closed :: here comes a candle to light you to bed

[baedalites]

Who: Hellboy and ???
What: The final stop on a scenic tour of Baedal's sewer system.
Where: Baedal Below
When: Sukkardi Evening
Warnings:Nothing yet? Mild horror and biomedical ick.

Deep under Baedal, far away from the 'civilized' Undercity, past the wild mushroom farms and their curious minders, lies mile after mile of tunnels. Layers of construction from previous iterations of the city, catacombs, abandoned (and probably never used) metro stations, natural and unnatural caves and corridors. Should one go searching through these tunnels, perhaps tracking shoggoths at the behest of Hellsing, one will eventually find a rather large and reinforced door in the tunnel wall. It looks much newer than the actual tunnel, and one may surmise that it's a later installation.

Certainly, it's large enough for a shoggoth to squeeze through and right now, it's open and appears undamaged. Dim artificial light spills out through the opening. There is a buzz of malfunctioning electricity and the dripping of liquid. Something sounds like it's groaning in there.
 
Beyond the door is a huge room. Whoever designed it went to great lengths to minimize the sound pollution, as there is almost no echo in here. At one point it must have been brightly lit but now the chief illumination comes from a lone worklight over a desk and a fusebox that's giving off sparks. It smells strongly of chemicals and blood. The lumpy forms of two dead people lie off to the side. One man, one woman. Both human. They appear to have been electrocuted, though the man was stabbed some time before that. There are at least two other doors in here.

Comments

[hehaseatenthepancake]

Very reasonable. Hellboy's dealt with enough brisk officials in his day that it doesn't ruffle him, as long as they're briskly reasonable. He's sure that he and his bosses would indeed like to hold on to the witness, but that assumes she gets the medical care she needs to stay alive, and he can't really be choosy about how the Militia provides it.

He lets the medevac team take her to do their job; he's got a photo of her on his CiD from earlier, and the boss ladies can oversee the political fight to get access to the witness and/or anything she might have to say. He takes a moment to consider both what he feels comfortable discussing about what are technically still open cases, and how to quickly summarize it.

"One involved a Shoggoth, the other something not quite like same. Two different areas of the city, but around the same time, which seemed suspicious. So I started back-tracking, as time permitted between other cases. That was..." He blinks, startled at himself now that he thinks about it. "Eight months ago, geez."

[baedalites]

Oh she'll live. At the very least, she'll be interrogated. It's not widely advertised but the Militia does have access to all sorts of resources. For now she's getting strapped into what looks as much as a coffin as it does a stretcher.

Team leader Echo shows no interest in the potential witness now that it's been secured, her attention stays on Hellboy. She does her nod again and rolls her shoulders, less tense. Things are moving along. She's quiet for a moment, thinking things over or listening to filtered communications. When next she speaks her tone is fractionally more personable. "We are going to take these stalkers out and secure what's left of the lab. If you want to come with, we can see about clearing that with your people."

[hehaseatenthepancake]

There's a mild pang of sadness as he watches the medics getting her ready to go. He realizes it's unlikely he'll ever see her again, and he never learned her name or really anything else about her.

Echo's offer, as a result, is like a breath of fresh air, with the promise of something else to think about and the chance to finally hit something. He gives her his most hideouscharming smile and says, "I'd like that very much. You may have noticed, I don't like leaving my business unfinished."

What with having spent eight months (not all at once, but still) tracing the paths of monsters that had already been killed and all.