Westopolis - Field Trip

[Riyami]

Over the bustling city of central Westopolis, a large military transport cruised through the air, carrying a small crew of G.U.N. personnel. Among the passengers, one member stood out from the rest of the predominantly urban camo and steel interior.

Berkan Muteson, a fairly tall, bespectacled human male in a clean white and teal uniform, sat off to one side, strapped into his seat as he went over some information on his Datapad. It wasn't every day that researchers in G.U.N’s Science Division got the chance to do field work, considering the often dangerous nature of the military organization's operations. Compared to the sterile white rooms of the lab, however, it was a refreshing change of pace.

As the transport touched down at the facility branch, Berkan set his datapad away and went over the briefing details in his head. There were some inconsistent readings in the new warp gate being installed in the branch location. Go in, perform some diagnostics, and report anything unusual back to HQ.

Sounded simple enough.

[bunnikkila]

As Berkan set his datapad aside, the little rabbit thrope nearby sat up a bit straighter, giving the human a little smile. Dusty was a veteran of these outside operations, and his personable nature meant that he was often assigned as escort on the occasion one of GUN's noncombatant members needed an assist. He hadn't worked with Berkan specifically before, but he knew the human in passing; likeable enough fellow, in Dusty's opinion, and this trip could be a fine opportunity to get to know him a bit better.

"Welp." As the vehicle stopped, Dusty unstrapped himself and hopped to his feet, stretching briefly before giving Berkan another quick, friendly smile. "Ready to go to work?"

[Riyami]

Removing his own straps from his shoulders and standing up from his seat, Berkan returned the friendly gesture with a nod and pleasant smile of his own. "All set, Major Cash."

Berkan leaned over, picking up a medium-sized G.U.N. case that was laying next to him one seat over. The rear door to the carrier split open with a heavy metallic groan, and slowly lowered itself down into a ramp, allowing the various passengers to exit onto the helipad.

Following after, Berkan ducked down and lifted his free hand to shield his face and secure his glasses against the gusts of wind from the still spinning down rotors of the transport's engines. Once a fair distance away from the carrier, Berkan paused in his step to cast a reverent gaze up at the towering facility. He didn't visit the Westopolis branch often, but from what he heard, the city had taken it's fair share of hard knocks, making it a bit rougher place than others. Hopefully, the new branch and reinforced G.U.N presence meant things would get better for everyone.

Berkan let out a short hum, readjusting his glasses as he looked back toward Dusty. "Thank you again for accompanying me on this assignment, Major. It may not be quite as exciting as what you might be used to, but I'm certain it won't take too long." Berkan said with an obliged smile.

[bunnikkila]

"Aw, just Dusty's fine."

Dusty gave Berkan a friendly little pat on the shoulder as the human leaned over to retrieve his case. As they exited he stayed at Berkan's side, hands clasped casually behind his back as he too gazed up at the facility. Fairly quiet today; a good sign, he hoped.

At Berkan's words he chuckled lightly, shaking his head. Not a bad kid, he'd already decided. Little bit uptight, but - well. It was a military career, after all. Still, Dusty had hopes he could get Berkan to loosen up a little; always nice to make friends across divisions. Or in general.

"No sense jinxin' it now... but y'know, I don't mind a quiet day now an'then. Besides."

He gestured broadly, head tilting.

"Not often I get to see this side of things. So - tell me watch y'got goin' on? Can't promise I'll understand it all, but I do like hearin' it."

[Riyami]

Berkan gave a short chuckle, resuming his walk into the building, but keeping his pace in line with Dusty's. Berkan usually felt a tad self-conscious when speaking to other people averaging half his size. Fortunately the Major's friendly disposition made it considerably easier to hold a conversation without Berkan feeling like he was talking down to Dusty, even if physically speaking, that was one of the few ways he could.

"Nothing terribly complicated, really." Berkan said as he gently waved a reassuring hand at Dusty's comment.

"There have been a few minor spikes in energy activity coming from the new warp gate. It doesn't appear to be anything serious, but I'm going to run some tests on the gate's systems just to be safe."

[bunnikkila]

“Oh?”

Dusty’s floppy ears perked as well as they could, the rabbit’s nose twitching curiously. Truth be told, he understood even less about the gates than most technology; he could certainly use a computer and had some vague inkling how the things worked, but the idea of moving between worlds - let alone the tech involved! - was rather outside his experience.

Not every day that happened; just as he’d told Berkan, this was set to be an interesting mission regardless of any conventional ‘excitement’.

“Got any theories? An’... come t’think, what powers those things anyhow?”

[Riyami]

"Hmm." Berkan pensively rubbed his chin between his index knuckle and thumb. He was pleasantly surprised that Dusty seemed so interested in the tech involved.

"Much like most of G.U.N's robotics, warp gates are typically powered using an array of Chaos Drives as a power source. By focusing that chaos energy and attuning it to just the right frequencies, we can temporarily bend the laws of physics, enabling instantaneous travel."

Berkan nodded his head to the side, pressing his lips together and skewing them a bit to the side in thought.

"As for theories...I'm afraid I can't say that I have any. There's still much we don't know about Chaos energy, and to be perfectly honest, technology this advanced begins to fall a tad outside my specific area of expertise." He said with a sheepish grin. While Berkan did have some intermediate training on G.U.N technology that was common for most of the Science Department, He didn't really want to admit that he was actually the only on site technician available to do this assignment at the time.

"Fortunately, Most of what we need can be easily taken care of with just this." Berkan lifted the case in his hand, giving it a light tap with his finger.

[bunnikkila]

Dusty nodded slowly at the explanation. He was familiar with the Chaos drives, to a degree; not something he made use of with any sort of frequency, but it was a common enough principle within the organization.

"Come to that, I'd venture a guess we don't know everythin' there is to know about physics either, huh."

That was said in a thoughtful murmur; the whole subject was a bit nebulous to Dusty beyond the every-day obvious, but it seemed unlikely anyone could get to the bottom of the rules whole universes played by. Of course, he could be wrong.

"Welp." He looked up at Berkan with a grin. "You know more'n I do, an' they do say it's good t'learn somethin' new every day - right? So let's get to it."

He was quiet a moment, thinking as they walked. It was an interesting problem.

"Wonder if the distance between two points is always the same. Guess between whole worlds that gets a lil bit, eh, philosophical."

[Riyami]

Berkan gave a bemused laugh. He wasn't sure if Major Dusty knew just how much of an understatement he had made.

"Ahaha. Exceptionally philosophical. The whole notion is delving deep into Metaphysics and Quantum Mechanics, Not to mention the fact that we've experienced outright proof of the Multiverse theorem. It's utterly mind-boggling." Berkan responded as he raised his palm, fingers splayed as if to grasp at the idea.

As the two spoke, they came to a large security door guarded by two G.U.N soldiers, who acknowledged Dusty and Berkan with a slight nod as they approached. Berkan stepped forward and pulled a small keycard from one of his belt pouches. Waving the keycard in front of the door's keypad resulted in a faint computerized tone, and the door slid open with a soft hiss.

Inside was a large room with tall vaulted ceilings and a metal catwalk surrounding the perimeter of the walls. Within the center was a massive round metallic frame with various heavy machinery and oversized computer hardware hooked into it at it's base. A myriad of wires and tubes cascaded from the hardware, converging into a wide row of terminals sectioned off to the side by a wall of thick safety glass. Overlooking the technical terminals high on one of the rear walls was the classic glass windowed control room.

Berkan couldn't help but utter a faint note under his breath, readjusting his glasses with his fingertips. "These gates always seem to be quite larger up close, don't they?" he pondered.

[bunnikkila]

Dusty nodded slowly, keeping his expression serious as he made his next statement.

"An' aside of all that - if Gaia's constantly movin', an' Terra's constantly movin', how in the heck d'you manage not t'just... slingshot people into some planet's general vicinity? Keepin' the gates connected... how many blackboards y'got for that equation?"

He grinned at the thought; Dusty knew perfectly well that it was all data, but the idea of GUN scientists busily working over an entirely blackboarded room wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Well, there were other things to worry about now; Dusty seemed to know both guards by name, and greeted them as he walked through with Berkan. The gate was impressive indeed; Dusty tipped his head back to gaze at it, hands clasping behind his back again as he nodded.

"Sure is somethin'... next t'that thing, an' what it means, you an' me might as well be the same size."

He glanced up at Berkan, straightfaced again.

"Don't know that you've noticed, but up close we got just a lil bit of a difference, there."

[Riyami]

Berkan flashed a quick smirk in response to Dusty's comment of rooms full of blackboards. The Major would have likely had far too much fun watching the recruits back at the science academy when final deadlines began to roll around.

Berkan fell into thought as he stood in front of the gate, rubbing his fingers into his closed palm. It was still running idly, but the fact that there were some anomalies in such a large and possibly volatile piece of equipment began to worry him. Berkan nodded slowly, but quickly stopped as his train of thought snapped back to present company.

"Ah...we do, don't we?" Berkan blinked a few times, dodging eye contact. His face shaping again into a sheepish grin as he scratched the side of his face, lifting the case in his hand and motioning to it with a gentle shake.

"My apologies... I should probably get to work." He nodded respectfully to Dusty, and then made his way over to the rows of consoles next to the gate.

[bunnikkila]

"Well - don't let me keep ya."

Dusty smiled, giving Berkan a sort of half-bow and a 'go-ahead' hand gesture before clasping his hands again, attention shifting to the gate.

"Just lemme know if y'need me to... oh, I dunno, hold the flashlight, or somethin'." It was, of course, about the extent of his working with any machinery that wasn't farm equipment, at least outside of operating it. That said, he paced along the catwalk to study the gate from fresh angles. Never straying far from Berkan, of course, but... well, it was interesting.

[Riyami]

Berkan set the large suitcase down next to the main terminal, opening the clasps along its side. On one half of the suitcase was a small screen and input keyboard, the other half had a myriad of instruments and connectors.

Plugging the case computer into the terminal, Berkan typed a few keystrokes as lines of information scrolled down the small screen. Several checks came back green, much to Berkan’s relief. As the diagnostics continued to run, Berkan looked up to Dusty as he walked along the catwalk.

“Everything looks normal thus far, Major. However, in a moment I’ll need to activate the gate for a few minutes to get some sample energy readings.” he called up as a fair warning.

Berkan began typing again, and the large mechanics of the gate gave a low droning hum. Several of the integrated chaos drives surrounding the gate began emitting a Cascade of light as it slowly whirred to life.

[bunnikkila]

Dusty came back to Berkan's side as the human spoke. Peeking over Berkan's shoulder was of course an impossibility, but Dusty did come close enough to peer around his arm at the monitor.

Hm. All more or less meaningless to him, but he trusted Berkan to know what was up.

"Lookin' for spikes, right?" He glanced toward the gate as it started up, squinting slightly as if he could see said spikes occur and moving a bit so that he was between the gate and his companion. Odd instinct, perhaps, but even so.

[Riyami]

Berkan nodded as he continued to watch the laptop screen, small graphs and monitors spanning neon green data readings, among other things.

"That's right. We know what happens within the gates under certain conditions, but if those conditions vary too much things get rather... unpredictable."

As the Gate continued to run, small visual distortions formed in a thin semi-transparent sheet in between the Chaos Drives affixed to the gate's frame. A minute or so passed with nothing more than a few gentle ripples from the gate. Berkan let out a soft exhale, readjusting his glasses.

"That should be enough, I'll go ahead and-" Berkan paused as a tiny mote of light appeared just off to his side. He blinked, took off his glasses, wiped them against his shirt, and placed them back onto the bridge of his nose. "huh?"

Other small flecks of light started appearing all around the room, and a faint crackling within the gate as a sharp crystalline formation pulsed inside the semi-transparent sheet of energy within the gate.

[bunnikkila]

Dusty looked over at Berkan when the human suddenly cut off his sentence, brows raising. It took only a second for him to notice the motes of light; the rabbit frowned, moving protectively closer to Berkan, and looked toward the gate again.

Well. That... didn't look too promising, did it?

"Far be it from me t'tell you how to do your job," he said tersely, "but might be a good idea to turn it off."

Dusty wasn't sure if that would even help; if B movies taught him anything, it was that whatever felt like going wrong would just go ahead and keep going wrong. But hey - life couldn't always be a B movie, and it wouldn't hurt to try.

[Riyami]

The loud crackle from the gate made Berkan flinch, his face turning a shade paler as he looked from the gate back to Major Dusty.

"n..no, that's certainly a fair assessment, Major..." Berkan muttered with a faint quiver in his voice as he turned back toward the laptop, typing rapidly.

There was another loud shudder from the gate. Another crackle inside the gate's energy interrupting Berkan's typing as the entire room seemed to bounce suddenly and then slowly suspend in mid air. All of the objects inside the room seemed to have their weight suddenly disappear, almost as if gravity had been stopped completely as they began to gently ascend.

Berkan reached down to continue the shut down sequence on the laptop, but his fingertips only brushed the keys as his body continued to float weightlessly. The laptop however, remained anchored to the console by the short wires connecting it.

"Ah!" Berkan flailed his arms helplessly, making himself turn over and nearly upside-down in mid air. Berkan snapped a hand to his nose to prevent his glasses floating away, and he kicked his feet to try and right himself as he reached for the laptop with his free hand.

"Major!?"

[bunnikkila]

Aw, heck.

"Hang on!" Dusty called, and immediately winced. Now that was a damn stupid thing to say. Well, Berkan probably knew what he meant anyway.

All right. Now what? The ceilings were too high to be practical to kick off of unless they could angle themselves to a wall, but... there was the distinct possibility that he could throw Berkan back down. There was a lack of leverage, true - but floating free also meant that Berkan's much greater height wouldn't be a problem. That was normally the issue with being so small, of course: Dusty could, generally speaking, move a person several times his own weight if only he could prevent the other person from dragging on the ground.

Clearly not a problem here.

Lucky thing he'd moved closer to Berkan, then - Dusty reached out, grabbing for Berkan's clothing in order to try hurling him back down toward the laptop.

rzXoBJxY

[Riyami]

2zlTBWR4p_

Berkan was taken by surprise when he felt two hands grasp onto the back of his shirt, managing to get a faint "huh?" out of his mouth before being spun around and flung down toward the console.

Berkan twisted himself around mid air pushing his feet forward. However, acrobatics was clearly not one of the lanky scientist's strong suits as he underestimated the lack of gravity and bounced shoulder first into the floor with a loud THWUMP. Berkan audibly winced and stretched his hand out, catching one of the corners of the console where the laptop was still connected.

"Got it!" Berkan wheezed, pulling himself upright.

The gate pulsed again. A low bass droned as the growing crystalline formation rapidly fluctuated in the center and started to spin. Several crates and other loose objects that were suspended around the room slowly began to mimic the rotation inside the gate and the abnormal gravity started to orbit around it to match.

Berkan's feet slowly pulled back out from under him, and he quickly latched his hand back down onto one of the sides of the console. Glancing back up at Dusty, Berkan reached out a hand to him to grab on.

[bunnikkila]

 

Dusty winced at Berkan's collision with the floor. Ouch. Well - at least he had hold of the console.

"Good! You all right?" Dusty called out even as he tried to maneuver himself to catch the scientist's hand. At least his slight weight shouldn't be too hard to hold onto... he hoped.


JxhZsdTup_ 

And... he missed, fingers swiping just shy of Berkan's as he swore under his breath, drifting upward again. Hell's bells, this was turning into a real to-do. Quiet mission indeed!

"Think I jinxed it after all," he called down, glancing around for something he could catch hold of to propel himself downward. "Can y'get into the system, there?"

[Riyami]

Berkan scrambled to each Dusty as he floated past, almost losing his grip on the console in the process. Berkan glanced between the console and Dusty, a bead of sweat starting to form on his temple as both of his inner brows started arching up in concern.

"Right. I.. I should be alright..." Berkan pressed his lips together and huffed, slowly hoisting himself up onto the top of the console. He glanced up again, only to be met with a loud BANG as one of the military crates slammed against the opposite side and went careening past just overhead. Berkan yelped, pressing against the desk as best he could to avoid some of the various metal bits that had shaken loose. Several of the other free floating objects orbiting around the room began to pick up speed, forming a small debris belt around the gate.

"..m..maybe.." Berkan nervously chuckled to himself.

[bunnikkila]

Hoo boy.

"Do whatcha can, Berkan, I'll try an' keep all this away!"

Assuming they didn't simply get pulled in. Well, he would have to trust that Berkan would be 'alright' as he said. Dusty took a deep breath and maneuvered to kick off the metal box, trying to force it further from Berkan and himself closer.

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[Riyami]

K0KfdZUip_

Dusty was easily able to kick himself forward, and sent the weightless metal crate spinning off in the opposite direction.

Behind Dusty, the core of the gate shuddered and let out another deep resonating tone. A wave of pressure swept across the room. The chunky ring of objects floating in a circle around the gate shifted and began orbiting in the opposite direction with increasing speed.

Down below, Berkan had been inching toward his laptop floating just opposite to him on the console when the pressure wave hit. Again he felt his momentum shift against his will, pivoting on his torso as he skid across the console. Berkan shot his arms forward as he slid by, and grabbed the laptop firmly in both hands.

"Aha-!"

His victory was short lived, as Berkan almost immediately slammed back first into the guardrails on the other side of the console. His head snapped back and lurched forward again as he quickly planted the laptop back against the console. Just beyond the console, a faint glimmer of light reflected off the squared pair of glasses now flying freely away to join the ring around the gate.

Berkan winced, squinting his now naked eyes and keeping his hands anchored down onto the sides of the laptop for fear of that flying away as well.
Berkan shouted into the air to try and call out over the deep droning of the malfunctioning gate that had now dominated the room.

"M-Major! I'm afraid I was mistaken! I require your assistance, Please!"

[bunnikkila]

Between the drone of the gate and his own damaged hearing, Dusty couldn't make out Berkan's words. Still, it didn't take a bat's hearing to tell that the scientist was having trouble. The rabbit ground his incisors as he scanned the area, plotting a route to the human.

Just like leaping his way through a combat zone. Sure.

"All right - I'm comin'!"

|Omr_IfD

He went bounding through the debris then, kicking off at angles to bring himself closer to Berkan. This actually went beautifully - he was in range in a few seconds, seizing Berkan by the back of the jacket and reaching out for the railing to anchor them.



Two for one! He took the railing in a strong grip and pulled Berkan down with surprising strength.

"All right - can't keep this up forever, but I gotcha for now!"·

[Riyami]

Berkan blinked as he was yanked back down by the scruff of his jacket, and for a moment, he couldn't help but be impressed by the fact that it was by someone quite literally half his size. Another loud crackle from the Gate quickly brought back Berkan's attention, and he quickly wedged his legs down between the guardrail and the control console to tightly anchor himself down.

"Thank you, Major!" Berkan was at a shout, trying to keep his voice up over the Gate's drones.

"I need you to finish typing the confirmation passcode into this laptop!" Berkan motioned his head to the laptop he was keeping pressed down onto the top of the console in front of him. He squirmed a bit, trying to turn the laptop around without letting either hand slip.

"That should finish the shutdown command sequence! You just need to type what you see on the screen!"

On the screen, at the very end of a massive wall of text was a string of slightly larger green letters reading: "Confirmation Passcode: E24G35"

[bunnikkila]

Oh hell.

He had no idea what Berkan was trying to tell him - he simply couldn't hear over the roar of the gate. Dusty gave Berkan a faintly bewildered frown, about to ask what--oh.

All right. The nod toward the laptop was clear enough.

He squinted as he scanned over the text, largely uncomprehending but - there.

Well. Easy enough.

Dusty reached forward, claws flicking over the keyboard in something too rapid to be hunt-and-peck but certainly not proper typing form. At least it was more or less efficient, even if he had to glance at the screen again halfway through before returning his gaze to the keyboard.

E-2-4... G-3-5.

[Riyami]

Upon entering the last digit of the confirmation code, the laptop began scrolling a string of dots down the screen. Across the room, the swirling mass of now crystallizing energy at the center of the gate shuddered in sync with a steady increase of strength to the unnatural pull on everything in the room.

A light on the control console shifted from green to red as the string of dots on the laptop stopped, listing a small "Sequence complete" in it's place.

One by one, the chaos drives around the frame of the gate blinked and dimmed completely. The disc of energy within the gate sputtered as the floating objects around it sank in the air before dropping to the ground. As the gate's energy dispersed, the crystalline form in the center retracted in on itself in a small flash and disappeared. Save for a small thumb sized rectangular chunk of iridescent crystal that clinked harmlessly to the floor.

Feeling the physics defying pull cease, Berkan slumped down against the top of the console, still gripping the laptop in both hands. He opened his eyes, which he had squinted closed shortly before, and looked around wearily. Berkan released a long sigh of relief, drooping his head as he resisted the urge to just set the side of his face down on the console.

"Ha...Thank Goodness." Berkan sighed, relaxed his arms, and slowly pushed himself back onto his feet. He glanced over to Dusty the polite smile returning to his face.

"Excellent work, Major. I apologize for the imposition, but I'm afraid without my-" Berkan lifted his hand to adjust his glasses out of habit, but interrupted himself as he instead poked himself in between the eyes where his glasses would have been.

"Ah hah... Without my glasses I'm afraid I can't..." And almost for emphasis, Berkan banged his knee onto the side of the console as he tried to take a step forward to look around the room. Berkan gave a slightly forced smile as he bent down to hold one of his knees, his face just a shade or so redder.

"... I don't suppose you've seen any rectangular glasses laying about, have you Major?"

[bunnikkila]

With the strange gravity ceasing, Dusty managed to twist to land on his feet. A little awkwardly, but nothing twisted or strained. All's well, aside from the tinnitus screaming in his ear.

He shook his head vigorously as if that might help (it didn't), walking to the crystal as he did to nudge at it with a steel-laced boot. Huh - probably something the Science Folks would wanna look at... oh, Berkan was talking to him. The human's voice was just audible over the ringing in his ear, and Dusty turned back to him.

"I'm sorry, what's that? I can't--hang on!"

He winced as Berkan banged his knee, walking back toward the human and resisting the urge to rub at his ringing ear.

"What're you--"

Dusty squinted at Berkan's face, reaching up to adjust his own (miraculously present) glasses... oh!

"Glasses, huh... hold on, lemme take a look around...."

[Riyami]

Berkan gave a nod of appreciation as he reached over and closed the laptop.

"Much appreciated, Major. Once we're done we should get this data back to HQ Asap. I'm sure the Engineers will want to take a look at these readings."

Berkan picked up the laptop and walked back towards the gate, peering across the ground with squinted eyes. Meanwhile, after a minute or so of looking around, Dusty could notice a small reflective glint off a rectangular pair of glasses pressed in the corner next to one of the crates in the room.

"Aha. Found them, Major!"

Berkan called off across the room as he reached a hand down to a different rectangular glint. As Berkan picked up the small crystalline shard, a small arc of electricity passed across his fingers with an audible snap.

"Aowch!" He reflexively pulled his hand back and shook it slightly as the crystal clinked once again against the floor.

"What the-?"

Berkan was interrupted by the doors to the room flying open. It seemed that the commotion was not unnoticed as various G.U.N. Security rushed into the room, some with weapons drawn. Berkan raised his hands, still holding onto the laptop briefcase, as the security officers began focusing between Berkan and Dusty, questioning what was going on.

[bunnikkila]

Dusty still couldn't quite hear Berkan beyond knowing his partner was talking, but he did zero in on the glasses and go to collect them, careful to keep fluffy fingertips off of the lenses.

"Got 'em here, unless these are glasses from another dimension - you okay there?"

He did recognize a cry of pain and trotted toward Berkan, only to stop as the doors banged open. The rabbit glanced over at the security team, brows raising as he turned to face them - keeping his hands visible, but otherwise the picture of nonchalance.

"Well howdy y'all. Just in time for cleanup I see."