport/." THAT ONE. RIGHT THERE. That she is about to just stroll right onto and find a place to hide on. Because she is an expert superspy.
"Hail HYDRA!" Spoiler fires off as the supervisor walks away.
"Geez, bite a girl's head off for showing a little initiative," she then mutters once she's sure he's out of ear shot. Hurrying after Spider-Girl, she adds, "C'mon, civilization's not gonna overthrow /itself/!" to the arachnid's prodding and makes sure to tug Rain along by the arm as she goes. She /definitely/ doesn't want to leave the Team Witch behind.
Sam keeps an eye on things while he's working the forklift. He's not in a big hurry to get on board just yet. There's some cool bits and pieces lying around and... when he gets his chance and he sees the fellow coming back from his break, he returns the forklift to him and heads for the break room like he knows what he's doing.
It's pretty busy in here, grunts grabbing a few minutes to have a coffee and shoot the breeze. No one pays attention to Sam on his way through. Just one of the guys. When a supervisor gets distracted by raised voices, Sam helps himself to the tablet the man set down while fixing his coffee. This is where taking it black does have some advantages. Sam tucks it under his arm and tosses his cup in the garbage on the way out. Back to work. He heads for the plane now, letting a pallet of boxes shield him from most of the eyes as he keeps pace with the forklift. And there we go. On the plane, prize in hand.
The transport pilot seems to be getting impatient himself. When Sam turns up and another crate gets loaded, he turns in his jumpseat to peer back onto the cargo area. "Is that all of it?" he asks, clearly far more concerned about his flight scedule than the people loading are. After all, *He's* the one that actually has to be there if he's late, right?
Spider-Girl turns to take stock of the cargo hold on the plane. Four superheroes disguised as HYDRA mooks and a whole bunch of crates of random junk. She turns back to the pilot and nods once, crisply. "That's everything," she confirms. "Let's get this bird in the air. We're behind --" Oh, don't do it. "--/shedyul/." Schedule. Yes. Thank you, Anya.
While Anya takes care of maintaining their cover, Spoiler looks for the first opportunity she can get to nose through the cargo they're travelling with in search of weapons--or perhaps some insight into what they might be flying into at Base Tango. She will, if pressed, provide a half-hearted 'Hail HYDRA' for the pilot.
Sam hands the tablet he's got off to Spider-Girl--here, have access to some HYDRA stuff--and slides into the co-pilot's station like it ain't no thang. "If it's not, it's not our problem. We just have to leave on time. If they didn't get the stuff on, it's on them." He shrugs and checks out the console. There's some pretty cool stuff there. "If there's no order to hold, I say we haul ass before someone kicks it."
Apparently even the likes of HYDRA occassionally gets what amounts to teamsters in teamster-like positions, because the pilot leans to make room for Sam while grinning at Anya's pronouncation of 'shedyul'. "Van Holt, right? Man's hilarious and doesn't even know. Good enough for me," he declares in agrrement with Sam, slaps the switches to raise the ramp, and pulls on his headset, getting the plane moving. He turns onto the runway. "Cargo Six, taking off. We've got a full load here." She doens't wait for any kind of proper clearance, just tosses the throttles open and whips the thing into the air before anyone on the ground can complain about missing this or that. "There's always some idiot down there wants to overload the thing," he notes absently. "You know this plane," he asks Sam, "or just lonely?" It's clearly a little unusual to have one of HYDRA's people climb up front like that.
Rain is a good grunt. She is quiet, playing the part of a dutiful drone. I <3 Hydra mug and all. Maybe it was made by someone smart alec. Maybe it's a true bit of merchandise. Who knows? Either way, Rain thumbsups. She seems to hear no objections. There's a polite smile at people, but for her part, she's doing her level best to pretend to be a minion.
Awww, yeah. They got the cool pilot. "Can't it be both?" Spider-Girl asks up towards the cockpit, flashing a toothy grin before she drops down to sit on a crate Spoiler isn't riffling through. Sam gave her a datapad -- she's gonna riffle through it, instead. This is gonna be a long trip. She.... she assumes, anyway. It always is.
After a minute or two of failing to dig anything explosive out of her random crate, a disappointed Spoiler abandons her search and settles back against another container. It's a little harder to dig for stuff under the radar while people are engaging the pilot in conversation, she figures; the /last/ thing she needs is him trying to talk to her while she's elbow deep in HYDRA gear.
"Awful lotta mouse pads for a terrorist cargo shipment," she absently remarks.
"Don't know it yet, but I'd like to--better than driving a truck or a lift." Sam gives the pilot a cheeky grin. "And maybe a little of the other. Either way, being up here works out for me." He can be charming when it's called for, even a little cute about it."
Sam is interested in learning to fly the plane. Very much so. Stealing one of these might be their only chance of getting back from wherever it is they're going.
Maybe Steph and the others dont' have much to worry about on this flight after all. "Hell, son," the pilot muses, rooting around in his jacket until he fishes out a carton of cigarettes and pulls one out, one hand on the controls. "There isn't much to it. These guys, they're kind of weird oddballs somtimes, but they make decent planes. Things almost fly themselves. there's a manual over there somewhere." he waves vaguely, while he pats his fight jacket. "Must be Tuesday... got a lighter?"
Rain pauses. "Well, even terrorists have IT people. Wouldn't it suck if you big scheme got foiled because all your computers got a virus or something?" She points out. She decides not to contemplate terrorist spam mails or browsing habits. Shiver. Regardless, she'll probably try a box or two. "Um. I can conjure fire..." She offers. "But a lighter might be better," Smile. Though, wizard lighters- might have to get on that. It's hard not to smile here.
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