2012-07-31 You Know the Drill

The Evanier Garage and Body Shop is a run down blemish on a neighborhood of the Bronx still struggling with its identity; the renaissance that's systematically paved over much of the borough's worst elements has only just begun to take root within the last couple of years, and while /most/ of its citizens welcome the change, some are doing everything in their power to rebel.

Case in point: the pair of young men manning what seems to be a sizable - but still portable, if only by pickup truck - auger as it begins boring into one of the garage's walls. It's a remarkably quiet process, all told, moreso than it has any right to be; that drill is solid metal and a good five feet long, and the wall is brick.

Right out front, a third man is tagging the garage's sliding door with a simplistic, but sharply angular five-pointed crown of gold spraypaint; each point is topped by a black dot. All three men are dressed pretty similarly: black and gold bandanas over their noses and mouths, black tees and wifebeaters, backwards black caps, black jeans, gold boots.

The tenement building that forms the other side of the alley where John Henry and his wingman are drilling away extends up two stories past the roof of the garage. Its alley windows are long sealed, and the ladder that would extend down from the fire escape near the drillers down to ground level is long gone. There is the slightest activity on its roof, though, if any could see it - a faint click and flash of flame on brass that is quickly hidden in a cupped hand, followed by the hiss of breath drawn. After a few seconds of stillness, Vander exhales, then slips the tube back into its hole, slides the lid shut, and stuffs the box back in his front pants pocket. Reclining so that he can stay out of the light while still peering over the low parapet, he kick-slides a few feet along to where he can see spray-painter. The bag beside him scratches faintly and heavily across the tar and gravel of the rooftop.

-]<>[-

This tall man's face is thin and creased at the corners of his mouth with lines that his reddish beard and mustache do not wholly hide. His hair is red as well and pulled back into a sloppy half-ponytail. His nose and chin are long and narrow, and his deep-set eyes are a pale grayish blue. Broad-shouldered and long-legged, he is lean - all bone and sinew.

He is dressed entirely in commercial riding gear that looks to be of good but not elite quality and that is matte black rather than shiny - no  chrome or studs, and just enough built-up areas at the contact points to    show that it has internal foam armor. His gloves and high boots are black as well. The only relief from the black is the small stud set with a faceted topaz-like stone that sits in his left earlobe. -]<>[-

The edges of the hole they're working on actually begin to bubble and smoke a little bit, once the drill gets going; at that point, the two guys share a look and a high five, then step back as the machine's underside opens to allow a set of treads to slide out.

"So like--how much cash you think they got in this bitch, huh?" one man - sporting a black t-shirt and a dark soul patch - wonders.

"Uh, /cash/?" His wifebeater wearing pal squints at the weakening wall for a moment, then looks back to the other guy with a shrug. "--shit, I dunno; they opened up that Pep Boys a couple blocks away, right?"

"Wh--" Incredulous, goatee-guy glances between the drill and the other man. "--you know how much this shit costs to /run/, yo? You know how much--"

"Chill!" The wifebeater wearer throws his hands up defensively and takes a step away. "Chill--look, they gotta have parts or whatever, right? Some shit to flip? Just relax, man--"

"Ay yo, /both/ of you need to chill back there!" the artist cuts in, briefly leaning his head into the alley so that he can address them directly. "/Jesus/," he mutters to himself after returning to his work.

A couple of blocks away, a short, hairy man stumbles out of a bar; his head immediately turns towards the commotion near the garage. With a frown and a mildly drunken gait, Logan shoves his hands into his bomber jacket and trudges down the street.

-]<>[-

A mad shock of thick, untamed black hair runs from the top this wee, blue-eyed ball of muscle's head down the sides of his face. More hair - a  veritible carpet of the stuff - covers his arms and the backs of his hands; he isn't much to look at, and his usual wardrobe of beat-up jeans and old tanktops suggests that he doesn't much care.

-]<>[- After the painter sticks his head back around, Vander pulls the balaclava down over his face and slowly stands, reaching into the bag to pull out what looks to be a chunk of concrete masonry a little larger than a concrete block. Hefting it with one hand, he aims carefully and then throws it down and toward the head of the alley toward the rusted 55-gallon drum full of scummy water that sits there against the wall. As soon as it's away, he snatches up the bag and sprints at a crouch toward the back of the building. In a moment, he has reached the fire escape and, with just a couple of movements, climbed over and down to flatten himself into the shadows of its third -floor landing. It's all done eerie-fast - hopefully, fast enough that the attention of the three thugs is on the sudden fall of masonry at the front of the building and not on whatever is happening at the back.

The masonry hits the barrel with a muted thud, and then a small geyser shoots up out of it. The painter jerks his head towards the barrel just as the water splashes down on he and the ground, and the drill team hurries around front to see what's going on. One man starts to laugh at his soaked friend, only to be silenced by a sharp smack to his chest from the beared driller, who is searching for a culprit on the empty street.

"Fuck off, yo!" the soaked gangster--/tries/ to growl; unfortunately for him, his voice cracks up an octave higher, and /both/ drillers have to snicker at that. He sputters a little and tries to form a proper protest, but winds up going for the gun tucked against the small of his back when words fail him; his friends /both/ start to throw their hands up when he does, but they settle once he points the thing at the garage's roof.

"Whoever's out there tryin' to start beef with the Latin Gods," he shouts as he sweeps the rooftops for his assailant, "your dumb ass has got it!"

The other two let out loud whoops of agreement; the clean-shaven driller actually throws up a gang sign.

As the cholas go running out to do their dance, Vander stares down through the grating of the fire escape directly at the drill - stares without blinking, running the pad of his thumb back and forth over the tips of the fingers of his left hand in a movement that's rhythmic and unconscious. The drill gives a cough, seems to catch - and then resumes as if passing through some resistant membrane to bite into brick once more. Vander grits his teeth and gives his head a hard, sharp shake.

That shake's enough for the fire escape, though. Several of the landing's bolts give way, and the end on which he crouches drops a hard, rusty, creaking foot. He rides it down wide-eyed and then vaults the railing to the alley below, hopefully behind the dumpster that sits back a ways from where the drill continues merrily away.

From up above, Vander might be able to tell that the drill bit is a little more than it might initially appear: nozzles running down its whole length are spraying jets of acid into the aperture as they near it, to make the whole process a little quieter and more efficient. When Vander jams the whole thing, the nozzles are hesitant to kick back on when the rest of the device does; there are a few loud moments when the metal and brick grind against one another, and then everything is back to normal.

The beareded driller glances back that way, but after muttering, "Fuckin' Sixty, man," to the other, he resumes his search. Shaking his head, the clean-shaven guy heads into the alley to make sure everything is okay; he squints at the fire escape for a long moment, but he ultimately turns away to squat down beside the drill and pop the console off.

Whatever is inside that thing is /bright/; it isn't enough to light the whole alley up, but the now squinting gangster has a spotlight all his own as he pokes around in there.

Vander's down in the alley, where (as the ohshit look in his eyes shows) he did *not* want to be, peering around the side of the dumpster at this suddenly complicated and evil-looking device and the guy squatting beside its open console.

Screw finesse.

Vander steps from behind the dumpster and sprints, running at the driller and swinging the bag (which hold two more chunks of masonry of about the same size as the first) to smack him on the side of the head like Grandma (if Grandma were Andre the Giant, that is). He's still bent over a little - less of a target, and easier to reach the drill.

"The f--aak!"

The guy /tries/ to get to his feet when he hears Vander coming from him, but he winds up slumped on the ground in a limp, unconscious heap all the same.

The two out front, they exchange the sort of wide-eyed look - equal parts surprise and primal terror - that men like these usually reserve for situations like this; there weren't any sirens, and the only other person on the street at this hour is still a block away.

"Y--y' don't think that was like--a /cape/..." the painter stammers.

"Mar's dumbass probably--/touched/ somethin'... you know how dangerous it is inside that thing?" They both take deep breaths. "Aight," the remaining driller continues. "One, two--"

On three, they both peek into the alley; when they see Vander near the drill, both step the rest of the way in, .45s drawn.

"You're /done/!" the painter screeches, cocking the hammer on his piece. "Hands up, asshole!"

Down the block, Logan waits until the gangsters have moved in to confront the intruder, then lowers his head and picks up the pace in the hopes of making it down there before whoever's giving them such fits gets shot.

"-kin hell, dude," Vander mutters. He's crouched beside the drill facing the head of the alley and working to yank his tight right glove off when they yell, so he can see well enough to figure out what's up. Again, no time for finesse - he just jams his flattened hand down on the exposed control panel and gives its interior workings as hard of a jolt as he can, seeking to short circuits, strip gearing, and do whatever else works without discrimination and without checking to see what all's under his hand or how bad it can bite. Maybe he'll even kill that damn light so he not like a silhouette at the end of a target range.

A black circuit board nestled amidst a few tangled wires seems to be the source of that weird light--or rather, the glowing, golden traces running over most of its surface are. The whole assembly emits a faintly musical, electric huming at this range, and when Vander starts shorting it out, that humming is actually the last thing to go; the light, second to last.

First - almost immediately, in fact - the whole machine groans, the drill catches loudly, and then just stops; a couple more jets of acid eat into the wall before their delivery system goes offline.

All the while, the gangsters are creeping down the alley, but just as they get close enough to fire without having to worry (much) about destroying the drill, the alley goes dark once more.

They fire anyway; the bullets zing overhead and ricochet off of the building behind him.

"/I told you/!" the painter screeches as both men run further into the alley to close the distance between he and they.

Vander dodges, kinda. More correctly, he sits back hard on his ass, yanking his hand away from the drill when he senses its systems tip over into failure and splintering the pallet on which he lands. The shots that rain brick down onto him almost seem part of the whole messy package of Stuff Happening, hard to distinguish from the hum and the smell of acid and trash and scummy water. He's dazed, still facing the alley's mouth, and it takes three or four seconds before his eyes seem to focus on the men running toward him, guns still out. Still flat on his ass, he shakes his head again as if trying to settle it back into place and kicks the drill *hard* amidships with the heels of both feet.

The machine tips on impact, and cracks shoot through the already tortured wall. It just hangs there, balanced precariously on the edge of one of its treads for a few exquisitely long moments, and then--


 * KA-THOOOOOOOM!*

--it slams into the ground, bringing a goodly portion of the wall crumbling down with it.

"/Jesus/!" the remaining driller hisses as he and the painter come to a stop a few feet away. They are /definitely/ not lowering their guns now, even if neither of them looks all that gung ho about trying to /use/ them, now that their intended target has trashed their high tech drill. "Fuckin'--" The driller stiffly gestures up with his gun and slides back a step. "Hands--hands /up/, man, last warning..." He sucks in a breath and steadies his aim, just to show that he means business. The painter grips his gun in both hands to back his partner up, making sure to glance over his shoulder as he braces himself; his eyes go wide. The three men are not alone.

"Huh," Logan grunts as the shocked gangster meets his gaze. His hands rest loosely in the pockets of his bomber jacket. He tips his chin towards the fallen drill, eyebrow arching. "Don't see /that/ every day, eh?"

Panicking, the painter turns all the way around and starts firing on Logan blindly; a /lot/ of brick goes flying, but several bullets do find their way to the mutant's gut, dropping him before he can say another word.

"O--oh--" the gangster stammers, looking down at the bleeding man. "--oh, /shit/..." the driller helpfully supplies, once he sees what's happened.

"hrnhhh..." It's the noise of exertion, not speech, and Vander must have made it as he got his feet under him at last. Grabbing up a brick in each hand from the remains of the wall as he scrambles past it, he charges the two gangsters. He's looking much more pissed than dazed now, and even with the mess the alley has become he's moving fast enough to be behind them in a second. Since he's closer to the driller, he clumsily body-checks that one as he wings the brick in his right hand in the direction of the other's head. It's a clumsy attack, but it's fast and it's hard.

Seeing as how one of them just killed a guy for the first time - during what was /supposed/ to be a breezy night of harmless theft and vandalism, no less - neither is really ready when Vander blitzes them. To his credit, the painter /almost/ gets his gun up in time to actually do something when the driller crumples, but then a brick breaks over his head and he, too, falls; his gun clatters across the ground until it hits a pile of trash bags.

Right about then, Logan's eyes snap open, he draws a deep, ragged breath, and coughs wetly as he lets it out. One of the coughs expels a that lands near his head.

"... gonna..." he weakly groans as he tries - and fails - to sit up. "... kill... that little /prick/..." He turns his head and sees that the guy is already down; after a rough sigh of disappointment, he rolls onto his side and holds his hands over the big, red stain that now dominates most of his white wifebeater.

Vander skids to a halt, windmilling a little to break speed, several feet past Logan and just a few steps from the mouth of the alley. He's half turned and staring down at the red-stained man, eyes shock-wide and dilated, breathing hard. It doesn't seem to be the exertion that's stopped him cold; instead, he looks like a man who is being violently yanked in two directions at once by things he can't see. He reeks of tension riding on a bed of fear.

He stares two seconds, three, thumb rubbing fingers again, as Logan spits up something that falls like a stone and rolls to his side. Vander's hand comes up and pulls at his balaclava, raising it from his neck. "Dude. Are you all.... Aw, shit." He yanks it off the rest of the way as he takes that step back into the alley and goes to his knees beside the bleeding man. "sonofabitch..." he mumbles as he wads the hood in his hand and reaches as if to cover the wound.

Bloody fingers snap out and close around Vander's wrist before he can staunch the wound; for a guy who's bleeding out, Logan has a pretty good grip.

"Waste've a good mask," he wheezes, looking up at the frightened man through one one lidded eye. "Looks--" He grimaces deeply as another coughing fit wracks his body. His fingers slide off of the other man's wrist in the process, and he lets that arm drape limply over his side.

"--worse'n it /is/," he finishes after spitting up another hunk of lead.

Vander doesn't move at all, though his gaze does shift to the slug as it lands in a red puddle. Off toward 183rd, one dog starts to bark, then two, and then, faintly, an approaching siren. While it's clear that Old Man Evanier wasted no money on an alarm system, a collapsing wall, gunshots, and two tons of drill falling over has apparently raised enough of a fuss for somebody to call it in.

Vander sits back on his heels and looks toward the mouth of the alley, listening. Then, he turns back to Logan - "Cops... hey. Do you need to leave?" The tension's still there, but most of his fear seems to be submerged now. Somewhere down the alley, one of the Latin Kings faintly moans and mutters a broken and none-to-royal curse (without sounding like he is going to be moving to make good his suggestion anytime soon).

"Yeah, lemme just--"

Logan grabs the rim of a nearby trashcan and slooooowly pushes himself up, pain etched across his features the whole way; a bullet falls from beneath his shirt when he reaches his feet and shifts his hand to steady himself against what's left of the wall.

"Hh--/Christ/." He wraps an arm around his belly and contemplates the men on the ground; the approaching cops and searing pain in his gut are reason enough for him to slowly limp towards the alley mouth instead of seeking vengeance, though. He glances at Vander over his shoulder and gestures to the men. "Coulda been worse; I owe you a beer.""

Vander rises to his feet as Logan does. No, the bullets didn't miss the shorter guy - that realization seems to have set in for him. Now, he's about bouncing on the balls of his feet as he glances back toward the siren's steady approach. Worse the known than the unknown.... "Hey, you got 'em off *me*... dude, I got to split - I'm dirty," he says to Logan, quick, almost apologetic. "Truck's around on the block if you need a ride." He looks down at the other man, still bouncing a little as if urging them along. C'mon. C'mon.

"Yeah, aren't we all," Logan dryly murmurs, waving a hand around the filthy alley. After dropping it into his jacket pocket, he adds, "I got a ride; you'd be scrubbing blood outta your seats for /days/."

Of course, his bike is parked several blocks away, but he's walked further with worse injuries.

The Latin Gods do a lot of groaning and not much else; if they're even aware of their imminent arrest, it's not doing a whole lot to motivate their sense of self-preservation.

He doesn't look like he's quite believing it, but - "Okay" - he's still buying it. Vander nods to Logan. "Ah - I work at Salvatore's by the Costco on East 116th if you want to come by for that beer." Not waiting for an answer, he turns and runs down the block and around the corner. There's a slam, followed almost immediately the sound of an engine.