2020-09-19: Sealab2020 3A The Trouble With Scrubbers
| The Trouble with Scrubbers | |
|---|---|
| It's getting hard to breathe on the VEC Integrity. What could be the problem? | |
| IC Date | August 30th, 2020 |
| Players | Eden (ST and as Frank), Midge, and Zelazny |
| Location | Aboard the VEC Integrity, near the Mariana Trench |
| Prp/Tp | Sealab2020 |
| Spheres | Weaver |
VEC Integrity
The Integrity is upside down on the oceans floor; the internal and external leaks have been welded and clamped shut along with interior spaces de-flooded. However, the ships life support systems are damaged and the computer indicates your running out of oxygen on board.
So far everything seems tolerable, however it's currently a little bit discomfortable on the ship. There is slight difficulty breathing, abdominal aches and minor chest pains. At this point, all rolls involving mental effort or endurance are at +1 difficulty due to distraction.
Something is likely wrong, but you don't know exactly what yet...
Frank is a giant of a man, constantly hunched over in the Integrity as he was about 7-8 feet tall. The fish man carrying a coffee cup in his wet suit gear, occasionally spitting his skoal chewing tobacco saliva into his container. "Oi, what the bloody hell.", he snarls in his Australian accent. "I feel like I ate some really bad bangers and mash.", rubbing his stomach with webbed fingers. Walking up to one of the various upside down ships computers and roughly pushing on the screen and interface. Attempting to identify what might be wrong, his vertical eyelids blink as Midge begins to groan and get up. "Fucking lassie is waking up too. That means more oxygen for active breathers and less time. We heard anything back from my crew? They should be at Deepwater by now; unless something went wrong. But then again, some shits always going wrong down here.", spitting into his cup with his lamprey like mouth. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or grimacing with his needle like teeth.
Zelazny was not happy. Not because he was in a terrible situation, mind you, but because the ship was. He was doing quite well, even if he was wet in areas he did not want to be wet in; his Ionic cloth kept him rather well situated. He also had protection in the form of his DPDE, should he need it. And he was very, very unhappy about Franks current presence. So to the point that he tried his best to keep his eyes on the large GENES man while still trying to do some work on the ship. Hearing Midge is waking up, though, Isaac (being Zelazny) looks up, "Hm? She's waking up?" he leaves what he is doing and begins to head for where they stashed poor Midge while she recovered, "And no, haven't heard from the crew yet. Not sure how far they made it."
Midge inhales deeply and now self consciously. "People breathe deeper asleep. Relax. Ugh I feel like I got hit by a truck." She holds her sore back as she steps carefully off whatever bed they have her on. "How are we doing Frank. Tell me how to help or give me a coffee. My bones are already complaining enough, ugh."
Frank grumbles, "I'm not really a void ship specialist. I deal with the water.", spitting into his cup and looking for a place to sit. Coughing once or twice as he sat down on miscellaneous gear that could support his weight. "We are proper fucked lass. Ask Isaac for coffee, he won't even share a bite to eat.", swirling his spit cup at him. "We've had other sunken ships before, y'know? Most don't make it.", licking his hungry dark teeth. "Isaac might have a better idea what's wrong."
Isaac shakes his head, "No coffee, Midge. We're in a situation as you might recall. Don't think there is any coffee left untainted by water and who knows what that is in that water." he shakes his head, "Its a drink on your own peril sort of thing and I rather have you not all periled up until we're on the right keel." he pauses, looking to Frank, "So, if we haven't heard from them, should we be really.. really worried or just a little worried?" he wonders, "Cause right now, we kinda have to look out for the ship but also sort of have to find out what the heck is going on out there."
Frank offers a slow shrug to Isaac, "Not sure on that one mate. I'd stay worried, but don't panic. That shit doesn't help anyone.", checking his watch and looking at the comms. "Hail them again, maybe we will get a reply. The Deepwater site is too dangerous to get their by foot and it takes two hours by aquatic rovers.", cracking his back a little bit.
Isaac gives a quick nod to this, "Alright, I will stay properly worried then until we know more." he makes sure that Midge is OK before he taps comms, "Away Team, Integrity. Status report. Whats the situation over." he calls out into the radio, setting the counter for how long he has the radio open, as to not attract Judith again, "Away Team Deepwater, this is Integrity. Status report, please." he repeats once more, because so often the first call can be missed or garbled.
Midge speaks up. "I dont know what happened out there. Did we kill that thing or is it still circling?" She shakes her head. "Ouch." She hobbles toward Isaac. "Lets at least try to reach home."
"Home? This might be your new home kid.", Frank replies looking over Midge and Isaac. He waits for any reply over the comms and rubs his face. "Of course...", slowly eyeing Midge. "The kraken, Judith as we call her. Lives in the trenches and is attracted to light. Every time we use comms, your antenna glows at the top. Trying to reserve communication and not be pulled off the oceanic shelf.", taking a slow deep breath.
Isaac shuts down the communications, shaking his head, "No reply." he says, looking to Midge and then to Frank, "And no, staying here is not an option. Judith is a problem. She either has to be neutralized or chased off. This is no good." he ponders, "And we have to get this ship on the right keel. I will be damned if I let this ship go under in my name." he makes a face, "She'd never forgive me." he pats the hull with a hand affectionately, "Frank. You said there was a plan to get the ship turned right way. What was it?"
"Yeah, we can potentially use some thick cables along with the aquatic rovers. Wrap them around the ship and try flipping her upright... but not sure if it will work.", scratching the back of his head, Frank looks around. "Yeah, the boss wouldn't like you killing Judith. It's a pain in the ass. But we learn to tolerate her."
Midge frowns. "If we can get her working I can navigate us out. How are you at manual controls guys? We might not be able to get a signal this deep. Judith." She shudders to even think of it. "I dont want to be meat for that thing. She almost ate me already."
It's getting slightly harder to breathe on board and the gut cramping is becoming more noticeable.
Isaac makes a face to this, trying to concentrate. His thoughts are getting a bit harder to contain within his head. He then feels it, the feel to his stomach. He makes another face, "Fuck.." he looks to Midge, "I think we best suit up." he pauses, "Or fix the CO2 scrubbers. We can't do anything if we run out of air." he looks to Frank, "Want to help us out here?" he reaches for his tools, "One last quick check of the air and if we can't fix it we have no choice, but to suit up."
Midge forces herself to follow Isaac, she limps along as best she can. "Right," her hand goes to her stomach. "I'm with you. We cant do anything dead at the bottom of this ocean so lets move."
Isaac trails the group over to the main console for the life support. He opens the panel up, then tries to sort of bend his head as things are upside down, "Ok. Lets see here." he eyes the console a bit. He reaches up to tap a few digits, "Looks.. good." he pauses, "Uhuh.. Ok. I see.. I see. Oh, right!" he taps another thing, "Ok, see? See here?" he sounds excited, "Its all working FUCKING PERFECTLY!" he bangs the wall with his tool, "Whats wrong with this thing!"
Isaac, looking at the life support systems and oxygen levels. It indicates oxygen is slowly leaking out of the ship but saturation is at 100%, as it recycles air for you to breathe.
Midge puts her hands on the machine trying to tap into the well of its being but she only grimaces. "Im not feeling it." She looks truly worried now.
Isaac shakes his head to this, "Midge, this is no good. No good at all. I think we have to suit up. I can't see whats wrong with this thing. It might be something outside the ship. I might have to go outside the ship." he looks to Midge, "Go, get the nanobots from medbay. We have to suit up." Nanobots and suits should make no sense, but to him it seems to.
Midge looks frustrated. "Nanoboots? What the hell are those. My ankle is trash and ugh..." She looks at the roof in resignation. "Where are they maybe you should show me."
Isaac grabs hold of Midge, "Oh, hell. This way." he starts to move away from the lifesupport systems, since he can't figure out what the hell is wrong with them anyhow. And Frank? He can't worry about Frank right now. Besides, Frank is built to live down here. He then starts to move as fast as he can to the medbay; his goal being to get to get to the nanobots.
Frank grumbles and begins to stand up; coughing as he does so. "What's wrong with your ship, Isaac?!", he yells. Quite a bit irritated and kicks some debris. Gills flaring as he messes with the computer to take a look.
Midge makes a wet cough, as much holding on to Isaac for support as motivating him to go faster. "What do we do once we get the boots, tell me on the way." She doesnt say while you still can but by God she thinks it. Frank is built to live down here. This comforts her but also makes her feel disgusting as she considers she might take him as her next vessel.
"I don't know what is wrong with the ship." Isaac replies in a louder voice, over towards Frank, "But unless I can breath, I can't figure it out." he hurries onwards to the medbay, "No plan. Oxygen, then we can work on it. Might have to get outside.." he coughs, "..or rig up a scanner." The ship isn't super big, and medbay should not be far off. He knows where the nanobots are stored. Those would most likely be the only piece of equipment in here he knows off hand where they are; the rest are just weird things that cut people open, to him. Ah, standardised Nanobot package. He works to hook it up to the Pad he carries, so he can start running one of his program. The program is designed to engage the nanobots into creating a suit and airsupply out of usable material. For a VE with an Ionic cloth, they are built for that. For other people? They might have some of their clothing altered.
Midge chokes again and makes a gurgling cough. Fortunately while she might know less about the mechanics of the ship, the human body is something she knows. "Toxicity," she gasps. "The carbon is too low. We're experiencing Oxygen Toxicity. Air tanks wont help its the ship itself. The scrubbers work too well. You have to slow them down you have too." She coughs. "We've only got a half hour."
Isaac was just in the middle of preparing his program to activate the nanobots when Midge spills the beans, "Huh?" he looks up, "Toxicity?" he wonders, "Scrubbers?" he reaches for his tool, "Oh.. right. Scrubbers." he looks around, then moves quickly for the nearest dataport access, "Don't have time.." he plugs his pad in, intending to access the subsystems for the CO2 scrubbers remotely, "Don't have time!" he starts to punch away, ready to use some Enlightened Mechanical work on this thing if he has to, "Slow down scrubbers." he starts to chant, "Slow down Scrubbers.."
----
Midge spends the first few moments hoping Isaac knows what the fuck he is doing. When she realizes he does and gets her panic under control she realizes she has to make this work too. She moves to her purse and takes out a bottle of Tylenol, popping two into her hand before Isaac can see. She takes one for her headache but lies to Isaac. "Here take this, it will help your blood get normalized, she shoves the non magical pill in Isaacs mouth since his hands are busy. She feels first herself and then him on the forehead, invoking her godly power to purge poisons from the blood.
It is pretty straight forward. Isaac knows the ship. He may not have been the Engineer for it long, but once he got his name attached to it after the other Void Engineer was .. reassigned(?) .. he made sure he knew ever nook and every corner of the ship. The subsystems are his domain and he knows what route to take from Medbay to get to the CO2 subsystems. Once there, he puts in a few commands, making sure to override certain safety protocols before he finally gets the scrubbers to dial down on efficiency.
He's so focused on what he is doing and, by now, there is a degree of trust to Midge. Even if she some sort of strange EDE. The thing popped into his mouth is held for a half a second before he swallows it, "I think I got it." he mutters, "I think you saved us, Midge. Never would have thought of this."
Midge looks relieved as they both start to breathe easier. "Couldnt do it without you Zack. I just had to make sure you were awake to save me." She hugs him briefly from behind and starts laughing, "We arent gonna die. We arent gonna die there will be more coffee in my future!"
It was hard to fault the life support system; it was frazzled beyond belief and was doing its best. It knew that the crew needed oxygen and the ship was leaking air at the same time. To preserve the crew it scrubbed the oxygen as much as possible and recycled it to them to keep them going, unaware that high levels of oxygen at this depth could be just as lethal.
"Oi, you eggheads get the problem fixed?", Frank says interrupting the moment as he spits in his cup. "Just got comms back from Jakob my second in command. We lost a lot of members in the mud banks.", spitting again and leaning against the doorframe. "You also lost someone....", spitting again. "Jakob says your captains dead. Sorry mate."
