Ep 0.5 - Rat Maze - Closed
Jun 30, 2012 23:05:48 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2012 23:05:48 GMT -5
Steeljaw had taken seven more turns after the first unmapped branching, steering a roundabout course towards his goal through predominantly uncharted ducts. The maintenance shafts were a maze, littered with cameras in inopportune places, tripwires, motion sensors, several heat sensors, and a plethora of pressure plates. For a simple as it had started out looking it had quickly showed its hand at being anything but. Steeljaw had given himself little pleased mental pats after avoiding several of the chained security measures that he recognized as his own style.
Each new barrier was getting a little bit harder. Case in point - what had been a single laser tripwire at the start of it all was now a criss cross knot of them that covered nearly the entirely of the shaft from several angles. There was - BARELY - just enough room in a gap between two of the crossing beams and the ceiling of the shaft for a clever quadruped symbiont to fit his head through if he was very careful and steady about it. Steeljaw was certain of this because he had measured the circumference of the hole twelve times just to be sure.
He had also investigated the circuitry behind the tripwires, but THAT was rigged as well - cutting into it or even a judicious attempt at rewiring it would almost certainly set off a chain reaction of some sort that Steeljaw was certain he - or any attempted infiltrator - didn't want to see. Which left through, and if he could fit his head through the gap then he could Primus fragging well fit the REST of him through as well. It was just going to have to be done carefully.
The slip-shod manufacturing was throughout the entire tower - Steeljaw was starting to entertain the idea that the view outside had been real, possibly one of the offplanet installations or colonies, in which case he and Uplink were going to need to have a long look at resetting his testing parameters to NOT block pertinent points of information such as, oh, being on an alien organic planet. The idea sounded half crazy but accounted for a lot of the other crazy, such as the building materials and the planetary fortune in organic mass outside, and the oxygen thick atmosphere that persisted even deep inside the maintenance ducts. A shift in gravity would account for several stabilizer mishaps that had nearly cost him some other security checkpoints. All of which was vital information if he were to properly test the security system and leaving that blocked was just horrifically bad planning on their part.
He queued another delayed message to his carrier link, setting it to deliver when Uplink stopped blocking him, a detailed and insulting treatise on the mech's personal habits, caretaker, job prospects, paint scheme and polishing, with a postscript at the end which went on for several tangled verses of glyphs about Steeljaw's opinion of offworld organic colony bases that he couldn't remember the slagging outbound trip to because of overzealous testing protocols which Uplink had written. He signed it with carrier-cohort/love and notes on how to improve the last two checkpoints, then vented sharply and shook himself, sensor tendrils coiling back beneath armor and plates smoothing down into the sleekest configuration he could create. Placing one pede on the wall, he clamped on and climbed up until he was inverted on the ceiling of the maintenance shaft, just in front of the gap in the beams that would let him through. One more ventilation, then he sealed his vents shut and carefully crawled forward, slipping his head - audials flattened against his helm - through the space.
He cleared it with microns to spare. Relieved, Steeljaw braced his hindquarters and tucked one forepede up against his frame, easing it through along the smaller circumference of his throat, and reached to place his pede on the ceiling on the far side. The trap, much like the first one at the entrance, sprang with a sharp HISS as his magclamp was still descending onto the metal of the ceiling.
Quick reflexes jerked his pede back, which was the only thing that saved Steeljaw from some sort of liquid splat with an acrid organic scent - acid?? Primus bless, was that acid?! - that splashed where his pede had been. The nanoklik after that was sheer mesh instinct, shoving off with his back pedes in a strutless uncontrolled slide forward through the gap, backstruts twisting 180 degrees to reorient up and down on their proper planes, hindquarters still 'up' while his forequarters went 'down', magclamps off and claws scrambling for purchase as he landed inelegantly on his pedes on the far side.
A secondary hiss and splat nearly caught his hindpede, something wet brushing the tip of his tail as he whipped it through the gap. Whirling, Steeljaw caught at his own tail urgently, sensors unfurling to try to diagnose what he had just touched…
…PAINT. Primus slagging bright red paint on his tailtip and dripping - fraggit! - from the ceiling, where it splashed against one audial before he jerked his head back. Steeljaw stared at it for a long moment, plates twitching, then pointedly wiped the paint on his tail off against the wall, tail tip tracing a rude glyph in the smears. Huffing - oh, that was Uplink's idea of a joke, alright, and he was going to be detailing Steeljaw's paint job for that one - he turned his back on the checkpoint and kept going.
Each new barrier was getting a little bit harder. Case in point - what had been a single laser tripwire at the start of it all was now a criss cross knot of them that covered nearly the entirely of the shaft from several angles. There was - BARELY - just enough room in a gap between two of the crossing beams and the ceiling of the shaft for a clever quadruped symbiont to fit his head through if he was very careful and steady about it. Steeljaw was certain of this because he had measured the circumference of the hole twelve times just to be sure.
He had also investigated the circuitry behind the tripwires, but THAT was rigged as well - cutting into it or even a judicious attempt at rewiring it would almost certainly set off a chain reaction of some sort that Steeljaw was certain he - or any attempted infiltrator - didn't want to see. Which left through, and if he could fit his head through the gap then he could Primus fragging well fit the REST of him through as well. It was just going to have to be done carefully.
The slip-shod manufacturing was throughout the entire tower - Steeljaw was starting to entertain the idea that the view outside had been real, possibly one of the offplanet installations or colonies, in which case he and Uplink were going to need to have a long look at resetting his testing parameters to NOT block pertinent points of information such as, oh, being on an alien organic planet. The idea sounded half crazy but accounted for a lot of the other crazy, such as the building materials and the planetary fortune in organic mass outside, and the oxygen thick atmosphere that persisted even deep inside the maintenance ducts. A shift in gravity would account for several stabilizer mishaps that had nearly cost him some other security checkpoints. All of which was vital information if he were to properly test the security system and leaving that blocked was just horrifically bad planning on their part.
He queued another delayed message to his carrier link, setting it to deliver when Uplink stopped blocking him, a detailed and insulting treatise on the mech's personal habits, caretaker, job prospects, paint scheme and polishing, with a postscript at the end which went on for several tangled verses of glyphs about Steeljaw's opinion of offworld organic colony bases that he couldn't remember the slagging outbound trip to because of overzealous testing protocols which Uplink had written. He signed it with carrier-cohort/love and notes on how to improve the last two checkpoints, then vented sharply and shook himself, sensor tendrils coiling back beneath armor and plates smoothing down into the sleekest configuration he could create. Placing one pede on the wall, he clamped on and climbed up until he was inverted on the ceiling of the maintenance shaft, just in front of the gap in the beams that would let him through. One more ventilation, then he sealed his vents shut and carefully crawled forward, slipping his head - audials flattened against his helm - through the space.
He cleared it with microns to spare. Relieved, Steeljaw braced his hindquarters and tucked one forepede up against his frame, easing it through along the smaller circumference of his throat, and reached to place his pede on the ceiling on the far side. The trap, much like the first one at the entrance, sprang with a sharp HISS as his magclamp was still descending onto the metal of the ceiling.
Quick reflexes jerked his pede back, which was the only thing that saved Steeljaw from some sort of liquid splat with an acrid organic scent - acid?? Primus bless, was that acid?! - that splashed where his pede had been. The nanoklik after that was sheer mesh instinct, shoving off with his back pedes in a strutless uncontrolled slide forward through the gap, backstruts twisting 180 degrees to reorient up and down on their proper planes, hindquarters still 'up' while his forequarters went 'down', magclamps off and claws scrambling for purchase as he landed inelegantly on his pedes on the far side.
A secondary hiss and splat nearly caught his hindpede, something wet brushing the tip of his tail as he whipped it through the gap. Whirling, Steeljaw caught at his own tail urgently, sensors unfurling to try to diagnose what he had just touched…
…PAINT. Primus slagging bright red paint on his tailtip and dripping - fraggit! - from the ceiling, where it splashed against one audial before he jerked his head back. Steeljaw stared at it for a long moment, plates twitching, then pointedly wiped the paint on his tail off against the wall, tail tip tracing a rude glyph in the smears. Huffing - oh, that was Uplink's idea of a joke, alright, and he was going to be detailing Steeljaw's paint job for that one - he turned his back on the checkpoint and kept going.