tampered | Log (ongoing)

Log (ongoing)

When; February 3, afternoonish
Rating; PG-13 for various "don't do this at home" exploits
Characters; Dr. Horrible (

horrible_phd ) and Carl (

somekindofsin ), with Karrin and the illustrious Captain Hammer later on.
Summary; The elevator in the City's laboratory is unwilling to take orders. Attempts to fix it lead, naturally, to mayhem and plans to destroy the carousel for the good of humanity. Or whatever.
Log;

Carl shuffled about the laboratory's lobby, waiting for his associate (well, they weren't really associates, as they worked independently and on different levels of the laboratory, but Carl was in the habit of thinking about all other scientifically-minded individuals in his general vicinity as associates), Dr. Horrible. The friar didn't usually collaborate with anyone with "horrible" in their name, but the City hardly allowed one to be picky. Anyway, Carl suspected Dr. Horrible was more of a Dr. Morally-Ambiguous.

From what Carl had learned from personal experience, the elevator that they were going to attempt to fix refused to allow any one City citizen access to more than one floor of the laboratory. There was undoubtedly a reason for it, but the arrangement made it rather difficult to visit associates on other floors. Carl was almost certain that whatever odd 'magic' infested the City controlled the elevator's movements, making the contraption rigged rather than broken. This didn't faze him. Neither did the fact that he had virtually no experience with lifts of any kind. Carl had no doubt that scientific ingenuity could overcome virtually everything, supernatural forces and general ignorance included.

Of course, Carl also had every intention of trying to destroy the City's carousel at a later date, which, he surmised, threw a fair amount of doubt on his convictions and sanity.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Carl stared at the elevator doors, pretending he had more than the vaguest idea as to how elevators worked. Of course, the Americans had had operating electrical lifts during his time, but he hadn't so much as set foot in one. Not that anyone needed to know that.

The elevator doors opened and Carl stepped inside. "That is peculiar, yes, although if this is like anything else in the City, we're not meant to control it. Which isn't to say we can't try to find a way to control it."

Billy followed Carl into the elevator and belatedly wondered whether he should have held the doors open while they made their first examination. Too late now--the doors had slid shut with a distinctive finality.

"This lever looks like it should control the movement or these buttons..." There were many buttons. Mocking little buttons that did nothing, except indicate all the floors the elevator wouldn't let him access. "Well, if it's some strange power that decides what floor to send us too, it'll have to do something different now...or at least pick one person's access of to override the other's."

Buttons. Carl liked buttons, but only if they actually did something. These buttons were just for show. "I didn't even think about what would happen with more than one person in here at a time." It was something Carl should have thought about, but the constant ticking kept leading him to distraction. "I imagine we'll find out soon enough, however."

He examined the panel around the buttons. There was a seam, but no apparent screws or anything holding the panel in place. Clearly, further examination would require force. Before the friar could dig a flat-headed screwdriver out of his many pocket, however, the elevator drew to a halt.

The doors didn't open.

Carl, ever observant, said, "This can't be good."

"No, I really don't think it is." Billy stared around, but obviously that didn't help. He went for his own tool kit. "Well, maybe if we can get the panel off we can hardwire the controls," he said, but not very optimistically.

He managed to wedge the edge of a blade into the panel seam, but it jammed and he was having a hard enough time jerking it back out let alone being able to leverage the panel open.

"Hardwire?" Carl didn't like the sound of that, primarily because he didn't know what it meant. It seemed, however, to involve the panel's removal, which was proving more difficult than it should have been. Carl mentally swore--badly--for not having the foresight to bring along one of his diamond-edged blades. "Yes, well... you try that, then. I'll see to the doors."

Fortunately, the doors were willing to open ever-so-slightly with minimal prying. Unfortunately, the tiny gap this provided revealed very little but the metal of the elevator shaft. A foot or so of the next level up was visible at the top of the door.

Carl placed one of the experimental pastries (well, it vaguely resembled a pastry in shape and color, if not in taste, texture, and flakiness) between the doors to keep them propped open. "It's certainly not good. I wonder which floors we're between."

Billy was rather impressed with Carl's swearing. "I don't think we went very far."

He stared at the tiny gap. It didn't look quite large enouth to let them through. "Maybe we should try the ceiling. There might be a panel to allow access to the top of the elevator, and then we can just get to the next floor that way. At least, I think that's the way it's done in the movies."

"That answers one question, at least. When more than one person enters the elevator, it gets moody and refuses to go anywhere helpful."

Carl glanced at the ceiling. There did indeed seem to be a panel of some sort. "Alright. How do they go about escaping that way in these movies of yours?"

"Well, I can't reach the ceiling myself, so one of us is going to have to climb up on the other's shoulders I guess." He eyed Carl to gauge who was skinnier. This was going to be awkward. "And then whoever goes up first pulls up the next person I guess. We're nearly to the next floor so at least we don't have to worry about climbing up the shaft."

"Ah ha." That plan didn't sound like a particularly good one, but options appeared highly limited. "Right, then. I don't climb."

Carl (five-foot-seven when standing up straight, five-foot-four when hunched over as usual, on the stocky side) couldn't help but think ahead. "What do we do when we're out of the elevator? I don't know about you, but I haven't noticed any staircases."

"Um...maybe there's a fire escape. That would be easiest. Or we could build a ladder out of whatever supplies we found."

He thinks about this for a moment, and half-mumbles, "Or we could call someone for help."

"We'll suss something out." Because calling for help is not something that Scientists do when they're in laboratories.

"Now then! You were going to climb, weren't you?"

"I hope so, because out of the three people I could potentially call for help, one might be currently be a danger to others, one would be more amused than actually helpful, and one--isn't here anymore." And that killed that train of thought.

"Yeah, I uh, guess I'll have to. Maybe you could make a handhold and I'll kind of jump up that way?"

"That's certainly unfortunate. You might look for slightly more reliable friends." Of course, the only people Carl could call would probably laugh. He would need to re-evaluate his own circle of friends after they escaped. "Were any of these three people referenced in your network entry, by any chance?"

Carl sort of doubted Dr. Horrible's athletic prowess--not to mention his own ability to serve as a step-ladder--but did as suggested. "Go on, then."

"No, I mean, Emma would be sympathetic but I'd rather not look ridiculous in front of her if I don't have too, and anyway I know she would be absolutely no help at all. Did you ever meet Toshiko Sato? She was--is--a scientist and probably would have had actual practical advice, but she went home. I honestly really--ugh!"

And that was Dr. Horrible's first attempt ending in failure and him getting up close and personal with the floor, after squishing Carl a bit first. He removed the goggles and began rubbing at his head.

Carl was accustomed to being squished, shoved, and tossed about, which makes the experience fairly routine. Still, it would have been nice if it had worked the first time.

"Calm down a bit and then have another go at it," Carl advised, quickly checking his pockets to make sure none of his vials of acids or explosives had been broken. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary for Dr. Horrible to jump and open the trapdoor simultaneously. "No, I don't believe I know a Toshiko. Would Emma be the 'she' you were talking about? ...You don't have a concussion, do you?"

[ooc: I'm off to bed. I'll tag back when tomorrow's classes allow. ♥]

"Yeah, that's Emma. She's from--I forget exactly, but close to the beginning of the 19th century. I like her a lot, I mean she's been very nice and did manage to convince me to get out and go to a Christmas party and things, but...

Emma lives in a special Emma-land
And the situation's getting of hand
At first it was sweet and endearing
But she's already hurt someone's feelings
And I still haven't said anything."

He noticed he was getting into full-blown ramble mode, though not that he had broken out into song, so he stopped for a moment to check if he really did have a concussion. But no, it was just the effect of having a willing audience.

"No, no concussion. Believe me, I know how to recognize the signs."

Carl was vaguely familiar with that particular Emma, but Dr. Horrible's sudden bout of singing surprised any comment he might have been prepared to make right out of his mouth. To his knowledge, there weren't any singing curses today.

Once he had sufficiently recovered, Carl--who believed Dr. Horrible, if only because he had never heard a properly concussed person sing--said, "If you're certain."

The friar glanced up at the ceiling and wondered just how dangerous it would be to try to melt through it with acid. He wasn't however, eager to try any other daring escapes until Dr. Horrible was in full possession of his senses. "Your problem, then," Carl began, "is that you're fond of Emma because she's nice--not just to you, but to everyone, and everyone includes the 'him' that you referred to on the network?"

"Well, she is being nice to him which I don't like, but the truth is she isn't nice to everyone. She really upset Rain by refusing to be her friend anymore...it took me a while to figure out why, but I think it's because she found out Rain was living with a guy she wasn't married to. Which in Emma-land is apparently a big deal."

Billy sat with his arms wrapped around his knees and stared blankly at the definitely useless panel of buttons.

"But the thing is, Emma believes in me and I don't want that to stop."

"Aha. Well... you do have to understand that the attitude towards unmarried adults living together isn't necessary as... liberal elsewhere as it is in the City. That sort of thing is certainly frowned upon where I'm from." And Carl was not from Emma-land.

Carl watched Dr. Horrible, feeling rather out of his depth. "It doesn't need to stop, does it?"

"I know, but...I don't know if I should have stopped talking to Rain, but I thought it was for the best because I didn't want to cause more problems and she thought she shouldn't talk to me and she has a very scary friend."

He paused for a moment to reflect on Tony Stark. Yeah, probably best to stay out of that guy's way for now. One superhero was enough to deal with.

"I haven't really managed to tell Emma how I feel about her yet, not even when I was more sure, and now I have no idea what Captain Hammer's been telling her about me, and a lot of it is probably true, anyway, so--elevator! Ceiling! Maybe we should get back to that."

"Actually, go on, if you like," Carl encouraged. "You have an unusually complicated personal life." He enjoyed hearing about the personal lives of others, as he had yet to find one of his own. "Or, if you'd rather we were back to business... will you try leaping again, or would you like to try a new approach?"

Carl pulled a small vial of thick, greenish goo from one of his robe's pockets (making a mental note to store hazardous materials on his person as he did so). "I can't tell you what it is, of course, for fear of replication, but, suffice it to say, it should disintegrate most anything it comes into contact with--except for glass, naturally."

Billy really did have an unusually complicated personal life, even just due to things that had happened in the city. "I'm not really sure why. I mean, I have trouble interacting with people...I this is sort of what took the place of trying to get into the League--without that to aim for, I have a lot of time on my hands."

He shook off these reflections and focused on the green goo. He really wanted to see it in action, but as for using it on the top of the elevator...

"Um, just how much would it disintegrate? I mean, will it burn through the cables holding us up, causing us to plunge to our deaths?"

"The League?"

Nono, further inquiry could wait until after they were out of the elevator. Carl, always more than happy to go on--at length--about anything he had made, did so. "Oh, I don't think that would happen. It's rather too gelatinous to spread as a liquid would. If I were to toss this vial at that ceiling, I suspect the glass would shatter, this chemical would dissolve whatever small area it came into contact with, and then it would fall to the floor... well, assuming it didn't fall on either of us, but I've engineered it to behave more like a rather sticky, malleable solid than a liquid that might splatter."

"Ooooooookay. I guess we could try it, then." Billy stood and pointed to the top of the ceiling. "Try aiming for that area. I don't think there will be anything important there." He put his goggles back on and moved to the farthest corner of the elevator just in case Carl was wrong about the substances properties or had very bad aim.

Luckily, Carl's two most significant talents happened to be being right and throwing things. He watched Dr. Horrible back away and don his goggles. Ha! Precautions. As if anything could go wrong.

"If you say so." Carl threw the vial at the indicated spot and events preceded just as he had thought: the glass shattered, the gelatin-like chemical made the ceiling bubble and hiss as a small hole formed, and it fell to--and through--the floor.

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