Wires and Things

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

"What?" He said, confused by her words. The realization smacked him like a ton of bricks. His hand was still in her pants, his fingers were still sprawled over her hips. For a moment he simply let them rest there, not out of some ulterior motive, but because moving them seemed impossibly difficult. She was warm, surprisingly so, almost hot. Eventually however he came to the realization that he needed to breath, and very suddenly he let go of her.

His reaction was almost like she was made of hot coals.

And of course, what neither of them realized was that while all of this was going on The Senator and his Guards were quickly realizing exactly what had happened, where the two Slicers had gone, and exactly where they would be popping out of the building.

Munin and Spark didn't know that, but if they didn't move, they very quickly would.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

And like that, the pressure was gone. The warmth of his hands. She still bushed. Thank the stars he couldn't see!!!!!!!!!! As gently as allowed within the small space, she crawled off him. Glasses were adjusted up the bridge of her freckled nose. #fortheumpteenthtime

Pants were pulled back up at her hips.

"Better?"

He was still there, close. But she wasn't physically touching him. The vent space felt even colder. "We gotta move stranger dude."

#stilldon'tknowhisname

Crawling forward much more cautiously than before, she felt a split in the vent system, away from the drop-off. Head looked over her shoulder even though she couldn't really see. "I think this is a better way."

And nope, she had no idea about the Senator and his nefarious plans to meet them on the other side. Unfortunately, she might scare stranger dude if she had to use some of those force powers sooner rather than later. But of course, the usually blonde girl wasn't thinking about any of that.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

All he did was nod, not because he was driven speechless by her wily wiggles, but because bruised ribs hurt a lot. Breathing was rather difficult, and speaking? Say what you will but it wasn't worth hearing ones voice if it meant a stabbing pain in your side. There was a slight shrug of his shoulders, and then she was off again. Spark began to crawl through the vents, heading in a different direction that would very likely send them towards another apartment on this level.

Munin didn't complain, even though he wanted to. As they crawled he began to realize just how filthy this place actually was. The vents had not been cleaned for what seemed like...quite some time, and as they wandered further and further through them Munin began to wonder exactly how many diseases he had already gotten just by being here. Eventually however they came to the end of their tunnel, and when Spark came to a sudden stop...Munin was too lost in thought to stop himself.

He kept crawling, and thus...

Munin squished his face into her butt.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

She was a teensy bit worried when he didn't verbally respond. She couldn't really see him in blackness. But then she heard his labored breathing and shuffles behind. So, she kept going.

"I see an openi-ahhhhck," she sputtered as his hard head slammed into her bony-butt. Hands came up to cradle her face as she rocketed forward, towards the vent opening. Didn't take much to send her gangly-form forward. And it didn't take much to pop the vent off, sending the disguised slicer right through.

#somuchforstealth

She landed on a plush, white shag carpet.

#lolwut #whohadthisstyleanymore?

Brown haired-head jerked up. A twi'lek couple on a dark purple couch squealed as their make-out session was suddenly interrupted.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

Munin poked his head into the room after her, not stopping to think about the physical and mental strain that he'd already endured. The butt squished against his face for half a second, but then she was thrown forward...or maybe she jumped, Munin couldn't even really process it anymore. Either way, one moment wiggly was in front of him, the next moment she was splayed out on the ground before a half naked twi'lek couple began to scream at her.

Poodoo. "Go!"

He screamed at Wiggly. His arms came out along the edges of the vent, and somehow he managed to use the last of his strength to throw himself clear of the small enclosure. He landed with a loud thud, but unlike Wiggly he managed to roll onto his feet.

"Go!" Munin said again as he reached down and practically scooped her up. "Go Go GO!"

The Twi'leks weren't likely to be connected to the Good Senator, hell, they probably didn't even know him, but their very loud, and very intense screaming, would probably alert the Guards within the next Apartment. That meant they wouldn't have much time, and as he picked Spark up all he could think about was getting away. Honestly he probably should have just left her behind, let her lay on the carpet and be a distraction, but at this point he didn't even think of it.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

One moment she was trying not to think about her bruised limbs and the next moment she was trying to un-see what she had seen with the twi'lek couple. A moment after that stranger-dude was scooping her up. A few things went through her head simultaneously:

#1 - What's with this guy and all the touching?
#2 - Am I blushing?
#3 - He's actually really strong.
#4 - He smells like toothpaste.
#5 - I need to adjust my glasses.

Gangly-arms reached up to curl around his neck. #moretouching #awkward But it kept her from jerking around with his bounding and bouncing steps. She didn't want whiplash.

"If you put me," bounce, "down," bounce, "I can," bounce, "run." Door to the hall swished open. Glasses were halfway down the bridge of her freckled-nose, so half the guards that were outside with the senator, waiting for them, looked blurry.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

Poodoo.

Munin froze the moment that the doors burst open in front of them, an array of guards standing in front of them. Half of them looked as surprised as he did, the other half raised their blasters. For a moment the infochant simply stood there, frozen, completely and entirely out of ideas. There wasn't really anymore running that he could do, nor was there any magical solution that he could conjure up. For the first time in his life Munin felt well and truly...karked.

His head swiveled to the girl.

Then back to the guards, then back to the girl. "Been nice knowing you."

That was really all that he could think to say, all that came to mind, one last clever line to clinch the rest of his life. Huginn would be very disappointed when she found out about his death, not the least because of how he died. This night had gone terribly, terribly, wrong. He should have blamed the girl that he was still holding in his arms, should have tried to throw her at the guards and ran for it himself, but oddly enough that thought didn't occur to him in that moment.

Why? He couldn't say.

He heard the sound of blasters charging.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

Been nice knowing you.

What?

Fingers tightened around his neck. "No," she murmured. Brown eyes narrowed beneath glass-lenses, her attention on the guards and their blasters. One by one each guard yelped and flung their blasters away. There was a fizzle and an echoing of loud pops around the corridor as each blaster's powerpacks exploded, followed by curling wisps of smoke in the air. The guards yelled. Some clutched burned hands.

A piercing scream followed as the fire alarms were triggered.

"Run, run, run!" The geek squad techie yelled. Any force users around would've sensed her presence by now. Her cover was blown.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

He didn't really understand it, hell, he didn't have time to process is, but by the time she screamed at him to run Munin was already bursting out into a sprint. He rushed forward as fast as he possibly could, dashing between two of the smaller guards.

They looked at the two slicers for a moment, clutching their burning hands, faces twisted in Agony. Neither moved to stop Munin however, both being in too much pain to actually do anything. He frowned for a moment, but didn't particularly care about what had happened. His rational mind would have told him that she hadn't used any sort of device, that both of her hands had been looped around the back of his neck, but that sort of didn't matter right now.

All that mattered was getting out.

He ran as fast as he could down the hall, half stumbling a few times but managing to catch himself before he fell flat on his face each time.

Eventually he came skittering to a halt as they reached the end of the hall, his fingers sprawling out from beneath her to jam into the turbo-lift call button. Panic raced in his heart, his head turning back to see one or two of the guards finally collecting themselves. They looked about, then locked onto Munin and Spark. A roar escaped from one, punctuated by the loud 'bing' of the turbo-lift arriving. Before the man could charge towards them Munin stepped backwards into the lift, slamming the close door button.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

Eyes remained vigilant as she was carried #lol into the lift. She was ready to throw up an invisible force bubble. Ready to explode anymore of the tech devices, ready to use white current if she had to...

Shoulders stiffened as she caught the charging guard. But she didn't have to do anything.

The lift doors swooshed shut. Fingers loosened from around stranger-dude's neck. Legs kicked out and her converse-feet hit the lift floor. There was a twinge in her ankle. Must've hurt it from that fall out of the vent. She stumbled against stranger dude, one hand bracing herself against his side and the other on the lift wall.

#bingBINGbing

They would be on the ground floor soon. She had to gather her thoughts. Figure out a way out of this so any sith lords still planet-side wouldn't all flock to this one location. Help stranger dude get as far away from her as possible.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

Well this had all been a mess. He'd called pretty much all sorts of attention to himself, had blown this cover for future operations, and worst of all he'd made a complete mess of his clothes. Their chase through the vents had entirely ruined his coat, dust, grime, and some sort of greenish disgusting mass hung to the outside of the jacket, and as he looked down towards it Munin couldn't help but gag slightly. As soon as Spark stopped leaning on him Munin pulled the jacket free from himself, dropping it in the corner of the lift.

His shirt was the next article of clothing to go, the white button up garment being practically torn off of him to reveal an oddly bright blue shirt with some sort of logo in the center of it. He shook for a moment, thinking about removing his pants but realizing that he'd be walking out into Coruscant soon.

A sigh escaped him, his hand running through his blond hair as the Turbo-lift fell towards the ground.

They weren't completely out of trouble yet of course. Republica 500 was one of the most secure, and well respected buildings in the entire galaxy. It was very likely that there would be security in the lobby, and if there wasn't it was important to remember that both he and spark were technically criminals. By now the Senator had no doubt figured out what had happened and would have alerted the actual authorities. While they wouldn't kill Spark and Munin on sight, they would most certainly try to arrest them, and Munin was in no mood to be arrested.

No mood at all.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

Spark's eyes widened and widened some more and stranger dude just kept....stripping. Eyes followed the tossed jacket, then swiveled back to his blond-haired head. She finally blurted, "what are you doing?"

Very deliberately, she stared at the lift doors and not at him. She tried to keep any color from creeping onto the pale skin of her cheeks. Guards would be waiting at the bottom. Some sort of security. There's no way they wouldn't be.

"I have an idea. But it might freak you out. And...we'll have to hold hands."

#moretouching!!!!

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

"I'm getting this fraking dirt off me." He said with a brown, brushing some muck from his arm that had slipped up the cuff of his sleeve.

A shake ran through him at the thought of every disease that could have been lingering in those vents, how he would likely be spending the next couple of years in the hospital. He found that fact very depressing, and Huginn was going to have to hear all about it. She would laugh at him of course, tell him that their trip to Point Nadir had been a thousand times better and less worse for Munin. She would use it against him in the future to get him to do things.

He could see it now. His sister was all sorts of awful that wa-

"What?" Munin said suddenly as his head swiveled towards the girl. "Why?"

He was already dying anyway, holding her hand didn't seem like the worst idea at this point. Then again he wasn't about to tell her that.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

Dyed brows furrowed as he talked about dirt. #Really? Why was he so obsessed with getting dirt off at a TIME LIKE THIS?! Head shook. Gaze refocused on his.

"Well," she squirmed a bit, catching the quickly lowering floor level beyond his shoulder. "I can make us invisible. But you can't talk. And you have to follow my lead."

She extended her hand, digits clearly meant for datapad stopped next to his. "Can you do that?" She had no idea how he felt about the force. She was about to find out. Internally, she cringed, prepared for the worst.

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

Ah.

She was a witch.

If they were on some backward planet in the outer rim there was no doubt that a declaration like that would end up with her being burned at the stake, but as he thought about the order of events that night he found himself finally filing memories in the correct place. Munin wasn't stupid, just the opposite, most people actually considered him fairly intelligent, and now that she had come right out and said it things became fairly obvious. There was no 'device' that had destroyed his or the guards blasters, it had been the force.

Munin had never personally met a force user, but he also didn't really have a bias against them, in fact, he couldn't care less.

As far as he was aware Sith and Jedi had always existed, they had always fought one another, and they had always simply carried on doing what they did. There wasn't really any difference between a Sith and a Hutt overlord, and there wasn't really any difference between a Jedi and a Security Officer. Sure doing good or bad things was a little easier for them, but ultimately they were still just sentient beings sticking their noses in other peoples business.

Just like everyone else.

A sigh escaped from his lips as he looked down at her hand.

"I guess." His voice was pure resignation. He was probably going to die of some horrible disease because of tonight, might as well go out holding a pretty girls hand...even though he still had no idea where those hands had been. With a moment more of hesitation, Munin wrapped his fingers around hers.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

A nervous smile flickered across her lips. "Okay," shoulders squared off. "Okay." That second one was for herself. Still, he acted like holding her hand was the last thing on planet that he wanted to do. #Itdidn'tmatter They just needed to keep it together long enough to get out of there.

BING

The doors whooshed open. Stranger dude wouldn't feel any different as white current pooled around the technopath and they were rendered invisible. Good thing too because there were two squads ready with their weapons trained on the lift. Tugging on the dude's hand, Spark began to lead him carefully through the small spaces between bodies and guns.

One squad was already filing into the lift. Crackling reports along their comms filtered through the air. A boot nudged at Munin's discarded jacket in the corner. Thin lips thinned further in concentration. With every step her ankle twinged in pain. She grimaced but kept moving on.

#don'tmessupstrangerdude

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

Munin stayed silent. He was good at that.

The orphanage had not been pleasant for him. He'd never been the biggest lad, even now he barely stood at six feet tall and he was rather lanky. There was almost no muscle on him and a distinct gauntness clung to his cheeks. When he'd been a kid it had been even worse. The others at the orphanage had picked on him of course, that had pretty much been inevitable. Huginn had helped fight them off, she was big enough that she could, but eventually he'd learned to simply...avoid it.

He'd made himself small, he'd moved beneath the radar.

It was a skill. Not many would have thought of it in that way, but being silent, being unobserved was probably one of the most important skills he'd ever learned. It allowed him to move around, to hear and see things that others would never be able to. He used that skill now, gently holding on to Spark even as they passed right by the guards. His eyes flickered to them, lips thinning as they moved closer and closer. It was an odd amount of trust that he placed in her, an odd amount of faith.

He'd only ever done that with Huginn before.

A frown pulled at his lips as they approached the door, his heart beating at a surprisingly calm rate.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

There was no stumbling or awkward tugging. Stranger dude seemed to be moving fluidly with her. #likeastrangedance

It seemed she wasn't the only one who was used to being a ghost for survival. Fingers tightened for a moment on his hand. The door would be tricky.

#soclose

Easing to a stop, she waited. A couple began to walk by, toward the outside. Giving stranger guy a light tug, she would fall in step with them, just behind. Shoulders tensed. The glow of street lights and neon signs beamed just a step away.

#almostthere

 

[Munin]

[member="Spark Finn"]

The surface of Coruscant was as bright as any sunny day, it always was. Even when the light of Coruscant's sun wasn't pressing down on it's surface the hundreds upon thousands of neon lights, bright glowing holo-screens, and streetlamps provided constant illumination to everything within the city. There was no such thing as true darkness on Coruscant, and if there was, Munin wouldn't want to go anywhere near it.

As they passed out into the streets he let out half a hitched breath, his eyes closing for a second as he took in the polluted air.

There was something deeply wrong with Coruscant. No matter who owned it, no matter who controlled it, Munin always had a sense that something disturbing was going on. That was true of most city worlds perhaps, and Munin realized the reality of that, but that didn't help settle his stomach anymore. Of course, he wasn't quite good enough to not exploit the troubles of others. He and Huginn frequently used the down-trodden and not so lucky of the galaxy as sources of information, yet he liked to think he was helping.

In some small way.

Even if it benefited himself in the end.

They moved away from the door quickly, passing away from the couple and heading towards one of the alleyways. Munin wasn't sure if they were visible, if they could be seen yet, but in truth he wasn't even really thinking about it. In the back of his mind he was still considering the ramifications of everything that had gone wrong tonight, about what could still go wrong. As they stepped into the alley Munin still held Spark's hand, fingers gently nestled around her own as a single thought pulled through his mind. We have to get off this planet.

 

[Spark Finn]

[member="Munin"]

A breath she didn't realize she was holding whooshed from the tip of her nose. She and stranger dude stepped into the small shadow an alley had to offer against the artificial light of Coruscant. The invisibility white current had to offer slipped away.

"Okay," she whispered. Hand still lingered in the guy's grasp. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers and pulled away, ducking behind a dumpster. Peeling off her shirt, she flipped it inside out to hide the geek-squad logo. Head popped up from the temporary cover. #privacy

"What's your name, anyway?"

Hands reached back to pull those fake brown strands of hair up and away from her neck into a messy bun. Stepping back to his side, she knelt down and began to roll up the bottoms of her skinny jeans to just above the knees. Even little things might help. No doubt their holos were all over Coruscant by now. If she could swipe a hat in the crowds, she would.

"You got a ship?"

She had taken public transport. Sometimes hiding in the open was the easiest, especially when her own ship had become too identifiable to the sith.