[log] we didn't light it but we tried to fight it
[17:32] * Henry is technically supposed to be taking a break for a few minutes with Caius over here on this side of the building, but if anyone thinks they are /actually taking a break/ they haven't been paying attention.
[17:36] * Caius has artistically disguised their ... continuing to work as a break by means of a six pack and at the very least an /apparent/ casual air. The plans on the table in front of them are getting somewhat more attention, to the surprise of none of the invisible audience. "Is that reinforced?" he asks, leaning forearms on the table.
[17:41] Henry: "With the weight it's carrying from the air conditioners? Of course." Henry nods, his own arm casually shielding their work from plain view. "The contractor here is good- he didn't fight me on that. Technically the beam might have held for a while, but..."
[17:43] Caius: "But you want it to last in the first place," Caius supplies, wryly, tapping the blunt end of his pencil on the table. "We look ahead of schedule from where I'm standing," he observes, after a scrutinizing pause, "what's your forecast?"
[17:49] Henry: "At this pace?" Which is remarkable, though he doesn't give himself credit for that. "Another month and a half if we're lucky, two or more if things go well." He runs a hand through his hair (he keeps meaning to get it cut) and looks at the plans he could practically draw from memory if he had to. "This building, at least, the others might take more time, depending on how things go."
[17:52] * Caius knows - like everyone knows - what the worst case scenario is already, and instead thinks about the existing pace, mentally making allowances for far more minor setbacks. "Three wouldn't be bad. That's not even getting into the very outside dates." He'd like to be here to see it finished, but indulgence for his grief won't last forever, and sooner or later he needs to be back in his office.
[17:57] Henry: "Let's not think about the-" And there's a muffled bang, distorted by the acoustics of the unfinished building, the kind a layperson might not even recognize- but these two aren't in that category, and Henry's head snaps up with a sharp look of comprehension and he's remembering where Alex and Mina were the last time they saw them. It'd be in that direction.
[18:02] * Caius starts violently - the kind of startle that ends in absolute stillness - and straightens slowly. He thinks of Mina and Alex first, of the children in the atrium, and of the quickest routes to both. He also thinks 'shit', while he waits for another sound.
[18:12] * Henry stands quickly, listening now to the raised voices whose words he can't quite make out. No screaming, no more shots yet, and they have to think about who's the closest. "The atrium." He sounds calmer than he feels as he moves from their table towards the closest route to the open space at the center of the building.
[18:16] * Caius has been over the plans for the building to the point it's a little mind-numbing, but Henry could probably redo them from scratch in his sleep and is this time deferred to for the route - but. First, he has no intention of walking /completely unarmed/ into what amounts to a large wide open bullseye.
[18:21] * Henry has no illusions about his ability to use a weapon practically against an armed force, despite how appealing it sounds- if he's going to help anyone he's going to need not to be dead. There are ways through this building that wouldn't be obvious to someone who isn't /building/ the goddamn thing, and those he can get through.
[18:26] * Caius is ex-military, and some days it's less 'ex' than others! Today is one of those days, but he's going to have to be creative unless he can knock out somebody and take /theirs/ - which isn't a bad idea, actually, so he bears the thought in mind, joining Henry with trained quiet. (And a nail gun. Hi.) -he can hear another shot, but no indication beyond direction, and grits his teeth.
[18:33] Henry: The kids - only four here, Henry thinks there were more earlier today and hopes they're not here, hopes the workers have taken the opportunity to leave if they can - are huddled on one side of the atrium when Henry enters it. They're alone, for now, and he recognizes most of them. "We're leaving now," he says, in Spanish, "Come here."
[18:38] Caius: "This way," Caius encourages in the same language, low-voiced and soothing, Somebody's-Daddy, familiar with reassuring children, inexplicably carrying a battery-operated power tool. There's an urgency to it, they can't get around that, but he doesn't bark at them. "We'll go quietly, all right?"
[18:44] Henry: The children (all under thirteen, three boys and one stubborn sister) respond quickly, hurrying across the courtyard and whispering their promises to be oh so very quiet. Henry picks up the smallest one, a boy of about five, and heads back into the building in the direction of the front door. He's handled crisises similiar to this before, and it shows. There's nothing different about this.
[18:48] * Caius keeps a hand on the girl's shoulder - convenient to pull them all to a stop around the lobby. Voices - not friendly ones - that's not a direction they want to go in. "Back," he says, curt and quiet, jerking his head. The gunshots were coming from near the back entrance - Caius stands on any immediate impulse to do something violent given the four children with them, thinking about other ways out.
[18:55] Henry: "What are we going to do?" He asks without inflection, this time in English, for the benefit of the small ears around them. He'll defer to Caius and his experience here, while planning other escape routes- "Windows?"
[18:56] Caius: "Sounded like we were fairly far from anyone else when it started," Caius responds in kind, "let's go back that way, yeah, have a look at the windows. Bookend the children on the way out."
[19:02] Henry: "All right." He switches back to Spanish to address the kids. "We're going around, stay between me and Caius, and remember, shh." He thinks about the surrounding buildings and how they can stay shielded once they're outside, and sets off for a place further down the hall than they originally were.
[19:06] * Caius brings up the rear, listening (waiting) and not letting himself think about Mina, where he remembers her being, what the hell trouble she might have got herself into. (He does think briefly anyone stupid enough to get in her way deserves whatever they get.)
[19:13] * Henry brings them closer to the back of the building, near one of the entrances he's not going to use because they will, of course, be watching them- and hesitates before stepping into the hallway, listening to a sudden distressed babble. (He is thinking of Alex, and he's trying to convince himself that he'd be smart enough not to fight someone trying to take him hostage, and he doesn't believe it.)
[19:18] * Caius hasn't known Alex much longer than Henry has, and /significantly less intimately/, but were he privy to the other man's thoughts - well, he wouldn't believe that, either. (He doesn't bother to consider the notion of Mina cooperating. He /knows her/.) He keeps their cavalcade of children where they can be easily protected if need be, slowing with Henry. "Who should've been in this area?" he murmurs, in English, under the sound.
[19:31] Henry: "Construction workers," he murmurs, again in English, still distracted by the sounds they're hearing- and his phone vibrates. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't next to the piece of scrap wood he'd absently picked up earlier, intending to throw out, but it is and it nows makes a noise that should be audible to anyone near this hallway.
[19:31] Henry: "/Fuck!/" He hisses, pulling the phone out of his pocket and fumbling it open to stop the noise, but if anyone was going to hear them they will have, and Henry turns around to push the kids back into the room they were about to leave.
[19:33] * Caius manages to keep his veritable litany of curses to himself (see again: had a daughter once, family full of children, well-trained this way), pushing the door behind them to but not all the way closed. "Who is it?" he asks, with the faintest trace of gallows' humour; he's not looking, though, he's trying to work out the quickest and easiest way out of the window and where to from there.
[19:38] Henry: "Whoever it is-" Henry drops the phone when the newest and /so much closer/ gunshots ring out, drawing whimpers and one strangled scream from the kids. He doesn't waste time in pushing them to the floor and then joining them there himself, making the best use of his body as a shield that he can.
[19:39] Caius: "Shhh, shh-shh-shhh," Caius is almost inaudible, dropping with them - he hasn't had time to start getting the window open yet and frankly now that the six of them are on the floor he's a bit grateful for that accident of timing.
[19:46] * Henry realizes that (as more shots are fired) this room with its still flimsy walls is no place for them to stay. They need to get these kids out of here one way or another, so he crawls on his belly towards the window after moving the now-crying (but quiet) children closer to Caius, collecting a two-by-four on the way. No one should care about a broken window in all this, should they?
[19:48] * Caius exchanges a short look with Henry and gathers the children nearer to him, whispering urgent reassurances that don't make things any /better/ but might be handy in not making them any /worse/, here in this room they really need to get out of. Henry doesn't, he assumes, need to be told to knock out /all the glass/.
[19:51] * Henry does indeed, getting on his knees once he's knocked most of it out to clear what's left and praying to a wide variety of gods that he doesn't get shot in the head while this is going on, or when he climbs out of the window himself to check if the coast is clear. If anyone was out here, they've gone inside, and he turns back to beckons to Caius. They can hand them out one at a time.
[19:52] Caius: "All right," Caius murmurs in Spanish, "let's go-" Now, he does check that the door's properly shut, wanting even the slightest warning if he's going to have his back to the damn thing. The littlest boy goes out the window first, passed over the remnants of window, and after him his sister.
[20:00] Henry: "That way, and don't stop running until you're home, understand?" Henry points between two nearby buildings that form an alley which leads to a whole network of them, too many to be watched. The older two boys come out next and follow, one of them picking up the smallest again as they go. He waits until they're out of sight before climbing back inside. "We have to find them." It's quiet, now.
[20:03] * Caius - who's reclaimed his nail gun and will probably not be parting from it in the foreseeable future - nods tersely. "They won't have stayed where we left them." Because Mina is not cooperative unless she's waiting to strike, and he suspects vaguely they'd have heard something by now if she'd played it that way.
[20:06] Henry: "No," Henry agrees, picking up his phone because his instinct is always to be neat- and he reads the text there, and proceeds to be afraid in a way he didn't know he was capable of. He moves quickly past Caius and yanks open the door, not quite running yet as he sets off on the long way around the hallways.
[20:08] * Caius sets jaw and shoulders in the split second it takes to go after Henry, not bothering to ask what the text was (yet - he's missing a crucial piece of information to make the educated guess).
[runs simultaneous to this & immediately precedes this]