Quote:“Okay... I need that broadcast to the emergency channel now. The whole committee needs it.”________________________________
Anika answered through a speaker on the desk. “Done. And I’ve already signalled for emergency aid from Asuka. Response teams will be here within the hour.”
Ford had managed to get three of them, the medical officer, the safety officer and the public relations officer. The rest of the committee was either in the Trade Hall, in their quarters, or otherwise busy herding cats and con-members to safety. Either way, too far away and too busy.
Sydney, the con’s medical, sat on a spare terminal. His fair hair and almost boyish face joined with a rebel alliance uniform gave him a Skywalker charm that stood at odds with the seriousness of his expression. “We’ve had ten casualties so far.” he said “Mostly light injuries. One heart attack requiring emergency biomod. No fatalities”
“Thank fuck. Evacuation?”
Ray Holley -the safety officer from Marsbase Sara with the autobots t-shirt - was standing by the map, paying more attention “The plan is good. The last few stragglers are leaving the B Loop. The Beeb blocked an emergency door with a caravan here, so they’re stuck here.” he placed his finger over their markers on the map. “The Carpark’s about half empty already.”
“How long?”
He thought for a moment. “5 Minutes. Without tunnel access, it’s slow going. The plans assumed we’d have at least one, even if we had a developed fire.”
Ford offered a silent prayer of thanks. All their planning and preparation was working. The relief flowed through her body.
Janet, the PR officer from Ganymede with the brown duster spoke next. “I’m telling them the truth.... ain’t got much else to say. Keep clear a’ the tunnels and carpark,. Keeping music on’ll keep people calm. It’s all nice’n orderly like. A few complaints over the network being cut off, some folk think we’b trying to hide something from the ‘verse at large but most understand.”
“Okay.” Ford took a few moments to gather it all together in her head. She twirled one of those projecting sideburns through her fingers as she mulled the situation over, trying to get her mind on top of it all. "Now that we know where we are. What do we have that can stop it before it wrecks?”
“Nothing....” said the safety officer. “No really. Nothing we have was intended for these speeds. We have crash barriers... they’re good for 2 tons at 320kph. The foam will stop it... but again, at these speeds we’re losing the driver.”
“He’s a CI, not a human being,” said Sydney, in a cool tone. Everyone glared at him. He raised his arms in defence “I mean.... he’s tougher than a human, isn’t he?”
Ford though for a moment “I don’t know. But I don’t want to take that chance. ”
“Can we route it to the surface? Shoot it out into space?” suggested the PRO, with a hopeful expression on her face.
“There’s no way it could make the turn onto route A2 at those speeds,” Ray answered quickly,
“Then drop the partial pressure of oxygen...” she continued
“That’ll take way too long. Half an hour, easily.”
“And there’re people trapped in those sections.” Sydney added.
Ford flipped open her comm-link. “Anika? Can you see if anyone over in the CGI pit has anything that’ll stop it.” Her eyes scanned the room “We need more options and we need them quick.”
----
Jeph remarked to himself on the relative unfairness of the universe, as he looked up from the stack of paperwork that he had to personally deal with, and over at the flyer tacked to the wall for MoCon.
"Hey, Jeph," Holly called out, his face appearing on one of the monitors. "Wavecall from Myk."
"Thanks, Hol," he said, picking up the handset from the base on his desk, the one spot not covered in paperwork. "Jeph's Den on Iniquity." Nene, over in the corner, snickered. Then, Jeph straightened up in his chair, shifting to female so quick there was almost an audible snapping sound.
"What?!" She listened for a second, then exclaimed, slightly lower. "What?" A few seconds of some sort of... tense voice on the other end, then she repeated quite, quite flatly, "What. No, I heard you, Myk. Crystal clear. Who the FUCK does that sort of thing?"
A pause.
"Oh, bloody fucking joy on a shit stick. How bad?"
She paled as Myk said something unpleasant over the line.
"Oh dear gods. Have they got a handle on it yet? ...fuck me, they haven't? No, do what you need to do over there. Seriously, Myk."
Another pause.
"Yes, I understand this is pissing you off good. I can feel the intensity from here. We can start on our way over to pick you up when it's all finished."
A few seconds, as she nodded her head. "We'll ship over at full burn. Holly and Geo should be able to take care of things here while we're gone. Yes, you take care too." Jeph set the handset down onto the base gingerly, slumping back in her chair. "Oh fuck."
"What's going on?" Nene inquired, coming over and setting a hand on Jeph's shoulder. A
shoulder that was already tensing up.
"Someone - it looks like Mackie - souped up some sort of car into the Griffin, and it jammed it's throttle wide open." Nene turned white as a sheet, as she remembered what the Griffin had done in the OAV. "It's already bad, and possibly going to get worse. Get your overnight bag, we're taking Starbug 1 over there as fast as we can burn."
-----
The Ferrari seemed to somehow sulk.... the red machine not especially taking to well to being parked up when something so simple had challenged its dominance. Gas turbine engines were, after all, the easy route.
They were bad. For all the reasons producing power through the use of pistols and crankshafts was good.
It seemed however, especially annoyed at being forced to park between a Range Rover, and a caravan being pulled by a Transit van.
The Ferrari’s driver took the opportunity to record a quick piece to camera while the produces busied themselves trying to figure out how to move it without blocking the tunnel
“What’s happened people is that we’ve had an emergency due to a runaway car - that isn’t ours - and the driver of the mobile production office has pulled in to the designated refuge with us. And he’s blocked the evacuation door with it.”
He glanced nervously over the top of the crash barrier, peering into the tunnel.,
“So now we have to move it. Or we’ll be trapped in here and there might be a big crash and we’ll all be killed.”
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?