WESTLAKE CENTER - ROOF

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

(See the roof on this aerial photo -- www.ggp.com/content/corporate/Data/aerialphoto/WestlakeCenter_aerialphoto.jpg
Ensmallened version here - www.borfy.com/Kingfisher/Graphics/KFA/Aerial.jpg )


The roof can be accessed from the stairwell, with a sure kick of the boot it is not very securely locked especially in an emergency. Here you will find a huge labyrinth of whirring ventilation contraptions, an a somewhat good view of the city, though it is somewhat blocked by larger nearby buildings. The two ends of the roof are not connected, blocked off by a large glass roof, to access the other side you must go back to the third floor and go to the other stairwell.

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

                The Doctor hurried up the stairwell, moving aside politely for fleeing citizens coming the other direction. He reached the third floor entrance, and noticed the stairs continued up. One more flight and he saw the door to the roof. He figured it was usually guarded, given the many black shoe marks scuffing the wall around it from bored guards putting their feet up. He tried the door-- unlocked?! How convenient.

                He walked out on to the roof, amazed by the bitterly cold wind, and how it carried the sounds from below. Sirens in the distance never drew closer. He saw someone else on the roof, a black man in a black polo-shirt and ill-fitting khakis that glanced at him once, and then went back to watching the city below. The guard?
                The roof was covered in huge box-like contraptions that hummed and whirred loudly, probably the building's ventilation system. He looked out at the city, unfortunately blocked by the taller surrounding buildings, but he could catch a fair distance between them. Cars clustered in twisted piles, people running in every direction, panicked. The lights of police cars uselessly spinning. How quickly everything went mad, there wasn't even a sign of the cause.
The sunset was dimming, blotted out by thick cloud cover, and the sky was a deep navy blue. It would be dark very soon.
                Movement caught his eye. Dark smoke clouds, hardly visible, floated through the air. The more he looked, the more he saw, floating around in every direction, disappearing into buildings. Like reverse, black jellyfish.
                The guard seemed to be watching them too, paying no mind to the Doctor.

[Suyoi]

Dr. Victor nibbled his bottom lip for a moment, pondering his brilliant thoughts. The idea of the roof being appropriate seemed to slip from a positive light quickly into a negative one. While the top of the area was wide opened and spacious enough, getting wounded people to the roof via the stairwell itself would prove problematic. Ground floor? Too harsh and dodgy. His mind sped downhill like a child in one of those over-sized, rubber construction wheels.

He continued to glance around, eyes scanning above and below, absorbing in as much as he could. He attempted to find some sign of organization; the police lights spinning making his spirit sink further. Leave it to the SPD to be as caught up in the chaos as the people they were sworn to protect!

Elevating his growing suspicion was the solitary man. Surely of some intelligence, he appeared as if to absorb himself into the end of all things. Immobile like an obelisk, this person stood uncaring, unfeeling, unaware. Just like I wanted to be when I was that age... whatever that was.

"Nice day to enjoy the view, hmm? Any chance you saw some sort of disaster station or such?"

Attempting to remain as cool as the other guy 'appeared' to be, Dr. Victor crept over towards the southern edge, searching for the same scenario he described.

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

The man spoke without turning for a moment, the wind luckily carrying his voice over the din below.

"Nah, I din't see nothin'. Just... that."
He tipped a head towards the mess. He had a pronounced southern accent, and a pleasant voice.
"I go t'have a smoke, and..." He turned to look at the Doctor.
"Chatter on the radio, 'fore everybody ran from the office-- they sayin' crazy shit's on the news. Every city. No clue what they meant, jes' rioting I guess."
He shook his head. "I don't have a gun, if that's what'ya come to ask about."

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

      The sky was nearly black, and there were a unsettling amount of dark windows in the high-rises around them. Could a brown-out already be happening, or was it something else?
     Dr. Victor noticed one of the black swirling clouds seemed to be moving in their general direction somewhat slowly. He could see now that there was a generally lighter colored shape in the middle of the dark cloudy substance, like an inverted egg yolk. The edges of the shape were tattered seeming, and yet ephemeral and smoky. It moved in quick bursts and then lingered, hovering, before moving again, like it swam through the air quite literally. The light shape seemed roughly the size of a human head. The shape jerked closer-- yes, definitely human head sized.

[Dr. Maneep Pamplemousse]

     When Patti reached the roof level, the door was not locked. She hadn't considered the possibility that it would be, but now she was wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

     She stepped out onto the roof anyway. It was way darker than she had anticipated. She was sandwiched in a tight space between the hotel and the office space tower, several yards from the edge of the building.

     She walked slowly and deliberately towards the edge, straining to hear anything over the din of the AC unit just ahead of her. Nothing. She passed the AC unit and moved beyond the beveled edge of the office tower, opening up her line of sight.

     Cursing herself for being such a pansy, she pushed back her shoulders and strode towards the edge of the building, looking down on Olive Way.

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

      The roof was blocked with the extended glass ceiling from the third floor, and these huge, chunky blocks of ventilation equipment, practically room sized that whirred and clunked. The wind was stiff but not ferocious, and the air quite cold. Patti crept towards the edge and looked over. The street below was clogged in sections with the wreckage of cars, which were now still enough to seem like very abstract and inconvenient street art. There were only a few people still moving on the street, generally running in small groups. The street lights glowed peachy orange and cast long shadows. Blue and red streaks from unseen and un-moving police lights swirled around, adding to the visual confusion. If she craned her neck uncomfortably, she could see further down the road towards the waterfront, where there was more movement- a car occasionally driving too fast, people running.
tab The sky was nearly pitch black, and seemed hazy with clouds of smoke drifting around lazily. Some peculiar about that...
tab Around her the large boxes blocked her view of the rest of the roof, she could continue walking around to look at the other streets or go back downstairs.

[Dr. Maneep Pamplemousse]

     Something about the way those smoke clouds were moving sent a shiver up Patti's spine. Were they moving in different directions? Against the wind?

     Patti wiped that idea from her mind and headed back towards the stairwell. She walked between the stair inclosure and the hotel building, moving towards the Plaza end of the building. She moved between another massive ventilation structure, walking within a few steps of the glass roof.

     A knot forming in her stomach, she decided not to look in, and she made a turn around the corner of the whirring behemoth on her right. Up ahead, she thought she could make out the silhouettes of two people standing close together, as if in conversation.

     Thinking that one of them might be security, she decided it would be better if she didn't announce her presence, just in case this all blew over by the morning. She stepped backward, then turned around and ran back to the stairwell, panic momentarily swelling her chest. She descended the stairs two at a time.

[Suyoi]

Dr. Victor cleared his throat a little, the desire to suddenly develop a nervous tick motion of the head towards the cloud growing at an alarming rate. It was just preposterous, and absurd, but the simple fact was paranoia and mass delusions were a real psychosis. If I let them get the better of me, I might as well join the police academy. Focus at the task at hand, Dr. You survived a high school locker room, you most certainly can survive this.

"... Right. Well, I suggest- no. I implore you to come with me quickly to find a more suitable position to set up some serviceable station to help me treat the wounded still stranded here in the mall. Heaven knows I could use someone of your... uniformed caliber to help direct people in some orderly fashion."

The good doctor allowed his shoulders to roll ever so slightly upwards, head tilting, eyes narrowing and lips parting like a piece of tissue caught by a spark.

"I'm a doctor."

Dr. Victor waited a few moments more before accepting the acquiesced man as a stairwell partner or not. But he certainly would not wait long enough to have that pesky pseud0-nocturnal-mating-inscectoid swarm upon him.

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

The guard nodded, jostling a lanyard around his neck which a picture badge was attached to. "Tyrone Page" it said.

Tyrone-
"Yeah guess even if it's the revelation, God ain't got nothin' to say yet. Gotta help out. Where to, Hawkeye?"

Tyrone followed Dr. Victor, his back turned the entire time to the black blob that pulsed closer. Before Dr. V turned to jog for the stairs, he thought he saw the pale yolk in the center of the shape more clearly. If it really was some sort of creature, and not just a phantasmagorical imagining, that yolk must have been its head. He thought he could make out jelly-obscured features...

[◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊]

(Dr. V & Patti, please move to the third floor thread)