capthepoint | [Closed Thread] Malfunction

[Closed Thread] Malfunction

Who: Sid and Cliff.
What: Fixing the water malfunction.
When: November 8th, 12:46 PM.
Where: Around the base. Starts in RED base, though.

A somewhat wet Cliff was going straight toward the RED Engineer's room, toolbox in hand and trying not to get anything important soaked. He had already been down to where the water malfunction was, and it was getting kind of flooded down there--high time he got Sid and went to fix it. Cliff looked back over his shoulder and frowned at the wet bootprints being left in his wake, making a mental note to come back and clean that up if it hadn't dried already when they were done.

Now that he was at Sid's door, he lightly rapped his knuckles on the wood. "Hey, Sid! That water thing's gotten a bit worse. 'S prolly a good idea if'n we go fix it." Wait. What if he was busy with something? Just barging in like this would be rude. "--uh, if y'ain't already occupied, that is."

...hopefully Sid was in there. Cliff hadn't bothered to check, and he didn't feel like being the idiot Engineer today.

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Cliff blinked for a second when Sid appeared at the door. He couldn't help but wonder what he had been doing in the--hold on why was he panting. Oh god, was he really--no, that wouldn't--he should probably just stop thinking about that and answer already, shouldn't he? Cliff shook his head a little with a sheepish grin, rocking back onto his heels for a second.

"Uh, yeah. It's gettin' a little...flooded down there, an' we might wanna patch that up a'fore it gets much worse."

"Mmn." Sid never could fathom some people's passion for working after-hours. Besides that, the BLU was giving him some awfully funny looks. He raised an eyebrow, stepping out into the hall despite the heavy sense of reluctance. "I thought you was sayin' you were gonna take care 'a that?"

Oh, wait. Gloves. He might want them. Maybe a toolbag? "Shoot, one sec." He ducked back inside to rifle through his possessions.

"Yeah, but...well, you'll see when we get down there. An' besides, I ain't th' best person t' be throwin' down there alone." Cliff watched him dig around, reminded of the time they fixed the AC unit. Somewhat of a deja-vu, in a way--Cliff couldn't help but smile at it. Sid looked a little reluctant, which only served to solidify his earlier theory (he had to interrupt, didn't he?). Still, at least the other Engineer seemed to be on board. He was probably going to need Sid down there anyhow.

Rewiring ACs had been one thing, Sid thought to himself dourly, but plumbing was quite another. Messier, for one, and not nearly as satisfying.

He untangled the handle of his toolbag from an overextended knitting project, grabbed the gloves off his dresser, and re-emerged a few moments later. "Y'turned the water off, right?" he asked curiously, noticing Cliff's sodden bootprints trailing down the hall for the first time.

"For th' most part. Some'a it wasn't really wantin' t' go off." Cliff frowned a little, tucking his thumb into his belt. This wasn't going to be fun, but it was better to get it over with as soon as possible, rather than letting to go on any longer. He didn't deem it necessary to comment on the little bit of yarn that still clung to Sid's toolbag--he would probably notice it soon enough. If not, then he might have to point it out. "There's some pretty big stuff down there, though--we're gonna have t' be careful. If th' water's busted up, who knows what else could be."

"Yeah, guess so." Sid followed the trail of water with his eyes as they walked, wondering for the first time whether the basement stretched between the two bases. He hadn't bothered exploring down there since his first late-night venture to the fusebox.

Aw, well. They were doing this, might as well make the best of it. "How you been, anyhow? Heard you 'n that squarehead out there earlier."

Cliff scratched the back of his neck with a sheepish grin, looking thoroughly embarrassed. "Fine, but--uh. Guess I don' have t' ask if you heard all that. That was jus'...yeah. That." He wasn't really sure what to say about it, anyway. "Hope we didn't bother you or anythin'?" It had been a spur of the moment thing, and he didn't particularly mean to be playing that loud. If Sid could hear it, that means half the base might've heard it too--oh geez.

"S'a sight better'n his solo performance th'other day, tell ya that much." Sid snorted good-naturedly as they rounded a corner past the intel room. Why on earth Cliff was looking so flustered about the whole thing was beyond him. For a bugle player, he sure was awful timid about some things. "What d'you make of the fella, anyhow?"

"Mmmm, well. I ain't too fond'a him, but I bet you can guess why." Of course, that was probably general opinion--who wanted to be woken up that early in the morning with a bugle? "Haven't really had a lot of time t' talk to' him, though, so I'm still makin' judgments." Cliff shrugged. From what he'd heard from Dan, though, he should probably be a bit less pleasant towards the Soldier. "From what I heard outta you when he came in, I'd guess you might be a decent bit less inclined t' be neutral towards him."

"Huh? Oh, that." Sid shrugged. "It ain't nothin' personal, really. Heck of a way t'wake up, but 'm always like that, mornings." He rubbed one eye, chuckling. "Guess I'm kinda holdin' off on it, too. He seems awful gung-ho. Dumber'n a box of rocks, though, from what I seen s'far, 'n I ain't usually one t'talk on th'point."

Mental note: don't wake Sid up. "Maybe he'll mellow out a bit after bein' here a while?" Wishful thinking in all likelihood, but yeah, maybe. "Though he might jus' get worse, dependin'." Cliff shrugged, taking a quick look around. They were almost there, and he could barely hear the dripping that had been driving him nuts the last time he was down there. Something seemed a bit different about it, but Cliff didn't take much stock in it--water was water, and that was a water malfunction that seriously needed to be fixed.

"Jus' our luck all that violence'll prolly encourage 'im," Sid agreed, throwing wide the door to the basement and pausing. The lighting was awful down here, and no surprise, but there had to be at least an inch of water on the floor.

"Jesus criminy," he whistled, leaning in to get a better look. "How in heck'd we manage showerin' th'past week 'f it's this bad? Y'shoulda brung yer minin' light or somethin'."

"Tol' ya it wasn't so good." Yeah, he probably should have, but it had slipped his mind. "Think somethin' blew out down here, but I haven't been able t' get a good look-see, really." That seemed like a likely enough reason for why the entire place was so damn waterlogged. The water level was maybe even a tiny bit higher than it had been when he had left, though, and that wasn't good at all. "Best get to it though, mm?" Cliff really wasn't looking forward to going down there.

"Yeah, guess so..." Sid stepped dubiously into the room, feeling water pool around his ankles. Idly, he wondered if the corporations had any plumbers on hand. His pride as a handyman was all well and good, but this was ridiculous.

"I got a bad feelin' about this," he sighed, rummaging for a flashlight in his toolbag. "C'mon, see what we got, here."

Cliff followed Sid, scowling at the water for a second before fumbling around on the wall for any sort of extra light switch. Nothing seemed to be there, but when his fingers caught on something sharp, he pulled back with a hiss of surprise. Looking up at the rather large piece of metal, Cliff could honestly say that he had no idea what in the world this thing was.

"Think I found what went an' blew out." he called, looking over his shoulder.

"Huh?" Sid had pulled out his flashlight by that point, and was clicking it on and off while shaking it. Finally, the stubborn thing yielded a dim beam which he directed at Cliff, then at the machine. Wading over, he squinted at the charred, twisted remains.

"No wonder," he murmured. "Here I thought somebody over your way been usin' all the hot water. Looks like one of them tanks blew." Could there be a gas leak, too? he wondered, suddenly nervous. He knew far too little about how the base's plumbing worked to be comfortable, but he doubted any of it was current. And besides that, his feet were getting wet. "We oughta get outta here, pal. God knows what else's gonna blow down here. S'the higher-ups' fault it got like this anyhow; ain't our job to go fixin' it."

Cliff gave a long whistle, poking a bit of the metal again, albeit a good bit more carefully this time. "Least we didn't come down here when that happened, huh?" Sid was right, though; this wasn't exactly such a safe place to be, and he figured they should be making a call to some HQ rather than trying to fix it themselves.

He took a step back, taken by surprise when his foot caught on a submerged--something, he wasn't sure what, sending him tumbling backwards into the water. Whatever it was he had hit, it seemed to be attached to the tank; the scorched metal lurched forward, hanging at an absurd angle for the slightest second before falling forward. Cliff had just enough time to get out of the way of most of it, but he could distinctly feel something pinning his hand down--that was weird, he couldn't quite feel anything past where the tank was, aside from a rapidly building ache that made him clench his jaw so as not to make any sound.

Sid's heart leapt into his mouth at the screech, and he darted forward only to be cut off as the ruins of the tank fell at his feet. The clang and splash was deafening, his cursing more so. "Shit! Cliff, you fuckin' stupid -- you okay?!"

He waded closer to the tank, forgetting his own cautionary words, and a frightening thought lodged itself into his mind -- respawn was off, wasn't it? Was -- oh, shit. "Dammit. Cliff, I swear to Christ --"

Cliff made a rather pained noise and let his head fall back in the water, trying not to notice the red seeping out from under the tank. Don't look over there. Anything but that. He tried moving the fingers on his right hand and discovered that they weren't even responding, which didn't make him feel any better. Cliff's heart was going at a mile a minute, and he tried getting out from under the tank, only to be stopped by a sudden spike of pain. He yelped at that and only bit down harder, glancing over at Sid as he came closer. He was pretty sure that if he tried saying anything, he was going to start screaming, and that wouldn't help matters any.

Well, at least he was alive, but that didn't sound too good. "You all right? Shit, you clumsy goddamn --" Oh, right, flashlight. He fumbled numbly with the beam, shivering when the light revealed blood seeping through the murky water and Cliff's face contorted in pain. "Aw, shit."

Already soaked, he waded through the water to Cliff's side, crouching down. Most of Cliff seemed to have cleared the falling wreckage, but a metal flange had neatly crushed his right arm, severing bone and tendon. A few months ago, Sid's stomach would have turned at the sight; even desensitized as he was, it was no small shock. "Fuck -- shit, that thing got you good, ain't it?"

He rummaged in his pocket reflexively, pulling out his PDA and typing in the code for a dispenser without thinking, then cursed and reached in Cliff's belt pocket for the BLU's PDA, remembering the team difference. "You jus' sit tight, all right, buddy? Gonna be fine. Shit, this ain't nothin'. Here --" He set down the BLU dispenser, letting the moving parts twist themselves into place. "You jus' set tight, all right? Let that thing do the trick for ya, 'n I'll go get help. Gonna be feelin' good in no time."

Cliff just nodded and stared up at the ceiling, not really feeling like telling Sid he wasn't going anywhere in the first place. When the Dispenser got up after what seemed like an eternity, the healing beam made him feel somewhat better, but not by much. The water was making this even more uncomfortable, even though Cliff wasn't sure that was even legitimately possible. He didn't think he'd be 'feeling better in no time', as Sid put it, considering he was currently partially under an exploded tank and most certainly losing that hand. He really hoped Sid would be back with that help pretty damn quick.

Sid clambered through the waterlogged room as quickly as he could. In no time, he was flying up the staircase, taking steps two and three at a time as though trying to rival Dan's best sprinting record. Droplets of water spattered in his wake. Would he surface in BLU or RED base? He had no idea. No time to worry about that anyhow.

"Medic!" he yelled in between breathless gasps, flinging the door open wide and stumbling into an ill-lit hallway.

Generally, after hours, you didn't hear anyone screaming 'Medic' like that. It was something reserved for the battlefield, but even outside of those hours, the call still made him react the same. Everything was dropped and he rushed to respond to the sound, grabbing his to-go kit on the way out the ward and almost colliding with the caller.

"Sid?! Sid vhat's wrong?!" Clearly something was terribly, terribly wrong. He was wet, soaking from the ankles down and panting as if he'd run a mile. "Vhere?" It didn't matter what had caused it to who, all that mattered what that the 'who' made it until next respawn at the very least.

To see Mauritz responding to his call for Medic was disorientating, but Sid paid it no mind. "S'Cliff," he managed, leaning one arm against the wall. "'N the cellar. He's hurt bad. Got a dispenser up, but -- here, jus' c'mon --" He turned and headed back through the door, blitzing down the stairs and hoping that Mauritz would follow in his wake.

The German waste no more breath asking questions, eager to get to Cliff's aid as soon as possible. He kept pace with the Engineer easily, being almost close to Scout speed after all, and kept the bag close, thankful he always had something sitting nearby just in case. It was a habit left over from the old days, one he didn't mind keeping.

[Closed Thread] Malfunction

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FIX IT PLZ

Re: FIX IT PLZ

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