Log Two
Who: Sam Vimes, Zoe Washburn, Agatha Heterodyne
What: Vimes and Zoe meet Agatha, zombie butt kicking ensues and they set up a base. Agatha discovers computers.
Where: Looks to be a commercial area.
When: Immediately after this
She was fairly certain she'd been here about two days - maybe a little more than that - and by this point she was hungry, tired, and running on sheer tenacity. She was also heartily sick of running for her life by this point, rather fed up with dodging zombies, and dearly wishing for a good power source so she could start working on this new invention, which was niggling at her something fierce and would probably come in rather handy in the whole 'dodging zombies' bit. Taking a deep breath and frowning, she tucked her notebook more securely under her arm and started the mad dash for the adjacent building, a rather large, slightly bent and grimy wrench clutched firmly in her free hand and held out before her rather like a sword. Heaven help the zombie that got too close to her...
'I can see someone movin' down there,' said Zoe suddenly. 'And they don't look zombie.'
She looked over at Vimes. 'Wanna check it out?' she asked diffidently. 'Could be someone useful.'
Vimes turned to see where she was looking. As she had noticed, there was someone down there. He nodded."And even if they aren't, we should make sure they're alright," he said. He took one last look at the cityscape before them and started running down the stairwell.
Glad she was wearing the trousers and sturdy boots instead of her usual skirt, Agatha scrambled towards the other building, muttering under her breath - curses and other rather non-complimentary commentary on the zombies, focused mostly on simply making it to the relative safety of said building for a short breather before moving on.
Zoe followed Vimes down the stairs. Their boots made a ridiculous amount of noise as they ran down to the ground floor and burst out into the street. A girl was running towards them, followed by zombies. 'HIT THE DIRT!' Zoe bellowed, and unholstered her gun.
Vimes quickly moved to the side; he had seen the damage an ordinary gonne could do in his world, and Zoe's was far more powerful. He had no interest in getting hit accidentally.
"YOU!" He yelled to the woman who was being pursued as he drew his sword. She was carrying a large wrench with her, he noticed. "HURRY UP! GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Agatha was more than a little startled when two people suddenly burst out of the building she'd been aiming for, eyes widening to almost comical proportions behind her glasses. Having learned from experience that it was usually better to duck first and question later, she promptly threw herself forward and down, out of the range of whatever weapon her unexpected 'saviors' happened to be toting.
Zoe took aim and blasted the two leaders. Eject cartridge, reload. Aim. Fire. It was instinctive and methodical, until she realized she was scrabbling around in her pocket for shells she didn't have.
There was a short moment where Vimes waited for Zoe to repeat her blasting, but soon he realized that she had stopped shooting her gonne.
Vimes swore and ran towards the girl who had been chased. She had, which had been sensible at the time, had thrown herself down out of range of Zoe's gonne. However, Zoe had stopped shooting and the zombies were now coming at both them and the girl. "Get up!" he shouted. He stabbed away one of the nearest zombies.
"I'm getting!" She shouted back, having caught herself on the roll and was now staggering to her feet, tucking the notebook more securely under her arm before taking a hefty swing at the nearest undead, hitting it square in the side of the head with the flat of her wrench. "Where'd you two come from, anyway?!"
'Don't ask,' Zoe said shortly, clubbing a zombie aside. 'Fa]ll back to the tower!'
Vimes automatically took the back behind the two women as they started to run; while he had seen that Zoe was more than good at defending herself, he was not sure about this new person, and besides that, his sword was the only proper weapon at the moment against the zombies.
They soon entered through the building's door and Vimes quickly shoved the door shut behind him.
Agatha knocked another zombie head or two - while not entirely effective, it did buy her enough time to duck into the building, finally, slumping against the wall and breathing hard, eyeing her wrench slightly mournfully. She didn't know if she'd ever get it properly straightened out again...
'Tyen-shiao duh! Come on, stop lookin' at that thing like it was your only friend. We have bigger worries. Food. Ammo. I'm all out of shells. We need other weaponry too. Close-range stuff.'
"There's also those zombies outside," Vimes commented. "I think that's a bigger concern right now."
Agatha blinked, expression slightly quizzical at the unfamiliar term, then sighed and straightened herself, hand resting on her hip - wrench still in a firm grasp. "It might as well be my only friend in this place." She commented, a bit dryly, but nodded. "You're right; there are other things to worry about..." SHe pause, then lit up a little, leaning forward slightly eagerly. "You wouldn't by chance know where I can get the materials to build a sub-power converter, would you?"
Zoe looked at the girl strangely for a moment, then smiled slightly. 'Not a clue. Come on, let's barricade up this door.'
Vimes gave the room the first real look he had. Earlier when they had come through here, it had been inhabitated by zombies, though he and the gonne-wielding woman had cleared this room out, at least, before they had ascended to the rooftop. It was a large and fairly empty lobby, though there was some furniture near the elevators, dusty from abandonent and shoved to the side.
He motioned to the two women as he walked to the furniture and began to push a large couch to the doorway. "A barricade will only last so long," he said as he shoved the sofa. "And there might be more of them in here, we had only cleared out this room."
Agatha hesitated just a moment before setting her wrench down and moving to snag the other end of the couch, eyes thoughtful behind her glasses. "Yes, but it'll buy us some time, all the same." She muttered, tugging the couch towards the door. She had a million questions, but now really wasn't the time for any but the really important ones - the ones that had to do with the current situation instead of this odd city at large. "What's the layout of this building, as far as you could tell? Is there any machinery of any kind in it?"
She was dearly hoping for a 'yes' to that last question - it would, at the lesat, be something to work with...
'The girl's right, we should at least set up some cover,' said Zoe, starting to shove a table over to join the couch. 'But once we've got this room secure we should try and get a look at some of the others; there could be stuff here we can use. I dunno about layout, but there's an elevator-type thing in the lobby, and we know the power is on, if that helps.' She eyed the wrench. 'You some sort of mechanic?
Vimes helped to lift the table onto the couch and against the door, just as it pressed forwards. The zombies on the other side beginning to pile up, he thought. He attempted to push the couch closer against the door, but thankfully it remained in place. Hopefully it would remain there.
Vimes fingered his cigar case as he thought. "Cover is good," he said. "But unless we find any other exits we don't want to end up hemming ourselves in." He looked to Zoe and Agatha. "Did you notice any other entrances for this building earlier?"
"'The girl's name is Agatha." She responded, a bit dryly, stepping back and eyeing their handiwork warily. It looked as if it would hold, for the moment - she dearly hoped so, anyway... "And yes, I'm a mechanic. Of sorts. A Spark, to be more precise." She shrugged, glancing around the room. "This is my first time in here, and I only saw it from the side we came in, so I don't have a clue about exits." A pause, then a small grin. "Knowing the power is on does help; where there's electricity, there's machinery. And machinery can be taken apart and put to better use."
'Sounds promising.' To Vimes, Zoe said 'I didn't see any other ways out when we were in here before, but there's a corridor leading west that might go somewhere; this is a big building. We *need* to find better weaponry before we go off adventurin', though.'
Vimes started to agree, but paused for a moment. "West? What?" It sounded like she had meant a direction, but Vimes was only familiar with the directions of the Disc: hubwards, rimwards, turnwise, and widdershins.
Agatha looked slightly relieved at this, nodding, then pausing and blinking in confusion at Vimes. "... west. That way?" She pointed, eyebrow arching slightly as she glanced at the other woman. It seemed she'd fallen in with an... interesting group... She shook her head. "Whatever the case, I agree. A wrench is hardly adaquate against... those things."
This didn't stop her from shouldering said wrench again, reluctant to leave it behind. Zoe looked round at the barricade they'd built, and then at the west-leading passageway. 'Way I see it, we got two choices. Clear this building, floor by floor, make it a safe base of operations. Or head down the passage and get outta here.' She looked at Vimes and then at Agatha. Neither seemed like they needed sheltering, but if Agatha was actually capable of producing useful junk like she said she was, she'd need a place to work. Zoe shrugged. 'I'm easy. It's up to you two.'
For Vimes it was an easy choice. "We set up here," he said, moving away from the barricade. It seemed to be holding up for now, though it would probably need to be strengthened later. "We've already secured this front room, and with how tall the building is compared to all the others in this area, it gives us a vantage point to see anything coming this way."
Agatha hesitated a moment, then shrugged. "It does seem like it would be easier to set up here than try an escape, at this point." She agreed, though she still seemed a bit doubtful, glancing at the barricade. "It all depends on how many of our - er - friends are waiting outside." She paused again, glancing at the passage. "... though it certainly wouldn't hurt to make sure there is another way out of here and we're not just setting ourselves up inside of a death-trap."
'I'll do a quick recce down that passage, then,' said Zoe. 'Just a scout to see if it heads out. I'll be right back.' She hefted the shotgun over her shoulder, and scooted out past the barricade, towards the passage. 'Yell if I'm about to be eaten from behind, dong ma?'
She was back within two minutes. 'It's clear. Nothing moving down there, and it leads out towards some kind of open area, a park or something. The door's latched shut, too, and it only opens from the inside. We're safe from that angle at least.'
"Hopefully it'll stay that way," Vimes commented. "Now we need to make sure that the inside is safe as well." He began to walk, stepping into the walk of the watchman as he headed towards the stair. He turned when he reached the stairwell to see if the two women were following.
A bit more relaxed now that she knew they had an escape route, Agatha nodded, eying the stairs thoughtfully. She started slightly when the man turned to look at them, then started towards the stairs as well, feeling a bit foolish for hesitating. After all, whatever was upstairs couldn't be as bad as what was waiting outside. .. right?
Zoe followed Vimes and Agatha, half turning every now and then just to make sure they weren't being followed up the stairs, although so far the zombies had been far from silent in their pursuit. The door to the first floor was hanging crazily off its hinges. Vimes eased it open and went in, followed by Agatha. Zoe hung back for a second, just to make double sure nothing was coming up after them, and then followed her two companions into the room.
He looked around the large room after he located one of the switches in the walls, lighting the room up. It had been separated into cubicles, and was, though Vimes didn't know it, a typical office environment. The place was in shambles, and paper littered the floor and desks. Large boxes of strange material stood on the desks, and some of them had broken glass littered near them, the glass shattered from the cubes nearby. It was also clearly abandoned, no one else alive or dead in the room.
He stepped to the side to let Zoe and Agatha through.
Agatha stepped into the room a bit gingerly, eyes rather wide behind her glasses as she did so. How... interesting. Very strange, but... interesting. She slipped around Vimes, moving further into the room, curiosity lighting up her eyes as she moved towards one of the odd boxes. "Curious... any idea what these are?" There seemed to be other boxes, situated under the desks, and... oooh, buttons. Buttons generally meant that something would happen when pressed... She grinned, a bit manically, and proceeded to do just that.
Zoe recognised some of the broken objects as primitive computers, or at least something similar, although they were nothing like the systems she'd used in the past. She holstered her shotgun and moved to a cupboard, reasoning that Agatha didn't seem to need much help for whatever she was doing - it seemed mostly to involve grinning and excited noises - and Zoe might as well see what else she could find.
Vimes walked further through the room, avoiding Agatha and the strange machines - he had seen that sort of behavior in the alchemists of his city, and it often ended with something exploding, and he didn't like that sort of behavior- until he reached the windows on the other side.
It offered a far lower view than the rooftop, but through it he was still able to see the buildings nearby. He could barely see the grocery store that he had found the first day a way off from here, and the multistory buildings that surrounded this tower.
This place was so different from Ankh-Morpork and-
A beeping noise distracted him from his thoughts, and he turned around to see where it was coming from.
"It works!" Came Agatha's gleeful exclamation, stepping back a bit as the box under the desk lit up in a few places, sounds coming from it - ha! She watched it, expectant, and was rather disappointed when nothing else seemed forthcoming. Hmn. Well, there had to be more to it than that...
Undaunted, she continued to poke around the area, and discovered the button on the 'box' up at the top - that got a bit more of a reaction, and she stared at what was, apparently, a screen, in fascination.
'Hey, you got it going,' said Zoe, coming back over. 'Wuh de ma, it's *old*.' She tried poking the screen, but it didn't respond in any way. 'Hmmm. Have we got a ... a key-pad, or something? More buttons?'
"What is that?" Vimes asked, after he walked over to see what they were looking at. One of the things on the desks had apparently worked, and both Agatha and Zoe were looking at it.
He stared at the glowing image distrustfully, and then at Zoe. "You know what that thing is?"
Agatha blinked at her, before her face lit up in something very much akin to pure glee. "You know what this is?! And how it works?! Tell me! Show me!" She demanded, politeness thrown out the window due to sheer excitement, eyes glinting behind her glasses as she grabbed the front of Zoe's shirt, grinning widely and in an almost frightening manner.
''It's a computer,' said Zoe, carefully pushing Agatha away. The girl seemed reasonably well-intentioned, but Zoe did not like to be manhandled. 'It's ... it stores info. Data, I guess you could call it. I dunno how it works, exactly. But-' and Zoe fished through a pile of junk and produced a keyboard. 'This ought to plug in, somewhere and -' she waved the cord of the keyboard aimlessly, and shrugged. 'I haven't seen one like this ever, 'cept for maybe in a museum or something.'
Vimes backed away from both the computer and Agatha. He was quickly reevaluating his original opinion of the young woman, and had came to the conclusion that she was probably insane.
"In a museum," he repeated. "You probably know more about the things here than I do, then." He looked back towards Agatha and the computer.
Agatha seemed a bit put out at the knowledge of what it did. "Data...? Is that all it does?" She looked slightly puzzled still, curious as she released Zoe, turning back to examine the 'computer'. She made a soft, humming sound under her breath, accepting the keyboard and looking around to figure out where it plugged in. "Maybe there's something of interest here, all the same..." She muttered, then glanced back at Zoe, slightly nonplussed. "Does it at least talk? Or... move, or... something...?"
'The ones I saw that looked like this didn't talk, or move,' said Zoe. 'I think it might be able to run other technology, but as a thing on its own? Nope.'
"I damn well hope it doesn't move," Vimes said, still staring at the computer with a look of distrust. He looked towards the window that was in the direction of the grocery store he had been to before.
"If we're going to set up here, we need food," he told them, in a gambit to try and get the crazed blonde woman away from the... thing.
Agatha looked rather bewildered and faintly disappointed at this news, but nodded all the same, a determined look replacing the other emotions as she stared at the computer, hard. Time to find out what made this thing tick...She paused at the mention of food, though, brightening quickly. "Food?" Her stomach chose that moment to protest it's neglect, and she colored a bit, sheepish - but effectively distracted from the computer.
For a moment, anyway.
'This looks like it was an office building,' said Zoe. 'There might be some kind of food storage unit, but I'm not sure how much it'd hold.' She shrugged. 'I guess desk jockeys need to eat just as much as the rest of us. We should try the rest of these cupboards and drawers.' She opened the next cupboard over from her position, and pulled out a rustling plastic bag labelled 'crisps'.
'Is this food?'
Vimes stared at the strange bag Zoe had pulled out. "Crisps? Yes, they're food." Not really food when they've been prepared and sold by Dibbler, he thought, though. His crisps had turned out nearly as bad as his pies...
Agatha arched an eyebrow, doubtful. "'Crisps'? That dosen't sound very edible..." Sounded more like something that'd been cooked too long... and reminded her a bit uncomfortably of certain situations during which she'd almost been one. Still... food was food. "Is that all there is?"
Zoe pulled out another bag. 'This one says 'pretzels'.' She shrugged. 'I'll try one and we can see if it does anything funny to me, okay?'
She ripped the rustling bag open and put on of the strangely knotted objects from it in her mouth.
'Tastes alright,' she said, chewing judiciously.
"Look," Vimes said, taking the crisps bag from Zoe. He passed it over to Agatha after he opened it and took a handful for himself. "It's edible," he said before he ate some of the crisps. "Not filling, but it's food. If we can't find anything else besides crisps and pretzels - pub snacks- here, we can go to a large grocer's I found."
The fact that there was a large part of the store dedicated to meat products, particularly bacon, had nothing to do with his suggestion.
Agatha hesitated, then took one out and nibbled on it, a bit warily, before mentally shrugging and eating a bit more eagerly. "It's better than nothing." Was her response, though she heartily agreed with the grocer statement.
'So, do we stay here and clear this place out proper, or do we head for this grocer-thing?' asked Zoe, chewing methodically. 'I'm in favour of food, y'know. How far away did you say it was?'
Vimes nodded towards the window he had walked away from. "Not too far, maybe a half hour walk at the most, unless we see any more of those things," he thought out loud, thinking over the distance it would have been from this tower to that store."I didn't exactly go in a straight line from there to this place, so I'm not sure."
Agatha frond a bit, still nibbling on the crisps. "I'm all in favor of food, but do we really want to give up such a defensible position?" ... of course, the fact that her gaze slid towards the 'computers' with not a small amount of eager longing rather gave her away, though she meant what she said all the same.
The girl's obsession with the computers had not escaped Zoe, but her point was sound. A dilemma. The only way to solve it would be to split up. 'If you two can hold this place, I'll head out and see if I can find something this store.'
"I think we'd be able to handle that." Vimes looked over to Agatha. She was definitely mad, like the alchemists in their guild, but Agatha should be able to help in preventing at least the part of the building they were in from get invaded by those strange mindless zombies outside. "Will you be alright doing that alone?" he asked Zoe.
Agatha blinked, nodding thoughtfully. "Shouldn't be too difficult, since we have the place secured... but, er, do you really want to go alone?" She looked somewhat doubtful, and almost as if she felt she should volunteer to go along - but she wouldn't want to be left alone in this place, either, which just furthered her inner dilemma...
'Think of another option,' said Zoe philosophically. She hefted the shotgun over her shoulder like a club. 'Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I used to scout for our battalion, when the Captain didn't need his butt saving, of course.' She smiled ruefully. 'Sooner I go, the sooner I'll be back. Try not to blow the place up?"
She strode back the way they'd come, and headed down the stairs.
Vimes nodded at Zoe as she left. "Hopefully nothing will explode," he said, mostly to himself, remembering Agatha's earlier expressions when she had been at that machine. Then again, there was nothing showing that that thing could explode, but he had seen far unlikelier things happen.
He turned towards Agatha. "Let's get this place cleared up a bit."
(Why yes, we did take Gods long on this.)
What: Vimes and Zoe meet Agatha, zombie butt kicking ensues and they set up a base. Agatha discovers computers.
Where: Looks to be a commercial area.
When: Immediately after this
She was fairly certain she'd been here about two days - maybe a little more than that - and by this point she was hungry, tired, and running on sheer tenacity. She was also heartily sick of running for her life by this point, rather fed up with dodging zombies, and dearly wishing for a good power source so she could start working on this new invention, which was niggling at her something fierce and would probably come in rather handy in the whole 'dodging zombies' bit. Taking a deep breath and frowning, she tucked her notebook more securely under her arm and started the mad dash for the adjacent building, a rather large, slightly bent and grimy wrench clutched firmly in her free hand and held out before her rather like a sword. Heaven help the zombie that got too close to her...
'I can see someone movin' down there,' said Zoe suddenly. 'And they don't look zombie.'
She looked over at Vimes. 'Wanna check it out?' she asked diffidently. 'Could be someone useful.'
Vimes turned to see where she was looking. As she had noticed, there was someone down there. He nodded."And even if they aren't, we should make sure they're alright," he said. He took one last look at the cityscape before them and started running down the stairwell.
Glad she was wearing the trousers and sturdy boots instead of her usual skirt, Agatha scrambled towards the other building, muttering under her breath - curses and other rather non-complimentary commentary on the zombies, focused mostly on simply making it to the relative safety of said building for a short breather before moving on.
Zoe followed Vimes down the stairs. Their boots made a ridiculous amount of noise as they ran down to the ground floor and burst out into the street. A girl was running towards them, followed by zombies. 'HIT THE DIRT!' Zoe bellowed, and unholstered her gun.
Vimes quickly moved to the side; he had seen the damage an ordinary gonne could do in his world, and Zoe's was far more powerful. He had no interest in getting hit accidentally.
"YOU!" He yelled to the woman who was being pursued as he drew his sword. She was carrying a large wrench with her, he noticed. "HURRY UP! GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Agatha was more than a little startled when two people suddenly burst out of the building she'd been aiming for, eyes widening to almost comical proportions behind her glasses. Having learned from experience that it was usually better to duck first and question later, she promptly threw herself forward and down, out of the range of whatever weapon her unexpected 'saviors' happened to be toting.
Zoe took aim and blasted the two leaders. Eject cartridge, reload. Aim. Fire. It was instinctive and methodical, until she realized she was scrabbling around in her pocket for shells she didn't have.
There was a short moment where Vimes waited for Zoe to repeat her blasting, but soon he realized that she had stopped shooting her gonne.
Vimes swore and ran towards the girl who had been chased. She had, which had been sensible at the time, had thrown herself down out of range of Zoe's gonne. However, Zoe had stopped shooting and the zombies were now coming at both them and the girl. "Get up!" he shouted. He stabbed away one of the nearest zombies.
"I'm getting!" She shouted back, having caught herself on the roll and was now staggering to her feet, tucking the notebook more securely under her arm before taking a hefty swing at the nearest undead, hitting it square in the side of the head with the flat of her wrench. "Where'd you two come from, anyway?!"
'Don't ask,' Zoe said shortly, clubbing a zombie aside. 'Fa]ll back to the tower!'
Vimes automatically took the back behind the two women as they started to run; while he had seen that Zoe was more than good at defending herself, he was not sure about this new person, and besides that, his sword was the only proper weapon at the moment against the zombies.
They soon entered through the building's door and Vimes quickly shoved the door shut behind him.
Agatha knocked another zombie head or two - while not entirely effective, it did buy her enough time to duck into the building, finally, slumping against the wall and breathing hard, eyeing her wrench slightly mournfully. She didn't know if she'd ever get it properly straightened out again...
'Tyen-shiao duh! Come on, stop lookin' at that thing like it was your only friend. We have bigger worries. Food. Ammo. I'm all out of shells. We need other weaponry too. Close-range stuff.'
"There's also those zombies outside," Vimes commented. "I think that's a bigger concern right now."
Agatha blinked, expression slightly quizzical at the unfamiliar term, then sighed and straightened herself, hand resting on her hip - wrench still in a firm grasp. "It might as well be my only friend in this place." She commented, a bit dryly, but nodded. "You're right; there are other things to worry about..." SHe pause, then lit up a little, leaning forward slightly eagerly. "You wouldn't by chance know where I can get the materials to build a sub-power converter, would you?"
Zoe looked at the girl strangely for a moment, then smiled slightly. 'Not a clue. Come on, let's barricade up this door.'
Vimes gave the room the first real look he had. Earlier when they had come through here, it had been inhabitated by zombies, though he and the gonne-wielding woman had cleared this room out, at least, before they had ascended to the rooftop. It was a large and fairly empty lobby, though there was some furniture near the elevators, dusty from abandonent and shoved to the side.
He motioned to the two women as he walked to the furniture and began to push a large couch to the doorway. "A barricade will only last so long," he said as he shoved the sofa. "And there might be more of them in here, we had only cleared out this room."
Agatha hesitated just a moment before setting her wrench down and moving to snag the other end of the couch, eyes thoughtful behind her glasses. "Yes, but it'll buy us some time, all the same." She muttered, tugging the couch towards the door. She had a million questions, but now really wasn't the time for any but the really important ones - the ones that had to do with the current situation instead of this odd city at large. "What's the layout of this building, as far as you could tell? Is there any machinery of any kind in it?"
She was dearly hoping for a 'yes' to that last question - it would, at the lesat, be something to work with...
'The girl's right, we should at least set up some cover,' said Zoe, starting to shove a table over to join the couch. 'But once we've got this room secure we should try and get a look at some of the others; there could be stuff here we can use. I dunno about layout, but there's an elevator-type thing in the lobby, and we know the power is on, if that helps.' She eyed the wrench. 'You some sort of mechanic?
Vimes helped to lift the table onto the couch and against the door, just as it pressed forwards. The zombies on the other side beginning to pile up, he thought. He attempted to push the couch closer against the door, but thankfully it remained in place. Hopefully it would remain there.
Vimes fingered his cigar case as he thought. "Cover is good," he said. "But unless we find any other exits we don't want to end up hemming ourselves in." He looked to Zoe and Agatha. "Did you notice any other entrances for this building earlier?"
"'The girl's name is Agatha." She responded, a bit dryly, stepping back and eyeing their handiwork warily. It looked as if it would hold, for the moment - she dearly hoped so, anyway... "And yes, I'm a mechanic. Of sorts. A Spark, to be more precise." She shrugged, glancing around the room. "This is my first time in here, and I only saw it from the side we came in, so I don't have a clue about exits." A pause, then a small grin. "Knowing the power is on does help; where there's electricity, there's machinery. And machinery can be taken apart and put to better use."
'Sounds promising.' To Vimes, Zoe said 'I didn't see any other ways out when we were in here before, but there's a corridor leading west that might go somewhere; this is a big building. We *need* to find better weaponry before we go off adventurin', though.'
Vimes started to agree, but paused for a moment. "West? What?" It sounded like she had meant a direction, but Vimes was only familiar with the directions of the Disc: hubwards, rimwards, turnwise, and widdershins.
Agatha looked slightly relieved at this, nodding, then pausing and blinking in confusion at Vimes. "... west. That way?" She pointed, eyebrow arching slightly as she glanced at the other woman. It seemed she'd fallen in with an... interesting group... She shook her head. "Whatever the case, I agree. A wrench is hardly adaquate against... those things."
This didn't stop her from shouldering said wrench again, reluctant to leave it behind. Zoe looked round at the barricade they'd built, and then at the west-leading passageway. 'Way I see it, we got two choices. Clear this building, floor by floor, make it a safe base of operations. Or head down the passage and get outta here.' She looked at Vimes and then at Agatha. Neither seemed like they needed sheltering, but if Agatha was actually capable of producing useful junk like she said she was, she'd need a place to work. Zoe shrugged. 'I'm easy. It's up to you two.'
For Vimes it was an easy choice. "We set up here," he said, moving away from the barricade. It seemed to be holding up for now, though it would probably need to be strengthened later. "We've already secured this front room, and with how tall the building is compared to all the others in this area, it gives us a vantage point to see anything coming this way."
Agatha hesitated a moment, then shrugged. "It does seem like it would be easier to set up here than try an escape, at this point." She agreed, though she still seemed a bit doubtful, glancing at the barricade. "It all depends on how many of our - er - friends are waiting outside." She paused again, glancing at the passage. "... though it certainly wouldn't hurt to make sure there is another way out of here and we're not just setting ourselves up inside of a death-trap."
'I'll do a quick recce down that passage, then,' said Zoe. 'Just a scout to see if it heads out. I'll be right back.' She hefted the shotgun over her shoulder, and scooted out past the barricade, towards the passage. 'Yell if I'm about to be eaten from behind, dong ma?'
She was back within two minutes. 'It's clear. Nothing moving down there, and it leads out towards some kind of open area, a park or something. The door's latched shut, too, and it only opens from the inside. We're safe from that angle at least.'
"Hopefully it'll stay that way," Vimes commented. "Now we need to make sure that the inside is safe as well." He began to walk, stepping into the walk of the watchman as he headed towards the stair. He turned when he reached the stairwell to see if the two women were following.
A bit more relaxed now that she knew they had an escape route, Agatha nodded, eying the stairs thoughtfully. She started slightly when the man turned to look at them, then started towards the stairs as well, feeling a bit foolish for hesitating. After all, whatever was upstairs couldn't be as bad as what was waiting outside. .. right?
Zoe followed Vimes and Agatha, half turning every now and then just to make sure they weren't being followed up the stairs, although so far the zombies had been far from silent in their pursuit. The door to the first floor was hanging crazily off its hinges. Vimes eased it open and went in, followed by Agatha. Zoe hung back for a second, just to make double sure nothing was coming up after them, and then followed her two companions into the room.
He looked around the large room after he located one of the switches in the walls, lighting the room up. It had been separated into cubicles, and was, though Vimes didn't know it, a typical office environment. The place was in shambles, and paper littered the floor and desks. Large boxes of strange material stood on the desks, and some of them had broken glass littered near them, the glass shattered from the cubes nearby. It was also clearly abandoned, no one else alive or dead in the room.
He stepped to the side to let Zoe and Agatha through.
Agatha stepped into the room a bit gingerly, eyes rather wide behind her glasses as she did so. How... interesting. Very strange, but... interesting. She slipped around Vimes, moving further into the room, curiosity lighting up her eyes as she moved towards one of the odd boxes. "Curious... any idea what these are?" There seemed to be other boxes, situated under the desks, and... oooh, buttons. Buttons generally meant that something would happen when pressed... She grinned, a bit manically, and proceeded to do just that.
Zoe recognised some of the broken objects as primitive computers, or at least something similar, although they were nothing like the systems she'd used in the past. She holstered her shotgun and moved to a cupboard, reasoning that Agatha didn't seem to need much help for whatever she was doing - it seemed mostly to involve grinning and excited noises - and Zoe might as well see what else she could find.
Vimes walked further through the room, avoiding Agatha and the strange machines - he had seen that sort of behavior in the alchemists of his city, and it often ended with something exploding, and he didn't like that sort of behavior- until he reached the windows on the other side.
It offered a far lower view than the rooftop, but through it he was still able to see the buildings nearby. He could barely see the grocery store that he had found the first day a way off from here, and the multistory buildings that surrounded this tower.
This place was so different from Ankh-Morpork and-
A beeping noise distracted him from his thoughts, and he turned around to see where it was coming from.
"It works!" Came Agatha's gleeful exclamation, stepping back a bit as the box under the desk lit up in a few places, sounds coming from it - ha! She watched it, expectant, and was rather disappointed when nothing else seemed forthcoming. Hmn. Well, there had to be more to it than that...
Undaunted, she continued to poke around the area, and discovered the button on the 'box' up at the top - that got a bit more of a reaction, and she stared at what was, apparently, a screen, in fascination.
'Hey, you got it going,' said Zoe, coming back over. 'Wuh de ma, it's *old*.' She tried poking the screen, but it didn't respond in any way. 'Hmmm. Have we got a ... a key-pad, or something? More buttons?'
"What is that?" Vimes asked, after he walked over to see what they were looking at. One of the things on the desks had apparently worked, and both Agatha and Zoe were looking at it.
He stared at the glowing image distrustfully, and then at Zoe. "You know what that thing is?"
Agatha blinked at her, before her face lit up in something very much akin to pure glee. "You know what this is?! And how it works?! Tell me! Show me!" She demanded, politeness thrown out the window due to sheer excitement, eyes glinting behind her glasses as she grabbed the front of Zoe's shirt, grinning widely and in an almost frightening manner.
''It's a computer,' said Zoe, carefully pushing Agatha away. The girl seemed reasonably well-intentioned, but Zoe did not like to be manhandled. 'It's ... it stores info. Data, I guess you could call it. I dunno how it works, exactly. But-' and Zoe fished through a pile of junk and produced a keyboard. 'This ought to plug in, somewhere and -' she waved the cord of the keyboard aimlessly, and shrugged. 'I haven't seen one like this ever, 'cept for maybe in a museum or something.'
Vimes backed away from both the computer and Agatha. He was quickly reevaluating his original opinion of the young woman, and had came to the conclusion that she was probably insane.
"In a museum," he repeated. "You probably know more about the things here than I do, then." He looked back towards Agatha and the computer.
Agatha seemed a bit put out at the knowledge of what it did. "Data...? Is that all it does?" She looked slightly puzzled still, curious as she released Zoe, turning back to examine the 'computer'. She made a soft, humming sound under her breath, accepting the keyboard and looking around to figure out where it plugged in. "Maybe there's something of interest here, all the same..." She muttered, then glanced back at Zoe, slightly nonplussed. "Does it at least talk? Or... move, or... something...?"
'The ones I saw that looked like this didn't talk, or move,' said Zoe. 'I think it might be able to run other technology, but as a thing on its own? Nope.'
"I damn well hope it doesn't move," Vimes said, still staring at the computer with a look of distrust. He looked towards the window that was in the direction of the grocery store he had been to before.
"If we're going to set up here, we need food," he told them, in a gambit to try and get the crazed blonde woman away from the... thing.
Agatha looked rather bewildered and faintly disappointed at this news, but nodded all the same, a determined look replacing the other emotions as she stared at the computer, hard. Time to find out what made this thing tick...She paused at the mention of food, though, brightening quickly. "Food?" Her stomach chose that moment to protest it's neglect, and she colored a bit, sheepish - but effectively distracted from the computer.
For a moment, anyway.
'This looks like it was an office building,' said Zoe. 'There might be some kind of food storage unit, but I'm not sure how much it'd hold.' She shrugged. 'I guess desk jockeys need to eat just as much as the rest of us. We should try the rest of these cupboards and drawers.' She opened the next cupboard over from her position, and pulled out a rustling plastic bag labelled 'crisps'.
'Is this food?'
Vimes stared at the strange bag Zoe had pulled out. "Crisps? Yes, they're food." Not really food when they've been prepared and sold by Dibbler, he thought, though. His crisps had turned out nearly as bad as his pies...
Agatha arched an eyebrow, doubtful. "'Crisps'? That dosen't sound very edible..." Sounded more like something that'd been cooked too long... and reminded her a bit uncomfortably of certain situations during which she'd almost been one. Still... food was food. "Is that all there is?"
Zoe pulled out another bag. 'This one says 'pretzels'.' She shrugged. 'I'll try one and we can see if it does anything funny to me, okay?'
She ripped the rustling bag open and put on of the strangely knotted objects from it in her mouth.
'Tastes alright,' she said, chewing judiciously.
"Look," Vimes said, taking the crisps bag from Zoe. He passed it over to Agatha after he opened it and took a handful for himself. "It's edible," he said before he ate some of the crisps. "Not filling, but it's food. If we can't find anything else besides crisps and pretzels - pub snacks- here, we can go to a large grocer's I found."
The fact that there was a large part of the store dedicated to meat products, particularly bacon, had nothing to do with his suggestion.
Agatha hesitated, then took one out and nibbled on it, a bit warily, before mentally shrugging and eating a bit more eagerly. "It's better than nothing." Was her response, though she heartily agreed with the grocer statement.
'So, do we stay here and clear this place out proper, or do we head for this grocer-thing?' asked Zoe, chewing methodically. 'I'm in favour of food, y'know. How far away did you say it was?'
Vimes nodded towards the window he had walked away from. "Not too far, maybe a half hour walk at the most, unless we see any more of those things," he thought out loud, thinking over the distance it would have been from this tower to that store."I didn't exactly go in a straight line from there to this place, so I'm not sure."
Agatha frond a bit, still nibbling on the crisps. "I'm all in favor of food, but do we really want to give up such a defensible position?" ... of course, the fact that her gaze slid towards the 'computers' with not a small amount of eager longing rather gave her away, though she meant what she said all the same.
The girl's obsession with the computers had not escaped Zoe, but her point was sound. A dilemma. The only way to solve it would be to split up. 'If you two can hold this place, I'll head out and see if I can find something this store.'
"I think we'd be able to handle that." Vimes looked over to Agatha. She was definitely mad, like the alchemists in their guild, but Agatha should be able to help in preventing at least the part of the building they were in from get invaded by those strange mindless zombies outside. "Will you be alright doing that alone?" he asked Zoe.
Agatha blinked, nodding thoughtfully. "Shouldn't be too difficult, since we have the place secured... but, er, do you really want to go alone?" She looked somewhat doubtful, and almost as if she felt she should volunteer to go along - but she wouldn't want to be left alone in this place, either, which just furthered her inner dilemma...
'Think of another option,' said Zoe philosophically. She hefted the shotgun over her shoulder like a club. 'Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I used to scout for our battalion, when the Captain didn't need his butt saving, of course.' She smiled ruefully. 'Sooner I go, the sooner I'll be back. Try not to blow the place up?"
She strode back the way they'd come, and headed down the stairs.
Vimes nodded at Zoe as she left. "Hopefully nothing will explode," he said, mostly to himself, remembering Agatha's earlier expressions when she had been at that machine. Then again, there was nothing showing that that thing could explode, but he had seen far unlikelier things happen.
He turned towards Agatha. "Let's get this place cleared up a bit."
(Why yes, we did take Gods long on this.)