vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

At the crack of dawn, presumably, Calhoun gathers everyone in the first floor warehouse to make an announcement.

"That's right, it's time for another of my special events!" He seems pretty pleased with himself. "I noticed you lazy, fat test subjects really let yourselves go last round! It's like I don't feed you here or something."

"Well, I'm worried about your health, always lazing about and not getting proper exercise. So, I decided to be the change I want to see in the world, and so we're going to do something a littttttttllllllle different this time."

"To stop you guys from getting soft from all the fun you're having here, it's time for a little workout."

From one of the doors Calhoun never lets anyone go through there's a loud, metallic banging sound repeating, as if something is trying to get out. Calhoun does not seem troubled at all by this. In fact, he seems pretty excited.

"The rules are simple, everyone's getting sixty coins to use as they see fit. You'll notice the vending machines on both warehouse floors. Anyone who isn't caught will even get a memory back." But what does that mean?

"So go on, survive for 23 hours, I'll even give you a five minute head start. Good luck!"

And with that he scurries off. Should people hang around they'll get to witness that same door open five minutes later. From the door comes several figures, human in shape but something is very, very wrong.

They seem to be robotic, skeletal humans. At one point they must have had some synthetic skin over them but most of it seems to be melting or ripped off. They don't move very fast, mostly they shamble about until they focus on a target. Better hope it's not you!

BASIC INFO ✖ FIRST TEN HOURS ✖ LAST HOURS ✖ POST EVENT MINGLE

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Upon hearing Sasuke, Kuzuryuu jerked his head in the direction of the sound. For another instant that seemed much longer than it was, he stared at Sasuke, before the extremely unpleasant sounds the robot was making brought him back to reality. He took off toward him, as he recognized that oh yeah this was probably not the place he wanted to be.

They needed to get out of there before it stopped being dazed.

Good, he's coming this way. Sasuke will bolt out the door, trying to keep a consistent check to make sure that Kuzuryuu is following but... well, there's only so much you can do when there's a chance you're going to run into a robot up ahead, too. He's heading in the direction of the garden; if the flare wasn't enough to lose it, they might be able to do something about the robot there...

"I fucking hate these things." That went without saying, really, but Kuzuryuu had to express his displeasure with the situation somehow. Merely running away from it as fast as he could wasn't enough.

Also he had... probably taken a little too long standing around after he'd set the flare off as it had recovered and was perusing them. At least they had a head start?

He'd reply, but he's focused on trying to sprint to the garden without attracting more robots on the way. The last thing they need is for the sound to bring a horde of the things along...

Garden door reached, he continues on to the tree nearest the waterfall, not even pausing to consider the one right next to the door. An impressive leap is enough to grab hold of a branch and haul himself up - and if Kuzuryuu has managed to keep up, he'll quickly reach a hand out to help pull him up, too. "Here!"

Now was definitely not the time to be fussing about Sasuke helping to pull him up into the tree. It was a small miracle that Kuzuryuu'd managed not to fall behind in the first place, having had his leg injured in his puzzle room a little over a week previous. Not that he gave much indication of it. These were dire circumstances, it was hardly the time to be babying any wounds. And it was also not the time to stubbornly refuse help, which was why he took Sasuke's hand and began to pull himself up the tree without complaint.

No offense Kuzuryuu, but he's a quick climber and kinda assuming help would be good around now before anyone gets dragged off by creepy zombiebots. As it is, he'll help Kuzuryuu up onto a branch sturdy enough to support their weights, up and out of the reach of the robot. Which is especially great because it's making some rather concerning and not wholly metallic sounds right now-- did it once have some kind of vocal system...?

Well. Either way, they can only hope this is not a model that can handle climbing. And in the meantime: "You alright?"

Kuzuryuu took a deep breath once Sasuke had helped him get out of harm's reach. He turned his head slightly toward Sasuke, nodding. "Yeah, fine," he replied and after a pause, he continued. "Uh, thanks... for the help."

He turned his gaze back downward, his hands resting at his sides on top of the tree branch. "That was a pretty nice jump." Seriously, that had been quite impressive of Sasuke.

"Sorry about dragging you up like that." He'd been in a slight - just slight - rush to get the guy out of the robot's reach.

"For some reason, I'm used to climbing trees. I didn't think it would come in handy for anything like this, though." Then again, just who would have predicted zombie robots chasing after them?

Thankfully, the one that was tailing them doesn't appear to understand how to climb trees, because now it's just circling the thing and staring up at them creepily. Its head is cocked at an extremely unnatural angle, adding to the disturbing factor.

"Don't worry about it, it's alright since it's special circumstance. I'd be more pissed if you'd let me get grabbed." No point in getting mad about help when falling into the hands of one of those awful robots would have been worse.

Kuzuryuu stared down at the robot, brow furrowed in trepidation. He really did not like them. They were uncanny in a way that gave him goosebumps. "Climbing's a useful skill to have. You never know when you'll have to use it to hide or something." Like now. He paused briefly, before continuing. "Tch, they're uncoordinated, aren't they? Don't know how to do much more than run."

"Sometimes you can get them to attack each other, but... it's difficult." And probably impossible if you're on your own, but Heiji is a madman and these things happen.

The robot makes another sound something akin to squealing car tires, prompting Sasuke to edge up just a bit higher on his branch. "I hope this thing doesn't call others over... we might need to find a way to silence it."

"You can?" That was the first Kuzuryuu'd heard of such a strategy. He was about to ask how when the robot decided to rudely interrupt. Starting and swearing softly under his breath, he nodded.

"It'd better not." But just in case he tried to think up some ways to get it to be quiet. "You don't think throwing something at it would shut it up, do you? Maybe distract it for a few seconds?"

"Heiji got one to short circuit in the waterfall while a couple of them were in the creek. I think they got hit by the electric charge or... something. After that, one of the robots grabbed the other and started dragging it back to the elevators." It probably would have been a lot more interesting to watch if they hadn't been dealing with others at the time, unfortunately...

"...I've got some of that rotten meat left, but I'm not sure if it will go for it while it's targeting us. In the worst-case scenario, it might just attract more of them."

Is it worth the risk...?

"That might be kind of a stupid thing to try, then." Beggars couldn't be choosers, though, so Kuzuryuu'd have to keep that in mind just in case. But he was far more intrigued by the waterfall for the moment.

"If the waterfall works we might as well try that. One of us could get it to follow us in there or, well, something."

"We'd just have to be careful not to get shocked." Hmm...

"...I'll give it a try." Without waiting to see Kuzuryuu's reply, he begins to move along the branch, trying to start off with at least a little distance on the robot. For now at least, the robot continues to circle the tree, its head giving a high-pitched whir as it constantly turns to keep its eyes on the boys above.

Kuzuryuu regarded Sasuke with some apprehension. "Well yeah, that'd probably kill you." Electricity and water was generally a bad combination. So much so that he hadn't expected Sasuke to immediately volunteer.

"H-hey," he half-whispered like that actually mattered when the robot already knew they were there. "Are you planning on just making a run for the waterfall?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" By all means, enlighten him, he's not super pumped about doing this either. "...I think I might be able to make it. If not... you can probably move to another room while it's busy with me." Seriously feel free to make a dash for another place once it's dragged him off, no hard feelings.

"Well, no," Kuzuryuu admitted somewhat reluctantly. "But I'd feel like kind of an asshole if I let you go down there and then made a run for it." That was more than a tad cowardly. Besides, Sasuke had come to help him when he hadn't needed to.

Unfortunately, clever ideas were not forthcoming. "Whatever. Do what you're planning on doing, then. If anything happens I'll... try to figure something out at least." Master of strategy he was not.

He just gives a nod, continuing to move along the branch until he's gone as far as it will allow without snapping under his weight. That would be decidedly awful.

Cautiously, he swings down, using the momentum to hit the ground running. He doesn't even have to turn to know that he's being chased - the sound of metal screeching behind him is enough of a hint. On the bright side, his choice in tree did not turn out to be wrong.

He makes it to the edge of the water before abruptly jumping back, carefully keeping low. The robot stumbles forward, stopping only as it teeters on the edge of the water, which turns out to be just perfect. A quick leap and he's on its shoulders, and another jump causes the robot to lose its balance, sending it careening right into the water.

A loud buzz, a bright flash, and the robot is left smoking in the water. Sasuke, for his part, is just going to continue to catch his breath on the comfy grass for a minute because wow that actually worked maybe Heiji is onto something with his insane ideas.

The initial jump into the tree had been remarkable enough, but that had been nothing compared to what Sasuke had pulled with the robot. Everything had happened so quickly that it took a few seconds for Kuzuryuu to realize that the robot was actually gone. Or dead. Or whatever a robot could be considered. Decommissioned?

Once it registered, Kuzuryuu climbed down, walking over to stand near Sasuke. "Damn, you made that look like it was nothing." He was clearly rather impressed by it. "I didn't realize you were that skilled."

Give him a second to recover himself. "It was Heiji's idea. He did something like that when we first ran into a group of them." Except there had also been like four of the things on that occasion. The fact that they had managed to destroy every single one at the time was a feat in of itself.

"Yeah, that sounds like something he'd come up with." That guy was all kinds of crazy clever. "Still, all that jumping around was pretty good. That's not something just anybody could do." Kuzuryuu sure as hell couldn't have pulled something like that off.

"I'm just quick on my feet, that's all." ...Or something, anyway. Even Sasuke isn't entirely sure what his own deal is. Having had a chance to calm down from the excitement of shoving a zombiebot into the waterfall, he hauls himself up once more. "We'd probably be safe up in the tree now, but... this is also a good chance to move to another room if you want to."

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

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wow look at that beautifully messed up html

that happens to me allll the time, freaking italics

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